YouSaid · the spoken record

Dave Welling

lines on the record: 70
first: 2020-12-31
most recent: 2020-12-31
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Well, I think it's just that. I mean, just open up the account and get started. I think as an industry, there is complexity, but you sometimes wonder whether it's created complexity or whether the complexity”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is changing. So this profession has become more about client care and that bedside manner, if you will, of working with clients than it has become about the math. So I think the financial service industry, the urgency, this is really ultimately about caring for clients and helping people. And that's where the industry is going. That's where our professionals are going. The mass is still critically important, but the math can be done by machines. The math can be done by focus groups of people, whether that's on our investment team or our accounting team in two areas. But I think that's where the industry is changing. And I think in a very, very positive way.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think there's the general advice I'd give, and then specific to this industry, it definitely applies, is join an industry that's growing and interesting to you, join a company that's making a dent and growing as well, worry a little bit less about the position, right, the specific role. So I've had the fortune to join a great industry to join great companies that were in those industries. All those things created opportunities for me well beyond the first job that I got as part of those organizations. So simplified version of all that is growth is really important. So a lot of great, very talented millennials that work for us, the best thing that I can do for them is to have an enterprise that's growing and gives them opportunities to jump around in a ladder or to maybe even before they think they're ready, right? So that's really, really critical. I think this profession”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Important principle to hold when you're trying to build a growing enterprise or just navigating life. It's not about being perfect. It's actually about experimenting and learning from those experiments about what worked and what didn't. The culture code builds that into the power of small teams and how teams in general should operate some of the key principles around keeping it very flat, about creating safety and vulnerability and honesty in that environment. So a lot of great vignettes throughout. So highly recommend both of those and they're good rereads in the environment we're in.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think I'm a huge, I was a huge fan of the Gladwell books. Malcolm Gladwell is, of course, there's sort of a lesser known for folks that like those that I've reread this year because I enjoyed them so much called the talent code and the culture code by Daniel Coyle. So a couple great books that build on some of the principles that Gladwell talks about. So the talent code short version, everybody knows the 10,000 hours Gladwell talks about. Daniel takes that a couple steps further and talks about actually how those 10,000 hours really should work and how the brain works when it's learning. It's not just the hours. It's actually the kind of practice. So purposeful practice and a key part of practice is actually making mistakes. So we learn more when we're making mistakes the way the brain actually works to be able to learn. So I think it's a really”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Enjoy life, to live life, and not worry about sort of the little things and to clear things through in an incredible sense of humor. So I think as we've gotten into 2020 and not only the loss of her, but sort of all the other challenges you're facing, sort of this disposition to sort of enjoy the journey you're on rather than regret your worries or whatever challenges you're facing just to overcome it. She's a tough cookie. So, you know, she's been my beacon throughout this year.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We talked about career, we talk about some of the experiences that I had at Schwab and other places. I think the thing that I think of a lot, and particularly this year, is my mom. And my mom passed away earlier this year, not COVID-related, just from age and wear and tear. So it gave me a lot of chance to reflect on the lessons that she taught me that are more important than business and life. So she's a Kiwi. She's a New Zealander that first moved to London, then moved to New York in her early 20s and met my dad and stayed. But like a lot of Kiwis, she's this intrepid spirit. She was an adventurer, did a lot of mountain climbing and skiing in New Zealand that became part of a family tradition. But like a lot of Kiwis and to all my family that are in that part of the world, they have this wonderful elegance to...”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think a lot of people we've burned through just about everything, right? So from streaming or watching. So I think the podcast, I'm a big podcast listener, I still like to get out and hike and run. So I love serial both the classic episodes as well as some of the later series. Yeah, I love how stuff works. Yeah, I love sort of learning and getting something that's really out of field and out of industry. from a learning perspective. My son and I have started rewatching old episodes of the office together, which is a heck of a lot of fun. He's 15 and it's fun to go back and sort of have that moment of nostalgia and re-watch some things. Because again, we've burned through so many different mini-series. I'm looking for some recommendations too.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, there's only one choice here, what's right for the client. And it's a great environment to have had the great fortune to grow up and see those kind of decisions made. Business is about a lot of things, but at the core, it's hard to build a great business if you're not doing the right thing for clients and clients don't like you and your employees don't like coming to work. So, yeah, I think those are really important things that I take away from that.