https://www.listennotes.com/e/d75cdbc424a0497e900bdc439fae73b4

Welcome back to the Advisor Summit where we sit down with the voices shaping the future of financial services. One relationship, one strategy and one purpose driven step at a time. Today's guest brings a grounded people first approach to business development. One that blends strategic vision with authentic connection. We're excited to welcome Cooper Hitt, Director of Business Development at Seattle Wealth Management. Raised in South Dakota and now based in Minnesota, Cooper brings Midwestern values and a deep relational mindset to his work, helping expand the advisory practices reach while staying true to its mission, guiding families toward a more purpose filled financial future. Since joining the firm, Cooper has been a driving force behind growth initiatives and partnerships. Always focused on trust, transparency and making an impact where it matters most. Hi Cooper, welcome to the Advisor Summit. We're honored to have you on and excited to kind of learn from you and hear about your journey.

Yeah, thank you, Molly. I appreciate being here.

Of course. Yeah, we're going to go ahead and dive right in. One of the reasons we really wanted to have you on here is because I think you are so full of knowledge with what Fiat's doing and just kind of the growth and trajectory of where you kind of started to where you've now landed with your current position. So can you kind of talk to me about that journey and how you landed as the Director of Business Development Development today and any key experiences that maybe shaped that progression. So I know it's always a hard question. I feel like, like how did you end here? You know, I'm still, again, like I said this last time, I'm waiting for someone to be like, I saw an ad on indeed and I clicked it, you know, but it's never that. It's never that. And that's okay. I like the interesting ones for sure.

Well, I, I feel like all the good stories are always really interesting. Right. And, and mine, mine's pretty funny because I, I was hired as an intern at my sister's engagement party that I wasn't even supposed to be at. So a little backstory there. I was, I knew the engagement party was happening and one of my best friends, he was a few years younger than me, was, you know, it was just going off to college party. Right. And so we were up at his lake cabin in northern South Dakota and so I already told my parents, I'm like, hey, I'm not gonna be able to make it. I called my sister, I'm like, I'm so sorry. You know, we've had this plan forever. Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna be able to make it, I get a call the morning of from my dad. I'm not gonna say what happened on the call. Yeah. Uh, but long story short, I started heading towards Minnesota very quickly after.

A way of changing the schedule very quickly, so.

Yes, exactly. So I bumped in at the engagement party to one of my former TAs, and he. And it's funny because I really didn't have a relationship with him. I just knew him as my. My sister's soon to be husband, one of his friends. Right. That's why he was there. And so I knew him as my ta. I knew he hung out with my sister's fiance. At the time, I didn't really know him that well. And so we were. We were just talking, you know, talking about how school is going, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then he drops a question like, hey, you know, I just started at a company at the beginning of this year at Seat. Do you want to be an intern? And I'm like, well, you know, I'm taking 17, 18 credits this semester. I don't think I can do it. And I was already like, a little bit in the doghouse with my parents and a little bit. And I got a. I got a pretty hard yank on the arm from my dad after we finished up that conversation. And he told me, you're taking that internship, drop some classes. I'm like, yeah, okay. And that was that. So I had to go back to my. My sister's friend, and I'm like, hey, you know what? Let's do it. Like, I. I'll drop classes. Like, this is more important than that. Because in my mind, I was always thinking, like, I'm going to get an internship. It can't be that hard. Right? But it's actually, you know, a lot of my friends experience this. It's a lot harder than you think. And it's about, you know, one thing I learned through that process. It's a lot about who you know, not exactly what you know. What you know doesn't really stand out on a resume. Right. You're in a group of hundreds of resumes, especially if you're trying to go to or be an intern at, you know, a corporation. So anyway, I started as an intern in the fall of. Of 2020, and great time to start, by the way. And yeah, it was very. I mean, we were a small company at the time. I think we had six or seven employees, but it felt like we had three because most everybody was working from home at that time.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I came into the office every day. And I started out in paraplanning. And for those on here who are listening that don't know what paraplanning is, it's basically if somebody. If a prospect sends in documents and wants an analysis done right, the paraplanner goes, looks through all of those documents and puts and inputs all of that into the softwares and creates the documents that we are going to now share with the client in the next meeting or the prospect in the next meeting. So that's what paraplanning was, and that's what I was doing in 2020. I came back in 2021 and in turn did the same thing. And also in 2022 or for one month in 2022. I was then hired under Ashley, who's our CEO, our current COO. Now she hired me to do half paraplanning and then half client service.

Okay.

What I can tell you is I'm not. If you guys know what the enneagram is, right? Yeah, I'm not a enneagram. One is the person who is, you know, task oriented. Check the box.

Yes. You're not that.

Yeah, not that guy. I was terrible at paperwork, but it.

Taught me a lot of curiosity.

