133: Creating A Visual Discovery Meeting Experience with David Armstrong

So my philosophy and our philosophy is we're not trying to resonate with everybody. We're just trying to resonate with somebody. And in order to resonate with somebody, a singular person, there has to be some sort of connection between what you're saying and what they want to hear. And I don't think that people want to hear.

We've got world-class service. We do the best financial planning because that's table stakes. I'll say it even a little bit more pointed and maybe even a little bit more crudely. That's like saying you've got the best restaurant in the world. because you make all the employees wash their hands before returning to work.

Welcome to The Human Side of Money, a show dedicated to equipping financial advisors with the skill set required to work with emotional human beings on the emotionally charged topic of money. You'll get practical tips and insights on applying behavioral finance into your practice from conversations with fellow advisors, industry consultants, and experts in the fields of behavior, psychology, communication.

and more. Each episode is designed to help you enhance client outcomes and forever change the trajectory of your advisory business. Now here's your host, Brendan Fraser. Hey, everybody. Welcome to The Human Side of Money, where every minute of every episode and every conversation is designed to make both your clients and your practice infinitely better off. Anything less is simply unacceptable.

And our guest today to help us do just that is David Armstrong. He's the president and co-founder of Monument Wealth Management, an RIA based out in the DC area that's been named one of America's top RIAs by Financial Advisor Magazine. And if you've ever wanted to improve your marketing...

your messaging, or your meetings, we talk about ways that they've done that at their firm throughout the entire episode. So towards the beginning, we'll talk about how Dave has actually been able to use his content as a powerful force to... differentiate himself from other advisors to the point where he has clients that come to him because they're not satisfied with their other advisor and they see him as a better option. He talks about how he overcame the fear of making his website...

more authentic. He wanted to break away from the typical generic websites that we see in financial advice and add more of his own flair and personality to make it relatable. And it made it the messaging so that it related to their ideal clients. of doing that. He makes a great case for why you should just do it and go forward with it. He's going to talk about why on their website, they have an entire page...

dedicated to making sure they get the right fit with their clients. They're actually trying to repel people that aren't a good fit and attract those that are. In fact, the headline of the page says, Warning, you may not be a good fit. He'll talk through the thought. process behind that.

And then the reason why I originally wanted to have Dave on, where I first learned of him, is because he's designed as a part of their monument blueprint process that he'll take us through. They have a meeting in that process that's essentially a discovery meeting, but they've created...

an entire experience around it. And he'll talk us through the details of what the room looks like, their financial planning room, how they have whiteboards on the wall to do the data gathering part of discovery and the difference that he's seen in his discovery meetings ever since. doing that and at the very end

We even dive into two things that we've never talked about on this show before. Number one, the possibility of using virtual reality to improve a discovery meeting. And then also why SEO is a dying marketing strategy. And by the way... For those of you that are listening, if you want more ideas and resources and practical ways to apply the human side in your practice, in your process, in your conversations, in your marketing, in your messaging, you can obviously listen to this podcast.

like you're doing now. But I put all of my best ideas into an email once a month. It's called The Wired Advisor. It's a newsletter that I send out once a month. It's packed full of ideas, insights, and resources to make it as easy as possible to apply. these concepts in your practice. If you're already signed up, great. Thank you very much. If you're not, but you want to check it out, go to the website www.rfgadvisory.com slash newsletter dash subscription.

rfgadvisory.com slash newsletter dash subscription, or there is a link in the show notes wherever you're listening to this episode. All right. That's all I've got. Without further ado, enjoy this conversation with Dave Armstrong.

Dave Armstrong, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on. I know we have tried this a couple of different times, and we actually tried to do it live in person one time too, but everything just conspired against us. But it's great to finally connect with you here on the pod. We overcame the odds. We did it. It's been a long time coming. We finally made it. So there's really only one place.

to start this thing off and i think it's just natural because it takes about five minutes of looking up dave armstrong before this hits you right in the face and it's this like right on the website the and on linkedin too this approach or this framing of unfiltered, no BS financial advice. Even when I read it... it feels like there's emotion behind it. There's a story or there's something behind it where it's like, yeah, we do unfiltered, no BS advice. So I think... Take this one of 2 ways.

Where did that come from? What does that mean? And then the other thing I was wondering was, what does BS advice look like? Okay. So do you want me to use BS or can I use the real words? What? We can use the real word. That's fine. You do you. This is. Right. Everybody knows that, you know, like, well, first of all, you can hear the word bullshit on network TV these days. Right. It's got like nobody's shocked by the word, but just.

so everybody understands we're talking about here, but okay. I think it kind of, I don't know if it came from any one place. I think it is a collection of my experiences over 25 years in the business. And so, so a couple of things. One is I just can't stand reading blah, blah, blah anything. It just, when I Google something and I get some sort of general... piece of information that just is full of words that don't really mean anything, that's one component of like, I just want to...

cut to the chase. So what would that look like? Are you saying you type in, how much should I save for retirement? It's like, well, saving for retirement is important and it should be based on a percentage of your income, blah, blah, blah. Okay, I'm going to use an example of advisory practices as they advertise or show themselves to the general public through their website. Because that's your target audience. So, let me talk directly to them.

When I go to an advisor's website and I see, hey, we are a financial advisory firm that really puts a lot of emphasis on figuring out your goals and objectives. And we have world-class service. And we do financial planning and asset management. To me, that is just blah, blah, blah. Everybody's doing it. That's like going to...

the website and finding a car repair dealership that says, you know, we have great customer service and we fix cars, but we fix cars better than anybody else because we turn the screws. You know, it just... I don't like that sort of thing personally. Now, does that mean that everybody listening to this should listen to Dave Marshall and go out and change their website to something? No.

I'm just telling you it doesn't resonate with me. So my philosophy and our philosophy is we're not trying to resonate with everybody. We're just trying to resonate with somebody. And in order to resonate with somebody, a singular person, there has to be some sort of connection between what you're saying and what they want to hear. And I don't think that people want to hear

We've got world-class service. We do the best financial planning because that's table stakes. I'll say it even a little bit more pointed and maybe even a little bit more crudely. That's like saying you've got the best restaurant in the world. Because you make all the employees wash their hands before returning to work. Right? So to me, that sort of no BS is like, okay.

If I'm resonating with that one person that doesn't want to listen, they want to hear me say, hey, I've heard this philosophy and I think it's bullshit. And I don't think it's important for you to be focusing on. I think it is a blend of salesmanship and craftery that...

That is trying to get you to buy something rather than actually addressing what it is that you're trying to figure out and what it is that you're concerned about solving in your wealth management world. So while you're going through that, I just typed in...

financial advisor in nashville pulled up the first company that came up went to their website i'm under the about us tab at nashville because that's right about us tab i went to what we do here's what it says and your blood may start boiling by the way

Our experienced team of professionals will help ensure you receive top tier service with a plan tailored to your retirement goals. Our team works diligently to help you feel confident knowing our plan will not only get you retired, but stay retired. And it's like you hear that.

And it's like, that's good. That's probably true. But I bet that it says something almost to the same tune on every other website for every other advisor in Nashville. And I'll bet you all their employees wash their hands when they return from the restroom. I think of it too. It's like saying we have the best restaurant because when somebody orders food, we deliver it to them. We make it and give it to them. And it's like...

Right. That's because that's what you're supposed to do. Right. So in my mind, okay, the world that exists in my mind, which is not a normal world, okay? But... So to me, when I hear this, and again, I'm not telling everybody to go out and change their website. I'm just saying it doesn't resonate with me. If I was a client, it wouldn't resonate with me. And one of the interesting things about what...

and when I say we, I'm talking to your audience, that we as advisors do is that, especially in the RIA space, is you have vendors. You are somebody's client, right? Like, I am Schwab's. client. I am Salesforce's client. I am Orion's client. I am Microsoft's client. So I have a lens looking at things through the client lens. And I try to reverse that and say,

All right, well, if that would aggravate me when I'm trying to find a CRM solution or something like that, okay, would that resonate with me? And so... I try to look at things 180 degrees in the opposite direction sometimes because I have that experience every single day as somebody else's client. Yeah, I think it's also why it's fun.

Well, from the advisor perspective, it's interesting and it's fun and helpful and insightful to put yourself... in the situation where you're somebody else's client, even directly. So like, for example, when you go to the doctor, or when you go to the dentist, or when you go see a therapist, and you can say... And I think maybe one of my biggest problems is... When I go see my therapist, I sit there and the whole time I'm like...

How did she get me to do that? How is she posturing herself? What question did she ask? It's like, wait, hang on. Am I even working on myself here? Or I think about when I went to the dentist and they were trying to get me to floss. And I admittedly, I need to be better about flossing. And I looked at how they gave...

gave me the advice to floss. He was basically just like, hey, here's the thing, go floss. And they just expect me to go and start flossing every day for the next 365 days and make that a normal part of my routine. That was a lesson of like... okay, we're probably doing the same thing with clients. Looking at it from a different lens going, why aren't our clients following through? Oh, are we just telling them what to do? And then...

sending them on their way. So it sounds like you and I are like in the sense that you can learn a lot from putting yourself in the shoes. It's insightful to put yourself in the shoes of the client and learn lessons from that seat. Right. Is there anything that comes to mind where you're like, this is something that I learned as a client that I went and changed or implemented at Monument? Yeah, so...

