Navigating the Future of Wealth Tech: Insights from 150+ Industry Leaders with Jack Sharry

Jack Sharry: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us on what should be a very interesting and fun edition of WealthTech on Deck. Earlier this year, we celebrated our 150th episode of the podcast. I wrote an article at that time, appeared in the Financial Advisor Magazine on May 6th about the lessons learned over the past three years of speaking each week on the pod with the best and brightest in our industry. Bert Greenwald, who is a highly respected researcher and student of the retirement industry, read the article and gave me a call. I’ve known Bert a long time and respect his research and how he has a good pulse on the retirement business. As we caught up with one another, he updated me on a group he leads called he Retirement Executive Management Forum. Back 20+ years ago, I participated in that group. It’s a collection of executives from most of the big firms in our industry around retirement issues. Members include the largest wealth and asset management firms, workplace and annuity executives, and fintech players. Bert invited me to share my perspective from my article on the lessons learned from the podcast, with a specific focus on where the retirement industry is headed. So I’m going to share my updated thinking on where we are now and as an industry and where we are headed. All the same principles apply as the May 6 article, but what we’ve done is basically we have learned a bunch. The industry keeps moving, we keep advancing. So as we’ve done before, my colleague, Matt Nollman, who has produced all of our podcast shows, will take on the role of host. I’ll become the guest. Matt, good to switch it up. Microphone is yours.

Matt Nollman: Thanks, Jack. Welcome to the opposite side of WealthTech on Deck.

Jack Sharry: Great, great.

Matt Nollman: I’m excited to have you on the show today and switch the chairs around and get your perspective on a few things.

Jack Sharry: Terrific. So I’m excited to share what I’m seeing and hearing and excited about what our industry is doing. Lots going on, so I can’t wait to give you my two cents on the matter.

Matt Nollman: Perfect. So why don’t we start with your presentation at the Retirement Management Executive Forum. The title of your talk there was Lessons Learned from 150 WealthTech Leaders. I know that number is a little bit higher now. So, very happy about that. But let’s kick it off with you identifying how you framed the presentation. For those who may not have been familiar with our WealthTech on Deck podcast before, and then why don’t you dive into, because they relate very closely, the five lessons that you identified in your May 6th FA Mag article, and subsequently shared with the RMEF executives.

Jack Sharry: So in talking with these execs there, I think it was 25 or 30 or so folks that were on the on the discussion. It was a webinar, or zoom, or one of those. I identified five lessons from the article, but provided an update as I thought about it more, as I’ve seen more advances and so forth. So here are the five lessons. So the unified managed household, UMH, is no longer a pipe dream. It’s happening now. Number two, tax management must be a top priority for all firms. We’re seeing that far and wide. We’ll talk some more about that. Number three, the reason for that is tax minimization and maximizing retirement outcomes are what consumers want and need and don’t know how to get. And number four, organic growth is the north star of our industry’s largest firms, all firms, really. And so we’ll talk about what organic growth is and how you get there. And then finally, AI, the thing everyone is talking about, and I’ve been studying for a while, trying to understand what it means today and where it leads us, and then we’ll talk some more about that in terms of it becoming critical as an easy button for advisors and consumers, particularly advisors, because I think they’re critical to the effort in supporting consumers. So what I did is I framed the discussion with the RMEF, the Retirement Management Executive Forum group, by showing a slide of a few of the better known guests and industry leaders we’ve had on the show, people we’ve had in the past. Ed Murphy, who’s the CEO of Empower; Natalie Wolfsen, now the CEO at Orion; Jed Finn, who’s head of wealth management at Morgan Stanley; Rose Palazzo, who’s now at Edward Jones; Aaron Schumm, CEO CEO of Vestwell; Jasmine Jirele, who’s the CEO of Allianz; John Thiel, former head of Merrill; and many others. So I framed that as to who we talked to, and that’s really so much a part of our story. We have the good fortune, privilege, really, of talking to some of the best and brightest in our business. And as I started my presentation, I highlighted three key priorities for everyone I’ve interviewed, what they’re looking to do. And the number one is create a comprehensive advisor technology solution. Number two is invest in the things that foster organic growth. Number three, make everything easier for advisors and consumers through technology, design, and innovation. So that’s what we talked about with the RMEF as a frame, and then we’ll get into some of the details.