I couldn't tell you. I can just tell you I'm not a one. Okay. I've taken it. The funny thing is, Molly, is that I've taken it like two or three times, I think twice, actually. And I cannot remember for the life of me what I am. I feel like it's. It's in the higher number. I was like, I. I don't want to be wrong, but. So don't. Don't take this as fact, but I think I was an eight. Support.

I was gonna say you feel like an eight. You feel like. Yeah, but that could also be. Some people would see that and be like, that's really rude. Because I really wanted to be like a three. You know what I mean? More of like perfectionist, driven type. And it's like, no, there's like a place for everybody. But anyway.

Yeah, exactly. You got hired.

Didn't work out.

Yeah, well, it worked out. It's just it. It wasn't like it was draining. It was taxing. I. I'm not that kind of guy. Every time at the time we were at TD Ameritrade, every time we were onboarding somebody or I had a task come through on Wealthbox, or at the time, Salesforce, I was like, okay, what's the easiest way for me to get this done without having the Client have to sign something and make this easy, like the easiest way for the client. Yeah. And so, you know, looking back now, that's not the exact way you should be thinking about it. That type of person in the role should be thinking about what is the most accurate best way to get this done and then think about, okay, do I need to go to the client, get things signed? What is the way to set them up? The best way? And so I was calling TD Ameritrade as much as I could to try to just like finangle and push things, try to bypass it every single time. And I was successful on a few things, but not everything.

Yeah.

And so later that, that summer of 2022, so a few months after I was hired or probably half a year, my role switched and I actually kept client service. But I dropped the pair planning side. Yep. Added the investment side as well as the data side. So my technical role was, or my title was investment reporting manager. That quickly, that title quickly faded because later that year, Right. We hired an ocio, Townsquare Capital and then track that advisor, you guys, for all of our data analytics. Advisor analytics. And so half of my role just is gone. And I'm like, okay, well a good.

Thing on one hand. You're like, okay, this is awesome. There's an outsourced company. But then also a little bit nerve wracking on one hand because it's like, okay, 50% of my job just went away. Is there still a spot for me? Like what do I do now? Is it something I'm going to enjoy? Because if that's what you enjoy, that's a tough, tough, tough sell to keep going.

Right, Exactly. And so that my role evolved a little bit. I was then the liaison between Fiat and TownSquare Capital or OCIO. So I headed the relationship there and all the investment strategies, submitting paperwork, you know, kind of led that relationship. And then in 2022 we were also becoming independent. So we were standing up our, our previous RIA.

Yeah.

If you also remember, in 2022 the market was bad.

Yeah.

And so we had, it was just a whirlwind coming our way. Yep. And so we also decided that we spent, I can't even tell you how much money we, we spent on trying to make Salesforce work. But we had Salesforce at the time.

Yeah.

And we, you know, we spent ton of money on One consultant didn't get anything out of it. Second consultant didn't get anything out of it. We explained it as like they give you a, you know, A box to build of Legos, to build the Death Star without instructions. Right, yeah.

Which on that note, we actually just launched a solution for that to build out customized Salesforces because of this whole reason, it's like, gosh, we already know how to do it and now we can put it in Salesforce. So we would have saved you a ton of money.

Yeah.

It wasn't the right time. It wasn't the right time. And that's okay. You learned a lot.

It wasn't. It wasn't. And the bad thing is, is that eventually, like, we're gonna have to go back to something like that. We were just like, okay, we need this to work. So we're also going through that. And so I was heading up that. We switched from Salesforce to two different CRMs. We have a sales CRM Pipedrive and a client servicing CRM Wealthbox. And the only way one moves from the other is if they say yes. And so we had that all automated and set up and that's what we still have today. And it works great. I wouldn't recommend doing that in a down year though. That was. That was taxing. So investment reporting manager for majority of. From half of 2022 to the first half of 2023. In the, in 2023, I believe it was, I got the new title of business development director or director of business development. My job description didn't change, but my title did because it had evolved to, you know, I wasn't really. I was still heading the town square relationship, but now I was doing a lot on the data side. I was doing a lot on the tech side. I was doing a lot on the sales process side. You know, kind of like a jack of all trades type of role. And so investment and reporting manager didn't really fit much anymore. And so we needed an all encompassing title. You know, I call it a loaded title because I feel like for business development you can pretty much toss anything under that and that's what they do. And so that's really how I evolved from Internet to today. At the beginning of 2025, my roles shifted a little bit. Now I am the sales manager. So I oversee, you know, some of the advisors, the process of how a prospect becomes a client as well as like still the tech and a lot of the data analytics and I run the. The track. That advisor relationship.

Yeah. Do you like that though? Do you find that it fits more your personality versus the paperwork side of things, like as a parent planner?

Yes. Okay.