So now I'm going back to service, right? So I pay attention to service when I'm at a restaurant and I pay attention to service when I stay in a hotel or something like that. And when I see service that makes me happy. I then try to decode that and say, is there an opportunity for me to be doing the same thing for my clients at Monument? And fortunately, of the 11 people that work here, everybody has that really good...

client lens. And we're all really good at saying, Hey, I had this great experience the other day. I want to share with everybody when I went to the restaurant or somebody did this, or I went to the bank and things like that. Yeah. Or, hey, I had this horrible experience and it really impacted the way I think about my relationship with the bank that I use or something like that.

So we're always talking about our experiences and it kind of informs us with what we think we should be doing, could be doing, and also shouldn't be doing. So it's those everyday experiences just where you get... Somebody just does something nice for you. It doesn't even have to be a big deal. And if you talk about those when you surface those inside your practice, you probably come away with a lot of nuggets because everybody on a daily basis that works in your shop.

is having some sort of interaction with somebody else from a service perspective. Yeah. It reminds me of just two days ago, I rented a car.

through Turo, the car running service. And for the last year or so, I've rented a bunch of cars through them just for these quick trips. And... So probably 20 different cars, 20 different people that have brought their car. But the other day, they brought the car, they dropped it off. And when I got in, there was 2 water bottles in there and some mints in the...

console area. And that was such a small... I remember thinking... That was one of those things I learned from. I started thinking, man, that's such a small touch that... feels like they care. I can go buy my own water bottle. Now granted, it's always a hassle when you're on a road trip. But I can go buy my own water bottle. I could get my own mints. But just the fact that it's there, it's this disproportionate...

ratio of the effort and money that it takes. And then the reward or the payoff that comes with it. And so I literally was... As I started driving, I was sitting there going, Huh? How could I do this? Like with our clients. How could I do this in my life? What's a little thing I could do to take the experience to another level like that? Yeah. Just pay attention to it. Yeah. It's paying attention. That's right. So you said...

With the website and the copy on there, for example, that you're not writing it for everybody. You want it to connect with one person. When you think of it like that, is there one particular... type of person that you're thinking about as you're writing it? Are you envisioning this person and you're like, hey, we want to write this so it resonates with that person? And who is that person? Okay. So great question because...

You could apply this to this very popular perspective with people who are writing or consulting or coaching anywhere in our industry about having a niche business. I think that's great having a niche, but I will be honest with you about what are unofficial niches because it's better than saying, here's my target market. Here is Monument's unofficial niche. It's wealthy people who are unhappy with their current advisor relationship. That's my niche.

Because when I look at where every single client has come from, I don't have the exact percentages, so I'm taking a little bit of a swag here, but well over 90%, I'm even comfortable saying more than 95% have moved. their assets into Monument through the ACAP process from another advisor shop or wire house or whatever. So you know what my niche is? My niche is people who aren't getting good advice from their current advisor. Now, that's not on my website.

But I'm just telling you, that's where my clients come from. They say, I don't feel like I'm getting, you know, I don't feel like I'm getting good advice. I don't feel, I feel like I'm getting the party line or they don't return my phone. It's any of those things. When I write or create content, I am always thinking about that person in my mind and is what I'm saying resonating with them to the point where they say, I've had it. I'm reaching out to Monument.

Every time Armstrong or anyone on his team is opening their mouth in any sort of content medium, it resonates with me. It makes sense. I like their philosophy. I like the way they think. I like the way they just, no BS. They're just cutting to the chase and giving good advice. And everything they say resonates with me. I'm creating content for that person.

Is there anything in particular if they're mostly coming from or if it's wealthy people that aren't happy with their current relationship? Is there some sort of underlying theme or an underlying reason that's made them unhappy?

with their current relationship? Maybe not. Maybe it's all over the board, right? It's all over the board, but I can narrow it down a little bit. And I'll pick on, I'm going to pick on the wire houses, not because I don't like the channel, but because they're compliance constrained. So it is really, really, really hard for an advisor at a wire house firm to communicate in an unfiltered, straightforward way because they're literally not allowed.

to communicate with their clients unless they do something like pick up the phone. Now, some of them are introducing video and stuff like that, but even when I see the videos that are coming out from Wirehouse, that they're canned, they're scripted. You know, they're just they're blah, blah, blah. Right. There's no personality. It would be hard to have Dave Armstrong show through in the video.

Right. Their compliance officer is showing through in the video. He's not an advisor, right? So, okay. Now, I'm not railing on them. I'm just stating that that is the reality of their world. It is. Again, it just is. So, I think what's happening is the wire house world and a lot of advisors, even in the independent channel, are generating their revenue by capturing assets.

Investing in a portfolio and charging a fee on those assets under management. So they can't make money and they can't really give advice. So all they can do is neck it down to... I run a portfolio better than anybody else. They have to neck it down to that at the end of the day. Because the only way that they can generate revenue is by getting assets and putting them into a portfolio.

People who are in that channel and expecting to get advice and clarity, I'll use this as an example because everybody in the audience is going to recognize what I'm talking about. How they say, we don't give tax advice. What do you mean you don't give tax advice? Everything you're doing has some sort of tax implication. How can you say that you don't give tax advice, right? So they just can't communicate very well.

sooner or later, the clients that our philosophy resonates with will come to us and just say, I just don't feel like I'm getting good advice from my current advisor. That is the, they can say it. Bunch of different ways. But when you distill it down and translate it, that's what they're all saying. Okay. So I'm curious. You say that they're coming to you because they're not getting good advice from their current advisor. I guess what I'm wondering is like, what does that...

What does not good advice look like? Or in other words, maybe the question would be, where do you think, as you've had these conversations, where are their advisors not giving good advice underperforming? Yeah. So it's not necessarily that they're giving bad advice. It's just that, and again, I'll go back to the compliance-constrained advisors who aren't able to fully articulate what their advice or opinions are on anything in any sort of content medium.

A lot of times a client could say, what's your opinion on the market? And they will send a research report from their chief investment officer saying like, we as a firm think this, or we are... analysts are saying this, or our chief investment strategist is saying this. And okay, that scratches the itch for some people. And again, I go back to the resonating, not resonating with everybody, resonating with somebody. 10 people.

Maybe that resonates with nine people, but there's one that doesn't resonate, or it's just not enough, where they don't feel like they're getting the kind of advice that they're paying for with an AUM-based fee. They go out and now with the access to content, podcasts and videos and everything else, they are searching for the content and the opinions that scratch that itch. And then they come across...

the unfiltered, straightforward content coming out of Monument, and they say to themselves, Armstrong is an idiot. Everything he says is stupid. I don't agree with a single thing he or anyone in his firm are saying. That's awesome. That person never picks up the phone and calls me, right? Like that's a success for me. But then there's that one person or maybe more that they say like, you know what? Everything he says. It may not ultimately be right, but it's never grounded in stupidity.

And the way he says it resonates with me. And I'm kind of looking for that straightforward, like kind of call me out if I think I'm making a bad decision with my portfolio or something like that. Or I conflict with their philosophy. I would welcome him or any of the people at Monument to challenge me on that. Those people end up reaching out. And that's where it comes from.

It's the idea of you be your authentic self, you'll attract the right people, and then you'll repel the ones that aren't a good fit. The idea of marketing so that you already get rid of the people that aren't a good fit, bring in the ones that are the best. fit just by being yourself essentially right because i and your your audience every single person listening to this has had an experience with a client that's not a good fit just

100% probability there. So if I can dissuade them from even picking up the phone by just being a constant... jackhammer with my messaging and my philosophy, which by the way, it's messaging, but it's also truth. It's how we operate here. No one that says, well, I'm... I'm massively interested in finding a private advisor who does direct investment, private equity, and hedge fund investing. They're never going to pick up the phone and call me.

Yeah, right. Nor do you want them to. Right. Because then I could spend an hour trying to convince somebody that my philosophy is right. They're not going to believe it anyway. And if they hire me, they're going to fire. I'm renting that client. They're going to fire me in a year anyway. So why even bother? So I don't know if you track this or not, but it sounds like you would say that at least a majority or a large percentage of the clients that come to...

prospective clients that come and then eventually come on board have consumed some form of your content in some way or another. Absolutely. Without fail. Yeah. I mean, by design, it's part of the reason why it exists, right? Right. Exactly. And I even want to make it better and do better. We're constantly trying to improve our content and our reach and our messaging and stuff like that. I'll get this all the time.

I love your website. My response, I hate it. Okay, go on. Right. Because I'm always looking at something that's on the website. I'm saying like, we could say that so much better. We could say that so much clearer. Like we could, you know, like I'm just, I am, I am never. A blessing and a curse. Yeah, right. It's just, it is a living, breathing thing that is always subject to change in the world that exists between my two ears. So, you know.

Okay. So we talked about they've consumed some form of content. Just for anybody that's wondering, what are the mediums? What are the content mediums that you have out there that people can consume? This has changed a lot because it started out... I'm going to go way back to 2008. It started out with when I started Monument and had this newly found freedom to express myself creatively through the written medium. I wrote a blog.