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I actually haven't, but he is this larger than life figurehead, right? And this huge company that's his namesake, which is interesting. You know, the interesting thing about Chuck is he's quite shy, right? So he's, and I don't mean that as a you listen to every word that he says in meeting. So I just think I look back on that with so much fondness, and that's something that I hope to represent in ACEO chair now. You got to look at how he made decisions internally. And it was always about the client, right? And mathematically, some decisions were very brave from a financial perspective. And V sitting in meetings and there'd be an intense debate over a particular issue. And Chuck could just be quiet for 45 minutes of the meeting.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“four or five decisions like that that I've made in my career to go right instead of left and all the paths would have been great, right? So you just you got to enjoy the road you're on and enjoy the journey and enjoy the opportunities that you have right now and not look back on anything like that with regret. I certainly don't.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Immense respect for and was part of shape in the industry. And it represented what I was really looking for at the time, even if I couldn't have put words on it in a moment, was to join an industry, join a profession, join a business that had a real purpose and a purpose that was something other than yourself or the company itself was about serving clients and some things that have become were at the time and had become a big part of why I stuck around this industry for so long. So yeah, maybe it would have worked out great. Maybe I wouldn't have sucked and maybe I would have done well. But you can't make those kind of choices or kind of use that 2020 in hindsight. Well, what if I chose this? I kind of feel like there's probably”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, who knows, right? Who knows? Maybe I would have sucked and gotten fired in six months and it would have been a disaster, right? You don't know, right? And I think, yeah, it was a great opportunity. I had the instincts that it was a great opportunity at the time. But as we talked about a little bit earlier, my entry point to Schwab was pretty unique. And I stepped into an interesting chair as the chief of staff to the vice chairman, and I got to work down the hall from Chuck Schwab. My office, the office directly next to me was Chuck's driver. And, you know, Chuck would walk by my office every morning, right? And he'd say, hello, and he'd stop. And sometimes we'd have a chat. And I think it was just a unique opportunity to join a highly entrepreneurial organization and to work down the hall from just somebody having a”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Interest around operational issues in the short term, but long term, I think it'll create a healthy partner. And ultimately, that's the most important outcome of this is as an advisor, when you work with a custodian, you really need that custodian to be healthy. And for that custodian to be healthy, they need to not only have a good business serving advisors, they need to have a good retail business as well. And the better those businesses are doing, the better it results in investment and in support for firms like us. So I'm bullish on sort of the opportunity and what it might mean. I'm not concerned about consolidation of different custodians. There's enough choices out there and there's new ones that could emerge to help solve that issue.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I'm short-term bearish, long-term bullish on this one. And as we talk about earlier, I worked at Schwab for 12 years. So I've got some insight, not just a Schwab, but from the other side of it. I think ultimately it's good for our industry, frankly, the writing was on the wall when we go to zero transaction fees. I can remember working at Schwab where we dropped pricing to $29.95 and it was a bet the company moment, right? And that was back in the 90s, I think. Long time ago. And it's a really great transition that we're going through. But I think these businesses are going to come together. They're going to put the capabilities of the two organizations together. The short-term bearish is it's going to take some time for that to happen. And maybe...”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of us, so it's great that we have that culture to be able to share best practices and share learnings and to help each other.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm interested if the client doesn't choose us that they find another good home that's going to serve them in the right way. So I don't think that is competition. I look at that as another consumer that was better served if they made the right choice. So I think it's interesting. And it is a little weird, right? It's very different than how it felt when I was in technology and any category there were two or three main players. That was competition. Everybody looking at buying your piece of technology was looking at the direct competitor and evaluating against each other. That's competition. This is not, right? This is different. And I think has been one of the things that has really drawn and attracted me to this industry is this coegiality that Mercer doesn't have all the good ideas cornered and hasn't figured a lot of things out as an industry. All of us are smarter than anyone.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Segment of the industry that our registered investment advisors or fiduciaries, I think a lot of us leading these firms recognize that there's more to be gained from us working together than from us seeing or perceiving each other as competitors. So I'm part of an industry study group. I've been part of that group for over 15 years. I'm very active in events. share information around our initiatives with each other because we believe that helping the entire category grow firms that are adhering to that food.