Okay. I was gonna say it feels like You're a lot happier, a lot better.

Yeah, it is, it is much better. The first thing Brad told me when he gave me this, you know, these new responsibilities is he's like, it's gonna be boring. He goes, you're gonna be very bored because you're gonna be looking at data, you're gonna be looking at the sales process. You know, you're still going to be, you know, helping out with the marketing side and kind of leading that, but, you know, it's going to be boring. So you need to be prepared for that. Because my job and my responsibilities change from check the box everyday tasks to now. The executive team has to trust that every dollar they're spending on me is getting recouped in the things that I'm doing. They don't have a way to track that. Right, because. Yeah, exactly. And so it became instead of a task oriented role, it became more of a strategic vision, sort of, you know, how do we plan for the future? Type of role.

Yeah, I feel like I'm very much in that role also. And it can be kind of daunting at times without those measurable KPIs, because I, and I'm sure you're this way too, are very like internal. So I constantly wake up and I'm like, am I doing this? Am I doing good enough? Right? Am I putting in enough effort for the firm? And I'm, am I, you know, leading this team the best that I possibly can? Am I making good decisions? And that's tough when you don't have a measurable aspect to it. Yes, you can look at the company as a whole and be like, it grew. You know, we're seeing success and, and Fiat's absolutely seen that in so many ways. But it's hard to say, hey, this is a measurable KPI. But I do think like, as a leader, it's helpful for that executive team to have measurables regardless. Like, they need to wake up and say, okay, did I hit, you know, my 30% close rate? Is that what I wanted to do? You know, did I hit my stick rates, etc. So to have those is huge. But I feel like your position is a difficult one and I feel for you and I empathize with you, but it's also the most, I personally feel like it's the most fun. I'm with you. I'm not a box checker. And, and so many on our team are process oriented people and I love them for that because I am so not so it's like, you all need to work together and they need someone like you and I where it's like they can set the tone and the vision, but not necessarily do the detailed outlines. But I love it.

Right. I'm it. It's been explained to me as I'm like one of the only person on the staff team that should be a hunting advisor. But I think it's very important to have those type of personalities on the staff side. Right. Because. And we'll probably get into this a little later, but like, when you think about staff of most offices, right. It's. It's client service, it's paraplanning. It's. It's those sort of things. There's a little bit of a division between the advisors and the staff. Right?

Yeah.

The staff or the advisors don't understand why things can't, you know, for example, get done quickly or get done in an easy way and all that kind of stuff. And the staff, you know, are like, well, why can't the advisor just explain this and why can't they do this for me and help me with that to get this done in a better way? Yeah. And so I'm sure we'll touch on. On that a little later. But I kind of. I help liaison that a little bit too.

The translator. Yeah. And the actual communicator of. Hey, this is why I feel like. That's a good question. We'll touch on that. But it's more. Why do you think that divide is? Is it just more because the advisors so in the role of sales and focus and doing what they need to do. And then I feel like the back office are. I love advisors. I never want to say I don't, but I feel like the back office is always my heart. Like they're such the heroes of office because yes, the advisors are the pulse and the heartbeat of it, but at the end of the day, you still need the limbs of the body to be successful as well. And I feel like that's what back office does. And the joy of it is. I do see so, so many advisors appreciate their back office and love their back office. And they have these great firms, but they don't know how to communicate that. So what would you say to an advisor that maybe doesn't have someone in your role and you would just give them advice on how to communicate to their teams.

Yeah. In another way to put it, it's like a doctor, nurse relationship. Right. The nurses are the heroes. They're the ones doing all the work. The doctor comes in and you Know, they prescribe the medicine and just, you know, send them on their way. Right. It's kind of the same, you know, relationship. I think where the divide comes is a lack of knowledge of and you know, I hate to say this, but a little bit of a lack of respect for what each one does. One thing we're, we're doing at Fiat, we haven't done this in the past, but for every new employee that we onboard, they have to sit with every department in the company. So whether that's the servicing advisors delineate between servicing and hunting advisors, the servicing advisors, the hunting advisors, the paraplanners, the marketing team and the client service team, they have to sit in every area because not only are they going to figure out what they don't want to do, they're going to figure out or they're going to, they're going to figure out and realize and gain a respect for what they do do because they really just, they aren't that type of person. And that goes into the, the way like we hire people here at Fiat, we hire for a culture, personality, you know, work ethic first. Right. And I think a lot of companies do that, but we also, then you know, secondly, if you think about it as a priority, like we hire them qualifications, right? There's a lot of things you can teach a lot of people these things if they're the right person. And so I think sitting down, if they don't have somebody in my role to kind of speak both languages who have done. I haven't been an advisor, but I'm more on that side, more attitude wise. If they don't have a liaison, I think having the advisor team sit down with the client service team and really gain an understanding for what they do and vice versa, having the client service team sit in on visits, they gain an understanding that, you know, these advisors have to have hard conversations with people. A lot of it, you know, a lot of the things that we see for advisors, we celebrate, right? They got to win, they're, they're doing well, their KPIs are great. A lot of what we don't see are very hard conversations and the, the, you know, meeting with people day after day and getting rejected, you know, that's a lot. That's a lot. And so, you know, both, both areas, right. Can gain respect from each other. And so I think that's the best way for that, you know, to have a better communication and cohesiveness to that relationship.