Like weekly, writing all the time, writing all the time. On the website, on the Monument website? Mm-hmm. Okay. And then what I started to notice was that people were consuming the blog, the open click rates, all kinds of...

were declining. And I think it was because just the written medium doesn't meet people's need for... I just need to understand it. The long form blogging didn't seem to work anymore. So we actually... stopped writing the blog and just took that same content and put it into the video podcast medium. where we could then extract a transcript of that and create smaller bytes of written content and start putting them on LinkedIn, which is where our audience is.

rather than having them come to the website, subscribe to the blog, things like that. what I'll call a newsletter. And I hate that word, but I can't come up with a better one. So that's just what it is. Right. It's one of those. There's so many of those. I'm with you where I'm like, I don't like this word.

But it works and people get it. So I'm just going to go with it. Yeah, right. Exactly. So as much as I hate the term newsletter, that's what it is. I'm with you. And it's smaller pieces of content. With a click here to hear the podcast kind of thing. And then I started to see the consumption rates dramatically change. So our main medium is right now it's audio only podcast.

We're in the process. I'm going to hope by the end of Q1, we are more video focused. So we record a video podcast, a vlog, whatever you want to call it. And then from that, we are... ripping content out of that one shot recording and creating the quick shorts for YouTube or Instagram or whatever. The quick videos for LinkedIn, the transcription where we can create little mini blogs instead of one big blog, have them be more content centric.

And really just keep repurposing that content, especially if we're talking about things that are an evergreen topic. And we have mixed into the podcast, basically, I'm going to call it formats, okay? Two different formats. One is... Monument people just talking. So think like we're going to do a – I'm making this up, but I'm not making it up. This is what we do. A quarterly review of the markets.

So next week, we're going to record our, hey, 2024 is over, fourth quarter, 24. And what do we think about 25? And we'll get on there. And the three asset management people and Jessica kind of. moderates that thing because we'll start going at each other on stuff. But all that is, is a real life recording of how we talk to each other on a daily basis inside Monument. It's just organized. It's not off the cuff.

So that is not an evergreen topic. A year from now, no one is going to go back and listen to the fourth quarter 2024 monument review. So there's that intro. But then we have guests that come on who are experts in things. And I'll just say like a trust and estate attorney or an M&A banker or a lawyer or a behavioral coach, things like that. Those are really evergreen topics because...

We're talking about things that are always good. I'll use trust and estate as an example. While trust and estate changes a little bit every single year, and sometimes dramatically. The concept and the idea of having a properly structured trust and estate plan is an evergreen topic. So I can go back to an interview that I had three years ago and rip a video out of it and put it up today.

with very little effort, that talks about something that's still relevant. Making sure that you have all of your assets in a revocable trust so it doesn't have to go through probate. That kind of thing. So we're focusing on those mediums and then creating content out of that main recording. Yeah. Yeah. The evergreen content certainly makes the content game.

a lot easier if you have things you can always go back and repurpose where the message is still relevant three years later or or maybe there you could have stuff from three years ago like let's say it's around trust and estate planning and then all of a sudden there's a change to trust law, change to estate planning law. And so you can bring that back. The core principles still apply. You can resurface it at that point. So you've got these content.

mediums that are out there helping spread the word, creating awareness. People are getting to know you a little bit. So it's bringing in the right people. Now, what I like about the website in terms of... talking to the right person to where they go, Hey, I feel like I'm in the right place. I love how you do that. But then also, if somebody says, You know what? I really like this vibe. I want unfiltered, no bullshit advice.

Then there's a place on there, a button. It's like, see if we're a fit in 30 seconds. Right. Then it takes you to the page. And I was laughing when I saw it, and I'm still laughing, where at the top, the hero section, it's a warning. We may not be for everyone. A good fit is like peanut butter and jelly. It's best if you like both sides of the sandwich. So was there thought and discussion that went into...

The see if we're a good fit in 30 seconds idea. And then do you like peanut butter and jelly? Yeah. So... Okay, the peanut butter and jelly thing is a classic example of we were just sitting around BSing one day and somebody said, it's like peanut butter and jelly. You got to like both sides of that. And I'm like, put that on the website. Yeah, right, right, right. Yeah, it's such a good example. Right.

Everybody gets it, right? Yeah. And you're just being yourself. It's different. It feels relatable, right? It's not this like boilerplate. We have great service. It's like you have the monument. vibe, the monument culture is on display through just that one sentence. Right. And so we're trying there. Now, the 30 second thing came from when we really started to focus on content marketing.

in the digital medium that that sounds like a bunch of like words but everybody knows what i mean by that right so we started getting inbound yeah Request for information, let's call it, right? Or, hey, I saw your podcast and I'm looking for a financial advisor. And then you get on the phone with them and they're not a fit for us because we have a target market that we do our best work for.

For some people, it's just too expensive or whatever. We have a target market and that's just what it is. So the 30-second fit was a way for us to make sure that if somebody is going to hit the I'm interested button. that they were very self-aware of what it was that we were looking for. And I also have this philosophy, and I don't know if we say it very well on the website, and we probably should, which is, I can help anybody who asks for help.

But that doesn't mean that you're going to be a client of Monument. Right? So, like, if somebody called me up and said, hey, I'm not your target market. Here's what I'm looking for. Do you know somebody? Yes, I do. Because I know a ton of people. So call this person, call that person. And I've got a stable of people that I like to refer business out to that aren't a good target market fit for us, who are just as...

good as anybody here at Monument, but more of a peanut butter and jelly fit for what they're looking for. Yeah. Okay. So when you say you can help anybody, whether they're fit or not, by help, you mean you can learn a little bit about their situation and then... refer them or guide them to an advisor that can help them. Yeah, exactly. So I know I've talked to a lot of advisors who in principle and philosophically, I agree with that idea.

And then they're like, yeah, I want to do that. But I just don't know who I would send them to. I don't know who out there I feel good sending them to to take care of them. How did you come about? finding those people? Is it just time meeting people? Was it a proactive thing where you went, I need to have people to refer to, so I need to go find people that are good? Or how did you build up that bench?

Okay, so more philosophy here. So for listeners that don't know this already, I live in the Washington, D.C. area. but not in DC. So it's Alexandria, Virginia is basically just across the river from Washington, DC. So let's just call it, we call it the DMV, right? The DC, Maryland, Virginia area. Okay. There's a lot of advisors here. And here we go with philosophy again.

I have this philosophy of I don't have competitors. I have colleagues that don't work in the same firm that I do. I just don't really compete with people. People choose who they want to be the peanut butter and jelly sandwich with. I'm overusing this now because you said it. But it works. Another one of the things that works. So if somebody said, hey, I am talking to you and I'm talking to –

XYZ down the street too. Chances are that person XYZ down the street is a colleague of mine. I know them. And if I know them and I'm friends with them and I'm palling around with them anyway, Water seeks its own level. So they're probably philosophically aligned with me anyway. And I would be like, they're an awesome shop. You should definitely be talking to them. I don't have many people in this town where I'd be like, ooh, that's a huge mistake.

There are people in town, but they're not my competitors anyway. So, I just... The DC... My area around... Alexandria, D.C. area, just has a group of like-minded advisors who we've met at a parents' conference or we've just whatever, and we're all sort of very friendly with each other.

That's where my bench comes from. So the bench started from just being out and about and figuring out who are my local colleagues in the business. And when you say you don't have competitors, you have colleagues. In that example where somebody comes and they say,

hey dave i'm meeting with you with monument i'm also meeting with so and so down the street how is it how do you think through that to where you don't see this competition right if you can just i think i think it's a good powerful um framing or psychological dynamic there to look at it differently. I'm just kind of curious how you think through that. Yeah. So competition and competitors are two different things, right? So I feel like somebody who is a competitor is doing battle with you.

Two boxers are competitors. A boxing coach and a boxer are colleagues. So I can... I can have competition, but I'm not going to head-to-head compete against somebody by saying, Jim Smith down the street is not as good as me. He's whatever, or she's this or she's that. That's competitor behavior, and I don't subscribe to that. Now, maybe I have the luxury of not having to win every single competitive.

situation in town to grow my business because my business is where my business is and I'm pretty happy with it. So the last thing I want to do is convince somebody to hire us by talking about someone else's practice and comparing mine to theirs in a way that makes them look like they're worse than me. Because if I'm hanging around and I know these people, they're honest, they're hardworking, they care about people.

Otherwise, I wouldn't be hanging around with them. So that's what I mean by competitors and colleagues. What if it's somebody that you don't know? I'll just say I don't know those folks. That would be rare. That would be somebody outside of town. Okay.

Okay. All right. You've been around the game in the DC area long enough. Yeah. So actually a competitive situation happened recently that we didn't win the business on and it was, it was sizable and I thought we were going to win it and we didn't. And we lost it to a firm. That was in the Midwest somewhere. Texas, I think. Was the client local in the D.C. area? No. Client was, but got referred into us by an existing client.

This client, this prospective client was in Texas and they said, Hey, my best friend, and he is a guru for me, said, I need to talk to you all. And I was like, well, that's a great introduction. Yeah. At the end of the day, we didn't win the business. Now, I was able to look at that competitor's website and point out the differences. Like, okay, look, they're a hybrid. We're not.

which means they're probably selling commissioned products and we're not. So make sure that you're aware of that differentiation. They're not a team. of people like we are. They're one main advisor with a staff of client associates. So you're getting one brain and not 11. I would point out the differences, but I would never say, Oh, you shouldn't do business with him. He's a commission guy. I just don't say those kind of things. Sure, right. More of the approach of, I'm not going to...