Matt Nollman: So let’s connect the RMEF to the article that you wrote, because they, as I said before, relate very closely. So why don’t we dive into the lessons you highlighted after going through all of these episodes? Because the trends are pretty clear from what we heard from our guests. The first one you mentioned is UMH. It’s something you and I have been shouting from the rooftops about for five years, since I joined LifeYield, but I know you’ve been talking about UMH for quite a bit longer than that. So why don’t you define, at a high level, what UMH is, what we think it is, what it means to us, and why it’s so important for our industry to adopt,

Jack Sharry: Sure. So let me describe it in some, in its component parts. And frankly, it’s not the component parts, because a lot of most of these exist, or many of these exist, but it’s how you put it together, how you coordinate all the above. So a little bit on the consumer, the typical investor that will benefit from multiple account management, UMH style approach are people that have multiple accounts, multiple advisors, multiple products, they have multiple technology capabilities. They have all this stuff, and it’s not coordinated. It’s not fully connected in a seamless sort of way. So if you’re going to break it down, some of the elements that need to be in place, and they’re all a function of multi account efforts, which is really hard in terms of putting all that together. It starts with asset location. How do you put the right products, holdings in the right place, between qualified, non qualified, Roth? How do you locate the assets, annuities? How do you locate them to maximize after tax return? So of all the different ways you can improve outcome, asset location is clearly the most important. It has the biggest impact. We’ll talk some more about that a little bit. The next is tax harvesting. And our industry has spent a lot of time on the topic of tax harvesting, specifically direct indexing. Tax loss harvesting has an important effort. All that is important. All good, no, there’s no complaint. But if you’re talking UMH, it’s just a component part, frankly, doesn’t have the biggest impact. It has an impact, for sure, it’s important. But how do you coordinate that with asset location, which has far more of an impact? The next is multi account rebalancing, as you have different accounts, as markets go up and down, as circumstances change, where there’s an influx of cash, or is there’s an outflow of cash depending on the client’s circumstances, how do you rebalance the portfolio to maintain the risk target? That’s another component. Next is tax efficient transitions, as money is going from one place to another, how do you make sure, as the asset allocation is met terms of maintained, how do you make sure that you’re not paying undue taxes? Taxes always play an important role in all of what we’ve described so far and more. Social Security maximization is another critical piece to this. It’s so important to make sure that you wait as long as you can, if you’re able. Most folks that we find are able, you’re just gonna have a lot more money. So if you can maximize your Social Security you’re going to wind up… our studies, we have a social security tool, we probably average about 160 grand over a 10 year period in terms of improved outcome by just setting up your Social Security benefits in a productive and constructive way. Next is annuities. Annuities are, I think, important and not always included in the UMH structure, at least notionally, because people aren’t sure how to incorporate that. We’ve done a lot of work along those lines. Annuities are important as a way to protect growing assets, tax deferred assets, as an example. And then also, consumers want guaranteed retirement income, and so annuities play a role there as well. And then ultimately, something we call retirement income sourcing. And what that means is, how do you take all the above? How do you make sure you’re doing all the right stuff in all the right ways to minimize tax and maximize outcomes? So when we talk about a UMH, it’s all the above of all the different components and elements, and this is where the complexity comes in. Typically, they’re on different systems. Those systems weren’t designed to talk with one another, and so the industry is in the process of sorting all that out, figuring all that out, and really what it comes down to, ultimately, how do you coordinate all the above to improve outcome? And one last piece that’s important in a UMH construct, since it is hard to explain, how do you make sure that you can quantify the benefit in dollars and cents and basis points. Because as you improve the outcome, really, what it comes down to is you got to be able to demonstrate that to the client, because it’s awfully hard to explain everything I just explained. For those of you listening, I’m sure there’s a lot of this that you understand and are familiar with, but to put it all together and to make it work and to explain it to a client, it’s really important to be able to show what the outcome, the results are terms of more money in retirement. That’s ultimately what the consumer is after in the first place.