Yeah, I think that's huge. I also hear you say you know, you hire for the soul, not the role necessarily. And I think we adopt that as well. It's what is going to fit into our culture first and foremost because that's a protective aspect of it. Then also they obviously do have to be qualified. Right. Like I can't go hire someone that's totally unqualified and doesn't want to be there. That doesn't work. But it's someone for the soul for sure. And I think that's huge. I think any advisor also, it's so true. Like as much as they do have the wins and there is so much celebration and we get to go to a lot of these events and see the joys and see the celebrations, we don't see the losses. And they're are a lot of losses. As much as I hate to say that, like that's just the nature of the business. We often speak about industry standards. That's a 30% close. So for every three that you win, you are getting rejected by seven others potentially. Like that's, that's hard, you know, and that does take a role. So I do think there's, you know, yes, the service processing side, that's a lot of doing the work, paperwork, all of that. But there is a lot of the toll emotional side for the advisors. So it's, it's the high. You have to have a certain personality. I really do have such a respect for advisors and like you have to just be able to go in and be like, you know what, it's all good at the end of the day.

Like that's exactly. Yeah, you just have to, you have to have a short term mind. Like, yeah, you have to be a little bit goldfish.

Like, man, that kind of sucked. But I got another meeting in 10 minutes so I'm gonna keep going, you know. And the one thing you do get to serve is who you get to serve and that's huge. So you talk a lot about kind of the departments we focus more on like you know, the advisor side and you know, the, the process inside. How does fiat do, you know, ensure a cohesive approach to client service? Because if it's like, if there is no connection really between the advisor and the client service side, there might be some lack there where the client actually gets to feel that kind of missing link. So how does fiat ensure that at the end of the day all departments are cohesive? Yes. Like they, so someone comes in and they're onboarding, they sit in with all of these processes but then it's like not a One and done, I imagine. So are there anything that you build in within fiat that's like cool. Now this is our next step to ensure that the cohesive brand together all working toward the same goal.

Yeah, that goes in. I've got two parts there. The first, the first one is our process. Right. And so process is not only for gaining clients, it's also for how do you onboard clients and also educate them on their plan. Big part there that we should be touching on in this section is the onboarding side. Right. What does our process look like from when somebody says yes to completely onboard? Who, who's heading that? Right. Because in every, in every action item, right, you have to have a quarterback. You got to have somebody to say, okay, and that's typically who is going to be telling like the client, okay, here's what you need to do. Here's, here's what they are going to do. All right, ready, Break. Let's go. You know, let's go do it. And so that's really how we've created our onboarding process is we have, you know, one, we have a process and two, we have identified jobs within that process that everybody has to complete. And whose responsibility is it to gain or gather the client information? Right. If we don't already have it, whose responsibility is it to to draft the paperwork and send the paperwork? Whose responsibility is it to communicate if you know we're having trouble with them signing something? Who's. Whose responsibility is it to hop on a zoom call with them? You know, all of that is written down in an SOP somewhere. I couldn't tell you where it is, but it's all written down. Yeah, yeah, that's.

There's a folder identified. I'm like, that's amazing. Can you just.

Yeah, well, funny, funny little side note, there we go. You know, a big initiative of ours was creating SOPs for everything.

Yeah.

And so as a non process oriented box checker person, I just spoke into chat GPT 100% love it. I love it. And it created all, it created all my SOPs. But anyway, we have a defined job for everybody who's involved with the onboarding process. And so that's one part of, you know, the client service that is, I believe it's the most important part because it's their first impression. All of this stuff the advisor has been, you know, pitching them and telling them that we're going to be able to do, this is their real first interaction with. Okay, this is their first impression with is what we told them actually true. Like, is it. Is the stuff that we told them in the visits actually gonna. Actually going to happen and actually going to become true? That first impression from the client service team and them actually becoming a client is very important. Okay, so I put that one first. The second one is ongoing advisor communication. Right. Again, we have our ongoing client service. So we have all of these SOPs laid out of whose job and whose responsibility it is to do what. And so whether it's a distribution task, whether it's a, you know, additional asset in transfer, changing beneficiaries, all of that we have defined. A defined task is what. Is, what does the advisor need to ask for if we're going to be doing one of those? And what does the client service team need to do in order to complete that?