I'm not going to try to convince you or persuade you or say like, Hey, you should work with us because we have a team and they don't. You're just raising things. You're bringing up... You're arming them with more information to better inform.

their, the decision, this big decision that they need to make. And you're saying, Hey, here are other things to think about and incorporate into this decision that you're making. Right. And specifically one of the things, and I'm not saying this is better or worse. It's just what we do. We manage all the money in-house. Okay, a lot of overhead there. I pay a lot of big brains, a lot of money to help me manage portfolios. Our portfolios are almost strictly equities.

Fixed income cash. There's no like weird alternatives. And we don't outsource a dime of money management to anybody. That's a different way of doing business. So I would also tell somebody, you may want to ask them.

What is their philosophy on managing money? And are they outsourcing? Are they using mutual funds? Are they outsourcing to different money managers? Because there's going to be an embedded fee there you may not see. And I'll just talk about, almost phrase it in the context of, here's some questions that you need to ask to make sure you understand what you're buying.

Mm hmm. Here's how we do it. Right. So an element of you don't know what you don't know. So you're trying to inform them. Hey, here are things to think about other things to ask that you need to be aware of. Not in a you're not. Not doing it in a bashing way. Not even in necessarily a way you're not trying to persuade. You're just saying, hey, this is something that if I was in your shoes, I would want somebody to point out and help me think about.

Right. Fees are a good example of that. And I'll just make a very basic, classic example. If somebody says, okay, and I'll go back to that business that we lost. And when they came to us and they said, well, their pricing structure is 10 basis points less than yours. I'd say like, okay, but is it? Yeah, right, right, right. Because we're managing in-house.

Right. If they're using mutual funds or outside money managers or things like that, they may not be quoting that tack-on fee to you right now. Make sure you're asking them about that. Right, right. And then you get, oh, I asked them and it turns out, yeah, so now both firms are in line. And if I never educated them to ask those questions, they may have just said, oh, okay, they're 10 basis points cheaper and I like them just as much. I'm going to hire them.

And then all of a sudden they figure out that they're actually paying more. Yeah, that's a great example. Okay, so as you started doing more content in the digital realm...

So use that term again. But it started more content. It would naturally bring in more inbound inquiries. And when that... Which is good and bad. The good is you get more inbound inquiries. The bad is the... bigger those numbers get, not everybody is going to be the perfect fit. So you have this basically screening process, essentially, to where you're like, Hey, let's determine if you are... a good fit or not. So we'll link to the website.

in the show notes. We'll link to the podcast that we mentioned earlier. But on the website, when you go do this, I like this part where you have the section that's like, Hey, you'll like working with us if... I mean, I'm not going to read the whole thing. But if you're tired of hearing the same stuff, you want to talk honestly about your finances. And it says, we'll love you if you understand, appreciate...

That's the worth of our expertise, time and advice. You understand that you're playing your own game, not somebody else's. And then my favorite is you don't just say, hey, here's how we know people like each other. It's also the... And here, by the way, we won't like each other. Won't like you. We're not going to get along if you're an elitist. Your main goal is I just want more. And then the best one, you hate dogs. I just don't even bother.

If you're a dog person. So maybe talk us through or tell us what went into that. Like why laying it out that way specifically. Okay. So.

For those people that don't know me, there's a story. There's always a story with Dave Armstrong, right? So this is a story. It was, we employed... a woman named Terry Trespicio, and you can Google her, find her company, or Google her on YouTube and watch her. She has like 7 million views on this video. And I...

Got to know her through a Barron's conference and kind of just fell in love with her no BS attitude on things. I just heard her name like two weeks ago for the first time and heard she's great. I'm sorry. Go ahead. She's great. And I'll continue the plug just for 10 seconds, which is advisors meet her and they love her and then they're scared to pay her. Because look, she's not cheap, but...

The money that we invested with her to kind of turn our marketing and our messaging around has paid for itself a gazillion times over. But advisors have a mindset of... I'll do that when I'm making $100,000 more rather than I'm going to invest in this so I can make $200,000 more, which is the classic advisor mindset. And then once you make $100,000 more, you still don't actually invest in it. That's right. That's right.

So Terry was the one that said to me, like, you've spent so much time talking about people you don't like working with. Why don't you just say it? And so that section of the website has morphed.

It used to be, and I'm just straight out saying it, one of the bullets was, you're an asshole. It said it. Now, I got talked off the ledge on that by a few people. I still think it should be on there, but that's just... me again but like well for what it's worth i don't think anybody thinks of themselves as an asshole so i'm not sure anybody self-selects out based on that but but but so here this is where the really great story comes in so

A client that I met over COVID in Virginia, Virginia didn't shut down their outdoor golf courses like Maryland did and DC. There was a huge part of that. Remember that DMV that I was talking about? There's like half the pie can't go out and play golf or do anything outside during COVID. And in Virginia, you can. So this center of influence.

investment banker that I'm friends with, reached out to me and said, hey, I'm doing a deal with a client who, by the way, I think would be a perfect fit for you at your firm. He is a big golfer, but his golf course is in Maryland and he can't play it. It's shut down. I'm wondering if you could host us out. Great. I did that. So we go out and we're having a good time. Guy's a good guy. And we get to the end of the round and he says,

I don't want to finish the round and not acknowledge what you do and why we got introduced. And I know our mutual friend, I won't say his name, our mutual friend has told you that I'm getting ready to sell my business. And I want to acknowledge that I know who you are. I went, I read your website and everything else. And I'm just curious. These are his exact words. He goes, I'm curious who wrote your website. And I was like, you mean like.

What do you mean who wrote it? He goes, yeah, there's that section there about we won't like you if. I go, oh, we wrote that. And I said, we had a copywriter that helped us clean up a little bit. But yeah, for the most part, we just sat down and sketched it out. He goes, I loved it.

He goes, in my 30 years of dealing with the financial advisory industry, I have never read anything so straightforward where people are like, hey, if this is how you behave, we won't like you. Like, don't even bother. He's like, it just captured my attention. And I said, well, he goes, I'm worried that I would be one of those people that you don't like. And I said, well.

Well, why is that? And he says, well, you know, it's just my, because I just worry that when I read that, that you won't like me. And I go, well, maybe you should figure out if that's a Dave Armstrong problem or a you problem. Like, I mean, are you telling me that you recognize those traits and realize that they're bad traits? Or are you telling me that you recognize those traits and you embrace them and we are oil and water, not peanut butter and jelly?

And he's like, no. He's like, as a matter of fact, I think it's peanut butter and jelly. I want to sit down and talk to you when the deal is done. He goes, and mostly because my wife has told me that I have to fire our current financial advisor. So, of course, I hear that. I'm like, hmm. Okay, great. And I said, well, I said, you don't need to say who it is, but who is your financial? Is it a big wire house? Is it a big? I'm trying to get some context. And he goes, it's me.

So I was like, okay, all right. He's like, I've been, for the past X years, I've been managing money myself and I've just realized that I'm not, it's fun, but I'm not good at it and all that kind of stuff. And now he's a client and he's one of our best.

clients. And so here's a guy that initially thought he wouldn't be a good fit for us and then figured out that he would be a good fit for us. So when I got that, and I know it's anecdotal, but if it resonated with him, it's going to resonate with other people like him. And it's just kind of stayed on the website. And as a matter of fact, I would like to expand that. And that's part of the website that I'm always like, we should say that differently or whatever.

People always talk about that spot on our website. I actually think it should be above the fold, front and center. It's not appropriate, but that's what I think in my head. I thought you were going to say... Whenever he said, I saw the part about we won't like each other and I'm worried that might be me. I thought you were going to say that he said that he's a cat guy or they've got cats. Yeah. But, you know, like it's rare to find somebody who doesn't like dogs.

right yeah that's fair right yeah yeah very few people just don't they may not have dogs but they may but very few people are like yeah i just can't stand dogs right right and if they do they're not a good fit Their financial planning is not fit for Monument. And mostly because you can see this on our website or any of our social... We bring our dogs to the office. Not today, but generally...

I have my dogs with me here in the office and they're older dogs. They sleep and they're, you know, people like them and people take them for walks and things like that. So if you're a client, you're going to come in for something like there's a hundred percent chance that there's going to be a dog here. And if you don't like dogs.

We have some clients who are like, I love them, but I'm allergic. Fine. We put them in the back office and they stay there during the meeting or whatever like that. But it's just sort of a personality. It's a peanut butter and jelly test. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is gonna sound so bizarre and shallow, but it even made me think about how when we have... So we have a dog at home, like many people do. And whenever somebody comes over, and they give the dog...

time or attention or love or like show like talk to him or pet him or spend some time like we just my wife and i've joked before like we just for whatever reason just kind of like naturally like that person a little bit more right i don't know if it's because it's our dog or because they but

But for whatever reason, we're always like, I like that person. I'm glad they... Did you see how they were playing with Roland too? Because we got the kids also. And so the dog can sometimes go over and look. But it's... I mean, now that I'm singing out loud, it sounds kind of like...

you know, that would get a little bit shallow. But for whatever reason, it's true. Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of become part of our culture. Okay. So then last thing on this, the idea of fit and making sure you're finding people the right fit is...