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think it depends on how you frame it, right? So I think Fidelity is probably the largest financial services firm in our country, yet it still, means how you measure it, maybe has mid-single digit market share. So very, very fragmented industry. So at $21 billion, from a financial advisory perspective, you have the wirehouses out there, mortgage Stanley, Merrill Lynch that are trillions, right? So they're much, much larger than we are. To me, that's the competition or the exact opposite of what we are and what we want to become. We operate under a fiduciary standard. We serve our clients. We're purely an independent registered investment advisor. We don't have an investment banking division. We don't have other things that could introduce conflicts into the client relationship. So when you talk about fragmented, then you get in the”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“based on either a client request or B more frequently the point advisor's recommendation of let's get our estate planning team involved. And then the estate planning team is involved, right? Being able to help take care of the client. So I think where this is broken down in other parts of our industry, there's some large tax firms that have wealth management practices. And maybe that's something that you're referencing. They are different departments and it feels like that to the consumer. You might as well be going to a separate accounting firm altogether because you are jumping into a different silo. So you have to tear down the silos and not let them get built, I think, and make sure that everybody understands the same principle is that there's one goal in mind that serving a client.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The recommendation in the financial plan. And oh, by the way, if there's an outside estate planning attorney that the client knows that they've worked within the past, maybe they have existing documents in place that need to be updated, our lawyers will get on the phone with their lawyers, right? So we're not trying to earn a buck on fulfilling the estate planning. We're just trying to help the client finish the recommendations that are in the financial plan. So to pull this off, you need to have a little bit more scale. And there's where still at $21 billion we're small in the landscape of other firms out there, but we're big enough to be able to have these dedicated departments with individuals. So we also keep every client is assigned a point advisor who manages the relationship. If you want to use the medical analogy, that's the general practitioner. But the specialists are deployed into that relationship.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, that goes to culture, but it also goes to the mandate, right? So we don't charge for estate planning. It's included as part of our advisory fee for clients. So it's complementary, if you will. And we don't charge hourly rates in either of our estate planning group or our tax group. So we do charge an annual fee for preparing the tax return or, you know, especially if there's a business return, there would be a fee for that as well to get us to prepare the returns that's commensurate with what folks experience in the industry. Our lawyers and our accountants also thereby are not measured the way it happens in other parts of the industry around billable hours. Our principle is serve the client, follow through and deliver the estate plan that was part of the”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Vision and ideas to bring those expertise all under one roof, and then to align those professionals around one standard, which is let's work together to provide the best set of recommendations and the best execution of those recommendations to get the plan in place and to get it finished. So that's certainly where we're going. But I think there's part of a broader secular shift of the sophistication and evolution of our entire industry.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But there is a lot of uncertainty about their financial affairs. And they're looking for somebody to help solve a problem that maybe is becoming more complex, right? They have an investment problem. They have some tax questions. They have some issues around their estate or there's a recommendation that may need to involve all of those parties, right? If you want to set up an asset protection trust, they simply don't want to have to go talk to three different professionals to get that put together and have the meter running at at least two of those three places to be able to put together that strategy. So I think as investors and the consumers have both aged and matured, there's an expectation for those of us that are in the seat of the professional advisor to help them ease that complexity. And part of the complexity that exists in our industry is that it's still split up in a lot of places. So mercers.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“State planning team, we will draft documents for the clients and not cookie cutter plans, customized plans. We have a tax team that does individual and business work together. But I think one of the other ingredients that's really important about Mercer is the way the team is aligned is to work all as one team together and not multiple different departments. Having been a guy who had the fortune to live near one of the mayo clinics when I was living in Jacksonville, Florida, Mayo Clinic does a very nice job of this in medicine where it's not just you're going in for heart surgery or cancer. It's a place you want to go if you think something's wrong with you, but you're not sure because all those professionals across those different disciplines are there to help diagnose and figure out what's going on. So fortunately, when we meet consumers, there's not a health crisis.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think investors now expect a lot more than an asset allocation strategy and an investment portfolio that is important. It's an important part of somebody's financial plan and obviously consumers remain very interested in investments. It's just those options and the role of an advisor helping put things together for an investor. There's a lot of places they can get that now from what the industry might call robo advisors to large retail shops that used to be known as discount brokerage shops but now are making those things available. And that's good for the consumer. For us, we've been following the path of the consumer to provide more services beyond asset allocation and investment. So that has manifested itself in a business that”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“for the regular consumer. And we're happy to be playing a small part in helping democratize that access and have people be able to do the right thing with their money but not have it have to cost them more money or come with inefficient portfolio. So it's been a good success for us.