Yep, yep. I think that's such a key thing of a successful office is defined responsibilities. And I cannot preach that enough. If you do not have defined responsibilities for the people that you serve and are under you, it's just chaos. You have to be able to define those roles. And everybody has. And yes, there are times where people are going to jump in, right. And pitch in and it's like, oh, gosh, someone's sick or they're out on vacation. We all can work together for that. But at the end of the day, having clear defined roles is a massive thing for people. So I think that's huge. And especially when you have other departments, you know, it's like, gosh, we don't. You've grown now to a level where it isn't just, you know, there's six people in the office that I can go tap on Ashley's door and be like, hey, you know, this is what we're figuring out today. It's more, you know, it's more logistical than that at this point. So you kind of mentioned that education side. I'm sorry, did you want to say something else on that?

Well, I was just going to mention one last thing, which is over communication and actively preaching that within the, you know, internally. Right, yeah. You don't want to over. Over communicating with a client. Depends on how, like, depends on who the client is and all that kind of stuff. Right. It can go both ways. It could go like, man, they're really on top of this stuff, or, you know, they don't have their stuff. Why do they. Yeah, why do they keep coming back to me for this stuff? And so we preach that we want to go to the client with exactly what we need the first time and then tell them the next communication. Hey, it's solved, right? Yeah, that's the ideal scenario. So internally we like to over communicate on things. So whether it's, you know, the client's service doesn't have everything they need, or the advisor needs additional info to tell the client what's going on, all of that kind of stuff, we like to over communicate it. And we've also created a little bit of culture in Slack. And so with that over communication, we're very, very like a laid back type of company. Like a lot of us. And so we'll, we'll make, you know, this might be bad to say, but we'll throw fun at each other. Like, yeah, we'll throw, we'll throw GIFs or memes or, or you know, kind of like we'll make it fun. Right. Because the best way to get something done and to, you know, complete a goal is to make it fun along the way. Yeah, I forgot who said that. But, but yeah, I would say that's the last point and making sure that the client doesn't feel the headache that might be behind the curtain of the office. Right. If the client were to pull back the curtain sometimes they'd see like, like just chaos. Right. Yeah, it can happen. We, we've gotten it pretty nailed down and so the client doesn't feel any of that.

Yeah, I think it's, there's joy in work though. I feel like this so often. It doesn't have to be serious all the time. And I, I feel like, yes, because our roles are very much more strategic and vision that we tend to have to play on the more serious time side. But at the end of the day, you're a team working together and I want to work with friends, not just with colleagues. And I feel like that is a huge thing I feel at your firm Fiat especially, I mean all of you, Brad, Ashley, everybody in this group, it's like, gosh, you do feel that vibe from all of you. And it's joy and it's fun and it's a beautiful relationship for all of us. And it's, it's, I would say never move away from the fun. Like if someone doesn't fit in that culture, then they're not the right fit. You know, if you can't handle a little poking fun, not have survived in my family. That's for danger.

Yeah, exactly.

Oh man. But it's, I mean, I think it's so helpful and I know you kind of touched also on like the education side for clients. So not only like the education side of you Know, making sure everybody in your office is, is up to date and par. On par with everything going on in the industry. But how do you, can you kind of discuss a little bit about the educational programs you guys have put into play and kind of the journey, how those have evolved?

Yeah. So two parts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So two parts there. We, we first educate. If client says yes. Right. We first educate them on our industry, all the products in our industry, and every, everything about the plan that we're going to build them as we're building the plan with them. Right. Because I think a big thing that we used to be able to say is in 2022 we had, I don't know, two clients reach out or no, sorry, in 2020 we had two clients reach out. Right. During the COVID drop. Yeah. And I think one of them was market related. The other one, the other one just reached out to us and said, hey, how you guys feeling?

Yeah, yeah. You're like, well, how are you feeling?

And I think a big part of that is what we educated them on, why their plan was built the way we built it and how it's structurally sound to, you know, shine on the brightest of days on the best of markets, but also weather the storm of bad markets. Yeah, right. And so we, that's how we build plans and that's how we educate people and we tell them not only what we're going to do, but the why behind it.

Yeah.

The continuing education that we do also, I think is very big. And so once somebody becomes a client, they have that education on how their plan works and how it operates. We, we do bi weekly podcasts, we do weekly blogs, we do inner circle workshops which are, you know, they're not for the general public. Those are just for people that either attended our workshops or, or who are clients of fiat. Yeah, those are rotating topics. And so we'll hit anything from Medicare to the psychology of retiring. Because a big thing for retirees is they've spent their whole lives saving and saving and saving their money. Now, now they're not working for any their money anymore. Their wealth has to work for them or their money needs to work for them to generate a paycheck. And so we focus a lot on like psychology, like in your head, how does that affect somebody? Right. Because it can be a big, it can be a big shift from going from working for your money and having that satisfaction knowing that. Okay. Or that security knowing that I'm going to be okay. If I keep working hard, I'm going to receive a Paycheck, Right? That's the mindset they get into versus now they're going into. I'm not working anymore. Like, yeah, this is, this is a.