The thing that I also really like a lot... And in order to really get a feel for this, if anybody's really interested, you're gonna have to go to the website and look at it yourself. We also just recorded an episode. It was Episode 125 not too long ago with Megan Lertz.

where we talked about... Basically, the whole episode was on how do you implement a screening process that assesses for fit and readiness and the questions that you should ask. And so you have an assessment on here. It says, find out in 30 seconds. if you're a good fit. And you answer 5 questions and basically find out if you're a good fit. And so as I was going through it, the questions are worded well. I thought it was a great way. The best part is it feels like it's...

not a big deal. Okay. I'll answer a few questions. It'll take 30 seconds and I'll know whether or not I need to move forward. So what are you looking for? Why are you looking for a wealth advisor right now? Yeah. Why? Yeah. Okay. What priorities are you looking to achieve? And that's more so if I look at it, just kind of browse through it. That's like mostly financial priorities. Yeah. We're trying to figure out...

With that question, are you focused on things that we don't focus on here as a practice? What would one of those be? Like what would be a red flag? Maybe we're not a good fit. I want to manage my own money or I want to have a say in the portfolio or I want. I want you to clear every trade with me. Those kind of things. One of them says maximum portfolio growth. Yeah. Bad client. Okay. Define maximum portfolio growth. Right. Okay.

In somebody's head, they're like, I want my portfolio to grow as much as possible. No, you don't. No, right, right. Because how do you quantify that? Quantify more? And so, our philosophy is, it's not about maximum portfolio gain. It's about growing your portfolio over a long period of time and matching up your needs for cash with your portfolio's ability to generate that cash at a specific point in the future when you need it. Those things are not about maximum portfolio growth.

With maximum portfolio growth comes maximum portfolio loss. And if you need cash during 2022, you need cash. If you're looking for maximum growth, your portfolio could have been in five tech stocks and down 50% in 2022. And then all of a sudden you're like, I need $200,000 for down payment on house. Well, that's... Okay, so bad client, bad fit. They won't like us. And usually maximum portfolio growth.

just if you boil it down or get if you talk somebody it translates to i just want more money and then you go why do you want more money well i want more money because i want something that i don't currently have in my life like the ability to travel to see friends and family more often or the ability to quit my job because I hate where I'm at. It's never actually about maximum portfolio. That's right. Right.

Wants and needs. Exactly. The third question is, what is the size of your investment portfolio? Which I would imagine probably boils down to, are you a profitable client? Yes. is your do your does your wealth match up with the things that we do really really well um so for example somebody who is in their 20s

and starting out with a job and has a small amount of money, they're going to pay a fee for services that they're not going to use with us. Right. Complex financial planning, trust and estate evaluation. tax analysis, things like that. They don't need us for that. And so we're trying to figure out like, is this going to be oil and water or peanut butter and jelly? And we don't, our practice isn't designed.

for the less complicated and less complex situations because, and I'll just say this very frankly, because no one wants to do that stuff here. They want to work on the challenging, complex things because that's what feeds their desire to be a financial advisor in the first place. So that's kind of where our minimum comes from. I should call it our target market.

Talking about peanut butter and jelly. I think we're going to try to call this the peanut butter and jelly approach to advice episode. I like it. The fourth one of the five is where do you see your role in working with us? I mean, it's like, do I want to call the shots? Yeah. Are you directive or receptive? If I said, I want to call the shots, is that a, Hey, we're not a good fit. I got a great person to refer you to. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And then last one.

Oh, how'd you hear about us? I guess that way, if you want, you can track the source of the. Right. It's just interesting. That's just interesting information to know. Is there one that is the dominant source? Okay. I was so glad you asked that question because I was just going to say it if you didn't know. Now I'm going back to digital marketing. People are like, what's your ROI on your pocket? I don't know. What's your ROI? I don't know. I don't know. All I know is I'm getting new clients.

And they don't ever come from one specific place. Nobody reaches out to us and says, I heard your podcast episode on charitable giving and I want to hire you. They say, I've been following you guys for a while, and I've listened to a bunch of your podcasts, and I've read some of your blogs, and I saw the dogs on social media.

And after listening to all of that, I've decided that our philosophies are aligned and I'd like to talk about working together. There's no ROI. I can't measure it. I just know it's working. Right. Yeah, right. That would be a whole other episode, by the way, is like the idea of content.

especially podcasting ROI. It's really, really hard to try to quantify. But we won't go down that rabbit hole because I'm sure we could. And before we knew it, it'd be a completely separate episode. Okay. So you do this. You have this... essentially screening process you're getting the right people in one of the things i want to go to maybe the next maybe not the very next step you'll have to clarify this for us but one of the things that i

was excited to talk with you about and have been for a long time is how you approach how you do your data gathering meeting. And so maybe do this. Take us... If I determine that I'm a good fit, what happens next? And then use that to take us into that data gathering meeting. Okay, so...

I'm going to just jump right in. So we've had conversations, we've talked, and the next step is, hey, why don't you come in and go through what we call our monument blueprint process, our MVP? And we have in our office space... We have a dedicated, we call it our financial planning room. Now, it's like a cozy conference room with no conference room table, like the chairs. And one side of the room is mounted.

a bunch of different glass whiteboards think about like a whiteboard they write on with the erasing margin markers but they're glass and they're in a mosaic that looks really really cool and each panel is a different bucket of information. There's seven different buckets. And you can go to the website and you can see videos on our Monument Blueprint process where Emily does a great job of talking through how the process works. So we won't belabor that here.

It is a sit down or we have been able to effectively, but it's not optimal, do it virtually. So we set up a camera and it's looking at the panels and stuff like that. But we sit down and we just start having a conversation with them. Tell us about whatever. And anything that comes out of their mouth...

The person who has the pen in their hand and is standing in front of those whiteboards is trained to take what they're saying and bucketize it into one of those seven boards. And so everything they're saying is getting... scribed in real time in front of them, and they're filling out these panels. So they literally start out with a blank slate. And by the time that meeting is done, and there's no script for it, it's just very casual.

just where the conversation takes us. And then if there's specific pieces of information, we just ask it, but we fill out those boards. And then what we do is we take digital pictures of them and we synthesize everything that they've told us down into a... an engagement letter. That's not what I call it, but that's what people... And it's a fancy thing. It looks like a blueprint that gets folded up and we send it to them and it's just a...

We synthesize the data down into more organized pieces. And we say, here's what we captured that you said. This is your information. It's free. If you would like us to take this... And there's a couple of... Even if you don't hire us, here are some things you should do very high level, like engage a trust and stage. We'll identify some things that are wrong. Hey, your life insurance isn't titled in an islet. You should probably do that.

So we'll do a little bit of free information. But essentially what we're saying there is if you like the process and you liked us and you want us to now take this data and actually analyze it and start doing. cash flow analysis, cash flow projections, growth projections, probability of success statistics, ripping apart your current portfolio and finding out where it's not efficient or effective from either an asset allocation, investment, or fee perspective.

Well, then you engage us in an engagement letter and you pay for the financial planning. And that is a way to make sure that we protect our time. And if somebody says, thanks for the financial plan, but I'm going to go to Robin Hood and do this myself. Okay, well, at least we got paid for the time that we went into it. If they say, hey, great, I love this, and I want to hire you to actually manage the portfolios and give me ongoing wealth management advice, then great.

We have a fee structure for that too. And we will rebate all that money back into the fee structure. So, you know, what you end up getting offset for whatever, but we require people to rent a checkup front because we have to protect our time. Are they writing this check before they're in the room going through the whiteboards? No, it's come in, do the whiteboards.

We take all that, we create an actual document that we call our monument blueprint, attach it to our engagement letter, FedEx it to them. And if they return it to us with a check, then now we start taking all that data and start all the different tools that we use to do financial planning.

Yeah. Okay. So you're still... You're doing the... I guess I'll put it this way. That first meeting is quote unquote free. There's no cost for that. Discovery meeting. The discovery meeting is... Okay. So you do that. No cost. But if you want to go to the next step, you want to move forward, we'll give you this one meeting. But if you move forward, then we're going to have to... You'll have to pay and engage in order to move forward. And that's when they basically become a client. Yeah. Now...

Do they occasionally say, like, hey, can we have a quick follow-up Zoom call? We've got a couple extra questions. We have some questions about the engagement. That's fine. But there's no more discovery to do. There's no more... It's you either want us to do some work for you or you've decided something different. You want to do something different. And there's no more real meetings after that of substance.

Without paying for us. Yes. Okay. Okay. So let me back up for a second. If I take, take us into this financial planning room. If I walk in the door, I'll see two.

Two couches, a couch, two couches. What's the? So we just moved a year ago. into our new office space. So if you go to the website, you'll probably see a different picture of this. We're updating some pictures now, but it's four chairs and we can bring more chairs in, but it's generally four chairs. that are in a horseshoe shape looking at a specific wall that has those seven whiteboards on them. Okay. The orientation of the room is towards those boards from a seating perspective.

And that's kind of what it looks like. Okay, so at the core, you've got these seats. But you said no table. So it's basically just like you're sitting at a living room kind of thing in these comfortable seats. And the focus is almost entirely on the seven boards that are in a mosaic style up on the wall. Correct. There's no conference room table. It's casual. It's casual. It's casually refined. Who all's in the room? So there's generally three monument people in the room.

And two clients. So there's five people in the room with four seats because the one person is standing in front of the whiteboards writing everything down. Who are the three? What are all three monument people doing? Because I think.