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And resources that are available through Vanguard and other places that are known for being low expense. And I think a lot of the industry, the internal narrative, has been, well, this is something important, but it feels very small and it's certainly not as big as it has been in Europe. But I think you're starting to see interest from investors and that interest turn into capital investments in 2020. where investors really are interested in seeing their advisor have these capabilities so that they can tailor investment portfolios to things that they care about. So, you know, this extension of we need to act a certain way in the world, but we want our money to act in the same way, right? So it's just been hard. It's been hard to access for”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so our chief investment officer, John Calcogny, brought that to me and was a real advocate for it. And it was one of those moments where you had me at hello, which was we wanted to be part of change. And we felt like it was an important change. And a number of our, we work on a number of separate account managers who also had been co-signatories to the UN principles for responsible investing as well. What's interesting is not only are we signatories, we actually have some pretty unique capabilities under the hood and mercers investment offering to provide SRI or ESG investing capabilities that are very customized and come at know the additional expense to the investors. So very, very cost advantaged and even more cost advantaged than some of the”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In that article that I put together is about relentless forward progress. I've got some good friends who are ultra marathoners, and when I have the time, one of the things I do is go and I support them on these 200 mile runs in crazy parts of the world. And their mantra is relentless forward progress. It doesn't matter if you're tired. And it doesn't matter if you think you want to stop, right? You have to make progress. And I think that's what we're trying to do.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Same things, and we're trying to work together on these issues and the inclusive economy program in Colorado is about allies, about twenty five CEOs of companies in Colorado working together to try and drive effective change. And it's also about accountability. Being part of that male pale and stale crowd, I think part of my job, part of our job is to hold my peers accountable. And I think that's something that I've really learned this year is you need to do more than just do the right thing yourself. You need to step up, particularly those of us that are fortunate enough to be in leadership roles and hold others accountable. And we need to be emboldened that we need to make progress, but not be discouraged that our starting point sucks, right? We don't like where we are. We don't like what we can, but there's no option in my mind. The other phrase that”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Forms for our employees to talk about the issues around diversity and inequalities in our country. And that was really powerful. There was this desire to do something, but I think all of us are recognizing that we needed to just ground ourselves in understanding and listening first. So I think where we are today, we've taken a number of actions. I've joined a group here in Colorado called Inclusive Economy. It's a group of about 25 CEOs with some notprofit involvement as well around helping Colorado become a more diverse economy. And I think what I've landed on, I'm a liberal arts undergrad guy, so this has got an alliteration coming here. But it was about actions, you taking actions. It's also about creating allies. I've connected with a number of advisors in our profession who care about the”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so this came out of the very challenging times that we have had in 2020 around more broadly diversity in our country and the systemic Encouragement from some folks in my team, I posted it to social media together and it was talking right on the heels of the death of George Floyd and others, just tragic. And the team was just gut wrenched, right? And I think stuck in this place of, we know this is wrong, but we're not quite sure what to do next. And I think as we have embarked on this, and far less progress to be able to relay at this stage than we've made in our women's program and women's initiative, I got to this point where A needed to say something. B, more importantly, needed to listen. So there was a huge desire and it remains a huge desire to quote, do something. The first thing that I felt like was important was to listen. Maybe as many as 20 internal”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Their values, and it's helped us externally. All those things work together to help propel it. It was hard to get started and hard to know what exactly to do first. But we had this great starting point of having talented women already in our organization who were passionate about this. and had the energy and had my support, whether it was funding or just verbal support to help get things going. So it's been a big success for us. And the steering committee and the now hundreds of women that have been involved in that, we just did our virtual, we usually do an annual event around InvestHers at a nicer treat for a couple of days. We did that virtually over a two-week period. We just wrapped that up and had more than half of our company participate that, including some men, right, who participated in that, who want to be better advocates, want to be better allies.