94 – Location No Longer Matters

Christian Financial Perspectives

English - March 05, 2021 16:52 - 38.7 MB - ★★★★★ - 11 ratings
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Previous Episode: 93 – Dealing with Investment Uncertainty

Next Episode: 95 – 10 Principles of Biblical Generosity

Just 2 years ago, having a financial advisor in a different state, or even city, was something that most people never considered. Why? The capabilities to video chat, email, and sign digitally have been available for many years, but most people had not been utilizing these technologies. The recent coronavirus restrictions changed all this and vastly accelerated the adoption of these technologies far ahead of the expected timeline. In this podcast, we discuss why “Location no longer matters”.

Click below to listen to Episode 94 – Location No Longer Matters

Location No Longer Matters

Why having a financial advisor in a different state isn’t a big deal anymore.

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Now with the widespread acceptance of these technological capabilities, and ease of use, you no longer have to choose a financial advisor based on their proximity to you. Instead, you can now find a financial advisor with the experience that fits your values, wants and needs regardless of distance. In this podcast, we discuss why “Location no longer matters”.

GUESTS: Shawn Peters

HOSTED BY: Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®

CO-HOST: Bailey Theaker

Mentioned In This Episode

Christian Financial Advisors

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Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®

Bailey Theaker

Shawn Peters

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[INTRODUCTION]

Welcome to “Christian Financial Perspectives”, where you’re invited to gain insight, wisdom and knowledge about how Christians integrate their faith, life and finances with a Biblical Worldview. Here’s your host Christian Investment Advisor, Financial Planner, and Coach, Bob Barber.

[EPISODE]

Bob:

So welcome to our 94th podcast where we are really using some high tech stuff today. I’ve got Bailey on one line with me. So we’re recording from three different locations and we’re doing this because today’s podcast is going to be about the reason that location no longer matters. And I also have my son-in-law, Shawn Peters, that works with me and is head of all of our high tech world inside of Christian Financial Perspectives and Christian Financial Advisors on with me. We’re using our technology today and we’re basically Zooming each other, like so many of you have been doing through your Sunday school classes and Bible studies and watching church. Welcome, Shawn. Bailey’s used to being on this with me. So I’m looking forward to having you on with me. You’re the future of this. Say hi to everyone.

Shawn:

Hello, everyone. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me on guys. And I’ll do my best today.

Bob:

I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. Bailey. You want to say hi?

Bailey:

Hi guys, good to be back. I’m excited to cover this topic.

Bob:

You know, it is an interesting topic, isn’t it? The reasons that location no longer matters. It’s been amazing to me, technology that has been around for many, many years. I mean, we were using go to meeting before we used Zoom, but over the last year, because of the coronavirus, it seems like it pushed everybody into using Zoom, like I was saying, for their Bible studies. Rachael and I’ve been watching church online because Rachael had cancer and we’ve gotta be careful about her getting the coronavirus. We’ve been healthy so far, but the adoption of this technology and online meetings and even digital signatures and document storage, what has been around for many years, it has taken everybody a long time to adopt.

Bob:

But now they’ve had to really adopt it, haven’t they, Shawn.

Shawn:

Absolutely.

Bob:

Today, we’re going to cover all the ways that these latest technologies are working. And I know that Shawn and Bailey, we came up with quite a few reasons that location no longer matters. I think there were something around 20 different reasons. So financial planning and services, the cool thing about it is it can take advantage of automation and it can be made available today online, but a lot of it depends on the company. I’ve noticed that the small companies can adapt this technology, whereas the larger companies, many times they have adapted to it, but they can’t adapt as quickly. So I can see how we’ve just adapted to this so, so quickly, and how we can be high tech right in there with the big guys. Does that make sense?

Shawn:

Yeah. It’s a kind of a double-edged sword. When a larger company or a group, they may have more monetary resources and staff, things like that available to them. But the downside to it is when you have a much larger group, it’s more difficult to plan ahead in order to make changes as the industry and as technology changes, to be able to really take advantage of that, because there’s just a lot of logistics that go into that and retraining staff, migrating systems. As an example, I know HEB here in Texas, they had to switch to a new credit card processing for their terminals in order to take advantage of the chip instead of just the swipe for the card. Now this isn’t even including Apple pay and Google pay. Some of those other tap to pay options is just making the switch for credit card processing to include the chip option. They had to plan ahead and migrate all of their stores overnight across Texas. So you can imagine the logistics that go into just even a normal, simple hardware or technology change, but to have to coordinate all those changes across the entire state of Texas for all HEB stores. I mean, just imagine how much of a nightmare that could be, whereas a smaller local store can say, Hey, we have these new tap to pay options for our little card readers and they just install it one day and later that afternoon, everybody’s ready to go. So it’s a little bit like that for what we’ve been experiencing as a smaller firm compared to maybe a huge thousand plus person firm. We’ve been able to adapt and migrate to more resilient systems, which not only gives better protection for our clients, but also gave us the flexibility to more socially distance and still have access to our full capabilities as a firm, even when working remotely.