Matt Nollman: That makes complete sense to me. Obviously, as an employee of LifeYield, I believe in the strength of UMH as well. But a key component of creating a UMH and delivering to consumers is tax management. And the second and third trends that you mentioned, one that firms are working on it, and two, that consumers actually want it themselves, is about tax management. So we at LifeYield, you know, kind of hang our hats on this topic. We’re really passionate about tax management because we know how much of an impact it can have for investors and even for advisors when they implement the strategies that LifeYield has. So why don’t you go into this a bit and mention some of the firms that we know, that we’ve spoken to that are innovating on the front of tax management, why, and and why they’re investing so much into a tax management technology process.

Jack Sharry: So let me get into that. Firms like Envestment, Morningstar, EY, Vanguard, have all done studies on this, and every one of the studies shows that the single biggest cost investors incur are taxes. And so if you’re going to improve outcome, you got to figure out how to minimize tax and maximize outcome, whether it’s for accumulation or income. So taxes are critical. And each of those studies, they highlight that generating tax alpha, not just tax loss harvesting, is really critical and important. And also, while they don’t get into it in any kind of detail, it’s hard to do. And as an example, many of the firms cited don’t do it. In fact, none of the firms really do it… EY is not in the business of doing it. They advise clients on it and they recommend it. But certainly with Envestnet, Morningstar, and Vanguard, they talk about it as is important, but aren’t able to do it presently, or to whatever degree they might be doing it, it’s a very small degree. So taxes have the biggest impact, and then specifically, asset location has the biggest impact by far. So when we make a distinction between minimizing taxes and tax alpha, and it’s really tax alpha can only be achieved by managing multiple accounts in a risk smart, cost smart, tax smart way, where all the accounts and holdings must be coordinated and optimized. And that’s really the number one job for the advisor is, how do you minimize taxes, if they want to really improve outcome, and it can be measured. We have clients that are doing that today. You really have to factor in all that. So the industry, as I mentioned, is fixated on tax loss harvesting, because that’s frankly, easier. It’s good thing. It’s not a bad thing at all. Should be done, LifeYield does it for sure. But between the direct indexing craze, there’s a lot of folks coming out with direct indexing capabilities, all good, and then many others are doing copycat versions of what 55 IP came out with, which is a great program around tax loss harvesting and transitions. A lot of people working on that, really the next level, next dimension, is to really the UMH, the multi account, how do you do that? And so with the multi account approach, that’s where you consider asset location, transitions, rebalancing, income generation. And an example of that is Morgan Stanley’s intelligent withdrawals. It’s available. It’s a very popular program. It’s basically, how do you draw, do a retirement income, multi account retirement income. It’s the most advanced capability in the market. We built that with Rose Palazzo when she was at Morgan Stanley. It’s… she developed that further at Envestnet. And if I’m going to guess, she’ll be involved with what that might look like at Edward Jones, where she is today, but she probably is the premier person in our industry who understands how you put all that together, and it’s presently being used by our friends at Morgan Stanley to great effect, not only for the client, but for the advisor, because that’s the other thing that we haven’t talked as much about, but I’ll just insert here that when you can demonstrate improving outcome through accumulation, through income, what ends up happening is that, in the EY study I indicated, suggested it’s a 33% improvement over time for both accumulation and income over time, that that’s substantial. And when you can demonstrate that in dollars and cents, it attracts assets, it causes consolidation, and it’s really important. So the industry’s heading that way. Taxes are important. People don’t want to pay taxes they don’t have to. So we’re seeing that trend in a lot of most firms that are building platforms that are trying to figure out how to play in that arena.