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Leg of our strategy and purpose and charter that program to drive more diversity in our business and in the industry. The second was to make sure we were really relevant and in-tune with the needs of our female clients. So it has an internal purpose and an external purpose. And at least for us, that's kind of the biggest learning is having both has been really important to get the flywheel on this turning and start to help us make progress. The elevation and empowerment of the talented women in our organization has helped us from recruiting, has helped us bring more talent into the organization. We do scholarships. We have relationships with universities that go toward this cause. But it's really the engagement of the women professionals in our organization that has been a draw for talent. And then our clients see that, right? Our clients see a firm that reflects them, reflects”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And how women are going to live longer and how many women are head of household, a bunch of things that being a guy who loves data, we're all kind of clear to me and intuitive to me. What I was stuck on was exactly what we should do next, right? So I understood the problem, I understood the metrics and why it was important, but trying to figure out what to do next was a real challenge. Fortunately, go back to this, we had these talented people in the organization. I papped a couple of them on the shoulder and I said, look, I really want to launch this thing. I don't know what to call it. You're going to have to figure out what to call it because we don't need a male sale and pale, middle-aged white dude deciding what we should call a program like this. But I need your leadership and I will give you unconditional support, but you need to tell me what you're going to do. And what they landed on was a charter that had both a”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we're very fortunate to have a number of incredibly talented women who are already part of our organization. As advisors, financial planners, estate planning team, on and on and on. And then about 40% of our client advisory staff were women today. We're a little over 45% closer to 50%. So we had a good starting point. Those folks didn't happen to be in leadership positions at the time, and we've also changed that both through this program and through merit. These are talented people. We weren't doing it as any sort of just like, hey, let's become more diverse. These are talented people that we ask to step into leadership roles all around the country. The second thing was I attended an event and there was a panel of women leaders in our industry who were talking about all the trends around women and wealth.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so Invest Hers, ATRS capitalized, is a program that we put in place a little over three years ago. And I think you know in our entire industry knows, we really struggle with diversity. A lot of the industry is still male, stale, and pale, as folks like to say. And the question is, how do you affect change in something that feels at the outset very difficult to change? So I'd like to go back and talk about where that idea came from. And when I joined the business as CEO in 2017, I mentioned a little bit earlier in the podcast that the first thing I did was travel the country and visit our then 30 offices. We're now close to 50 offices. But the 30 offices and the first thing that I saw was we had”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I'm an analogy guy, and the one that I'll use here and like to use is paddle boarding, right? So I used to live in Florida when I was working at Black Diamond and we lived on the ocean and I had a paddleboard, right? So even if you've done it on vacation, you get out on a paddleboard, you get in the chop and you get in the waves and you see people kind of stand still and try and get their balance. And anybody who's been on a paddleboard, whether it's just on a vacation or has actually owned one like I did, know the best way to keep your balance on a paddleboard is to get it moving.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Norms and habits and traditions, right? So traditions are important parts of a culture, sure, but fundamentally we think about it as principles and have people be willing to adapt and not just adapt to the Mercer way. We adopt practices at firms that we acquire. So you in some ways preserve, recognize, and celebrate the heritage that was there of some of the businesses that have joined us as well.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Work a lot harder. All of us are trying to figure out how to do those things virtually. It has to be much more purposeful. I think there were things that in non-pandemic time that could be organic and a little bit freeform. But we've evolved to a state where we're doing virtual happy hours. We're doing sessions where people are baking Christmas cookies together or holiday celebrations together, depending on their faith. So it's been purposeful and a little bit more centrally coordinated to remind people that this is an important part of building our culture. So, you know, as you talk about acquisitions, I can touch on that briefly. I think we have similar origin stories and beliefs, but it's important for us to recognize that we are this tapestry of different businesses that have different origin stories. So people sometimes confuse culture.