Little nervous account and it's not growing. And this is it, you know, so how are we gonna make it? And you can't blame them. I think that's a mentality. I mean, think about for the last 50 some years, you know what I mean? That's what they've done, you know, that's all that they've known is work and then earn and that's it. So it's like a retraining of the mind, I find, to teach them.

Exactly, exactly. And it's a new, it's a new thing for modern retirees because their parents, their parents either didn't retire or had a pension. Right. And so the pension, the pension is, you know, it's pretty much an annuity. Right. They don't see how much is in there. They just know, right. The money's just going to come month after month. Right. It's Social Security. It's an additional guaranteed income source. And so now that this has shifted to IRAs and 401ks and you see the balance every single day, you're like, man, I just lost, you know, 5%. I just lost 50 grand, you know, in the last month. Yeah, man, that, that's terrible. Versus if they had a pension, their pension could have lost five or 50 grand. They're not going to know because they're just getting the paycheck. So it's a, it's an interesting thing. So those are most of the education. We also do some referral slash education events. We call them wine and wisdoms. I think Erica actually told us to do that.

She did, yeah.

One of, one of the best things we've. From an education and referral standpoint, we've deployed, I mean, huge. Yeah, yeah. And so a lot of those are about the market. And especially recently with all the, you know, turmoil we've had in it and the tariffs and all that. So a lot of those have been market based. But we'll also do like the rule, you know, the 4% rule or anything to kind of generate education and generate interest with some of these prospects. And also clients, oftentimes, oftentimes our advisors would be like, hey, you, you hit on this really hard. And now my client wants to do it. Like, yeah, like that's great. And so it's great on both ends. And so I believe as much as you can get in front of your client, and educate them and continue to educate them. They are, you know, this is gonna be. I don't know if it's gonna be good or bad to say, but they're not gonna reach out as much. Right. Especially in market downturns and especially, you know, good markets. Good markets, people don't reach out. They're just enjoying making money. Bad markets are stagnant markets. People are kind of reaching out, like, hey, what's going on here? But if you're continually educating them and updating them on, you know, these inner circle workshops, blogs, podcasts, radio, etc. Right. They are. They feel a lot more comfortable. And that's our goal, is that, you know, take the fear out of retiring or take the fear out of spending their money in retirement. Ideally, we, you know, we want to set them up for success and not have to talk to them every day and talk them off the ledge of getting out of the market. Right. We've done our job correctly. If they're not reaching out to us about that.

Yeah, yeah. I find that that's a really hard balance for a lot of firms. It's like, is it over communication? Again, we kind of touched on this a bit. But where they're almost like too knowledgeable, where they get fearful, or is there. There's no communication and they have no idea what's happening. There's a very fine balance. And I do think fiat does that extremely well. I think that was also highlighted when only two people reached out over Covid. You're educating them, you're telling them that's a scary thing. That's not normal. You know what I mean? How do we go through this? And that's hopefully never going to happen again, where you have to recreate that plan. But I also think that they become stickier. Right. And they're more susceptible to or more off, like to stay. They're going to sit with you because they know I'm not going to get this education elsewhere. And then in turn, they're going to bring a referral which is going to be your one, your cheapest marketing source possible is going to be referrals. And they tend to close a lot higher, They're a lot stickier, and they're great, you know, they're great marketing candidates. So I think at the end of the day, I think what you're doing is huge and education is. Is massive. And when you want that, I think if you and I were retiring and like, I'm over here going, I love knowledge. I think knowledge is power. I think it's if you're not growing in some type of knowledge daily, whether that's, you know, spiritual or business or entrepreneur, or if you're in a season of fatherhood or motherhood, if you're not growing daily, that's a difficult task. You're. You're stagnant. And for me, that's the scariest thing. It's. If you're not growing your clients to become more evolved and educated, they're just this pile of. They're just going to sit there, you know what I mean? And they're just like, that's great. Like, educate them, teach them. Let's go beyond the norm of what we, you know, our due diligence as fiduciaries are. There's more to it.

Exactly. And even if. Even in the case that they don't do anything with it. Right. Let's just say they don't do anything with it.

Sure.

They find satisfaction in the fact that we are talking about it. And the fact that we are talking about it means that we're on it for them. And so they feel. They feel a sense of security that we're addressing, you know, the hard things. Maybe some other people, some other advisors may not want to address. They feel a sense of security in that. Know that. Okay. Like, these guys got it. Like, I may have. Concerned about that. They talked about it. I feel good.