Matt Nollman: So we just talked a lot about why firms are building it. I know we have a few stats on how people want this. So one of the stats that we have is that consumers with over $250,000 in household assets want tax and retirement planning. That’s 90% of them from Herbers & Company service market growth study that was also cited in wealthmanagement.com. So we know that most people with real assets want tax planning. Retirement planning is not far behind, with close to 75% of those folks also saying they want retirement planning, over 50% saying that they need investment management, which is kind of a no brainer, but all of these things come together for the consumer to basically create more money and retirement income for them. So I just wanted to highlight that as we went through because it’s not just that firms are guessing that people want this stuff. They’re not just saying, oh, I think that this is what consumers want and what we want our advisors to deliver to them. We… they are using the data that’s available in the market, seeing what the consumers actually want from their advisors, and they’re working towards fully implementing that. So it’s more than just, let’s innovate technology. They’re following the data. And I think that’s really important for people to realize, is that this isn’t just being done in a box. It’s being done very intentionally and across the industry, with a lot of really smart, capable folks leading the charge. So, want to elaborate on that, Jack, a little bit?

Jack Sharry: Yeah. Let me, if I may, let me underscore what you’re saying, same research, but the top four things that consumers are looking for, number one, by far, is tax planning, as you indicated. Number two is retirement planning. Number three is investment management. Number four is cash flow planning. So really, what they’re looking for is they’re looking to reduce paying taxes, who wouldn’t want to do that? And one of the things that’s not well understood, something I talk with people literally every day, as I talk to senior leaders across the industry, is that if you’re going to improve outcome, it’s a multi account exercise. You can’t improve one account at a time. You need to do it in a coordinated fashion, because you have qualified and non qualified assets. And it’s really important. Another statistic that Cerulli just recently did a study on where the UMH concept is going. What they found is that 52% of managed account providers are working towards UMH in 2024 and of that UMH is a significant priority for 37% of those firms, up from 22% in 2022 so what we’re finding is that the industry is grappling with how to make what we’re describing, how to do it better, how to make it happen. And what they’re also finding out is it’s complex, so lots of people are trying to figure out not only how to make it work internally, like within a platform or as part of a platform. But then, how do you make it easy enough so the advisor adopts it? That’s critical, and then ultimately, the consumer adopts it. And one of the things that I, as I talk to folks with the podcast and otherwise, that’s one of the challenges. How do you make it simple enough so it can be explained, the client understands the benefit. That’s the importance, frankly, of quantifying the benefit that we find it’s really critical to quantify the benefit and demonstrate the value, where consumers can understand it and also, frankly, if the advisor is not comfortable talking about it, they’re not going to. And we’ll talk some more about that when we get to AI in just a minute.

Matt Nollman: Right. I mean, that makes total sense to me. Everything that we just talked about really comes together for the firm providing all of the technology on the topic of organic growth. So that’s the next topic that you brought up. Almost all the firms that we talk about are focused, or saying they’re focused on organic growth. We heard many times this year that it’s the number one focus of these firms. So I think people have been focusing on organic growth as a concept for probably quite a bit longer than that, but the term really started taking off over the past couple years post-COVID. So why do you think that the term organic growth has gotten so much traction, and why don’t we dive back up a little and dive into what organic growth actually is, and who in our industry is actually getting results from their efforts to boost organic growth.