I think some people will be like, three people? I'm only one. What in the world? What are they doing about this? Husband wife is usually coming in. We really strongly encourage. Both. Let me put this in. It's a red flag when somebody doesn't want to bring their spouse in. Yeah, sure. Not a red flag about them, just red flag about the relationship. Like they they're probably not very serious about this right now. Yeah. OK. Red flag is not the right word. It is a cautionary.

that they may not be ready to engage us right now. Or it's a cautionary signal of one of the two comes in and then they say, I want to have another meeting so you can meet my spouse. Yeah. So we try not to have it. Sometimes it doesn't work with work schedules. I get it. Another thing we'll do too is we will virtually bring the other spouse in if they can't be there.

So there is a webcam that's in there and they can hear everything, see everything get written on the board, but they're at a computer terminal way because maybe somebody has to stay home with an aging parent or something like that. Okay, so we can accommodate all of that. um now i don't remember oh what what are the three people doing so it's generally husband wife and then two people from monument one is always a partner one of the four partners is always in that meeting

And it could be a second partner or it could be somebody who's just available on the team at the time. But it's generally two partners. The two most experienced people who are going to ask the right questions. Are all three people doing different things? Yeah. So it depends on who's in there. But what's always good is, OK, there's four partners. There's four.

partners at Monument Wealth Management. There's Dean Cattino and I who started the firm together and we're the most tenured, right? 25 years, Gen Xers and baby boomer type. you know, demographic. And then Emily and Jessica, who were in their mid-30s, millennials, partners, both CFPs. So Emily's CFP specializing in tax.

Emily is a CFP. She specializes in a lot of philanthropy and trust and estate work. Dean is a CFP, but most of his ability just comes from experience. And I'm a CFA, and I run the asset management team.

As you recall, we manage all the money in-house. So it could be Dean and I. It could be Emily and Jessica. It could be Dave and Jessica. But it's always one – there's always two of those four people in that meeting. And – It's almost always either Dean or I in there because Jessica and Emily are still, while they're tenured, but their experience is just not as vast or as deep as ours.

For no other reason than I've just been doing it longer. And I ask questions differently than Emily and Jessica do. And Jessica and Emily ask questions differently than Dean does. So it's always good to have somebody talking and somebody listening at the same time for follow-up questions.

And then just from a gender matching perspective, it's always helpful to have Dave and Emily, Dave and Jessica, you know, if it's husband, wife, somebody is picking up on a signal that the other person isn't picking up on just based on. diversity of gender, right? Which is super helpful. And then the third person is generally a younger person at Monument who is not a partner on the financial planning team generally.

who is, we call them the scribe. They're the person with the pen that's not talking. Are they forbidden from talking? No. No, but that's not their role. They're not forbidden from talking. They can say like, oh, I'm sorry, will you say that number again? Whatever. But they're not writing on the board and turning around and saying like, you know, I've got a question about that.

That's not really their role. They're not prohibited from doing it. It's just not generally how it goes. They're busy writing. They're hopping from board to board and everything else. What are the seven boards?

So we've got, and again, pictures of it, even though it's from our old planning room, they're up there. But we've got, let's just call it finances, accounts and amounts, right? That's where we're writing anything down that's a... an account or an amount. So the financials board. We have the family board. We have communication board. How do you like to be communicated with? We have our goals and objectives board. We have COI board.

We have trust and estate board. Finances, family, communication, goals and objectives, COIs, trust and estate. Yeah, and then like an other board, like where we just – stuff that doesn't fit. Yeah, okay. All right. So there's seven – and they have labels on them. Right.

And so when the people come in and they see it, they're like, okay, this is all the stuff we're going to talk about. And what's actually kind of cool about it is you're literally starting off with blank boards. Now, if they've provided information to us beforehand in an MVP meeting, like here are my statements.

That stuff's already populated on the board, so we don't need to waste time asking them the question. It's written up there. I've got my Schwab account here. I've got my Wells Fargo account here, that sort of thing. So that's kind of how it's going. It's a very interactive process that people really seem to enjoy. What I was wondering as you were kind of going through describing that is...

Do you use the boards as a roadmap for the conversation to make sure that you get... the information that you need is it sort of like that you have it up there and you can also use it as a guide to go okay what have we not talked about yet is it guiding your questions or is it more like you already know what you're going to be asking and then as they as they

As something comes out, they're going to be throwing out all kinds of information. And as it comes out, you're helping them sort and organize it in a way that they can see it and it makes sense. Right. They can also lead the conversation because they can say like, I see we haven't gotten to that board yet. Like they know we're going to get to it. It's also super helpful. So yes, it guides the conversation without there having to be a script.

Because at some point, I could be like, okay, we've talked a lot about financials, but we haven't really heard much about your family. Tell us about your family structure. We could hop to a new board and start writing things down. embedded benefit to the whole thing is that, especially if it's a husband and wife or spouse and spouse team,

One of them is looking at the boards while the other one's talking and saying like, you know, we forgot to mention this. So there's this interactive thing that's going on with the person who's not talking and looking at something and being reminded of something. Or sometimes... will get the, hey, we have a different perspective on this goal and objectives. That's the seventh way. It's called interests. So they may say, hey, my interests are this. The spouse's interests are that.

they may create two different liabilities, right? One person's interest is golf and the other person's interest is in making ceramic pottery. Those are two different interests that create two different goals and objectives that have to be reconciled somewhere. I'm making an example of it. Sure. So it's just helpful from a visual perspective because it informs questions.

It informs answers and it helps people remember maybe something that they didn't mention because it's all right there in front of them. It's not... wholly indifferent from like an advisor sitting down at a conference room table with a legal pad and asking questions and writing things down. It's just that they're seeing what you're writing on the legal pad and they're able to fill in some blanks that maybe you've already moved on from.

Yeah, and I do think, too, there's something to be said for it not sitting there on an 8.5x11 piece of yellow paper that I'm writing on, but there's something about this whiteboard. Blank slate. Wanting to see it and fill it in. There's probably a term for that. There's probably... Somebody would probably be out there like, Oh yeah, that's what this... But there's something that when you see it in that way...

Blank slate is the word that keeps coming to mind. But it creates this more of a dynamic of, I want to provide my information to get it up there on that board. Right. And then we take pictures of it, literally take our digital camera and take pictures of all the boards and then each individual board. And then that gets...

you know, put into that monument blueprint document that they get along with the engagement layer. So they see everything, they get it again, and they look at it again and be like, you know, we forgot to talk to them about this. So it's almost like a tool that just keeps informing conversation down the road.

And is somebody at Monument after the meeting sitting there in the room and then going back in and putting it in a CRM system somewhere? Okay. So it'll live there, but you're also going to take pictures so that they can see it as well.

Right. So, we're not transcribing the entire board into the CRM unless they hire us. We'll put the pictures in there, but we're not doing any manipulation or work with that data until they say, we want to hire you. Of note, the interesting part about it is to the extent that somebody would come in for an annual review. I'll just use that as an example. A lot of our annual reviews are not in person, but just give me some artistic license here.

To the extent that somebody wants to come in and do an annual review, that annual review will take place in that planning room and everything that was on that whiteboard when they left a year ago is rewritten up on that whiteboard in front of them. We start talking. And so if we have questions about things, we will write it in a different color. So black, black, black, black, all the old. And anything that's blue is, hey, we...

This has been added since you had your last Blueprint meeting because we learned something new or something changed. And red is we think this is wrong and want to verify it. So it's color-coded. You start from there and you're like, okay, yeah, we closed that account. We got rid of this. We bought a new house. We refinanced our mortgage, whatever it is. All of that stuff is up there and it just prompts conversation again.

Or they're like, yeah, I know I said I wanted to be communicated via phone last time. But can we do something different this time around? Yeah. It was hard to get in touch. But that was what I was wondering was how do you... resurface this in the future? Do you use it again in the future? And I would imagine too that you come back in, you sit down, you see these boards, it's got the information already up there from last year. And then you're sitting there going...

Oh, wait, we need to update this. Oh, that's right. That was last year. But this has changed. We need to make sure they know. And it's like, instead of just asking somebody... What's changed? Yeah, what's changed? And they're like, uh... It's like when somebody asks, hey, what'd you do last weekend? And that was just last weekend. I'm like, ah, man, what did we do? You're saying, hey, here's how things were.

What's changed? I would just imagine that you get not only better information, but just better answers in general. Right. And now we can do that same thing because we have the digital pictures. If somebody can't come in or doesn't want to. I mean, a lot of people just don't want to get in their cars and drive in the Washington, D.C. area. Got it. We just put together a Teams presentation. We take the digital pictures. We put them on a slide, and we say, let's go through each one of the boards.

you know, we can do that. Yeah. It still works. Right. Yeah. Right. Now what, about what time for, when was it that you started doing it this way or changed it to do the meetings this way?

Yeah, so again, here comes the story, right? Well, that's what I was going to ask. So nice, well done. Like, where did this come from? So it wasn't one aha moment. It was, we were... Early on in starting Monument, and we had decided that we had sublet of space and the lease was up on that. We weren't going to renew it. We were moving to a new building. And the new building that we were moving to at this point in our...