At least they know general knowledge about. You know what I mean? Even if you didn't dive deep into it, sometimes you don't have to get into the weeds. You can kind of stick with the big forest trees. And you're like. But they know they're on it. And that's not, I always say, too, it's like a doctor versus a plumber versus a financial advisor. I'm not a financial advisor, so I'm going to call a financial advisor. I'm not a plumber. I'm going to call a plumber. Like, I don't need to know everything. I need to know the basics of some stuff, but I don't need to know everything. That's a key detail. So you got to talk a little bit too about, you know, the education side and how that's really bringing them comfort with, what are some of the changes you've seen in the wealth management side in the industry over the recent years? I mean, obviously with COVID that was kind of a massive thing, but have you seen just in the wealth industry itself, some big changes and maybe not necessarily educating clients, but educating your firm and your teammates on how to make those changes. Kind of walk us through some of that, what you've seen.

Yeah. The motto we have at Fiat is everything's up for grabs. Like, anything can be changed.

I love it.

Except the colors. Black and yellow. Brad's a big Iowa Hawkeye fan.

Okay.

I was gonna ask.

Yes. And then I read his bio and we had him on the podcast. He was one of the first ones. So shout out to.

He's even. He's even down to change the name if. If there's something better we can do, like, from a naming standpoint, he'd be up to it. The colors, though, have to have gone.

To school in Iowa. I understand the just diehardedness and love that the Iowan people have, and I'm here for it. I love passion.

Yeah.

You guys go.

And I wouldn't even say, you know, change is a big. It's a scary word. Right. People don't like change. Some of it can be a complete overhaul. Right. The majority of it is refinement. It's little things that we can do and having that attitude of always asking the question, what can we be doing better?

100%.

So what I see from how the industry has changed since I was an intern here is like, it's got to be fintech. It is. You just recently, I mean, you look up how many AI note takers there are. I mean, I couldn't even count and I couldn't even tell you how many demos I have with different AI notetakers that all did the same exact thing. Right. You know, AI.

Okay, okay. That's a new one.

Our. Yeah, our. Our imo Signal advisors is, you know, making their own note taker. Wealthbox is making a note taker. Pretty sure Schwab talked about making a note taker. I mean, everybody, like, it's like, I.

Feel like it's now it's like, oh, I have a note taker. I'm like, that's awesome.

But I feel like it's also one of the easiest things to make from an AI standpoint because you basically just run the transcript through ChatGPT and then give it a summary. Right?

Yeah.

And so, and so that's one thing is the fintech. Brad and I make it like one of our missions to hop on as many demo calls as we can with different, you know, provide service providers from a tech standpoint. Right. Whether it's data lake companies, AI note takers, planning softwares, all. All of these different things. Right. We want to. What is the. The greatest out there and is There anything that this could add on to and bolt onto what we're currently doing at Fiat or replace. So I would say from a change standpoint, that's been the biggest thing. I think another big thing has been the, the movement from big wirehouses, the clients that move from big wirehouses to independent shops. Right. That's been, I think Kits has did a report on this. McKinsey might have done a report on this. There are, there's been a big shift from wirehouses to independent financial advisors because most of the big wirehouses won't do planning. They just do investment management or investment advice or just have investment advisors.

So people want a well rounded, holistic approach now. They want the whole planning, not just, you know, great, here's my money.

Yeah, exactly. So those have been, I would say, the biggest shifts I've seen.

I think it also shows the heart of Fiat especially that you guys are constantly trying to evolve. You're not scared of change, you're embracing it and going, great, this is going to be here. Because I do feel like people tend to fall into very different camps. Either they embrace the fintech and they're like 100% all in, or they have a little bit of ignorance to it and just say it doesn't exist. Right. It's not there. And you can utilize so much of this fintech into your firm to help it evolve and help it change and help it be streamlined. I mean, we've even developed more of an AI tech where it's like, now we're launching next week a program that you can dive into a resource center and say, what's the average key size for advisors Last year, what was the highest marketing roi? It's like giving education through AI. And if you don't have the ability to adapt, you're going to be left behind. And I hate to say that because I was so not a fan of AI or of anything for so long. And I feel like I finally came to my senses and it has been a game changer and I don't think it's going to take over. I say this every single podcast. Genuine human connection will be the new currency in business. It is just what it is. People will highlight very quickly if they know you're using chat GPT as your main source of your personality. It's not. It is a tool, it is amazing, but it is not going to like, overshadow humanness. You know, I just don't think that's how it's intended to be by any means.