Bob:

So whether you have one or a hundred advisors, we have the same technology or even better. And we’re just a phone call away, a text away, an email away, a chat away from our clients. And it really makes it easy for somebody, whether they’re even a thousand miles away or whether they’re down the street, we can serve them the same. And communication is just so convenient now and efficient through online scheduling of meetings and the addition of text and email and phone that you can just go to a website now, and it used to be so hard. I remember when we would try to schedule somebody and for them to coordinate with our schedule and they would have to get with their spouse, et cetera, and they’d have to figure out the time. So now, they can just go online through our portal right there and just set up a time during business hours to meet with us.

Bailey:

It’s really interesting. It feels like the world kind of turned upside down overnight. And I do think that that’s a huge win that because we’re a small firm, we got to turn upside down with it and adapt pretty quickly because of the things that Shawn was saying.

Bob:

What’s interesting about this Bailey too, is we’ve been using these technologies for a good 10 years. I mean Shawn was with our firm back in ’08. If you remember, we were doing some “go to meetings” back then. So that was 12, 13 years ago. And we were using the technology, but people were not adapting to it. So this technology has been out a long time.

Shawn:

We’ve kind of seen a complete inverse of back then to now, because at that time, during the 2008 to 2013 timeframe, you would see maybe 10-15% adoption of using GoToMeeting, especially for one-on-one meetings. Now, you obviously use it more often for a large group, like during a webinar or online presentation, but for actual client meetings, it’s maybe 10-15%. But now, especially because of the coronavirus this past year, it vastly accelerated the adoption to where now, if anything, it’s the complete inverse of that where 10-15% of meetings might actually be face-to-face.

Bob:

I would even say it’s maybe less than that. I feel like that 90 to 95% of our meetings have been online. And what is interesting about that too, is it doesn’t matter where we’re located. You know, Shawn, you’re in one location, Bailey you’re in another, and I’m in another. I’m in a location that’s 200 miles away from y’all right now. It doesn’t matter where the location is anymore. It has really made that a huge deal that meetings can be done from any location. And as long as you have a cell phone or internet service, a tablet, I mean, I did one with a client just last week and I could see he was in his truck because you could see him talking and his steering wheel was right in front of him. Well, he wasn’t driving while we were doing it, by the way. He stopped. But we were doing that online meeting right then. And he had a bunch of business that he needed to do. He’s in outside sales. He owns his own business, but this made it where he didn’t have to take off time to come all the way to our office and spend more than the time necessary for us just to be online at that point during that meeting. That was very important to him, and he liked it. He said he liked it.

Shawn:

Yep. Clients can jump on. And we have this secure document storage and sharing to be able to share the relevant reports. So even if someone is out and about and remote and they don’t necessarily have a normal desktop laptop computer, just maybe having their phone, they can at least see their advisor and talk to them. They can, either in real time or after the fact, review the reports that you’re going through at the same time. And they don’t have to spend time driving. They don’t have to add in that time in addition to the actual meeting, especially if maybe they’re 200 miles away, they don’t have to worry about meeting in person and all the logistics involved in that.

Bob:

Yeah. That risk of spreading the coronavirus, which is what we’ve all been worried about it. But even the flu or colds, you don’t have to worry about that with online meetings, they’re less time consuming, and it saves on travel and think about a lot of people that are caretakers today, and they may be taking care of their children or maybe it’s grandparents taking care of grandchildren or the sandwich generation. They’re taking care of children and elderly parents. And they don’t want to have to find somebody to watch them while they come to a meeting. Well, they can jump on a meeting right there at their home, with their children in one room or grandchildren in another and their elderly parents in another room. That makes it so much easier to do that. So you can do it from the comfort of your home, your office. You could do it outdoors on a beach if you wanted to, as long as you have internet service. And nowadays, all the countries of the world have good internet service. Another thing that’s neat about today is how the financial planning and Bailey, you and I, we’ve done a complete programs podcast on this is that the financial plan can be totally done online too. Somebody comes into our office, we’re sitting across from each other and we are seeing face-to-face. And by the way, I’m not saying this totally, totally replaces personal contact. You just can’t replace that. But what it does replace is that location is a problem because location is no longer a problem, but financial planning today is done online, and it can be done in small increments of time versus having to take out a whole half day. And there’s so much when it comes to financial planning and all the different issues that you talk about, it actually makes it nicer. And the financial planning that we’re doing online is very interactive and you integrate it. As soon as you put things into the plan, it goes into a cloud and it’s updated immediately. And you can just pick up right where you left off the next time you’re in a financial planning meeting. So this is something that we’ve done. We’re working this with clients that are in California or in New York or in Illinois, it doesn’t matter because all of this, like you say, is so nice today because location no longer matters.