It was 2010. So everybody was still recovering from the financial crisis. And there was a brand new office building being built in Old Town that was not leasing very well because it was 2010. So we were able to basically get shell space and design it. However we wanted to. And this just goes to show you how much we've matured. But we had this big thing about every partner's office needs to be the same size. It makes me sound like such a...

like a ninth grader, like immature. But anyway, that was a big deal at the time to a couple of people. And so what that did was it left us with this crazy little... triangular corner space that wasn't big enough to be an office. It was weird space. And I said, well, let's just... We had a client who had this thing he called the thinking room. And you would go in there and it was four walls. No windows, no nothing. It was four chairs and...

All four walls were painted with that whiteboard material so you could just get up and write on the board. It's like this brainstorm room, crazy brainstorm room. What was that movie where Tom Hanks, where they put the guy on the moon on the chalkboard, whatever it was?

It was like that kind of thing, you know? So I was like, why don't we create a thinking room out of it? It'd be kind of fun, right? Wouldn't it be fun to have a room where you just kind of go in and just like brainstorm on things? And then, great. So that's what we did. And we were like, well, let's do some...

Let's put whiteboards up instead of that material. And then our architect at the time was like, we should make it out in like cool, like a mosaic of different glass boards. And it would kind of actually look like artwork. You can clean the glass really easily. The whiteboard material doesn't clean very well. We're like, great. So we just, it was serendipity. There were seven boards that fit on this thing. And then I went to a conference. This is when I was...

affiliated with LPL. And I went to some LPL conference and somebody gave a breakout session that was very Nick Murray-like, or it was just like how to collect information, stuff like that. And I was like, huh. And basically, I'm looking at my notebook. I'm like, there's seven buckets of information.

that we collect on each person. And we just so happen to have seven boards. And I went back and said, we should do this. And that's how the whole thing started. We were like, well, let's try it out on our next meeting. And we did. And it's just kind of developed from there. It's basically unchanged since 2010. Those boards are the exact same glass boards. We've moved them twice now and they work great. And maybe hard to remember at this point because it's been a little while, but did you...

Was there an immediate difference? Was it like, oh yeah, this is better for some certain reason? For somebody that's sitting out there thinking, oh, that's kind of cool, but how much of a difference does that make? What would you say?

I would say it was immediate. It was the very first time we did it. Somebody was like, this is really awesome. I really enjoyed this. This was great seeing it all right in front of my face. And we were like, we're on to something. So we basically, then we branded it. I'm using my air quotes, branded it.

the Monument Blueprint process, the MVP. And so we're like, hey, we can actually turn this into a thing and brand it and name it. People can understand it. We can market it and message it, things like that. It hasn't gone through a whole lot of iteration. I'll tell you what I want to do. And if anybody listening can help me figure this out, reach out to me, please. But I envision, okay, what if...

I have this monument blueprint thing, but I'm talking to the guy in Texas, right? Instead of having a webcam, what if I put like one of those virtual reality goggle sets into a Pelican case and FedExed it to them? And I said, plug this into your computer. And when you do that, you're going to be virtually standing in our planning room. That's a cool idea. Right. Yeah, yeah.

If I want to figure that out, I will. If somebody else has already figured it out or knows that it doesn't work, please tell me. Just be like, dude, you're out of your mind. There's no way it works like that. Don't even bother wasting your time getting a set of goggles. But if somebody hears it, it's like...

Yeah, that'd be great. I can walk you through how to do it because I have a set of goggles. But I envision us doing something like that tomorrow or four years from now. But what a great idea. Be like... Okay, instead of just logging on to a Teams thing and seeing the webcam, you can't zoom in on anything. Why not ship somebody a set of goggles and say, go to this website? Yeah, if anybody's done it or is thinking about it or wants to do it.

Definitely reach out. I think that sounds fascinating. And I'm sure there's gonna be some people out there that will say... Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. But that's going to be weird. They're sitting there with these goggles on. There's going to be people that don't want to do that. And it's like... In that case, you go... And that's fine. We can give them the option. We can encourage them to try it. If they don't like it, then we can just do what we...

been doing. But that's one of those deals that if you could nail it and do it right, it would be awesome. Yeah, exactly. And I'd probably have to invest in some cameras in there that virtual, whatever. But it's an idea, right? That would be the next iteration of the planning room for me. It would be something where we could have somebody virtually in the room with us and not have to set up all these weird web cameras zooming in on stuff that's a pain to butt.

All right. If I find somebody that's doing it, I'll let you know. If you do it, you've got to let me know. I want to experience it. I will. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Maybe, maybe you'll be the first test case. I'll be like, Hey man, help me troubleshoot this. Sign me up. I'm committed to it right now. Um, okay. So.

I've got one last question for you that's a little bit off topic of what we've been on. Anything else in particular as we're talking about this process that you feel like is important to get out there?

Not the process, but I'll riff on something that I think a recent experience that I think could be important for people to consider is that in the marketing industry, the industry. As we talk about marketing and you read any newsletter, listen to any podcast, people are talking about like search engine optimization, keyword searches and all that stuff. And man, I'm telling you, I think that's dead.

I think it's dead. And this is anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt, but I have stopped using Google as my search engine. And I use something called perplexity AI. Okay. And that is where I am going to ask my questions now. And I'm going to give you a real world example. It's going to sound a little bougie and snotty, but just go with me here. Okay. I have a condominium here in Alexandria, Virginia that my wife and I operate out of during the work week. And then we have...

Our home home is down off the Chesapeake Bay. And that's your standard house, right? And so we're there a lot. So I have Virginia primary residence. Maryland second home, two different tax, real estate tax things going on there. And the value of those two places is different. So, I wanted to figure out... how much money I was spending in real estate taxes. Where was I spending more money in real estate taxes? The cheaper real estate tax state of Virginia with a more expensive property?

or Maryland with higher taxes, but a lower assessed property value. Okay. Now, I could have built a spreadsheet, gone in and said, here's the assessed value of the household stuff. I just went into perplexity AI and I said, I own a house worth X in Maryland, and I own a house worth Y in Virginia. Given the two tax assessed values of the house and the prevailing real estate...

tax rate in each state. Calculate for me what I'm, estimate for me through calculating what I'm roughly paying in real estate taxes on the Maryland place and in the Virginia place. Enter. 10 seconds later, I have an answer. I'm like, that would have taken me 30 or 45 minutes of building a spreadsheet, formulas, everything else. And I'm like, man, if I'm going to that thing to answer questions, how soon is it before everyone else is going to that thing and asking questions?

Like I'm going to get sponsored ads and just BS. I probably never get the question answered. It's so manipulated to take you into some sort of sales funnel. It's almost become unusable. for me, for anything other than what is the address of the XYZ restaurant in my town. So now all of a sudden I'm like, all right, what happens when other people start using...

AI as a search engine, whether it's chat, GPT, all these different AI engines kind of produce different results. The thing I like about perplexity is there's no links, there's nothing. You ask it a question, it answers it.

Yeah. Well, it'll tell you where the... It'll give you the source of some of the answers. If you want to dive deeper, you can go look at this. I get... Yeah. Anyways, it's... But yeah. Yeah. So the sources, I think... I appreciate the fact that the sources are there. So I can go, where did that come from?

I want to explore a little deeper that particular source, but I don't have to comb through all the sources on my own. Anyways, go ahead. Exactly. So I like that. So now I'm thinking to myself, what's going to happen when my target market... goes out and starts asking these things, I have a $3 million portfolio and I need...

Wealth management advice, that includes trust and estate planning and insurance analysis and all of this other stuff. What are some of the best advisors in my area? Okay, you type that into Google and you're going to get...

Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS, like all of these things, people that are paying for keyword searches, you'll never get your question answered. And if you do, you feel manipulated by it anyway. And now, so they go into the AI thing and they're going to be like, hey, based on what you just typed in there. You should check out Monument. Okay, how do I make sure that I am included in that answer when it's asked in AI? And the answer is, it's going out and looking at your published content.

It's not looking at keyword searches. It's not looking at whether or not that person is paying for advertising on the site or not. It's basically looking at the content. So if you're an advisor and you don't have content out there, you're not going to be in that search when they ask it. I think that is going to be a massive, radical, aha moment for people. And the people who are creating content are probably, without even trying, already ahead of the game because the content is out there.

Now, what it doesn't do is scour my podcast. So now I'm like, all right, I need to make sure that my podcast transcriptions are somewhere in the digital space that can be searched and work. So I just start thinking about this stuff. But that's my one comment about... It's not related to the financial planning thing, but I think it's important for the advisor community that you have as an audience to start thinking about.

how they're going to show up in those things. Because if I'm using that thing to search, it's just a matter of time before, or maybe I'm the last person in the party and I don't even know, I sound like an idiot right now. No, I mean, so.

I'm with you. And in fact, Samantha Russell, who's obviously a marketing guru, was on a... i think it's a podcast or youtube show with the guys from ritholtz and this is one of the this is the main thing but they talked about was like how search is changing seo is kind of falling away uh ai is gonna become using like perplexity or chat gpt or claw

is going to become more of a search engine because it just gets better results. It scrapes data. All the reasons you gave. Also, by the way, apparently, I don't know who these people are. I think it's younger generation, but they're using social.

to search. So if I want to find the best bagel... I have a friend here who owns a... He's an investor in a bagel shop. And so we were talking about this the other day. If I want to find the best bagel... Apparently, you don't go to Google anymore. You go to Instagram.