Jack Sharry: Yeah, so, Chip Roame, a friend of the podcast, and we’re members of Tiburon. We attend his conferences. They’re enormously useful and valuable, as he pointed out going back a few years ago, and has talked about it each of the two sessions, each year, he’s talked about it repeatedly, and it continues. There are four firms that, for all intents and purposes, are the organic growth story of our industry. You look at the rest of the industry and it’s negative growth. So the four leaders in order are Fidelity, Schwab, Morgan Stanley, and Vanguard. Now, my friends at Morgan Stanley, Jed Finn specifically, will point out, based on starting assets, Morgan Stanley’s the fastest growers of percentage growth. But be that as it may, these are the firms that are growing rapidly, or at least ahead of everyone else. And by the way, when you strip out, and when we talk about organic growth, when you strip out mergers and acquisitions, you strip out the market, you just look at sort of, as they say, the retail business, same store sales, basically, it’s a 2-3% growth business across the board, and much of that growth is done at the big players. So what do they have that others don’t? Just it’s instructive to study them as always, study the leaders. Understand what they’re doing, what they do well. Each of the firms mentioned, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Vanguard, and Schwab have a director consumer business. They have an advice business and advisors. They have a workplace business. And all these are at scale, so they’re… they have all the bases covered, if you. And depending on how the consumer wants to get their advice, or get their support, or get whatever that is they want, each of these firms have leading offerings with regard to that. So Chip’s advice is to study and copy them. It’s easier said than done, little harder to kind of get the… Fidelity, I’ve heard it said that they get something like 25% of all rollovers. The rest of the industry gets 75% but 25% for one firm is pretty amazing. But the point is, study what they do. What do they do well? And there’s only two ways to attract net new assets. That’s really what they’re after. That’s what each firm, as I talk to executives, is, first of all, relieve investors of figuring out things for themselves, they can’t. This retirement conundrum, as I shared with the RMEF folks, the Retirement Management Executive Forum folks, investors really can’t do this very well on their own. They can do a lot of things on their own, but the retirement income conundrum, where this all leads is, I think, just too hard for most consumers, a few maybe hobbyists, that really love it. Maybe. A recent AARP survey found that of people over the age of 50, 62% have not consulted a financial professional. So it kind of starts there. We’ve got to make it easier and more attractive to get benefit. And we’ve not done that, just we should admit it. We should get better at it. The other is to win assets, because if you’re managing the full household, and these are really UMH, multi account inspired solutions are really where the industry needs to go. You need to quantify the value of advice in dollars and basis points. You got to demonstrate why this is valuable, and you have to be able to report it. We got some ways, ways to go on that as an industry. We got some also regulatory issues in the way, but the idea is the smart firms are moving in this direction and to demonstrate after tax benefits, and that really that’s what the industry leaders are working on. Fidelity’s got a UMH offering. JP Morgan is working on tax alpha as we speak. Vanguard is in the middle of sorting it out themselves. Morgan Stanley makes a strong case for consolidation with their intelligent withdrawals program and many other programs, Parametric and what have you. Sort of the heart of this organic growth is really a tax opportunity for the firms and a tax opportunity for the clients, because that’s where you get your biggest bang for the buck.

Matt Nollman: So to achieve organic growth, it sounds like firms are investing heavily into the technology platforms that they provide their advisors and across all the business units, right? Because they know that to compete, they need the most influential and attractive technology offering to get the best talent, right? In addition to that, they’re innovating to make all the processes easier for advisors to implement and easier for consumers to understand what’s going on. On that same vein, that is what we’ve seen people focusing their AI efforts on. So let’s talk about AI a bit. I know we’re not complete experts on the topic, but we’ve talked to a lot of them. I know you’ve been a student of the game and trying to understand what it means for our business and the industry at large. We’ve seen many pretty cool applications of the technology, kind of across the board. I think it’s sort of in an experimental phase at the moment. But why don’t you fill us in on your thoughts and some of the endeavors and initiatives that you’ve felt will be successful on the front of AI and how that’s going to impact our industry and our business at large.