Shawn:

My wife’s on the board for a nonprofit. And ever since the coronavirus outbreak in March last year, they moved all of their monthly board meetings. And they have some periodic ones too, but they moved all their regularly scheduled board meetings to Zoom. And so with that, she’s been able to attend the board meetings and everybody could see one another face-to-face virtually and talk about things. And of course, the cats and our son Rhonan entertain each other while she’s in the board meeting. And so it’s great. And it cuts down on time because before, when they had to go in person to the board meeting, she’d have to plan for an extra 20 minutes maybe of driving each way, plus the time for the board meeting itself. And so with that, it just takes so much more time. Now, we’re becoming truly location agnostic.

Bob:

That’s a good way of putting it. I like it used to be where when someone wanted to open an account, they used to have to come into the office and sign all the documents, or we would send the documents overnight UPS, FedEx, or mail. But now through technology, signature’s are becoming effortless with e-signature programs. We can send our registered investment advisory agreement. We can send all of the paperwork to open accounts. We use TD Ameritrade. We can do all of that. We can send our investment policy statements, investment management agreements, everything can go through this technology with signatures, not just from those that are coming on board, but from us as well. I use the same programs. As you know, we’re all communicating with each other virtually this way.

Shawn:

Absolutely. We use the same programs like DocuSign, Hello Sign, Adobe Sign, just to name a few of the larger ones. And we use DocuSign, not just for the custodian accounts and move money requests and all these other different types of paperwork. But even when we’re having to review things for compliance and marketing purposes, internal meetings, all of that is handled in DocuSign. Even if we’re working in the same office physically, it’s just better for tracking because it timestamps everything. We have the history of when documents were sent and received, there’s a geographical location stamp and an IP address. It’s also more environmentally friendly because we’re not printing tons of paper. It saves money on paper and ink. And in many ways, like I just mentioned, it’s actually better than a traditional signature.

Bob:

I kind of like how we broke this down. We talked first about how there’s the adoption of the technology, and then the switching over to everyone is now kind of forced to use it. It’s making life so much more convenient. But I think there’s another thing, too, that we wanted to mention. And we were talking about this together is how technology has changed the way a person looks for the right financial advisor now.

Shawn:

So one of the things that I think is interesting is the perks for a staff that uses the latest technology. There’s a lot of ways that makes it easier for clients to be better served. And so with the right technology, a high-tech financial firm can actually hire qualified staff regardless of their location. It’s not just about the convenience of meetings and not having to travel in the case of the caretaker type of situation. But it’s that when you, as a financial firm are looking for better talent and better people to serve your clients, you’re not limited to whoever happens to live physically nearby your office. So just like when we meet with a client in California, we might have an advisor that lives in California or a service person that lives in Florida. Just pick the place. And so that translates into a better quality of service for the clients that you serve as a financial firm.

Bob:

When we were putting this together and we were talking about all these benefits of this technology where location no longer matters and there was something that you pointed out, and I really want to spend some time on this. People would only look for somebody to serve them that was within a driving distance of them, maybe two blocks or two miles or within 30 minutes normally. What if you didn’t have the right kind of financial advisor that would fit you exactly? Then you were kind of forced to use that financial advisor. And you remember, we were talking about the franchise financial advisor?

Shawn:

Yep, exactly. So why would you choose an advisor the same way you find the nearest fast food franchise? I mean, we’re not talking about a sandwich or a taco. This is obviously something that is a little bit more important. It should have a little bit better potential quality that you can choose from. And so with location being not as relevant because of technology, it allows a client to choose the right advisor for them, not just the one that’s nearby.

Bob:

It’s not like the local Dairy Queen? I called it the Dairy Queen advisors, and we can not, and we’re not going to mention any advisory firms on the podcast, but wherever there’s a Dairy Queen, there’s one of these advisors within probably a couple of blocks of that Dairy Queen. And that advisor pretty much uses the exact same mutual fund family. And actually, this advisory firm that’s nationwide has gotten in trouble for that in the past.