And you search best bagel, you see who's been and what's been talked about. Anyway, so this isn't for this conversation. I just want to, I guess, validate and say. I'll counter that, though. So I've seen Samantha's shorts from that compound. Okay, yeah, yeah. Which, by the way, like, so jealous of that guy. I mean, God, that guy sees the moment. Like, I look at stuff, I'm like, ah, why can't, where was I?

I was doing something else. I wasn't paying attention. Just massive hats off to that guy. And Samantha, too, by the way. Meaning Josh Brown? Is that who you're talking about? Yeah. I'll never catch him. I'll never catch him. Right. So hats off to him. I am appropriately jealous, not inappropriately jealous. I'm appropriately jealous. Right. Because like something inspired. Anyway, same thing with Samantha Russell.

Great. Awesome. I will consume all of her stuff. I love it. Enlightening. But I will push back a little bit on the people using social media to search because that's all controlled by advertising now too. It's just – if you are not paying for advertising on LinkedIn, Instagram, whatever, you're not – your content is not – it's just not going to make it.

It used to be. So unless you have a massive following now, the ability for somebody to start an Instagram account and get a million followers is over because they, this is my opinion. They won't let you ever get that big because now you're competing with them for advertising. Yeah. And you're not paying them. You're not paying them. So Kim Kardashian doesn't have to pay Instagram anything. And they don't want that anymore. Well, Instagram wants Kim Kardashian at this point.

Right, but they want Kim Kardashian to pay for advertising to show her stuff to gain those million followers. So the people who are already there, Josh Brown doesn't have to worry about losing followers. If some millennial or somebody who's just getting into the business is like, I'm going to start making a name for myself on social media and TikTok. I don't think it's going to happen. I think it happens in the AI space, in that perplexity search thing with your content.

Perplexity isn't manipulating it through advertising. Now, that can sound conspiracy theory, whatever, but that's just what I think. All right. So as we come to the end here, we'll go through the rapid fire three pack of questions as we wrap up. First question.

Okay. I always get scared with these things. So here we go. There are no wrong answers. You get to sit back and observe a roundtable discussion. Any three people talking about anything could be related to money, the human side or whatever. Who are the three people that are at this table? Okay, so I'm going to give an answer that is not an advisor specific. No advisor is going to listen to this and have an aha moment and start following these three people. But my dream, sit down.

is to be a fly. I'm going to call it the fly on the wall, right? I'm not participating. I'm just listening to three people. That's kind of the question, right? Yes, exactly. The names are irrelevant because there are no names. I'm just saying. Three... General officers in any one of the United States military services who are at the three or four star level, I would like to sit down and listen to them talk about the readiness.

and the challenges that the United States military is facing from a national security perspective. I want to hear their unfiltered opinions with no impact on their career for saying, Anything wrong. I would love to be a fly on the wall to listen to three people like that talk. Well, the good news is you have a podcast where you interview those in the leadership of the military. So you can probably make that happen.

Well, that's kind of where my answer comes from, is that I listen to them and the unpublished parts of those conversations are so enlightening to me. I'm like, boy, if I got these three former guests together and just said, you're in a... A skiff. Nobody can hear anything you say. And I'll never repeat anything you say. Like, if I could ever do something like that, I'd be like, whoa, holy cow. Yeah. All right. You get to gift one book to everybody that's listening. What would it be?

I keep coming back to my favorite book is Your Money and Your Brain by Jason Zweig. I think I'm pronouncing his name right. Sorry. I think that's right too, yeah. Not that he listens to me, but anyway. I think I've read that book like four or five times. It's just so great. And I should probably just give it to every single client. Yeah, it's a great one, without a doubt. And Jason's just a great thinker and writer. But can I have two more? Yeah.

All right. I'm the kind of person that is never reading just one book. I have like four books and I just, whatever I'm wanting to read at the time, I'll pick it back up. So... Another favorite book for advisors, and I know this is going to sound so old, but Reminiscence of a Stock Trader. There's just so many great... And that book was originally written in the 40s, I think.

Like the first edition, which I actually have a first edition of that book. I can't believe I own it, but I do. You just open that book up and you don't need to read it from start to finish. You just open it up and start reading things. But there's just so much.

People were learning lessons in the 30s that we still don't know. And the saying of like, the only thing you don't know is the history you haven't read. I just look at that book and I'm like, God, it's still just filled with... nuggets of just great perspectives yeah um yeah okay what did you have one more i do it's it's i love the book this is a little bit Could be politically polarizing today, but Peter Thiel's book, Zero to One. I have more notes written in the...

The margins of that book. If you're an operator operating your own financial advisory practice and you haven't read that book, you probably should. That's one that you hear about. I've heard about quite a bit. And I'm always like, I need to read that. I need to read that. And it's in my...

It's on my Amazon list and I've still never read it. So, all right. That might be the nudge that I need. All right. Okay. Who's the best listener in your life? And then what does that person do that makes him such a great listener?

Okay, so I think the easiest answer is my wife. But because she refuses to listen to any podcast I ever do, because she's like, I listen to you in the house all day long. What makes you think I want to listen to you in the car too? I'm in no danger of... Not saying my wife. Okay. So I'm going to answer that question from a looking through the world of a soda straw of the best listeners of people that I work with on a daily basis here at Monument.

And they all listen to me. But the best listener is my partner, Emily Harper, because she has this ability to listen to me through the lens of like. I understand what he's saying, and I know how to tell him that he's wrong without pissing him off. We share a wavelength when we're talking.

I just feel like she understands what's going on in this messed up Dave Armstrong world between my two ears. And she speaks Dave Armstrong. And so they're all great listeners. But like you asked me the question and I just. Like that. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, the ability to do that's quite a skill. Yeah. And they all speak Dave Armstrong. She speaks it best. Have you always felt that way or did it develop over time? Developed over time. Yeah.

Now, here's in fairness, her husband is a military career military special forces officer. So I think she also understands like Dave's perspective on things is coming from. the same thing that my husband's experiences have been like so that she has an unfair edge yes okay all right good disclaimer there all right last one uh you're gonna get the ability to hang a poster

On the wall of every advisor around the world with a message you want to spread, what would it say? It would be a single color background poster with contrasting letters and nothing else to distract you from this statement. Question. Do I know what's going on or do I only think I know what's going on? Well, OK, so first of all, no one's ever gone as deep as the way how you would design it and the color contrast.

Well done there. Nicely done. It cannot be distracting. It needs to be like an Ansel Adams picture. Like you just don't see anything except the picture. Just that's it. What? I would imagine that there's a. reason that that comes by? That that's probably served you well to some degree. Where does that come from? Personally, I'm always looking at, is the advice that I'm giving based on something that I know?

or what I think, because that can inform how seriously my opinion should be taken, right? And I say this all the time in my digital mediums, which is like... There are no facts about the future. They do not exist. And this is a great time to say this. As people are reading the outlooks for 2025, because everybody's putting them out, every single person...

that writes one of those things or every single team of people to, I'll just use Goldman Sachs, right? The people that write that annual outlook for Goldman Sachs are so much more intelligent and smart than I am. that if I offered to work for them for free, they'd say no, because that's how much value I would add to that team, right? They're just a collection of super, super smart people who are all dealing in the guessing game about facts that don't exist about the future.

So none of these outlooks are grounded in stupidity, as I like to say. None of them are. But the common denominator is they're all making guesses about the future. based on facts that they think will exist that don't exist right now. So I try to take that perspective of like, am I giving advice based on something that I think or that I know? And because I don't know anything about the future,

I'm always basing my advice basically from the realm of this is what I think I know. So if I'm telling somebody what I think I know and I'm wrong, is that going to be a catastrophic... piece of advice that somebody acts on that could really be detrimental to them? Or is it just, here's what I think is going on. And from a probability perspective, I have a pretty good chance of being right. And if I'm wrong, it's not going to be catastrophic to you. So I just...

I really try hard to make sure that my opinion and my advice is grounded in that sort of sentence. Do I know what's going on or do I think I know? Yeah. Do I actually know what's going on or do I just think I know, right?

Well, Dave, as we wrap this up, for anybody that's listening that wants to know more, maybe connect with you. Or if somebody's like, Hey, I've done the virtual reality thing. Or maybe they just want to get more familiar with you and your content. Where can they go? What can they do?

Okay, so I'm everywhere. So pick your poison. LinkedIn, it's great. I'm on it every day. Shoot me a message on LinkedIn. You're going to get my attention. I think my email address is on the website. You could find it. If not, just find an email on the...

Monument website page, monumentwealthmanagement.com. Get in touch. Somebody afford it to me. Instagram, the Monument Instagram account, the Monument LinkedIn account. It's all going to get to me one way or the other. So that's a great way to do it. Awesome. We'll link to... All of those things.

Put them in the show notes. Dave, we overcame the odds. We did it. Thank you so much. Yes, we did. And appreciate being here. Hey, one last plug. If anybody's interested in that military podcast that I do, it's Moments in Leadership. It's on Spotify and everything else.

If you're hearing this and you have any sort of experience or attachment to the military, go check out some of the guests I've had on there. It's incredibly insightful. It's like Joe Rogan-ish, two-hour kind of interview-based format. It's good. So I enjoy that too. So quick, thanks for giving me a quick plug there. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks Dave. Appreciate it. Take care.

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