Jack Sharry: Sure. So as you know, Matt, I’ve talked to a lot of people, we’ve had them as guests on our podcast around the topic of AI, trying to understand it. Because I keep reading about it, hearing about it, talking to people about it, and I keep finding people who are charged with figuring it out for their firm, whether they’re an asset manager or wealth manager, or tech company or what have you. Everyone’s trying to figure it out. And some of the people I’ve talked to and I’ll share my synthesized thoughts on the topic in a moment. Some of the people I’ve talked to include Amy Young at Microsoft, both Vinay Nair and Rob Pettman at TIFIN, Judd Mackrill at Milemarker and related businesses, a number more. But as I listen to what they explain to me and they demonstrate to me, here’s what I figured out, and it’s on its way, it’s not fully there just yet, but here’s where I think it goes. So first of all, I start with the premise consumers cannot do retirement income planning effectively on their own. It’s just too complex. And I know there’s lots of good tools, lots of capabilities that have been developed, particularly in the workplace side. Places like Fidelity Empower many others. They’ve made a very good start. They’ve created tools that are helpful, but at the end of the day, it’s a managing retirement income is not a one and done kind of exercise. It’s really an ongoing exercise. So we’ve got a good start. I think more and more innovation will occur in the retirement space in the DC or I keep seeing good things happening on in the workplace side of things around retirement income, so good advances are being made, but I think ultimately it’s about creating an easy button. And I know every one of those, every one of the firms that is a leader, the firms I’ve just mentioned, are working on creating easy button solutions. And I think increasingly that’ll be important for financial advisors to understand that and create a funnel that’s part of the AI effort, where all the data, information, context, all the stuff you need to know, funnels in to create a dynamic, personalized data flow into financial plans and proposals. As it stands right now, lots goes into financial plans. It’s not as consistent as that will need to be. Lots goes into proposals, but it’s kind of once in a while exercise, and it’s inconsistent with the AI, just talking to our friends at TIFIN, they’ve got a program called Sage. That’s an example of a funnel, that’ll funnel into the plan or proposal system, and it’ll update it as things change, they’ll have a good front end, and then in the proposal system, that’s where a group like LifeYield, and really we’re alone in this is, how do you organize your taxable and tax advantaged accounts, because that tax piece is so critical, and how do you look at it holistically? And then, how do you optimize what has been received through AI where the client portfolios be managed through multi account management, risk and taxes, from accumulation through the optimal sequence of withdrawals becomes critical, because it’s an ongoing exercise, as you’re accumulating during that accumulation phase that to point up until you actually retire or move toward that next chapter. It’s really important to accumulate on a tax advantage basis, so your pile of money for retirement is growing more rapidly, and then how do you take it out in an optimal way to improve outcome? And I think it’s as important as you’re going through this optimization process to quantify the financial benefits so the client, the consumer, can have some sense of what’s going on. And I have to underscore, as we’ve seen with our friends at Morgan Stanley. It causes consolidation. When people see that their outcome is improved, what ends up happening is that, as they see the benefits accrue over time, they’re more inclined to consolidate. Then it needs to, in my estimation, this is all me talking based on many people I’ve spoken to. So I don’t want to assign any of this to anyone else, other than to say this is what I’m hearing, this is my my synthesis of what I’m hearing. I think it’s going to be important as a number three… First, we’re going to funnel the data, then we’re going to optimize it, and then I think there’s some measure of assurance that’s needed. And that means, how do you secure the retirement income through tax efficient, multi account withdrawals, annuities, Social Security? I think that assurance is something that everything, all the studies I see, all the people I hang out with, who are in retirement, they want to have some measure of safety and really optimizing, maximizing what they have. So that includes Social Security. It includes annuities for many and then again, ultimately demonstrating the benefit in terms of a quantifiable improved outcome. So that gets us to enabling the advisor and clients. A lot of what I’m describing is in motion. It’s it being developed across the industry. It’s not fully here yet, but I see it coming sooner than later, like in the next year, and that is to use AI to connect dots, deliver personalized data to the plan and proposal. And this is where generative AI comes in. Basically, as you’re pulling all this information in this funnel, pulling it through and optimizing and maximizing to the best of your ability, it’ll be important for generative AI to whisper, if you will, how to present and answer questions and objections, because the advisors are not comfortable promoting these sorts of things if they can’t get answers. So I think generative AI will play, will be very helpful as things move forward. So, just to summarize what I see and think is happening with AI, and it’s in motion, it’s happening across the industry, not as rapidly as I’d like to see, but I think it’s gonna as this gets to be better known or understood. Is first to funnel the data and information into plans and proposals. Second is to then optimize it through taxes and managing risk and making sure that you’re keeping the asset allocation and risk management in line. The third is to assure, to incorporate guarantees that would include annuities, that would include Social Security and other guaranteed income forms. That’s really to just make the client comfortable, and then ultimately to enable it, by enabling the advisor and the client to understand what the benefits are, how much more money they’ll have as a result. So a lot of what I just described, I would expect you’re going to see some of this in the next year or so, but it’s being worked on as we speak, and much more to come. We’ll, we’ll keep you posted as this occurs.