Shawn:

Every client is essentially exactly the same and their model, the way to grow, has nothing to do with being the most knowledgeable, being the right advisor for a client and finding the right portfolio, finding the right investments for a client. It’s all about you just happen to be nearby. That’s why you would go with an advisor from this particular group that we will not name, as opposed to now, really clients shouldn’t be limited to that. Clients should be able to find the advisor that not only has the right experience, but also fits with their values. Again, when you just go with whoever’s nearby, there’s not a lot of options, but you can find a firm that has the experience and have the same values that you do to help you along your financial journey.

Bob:

I grew up in a small town during my junior high and high school years. And it was called Lake Jackson, Texas. And I remember back then, the town was probably about 6,000 or 7,000 people. When you wanted to go buy something, you only had one or two choices. If they didn’t have it, that was it. That was all you got to have. But today with technology, we’ve got the world that’s available to us and it should be the same way with the way that you pick a financial advisor to serve you. Pick one that fits you. Pick one that has the perfect fit for you and that will go with your values and what you care about and the experience and it doesn’t matter whether the firm has 20 on staff or 2000 on staff. The awesome thing is is now, like we were mentioning at the beginning of the program, smaller firms can adopt these technologies and give you that one-on-one service that you deserve with your financial life. And all of us are different. Every single time I do a meeting with somebody, there’s not this exact particular outline I’m going to use because it’s a picture of you, not a picture of what I want you to fit into. I don’t make you fit into a certain mold and you should not have to fit into a certain mold just because that’s the only advisor you have close to you. So whether they’re two blocks away or 2000 miles away, if it’s the right advisor, pick that advisor, but don’t pick them just because they’re around the block. And with the technology today, like you say, that we’re using with Zoom and it used to be GoToMeeting and you know, all these technologies are coming out. They’re all the same. They’re virtual technologies. You can see your advisory firm, you can meet their staff, and really get a good feeling for what is serving you best. And I think that really comes down, also, and I want you all to chime in with me on this is that for the Christian, they need to find an advisor that doesn’t just happen to be a Christian, but they want to find a Christian financial advisor. And Shawn, I know you’d like to spend some time on this. I’m going to give you a little bit to talk about what I mean by that.

Shawn:

One of the verses that comes to mind is 2 Corinthians 6:14. And that says, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers, for what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? What fellowship can light have with darkness?” So, not only is technology opening up options to find someone with the right experience for you as a client, but also it opens up the doors to firms that are focused on Christian and biblical principles at the core of how they operate their business. As you said, Bob, it’s one of my favorite things. You were the first one I think I’ve ever heard say that, but there’s a difference between a financial advisor that happens to be a Christian or happens to go to a church nearby and a Christian financial advisor. And the difference with that, it may sound simple, but Christian is first and foremost, not something that’s tacked onto the end. And so with technology and the way it has improved today, and also the fact that people have essentially been kind of forced to adopt it faster than we expected, what that has done is just open the floodgates of available options for people to be able to find someone that has the experience they’re looking for and actually aligns with their beliefs and with their values as a believer.

Bob:

Bailey, I’m seeing you shake your head to that. You’re like, yeah, yeah. You’ve been awful quiet here during this podcast. Of course, Shawn and I’ve got that dominating personality.

Bailey:

Well, you guys are on a roll. I feel like you have so much experience with this. I’m learning just as much as our listeners are too, but yeah, no, I agree. I think that the world has changed even just in our personal relationships. I have relationships that I’ve been closer in because they’re in my home or closer to me, but the relationships that feel far away, like I have a brother who lives in Washington. I haven’t been able to be a part of that relationship as much as I’ve wanted because it feels like he’s so far away all the time, but now everybody’s far away it feels like. Now, everybody we have to FaceTime with or connect with over the phone. And so him and I have gotten a lot closer since all of these technology things have come up. And I think that goes for an advisor too. You no longer have to settle for the person who’s in your neighborhood, that you can connect just as well with somebody over Zoom, maybe even better based on their personality. I think it’s a lot like finding a therapist, like you wouldn’t just go to the person that’s next door because they’re a therapist. You would find somebody who’s a good fit for you or else it wouldn’t work. And a financial advisor’s a little bit like that too.