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Take all the financial planners and get them talking to their peers. And that helped foster the cultural connection. Coincidentally, this is a play from the Bain playbook. You know, Bain is a company where I work at offices all over the world. They take consultants at each rank. They take new managers from all over the world, and you'd build relationships with people working in other parts of the world who maybe could be helpful for you as you got to a project later. So that was really helpful in helping build a culture. We also have a number of programs and initiatives, including our investors program, an employee resource groups, a variety of different kinds that allow employees an opportunity to engage with peers and individuals who maybe not only are in the same position but care about the same things that they care about. That's been really productive and employment. In the pandemic, we've had to”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“could be served. So when we're spread all across the country, Mercer for years did a big annual event. And as we got bigger, the event got bigger. We broke from that over two years ago and started doing a lot of smaller events. We were just growing so quickly that we could add 50, 60 employees in three months after the event happened. The big annual event happened. So we moved the corporate headquarters back in the beginning of 2018 out of California to Denver, Colorado. Part of the purpose of that was to be central. We called it not headquarters. We call it Central Hub. And in non-COVID pandemic years, we would hold close to 30 different peer sessions in the hub where people would come in, meet their peers from other offices around the country. So we wouldn't take the Santa Barbara team and bring the Santa Barbara team in.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think when we're, we just talk about acquisitions, the first test is really culture, right? So there's culture, there's strategy, and then there's financial. So it needs to make cultural sense and strategic sense before you even bother talking about valuation of the business. So fortunately, we focused on buying financial planning firms. We focused on buying firms who believe and operate under the fiduciary standards. And we focused on firms who have a similar but not maybe always identical investment philosophy. But investment philosophy that's rooted as an outcome of the financial plan rather than an alpha shop focusing on a particular sleeve or sector or investments type. So that's really important, right? Because you're starting from a place where there's good cultural alignment in terms of values, principles, and a belief in how the client”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. So deal structures evolve in the industry and people like to say the market sex prices and the market sets deal structure too. We talked about valuation, but structure is just as important, I would say, as the actual valuation. So, you know, I think the structures vary, but usually there's a significant amount of cash or capital up front. There's some in an earn out to make sure the business transitions well and retention stays in place. So that oscillates over time from maybe 60%.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Before we bought it, so that's why these things are interesting, where Mercer really can add value is in expanding the services for those clients so the clients are experiencing more value. And we're often able to get growth turned back on in a business that maybe grew at one time, but over the last few years maybe had slowed significantly on growth from a market perspective. But I think, yes, valuations are going up, but that's because there's value and people are starting to recognize it.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a lot of well financed, purposeful buyers like Mercer and others that are interested in investing in the space. You have sellers who are interested in a transition for their clients, as I said earlier, a transition that feels like they're putting them in a home that's similar or the same in terms of values and offering that they've built up over the years. And you get a lot more interest in this space. Fundamentally, it's a good investment for us acquisitions we do, we average 98-99% retention per years after the fact even in years after a principal maybe retired. And I was on the phone and I mentioned that stat to one of firms who recently sold the business that I basically, Mercer didn't screw things up. We added some value, but fundamentally, that's what the business was.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is really starting to learn that these are quality businesses, very high retention, very high recurring cash flow. Why? Because the advisors do good work and the clients like it and they tell more people about it. So in a cash flow business or in a service business for an outside investor, that's a little hard sometimes to wrap your head around until you see the patterns of success over a sustained period of time. What's happening in our industry, I think, is the outside capital in particular finally starting to recognize the value of this industry most fundamentally in terms of the value it provides the consumer and how this industry continues to grow and how these businesses continue to grow. That's a big why, right? When you look at macro versus micro trends, now you come into micro trends, you get to a little bit more about what Peter may have been talking about, which is”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To say. This is one of the things where it tastes have been around this industry for quite a while, right? So having seen acquisitions, having seen how outside capital thinks about our industry, I think there's some things happening that are actually quite fundamental. I think Peter's right, you know, valuations are going up to go right at your question. But I think what's happening is people are starting to realize the value. Who in independent RAA is and why that's different than a wirehouse broker? What does it really mean to be a fiduciary? There's obviously been a huge narrative in our industry about the fiduciary standards and the importance of that still shocking to me that not every advisor working with clients isn't required to be a fiduciary. We, of course, are, I know your firm and are, but that's not the way the rest of our industry is. So people are learning that from a business perspective. I think the outside capital,”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But there's a real learning here for us as an industry about how the technology can help support these relationships and conversations on a much quicker cadence and involve more people where it's only an hour investment of their time. You go right at the questions they have and address it. And if you need somebody to come in because something comes up, somebody can join the session live rather than have to jump on a plane and fly a cut country.”
2020-12-31 · Masters in Business · Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source