Matt Nollman: Some of the more interesting and useful applications that I’ve heard in some of these conversations in regards to AI, is companies like Morgan Stanley or JP Morgan, the large firms that have a ton of research and a ton of data available to them are taking all of this data, uploading it into some type of secure chat bot, and making that available to their advisors. So like you said, Jack, they’re using AI to be able to comb through millions and millions of data points at once and surface to the advisor the most useful and relevant pieces of information that they can then use in their conversations with their clients. So that seems to be where it’s starting. I’m sure it will enhance a lot more than that as we go but to me, that’s what I picked up from all of the conversations and the most applicable answer of AI as it’s being worked on today. So I’m excited for those to be released across the industry and to see what kind of a productivity impact they can have on advisors for all these firms.

Jack Sharry: Yeah. You’re raising a really important point, Matt. We’ve talked about all the component parts over the course of this podcast. Those are all real. Those are available across the industry. What’s missing is the coordination of it all, having it all work together. So we’ll talk about that as we go to summarize in a moment. But it’s really critical to coordinate all that we’ve described, and I’ll try to do that in terms of describing just really, as we close our podcast, what I think are the critical pieces and how this all comes together.

Matt Nollman: So why don’t we just move there, Jack? So, this was a great conversation. It seems like it’s time to start wrapping up. So as we do here on all of our podcasts, why don’t you bring us back to your key takeaways. As we look to wrap up here, what are the main items that you would like to reiterate to our audience from our conversation today?

Jack Sharry: Sure. So number one is the future is the unified managed household. That’s what consumers have. They own a bunch of accounts, a bunch of products, a bunch of holdings, and they’re kind of all over the place. That’s just across the industry, our industry wasn’t designed to unify anything, to be honest with you. And people are coming to realize that ultimately, the multi account management approach really is the new standard, and many are striving to achieve that. The second is job one is to minimize taxes. If you’re going to improve outcome, there’s a few ways to do it, but the biggest impact is in managing taxes. So that is after tax outcomes, as you accumulate and then as you withdraw. And in order to do that in a tax efficient way, in a way that generates tax alpha, it’s a multi account exercise, from accumulation through withdrawal. It’s asset location, not just tax loss harvesting, that’s important too, but not just that, but asset location, transitions, rebalancing, and income generation, those are the components, all of which have a tax aspect and need to be coordinated and managed to maintain the risk and to maximize the outcome. The third that we talked about is we need to give the investor what they want and aren’t getting. So that what they want is comprehensive management that addresses the issues that move the needle, namely, maximizing cost, risk, tax, and Social Security. If you’re going to move those levers to improve outcome, you’ve got to minimize cost, maximize tax, address the topic of risk, stay consistent with where they’re comfortable, and then maximize Social Security, which is essentially a government benefit that is available. It’s just a matter of when you take it, which is typically a matter of waiting. The fourth is, the firms that are enjoying organic growth are working on what we’re describing. It’s really important to demonstrate real value, to cause consolidation and gather assets. That’s where organic growth comes from. It’s getting it, frankly, from the other guy. So the assets aren’t growing all by themselves. It’s really it’s a 2-3% growth business, if that could be called a growth business. So if you’re going to have more money coming your way, you’ve got to demonstrate real value. And the fifth, in my estimation, AI will change the game to really simplify what is inherently a complex process. So as AI gets more fully integrated, there’s a lot of work being done on that, on many fronts, so that’s a whole ‘nother place. So that’ll just make it easier for the consumer to get a better outcome and make it easier for the advisor to demonstrate that value. I think it’s a win-win all around. The advisor, the client, and the firm, all win because, as we’ve talked about, the EY study indicates you can improve outcome if you maximize this multi account, UMH style, if you maximize that, you can improve outcome by a third over time.