But no, I totally Agree. And it's the old saying of like innovate or die. Right. You have to innovate and move with the times or else you're just gonna be left behind. And I totally agree with you. AI is a tool. It's not a final solution. Right. It is a tool to help the individual, the advisor, the human be more efficient and help them in their processes. Right. I don't think it's a solution. That might be a personal opinion, but I don't. There's some people out there who live and breathe chat GPT and I use it a lot. But yeah, you know, writing emails and all that kind of stuff. Unless it's a pretty heavy email. Yeah. It's the personal connection. That's why people are coming to independent shops like Fiat versus a Fidelity or a Charles Schwab or a big wirehouse is because they want that personal connection, they want that relationship and they want to know that, you know, they want to know the person behind their entire nest egg. Because health is the most important thing to somebody. Right. The next most important thing to them is money.

Yeah.

So who's handling that for them and their livelihood?

I mean, it's huge and I can't.

Blame them for that.

I wish there are other priorities. At the end of the day, it's also taking care of, you know, your family and your. The people you're responsible for and yourself. So I love it. I've learned so much. But kind of last question. How we wrap up every Advisor Summit podcast is where are you trucking? Are you this year personally or professionally? Kind of a big goal for this year. On our last podcast, someone said they were doing this massive Ironman, so no pressure or anything, you know. So any, any goals you want to accomplish this year? So I'm not an iron man, so I don't. My standard is much lower.

Yeah, it's not an Ironman, but we are doing a marathon as a team.

I love it.

The Twin Cities Marathon for charity. It's through world vision and I believe it's for water for kids in Africa. And you know, just we're. I can't. I honestly can't remember the exacts around it, but the marathon is in October.

Okay.

And I haven't started training yet, so you've got time.

You got time.

I, I know.

Big marathoner, so if you need any advice. Oh yeah, she's amazing. She just did like a 50k or something. I mean like an all day trail. I mean this was a trail like mountain. So if you need advice Erica Paul is the person to go to for sure.

Yeah. And I used to be a runner all throughout, you know, middle school, high school, college. I ran track and cross country. Right. Yeah. And so I'm used to running. Another one of my goals is like just to get back into it, get back into the habit of working out and running and all that kind of stuff. Because I do think it has a ton of benefits to, you know, you, you want to work on yourself professionally, but the most important thing that you can invest in is yourself. And so working out, doing those things not only will help you personally, but will overlap or overflow into your professional life. I truly believe.

I don't know if you listen to Dan Martell at all. I'm a big fan. He always says, train the mind. Train the body or train the body, team the mind. Like, the more you can train your body, you can actually tame your mind. And it's. If you cannot physically take care of yourself, you cannot be as sharp as possible. You know, in business, like that kind of mental capacity, capacity just opens up very transparently. And it's not to say that people that don't, you know, aren't in good health aren't great business owners. They are. But I do feel like there's a evident data driven research that, like, if you can be, you know, very diligent and working hard and being, you know, as healthy as possible, that you're going to show up for the people that you serve and the people that you, you know, help, even within your firm. So I love it. Well, yeah, good luck on the marathon. I'm rooting for. Yeah, I think that's awesome as a team. So I'll have to give this idea.

Yeah, it's, it, it's, it's great. It's, it's gonna be fun. We've got, I think we have seven people from both the wealth management and the tax side, so that's gonna be a ton of fun. The professional goals, right. Where am I going to be a year? You know, Ashley calls it a year. Three years, five year. Like, what's, what's my outlook? This goes back to, you know, the first question you asked me is tell me your fiat story.

Yeah.

My job has changed every single year and sometimes during the year it changes. And so, you know, the type of person I am. I feel like I'm on a roller coaster with a blindfold on. Right. I don't know what, like, what turns coming. I don't know if a loop de loop's coming. I have no idea what's coming. Right. But I love it. I'm all here for it. That's the way I operate. I, I, I would get bored if I knew exactly what I'm going to be doing in five years or in three years. And so that I love it. I mean that's, I think that's very important for anybody who's actually interested in the business development side. If you're growing company, you have to be able to adapt and change and, and be, you know, accepting of that.

So yeah, yeah, I think the openness minded is what's so critical in this role for anybody coming into this. I mean it's, it's open mindedness and just understanding change is going to happen and your adaptability is going to be a key factor in how you, how you earn that role and how you succeed in it, truly. So.

Yeah.

Well, Cooper, thank you, thank you, thank you for coming on. It's always a joy to speak with anyone from Fiat. Maybe I'll tap after next week for sure. And I've had you and Brad, so we'll bring Ashley on too. But you guys are just a joy to learn from and I just have taken so much away, especially just the keys of educating clients. I think that was a huge takeaway for anybody listening. It's figure out a way to educate your clients well and that's meaningful to you, that works with your firm because not every firm is going to be similar, but there is a, there is kind of a key factor in educating. So we appreciate you, Cooper. Thank you again. See you later, man.

Thank you, Molly. I appreciate it.