Bob:

Or a good surgeon, right. You know, the good surgeon may not be in your own hometown. I mean, when Rachael had cancer, we drove all the way over to Houston, to MD Anderson, to get the best help. You have to take a full day to go down there and come back if you’re going to do that. I mean, when she was getting all that therapy she was needing to get, we found a place and moved to Houston for a while. And by the way, we were using these technologies back then. That was just three years ago. But you’re right. Why would you ever just pick the person just because they’re located close to you if they’re not qualified to serve you, but I’m telling y’all in the financial advisory business that I’ve been in over 30 years now, I’ve seen this over and over where I picked the guy that happens to be two blocks away from me, even if that person is not qualified or I pick somebody because they’re with this large franchise, even though they may not have the experience because they’re used to franchises. But then, like you say, here’s the menu. You go to McDonald’s, and I’m not putting McDonald’s down at all. Bailey, I know you’re a big McDonald’s fan, but you go to McDonald’s or you go to Chick-fil-A or whatever. You go to Chick-fil-A, you’re getting chicken. You’re going to McDonald’s, you’re getting these four or five hamburgers. Now I’m not going to mention any of the franchise advisory firms, but they’re out there and y’all know who they are. They’re in every city, a lot of them with the big banks, but many times I’ve seen, too, from as long as I’ve been in this industry, that once they gain the experience and they no longer need the franchise, they’ll become independent. And another thing that we’ve mentioned over and over and this might be for those that are hearing the program for the first time is it’s so extremely important to pick a fiduciary based advisor, one that is going to be working on a fee and not a commission, and an advisor that doesn’t have this hierarchy over, if y’all could see me. I’m kind of like the hierarchy over your head. No one can see this while they’re listening to the podcast, but saying, this is what you need to push. I think we’ve hit on a lot of reasons today just why location really no longer matters at all. We at Christian Financial Advisors, and as Christian financial advisors, we can serve anybody anywhere because of these incredible technologies. And we’ve seen this enormous growth as the Christian community has had to adopt these technologies over the last year. Like I said, Rachael and I, we watch church online. Rachael Zoomed last night with her small group. Like I said, I’m talking to you all on this Friday, I’m down here in Rockport, Texas, 200 miles away from the office, and she did her meeting last night. You could see all of her small group on the screen in front of her and they were from different locations. So if you could adopt it for church, you can adopt it for Bible study. You can adopt it for a financial advisory firm as well. And there’s many out there. We’re a member of Kingdom Advisors. We’re not the only Christian financial advisors out there, but we would love to serve you if you would want to give us that chance. If you need some help finding somebody locally, we’ll try to help you do that too. Any last words that y’all would like to say?

Shawn:

If I can summarize it, then I would say it like this. We really believe what we say we believe. We walk the walk. We walk the talk that we’ve been discussing here in that we have the technology. We have the values. They’re at our core. We have the experience as a team to be able to handle everything that we’ve been talking about today. But if anyone is listening for the first time, or if you’re a longtime listener, maybe somewhere in between, just know this, that our point is not that you’re limited in just what’s nearby. You have technology available to you. The industry has finally, I feel like, crested that hill to an extent, where it’s always been dragged, kicking and screaming, because of compliance and regulation, as far as technology adoption. But we’re finally really cresting that hill to where if you’re looking for an advisor that has the experience, that has the same values as you, and has a fiduciary relationship to make sure that they’re putting your needs first, not just trying to push for a particular commission, and they’re not having someone over their head as Bob said, then you can find that advisor. Don’t settle for what’s nearby is what I would say you should take from this.

Bob:

The football coach I used to have would say, don’t you settle for mediocrity. You can be the best. Bailey, any last words?

Bailey:

No. I just think we live in a new world, and I’m excited to be a part of it with you guys.

Bob:

We’re in that new world right now, all three of us, as we speak to you and bring this podcast from three different locations. We did this to make a point today that we’re using this technology as well. So thank you for listening to today’s podcast. That’s going to be all for now.

[CONCLUSION]

That’s all for now.

We invite you to listen to all of our past episodes covering many financial topics from a Christian Perspective. To make sure you don’t miss any of Bob’s upcoming episodes you can subscribe to Christian Financial Perspectives on iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify, or Stitcher. To learn more about integrating your faith with your finances, visit ciswealth.com or call 830-609-6986.

[DISCLOSURES]

Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc dba Christian Financial Advisors, also known as Christian Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the host, Bob Barber and his guests. Bob does not provide tax advice and encourages you to seek guidance from a tax professional. While Christian Investment Advisors believes the information to be accurate and reliable, we do not claim or have responsibility for its completeness, accuracy, or reliability.

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