Matt Nollman: Jack, it’s been a immense pleasure to have this conversation. I enjoyed it a lot. As we do on all of our podcasts following our key takeaways, we typically have one last question that’s a little more personal, and the answer is always my favorite one of all the questions that we ask. Usually we ask what you do outside of work that you’re particularly excited or passionate about, but we’ve asked you this question a few times now, and you’ve answered it with your passion for your family, for Hale, the nonprofit where you’re president of the board, and how much you enjoy your second home in Vermont. So, selfishly, I’d like to ask you a little bit of a different question this time. I’ve benefited a lot from your advice over time, so I’d like to share that benefit with our audience. For rising leaders in our industry, who, like me, who are closer to the start of our career than the end. What’s the best piece of advice you have for us to help us grow and advance?

Jack Sharry: It’s fairly simple. You’ve heard this a number of times. We discuss this often. I discuss this with anyone who will listen, and that is the heading is, listen. Develop the muscle, the skill, the ability to listen, and that means to listen in a deep and intentional way. David Brooks has a book out. I can never remember the title of it. It’s his latest bestseller, he’s a New York Times columnist. He says, “listen like you’re gonna lose weight.” Listen that hard. So what I do, and it’s funny, just yesterday, I was talking with an executive at our industry, actually a handful. I’m sort of on a mission. I was trying to learn some things, and I find that if I just call people and have a conversation and sort of engage with them about what they’re thinking and doing, and if I keep asking questions and keep trying to understand what ends up coming back is I learned so much, and often, I have to remind myself I’m like everybody else. I hear so many good things. I want to share them, but I have to remind myself, and I did it again yesterday. The more questions I asked, the more people I talked to, where I really was sort of on a mission of just asking questions, listening hard, I came away, just I learned so much just by, frankly, shutting up and asking them question after question, not in it as an interrogation. That isn’t the objective here. It’s really questioning to understand. And when I, you’ve heard me talk about this, I’ve written a book about it. I teach it at Babson College, this whole topic of listening, just the harder I listen, the better I understand, the more I can help that other achieve whatever it is they’re trying to achieve. Because I’m talking to so many people, trying to do this in every conversation. Don’t always succeed, for sure, but the more I do it, the more I listen, the more I understand, the more I can advance the cause. And frankly, I am in the sales and marketing business. When I do that, and I do that well, people want to do business with me. It’s just how, how it plays out, because, frankly, I’m truly committed to their success. So it’s real. It’s got to be authentic. You can’t fake this stuff. But that really is my advice, too. As you know, I mentor a whole bunch of people in our industry, and certainly do that with the students at Babson, of which I’ve, think the number’s over 500 students that I’ve taught over time on this topic. That’s my advice. Develop the muscle, the skill, the ability to listen.

Matt Nollman: Jack, thank you so much for this conversation and for your wisdom there at the end. If you liked that as a listener, we will be sharing more career tips from some of the major executives that have had insane success in our industry. So stay tuned for that subsequent part two on our dedicated website of wealthtechondeck.com. So, for our audience, thank you for tuning into this episode. As always, if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please rate, review, subscribe, and share what we’re doing here at WealthTech on Deck. We’re available wherever you get your podcasts. You should also check us out, as I mentioned a minute ago, on our dedicated website, wealthtechondeck.com where all of our episodes are along with articles, perspectives, and curated content from many leaders around the industry. Jack, thanks again. It’s been a real pleasure.

Jack Sharry: Yeah, a lot of fun. Thanks, man. Good job.