Jessica Douieb: How to Get Wealthy Clients the Expert Help They Need

This podcast is brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking, and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra-high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more at joinwfadvisors.com.

Welcome to Barron's The Way Forward. I'm Greg Bartalis, and my special guest is Jessica Duyeb, Managing Director and Head of Wealth Partners at JPMorgan Wealth Management. Today she will discuss how advisors can most effectively leverage their network of connections to help clients. Welcome to the podcast, Jessica.

Thank you so much, Greg. Thanks for having me.

Tell us a little about yourself and, uh, and your current position, uh, and then let's tackle the topic.

Absolutely, so let's, depends how far back you like to go, Greg, but I grew up in sunny South Florida. I went to Georgetown University, absolutely love Washington, D.C. I thought I wanted to go into the world of public service when in fact, some mentors of mine brought me to the financial services industry. And so, literally right out of Georgetown undergraduate, I went straight into the financial services industry, got my start in investment banking. I was out in Hong Kong for 2 years. I was in then asset management where I focused a good chunk of time in private equity and institutional asset management. I was in London for 5 years, and now I've been in New York for 17 years, so I'm officially a New Yorker, um, and absolutely love it. And, uh, I have been at JPMorgan for just over 3 years. I oversee our ultra-high-net-worth strategy for JPMorgan Wealth Management, which I'm happy to go into more detail about if you'd like.

Sure, tell us a little about—

Yeah, absolutely. So, To start, I would say thinking about the high net worth, ultra high net worth segment is a special one because to be honest, there's a lot that's pretty unique in terms of what their needs are. And so I basically have, I think, one of my favorite jobs where I wake up every day just thinking about what are the unique needs of the ultra high net worth and how can we really be differentiated in serving that segment in particular. All of it is so incredibly unique and customized because, well, all of our You know, needs are unique to begin with, but that segment in particular, I think, poses a lot of, you know, sort of interesting opportunities. And so I basically wake up, as my team does, thinking about that day in and day out.

Yeah, and I imagine kind of goes with high risk, high reward. So there's a lot of reward, but they're going to be quite exacting and demanding too.

100%.

Yeah, and I'd imagine that over time, this is also changing too. It's never fixed, whatever they want.

Constantly evolving. And that's the fun of it, because I really say, you know, we wake up every day being creative problem solvers, right? And that's the real fun of it. So I wake up and I have no idea what a client might come to us with or an advisor might come to us with and say, you know, I need help with XYZ. And I know we're gonna get into that in a minute, but that's really the fun of it is thinking about how best can we really partner with our clients for the long haul and specifically the high net worth and ultra high net worth.

People will often have like referrals to the traditional things like, oh, give me, help me with a lawyer, an accountant or what have you. But for a lot of these clients, what they want and need can be quite different, right? And you're going to wear a creative hat. And tell me more about that.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, what's interesting is we've seen the trends, at least in the last 10-plus years, over a decade, that we've seen in the wealth management space where we have to go well beyond investment portfolio and classic wealth management. First of all, that's the bread and butter of what we do. So let's just be clear, that's absolutely the first reason why a client might, might knock on our door, but that's not where the relationship happens, right? And so, yes, it starts with the core of wealth management, but it has to go deeper. It has to go much more beyond that. And so we use the word, or the word in the industry that has been around for quite some time is holistic. But what we really mean by that is how comprehensive can we be and should we be, quite frankly, as a financial services organization to really build the relationship in a deep way such that it's multigenerational in length. And this is where this evolution of wealth management, this is where we've really seen this sort of commoditized, you know, fee compression in portfolio management. Really, you know, we sort of scratch our heads to say, well, how do we adjust in that environment to say, how do we deepen the relationships? How do we make them longer term? Again, multigenerational in nature.

And while differentiating yourself from others who are trying to do that. That's a big mandate. Huge. So what do you, tell me more about that process. What's the state of play today? How is that playing out? What's effective? What are clients asking for, etc.?

Yeah, so I always start by saying, and you know, when I spend a lot of time with our top advisors, that is what I do day in and day out. And I partner with them thinking through what are the best ways to be creative in helping our clients with various solutions, strategies, and, you know, opportunities. And more often than not, you know, the first question I ask them is, what are your client's priorities? Or you can ask the question in so many different ways. And I could ask you the question like, Greg, what keeps you up at night? Have you asked your client that? And do you really know what they're prioritizing? And when I say prioritizing, then you got to get the timeframe in order. So it's like, what am I prioritizing this month, in the next 6 months, the year, 3 years, 5 years? All very different. So I think really, you know, again, asking our clients these questions are so critical because then I always say to them, you know, we're all active listeners, right? So it's like, let's ask the hard questions. What keeps you up at night? What are your biggest priorities? What do you— what worries you, right? Once you hear that, then— and being really active listeners, then you get all of the creative piece of it. So let's use an example. Like, more often than not, when I talk to clients and they say, you know, I'm really— what keeps me up at night is my family. It's usually my children or their children. And the list goes on and on. Health, childcare, you know, building a new home, whatever it might be, that's what keeps them up at night. And that's where we need to be a resource.

Tell me about this leveraging connections or people in your Rolodex, if you will.

I love that you use that word.

Yeah, I mean, I was showing my age, right?

Yeah.

But like, Tell me about that. And to what extent is there inertia where some people don't even go there and they just think maybe rigidly of like lawyers, accountants, but in reality we're all like one phone call or one email away from someone who could be of great service to a client.

Totally. Exactly. It's well shorter, much shorter than the 6 degrees of separation, as we all know.

Right.

So, um, your, your Rolodex, let's, let's go to the Rolodex. Cause I will date ourselves anyways, but the, you know, the old school was like, let me go in my Rolodex. You, you know, let's say you asked me a question. Hey, do you just, you know, a good so-and-so to help me with XYZ? Same thing with all of our clients. Clients. And so we each have our own Rolodex, right? You've got yours, I've got mine. And if we pooled them together, they would be ever more powerful. So what we've created at JPMorgan Wealth Management is essentially how do we extend the JPMorgan network to our clients? And the way we think about that, it's quite powerful, right? Because at the end of the day, You know, we're, we're better in numbers, to be honest, right, in terms of like leveraging all of these different areas of expertise. And while the accountants and the lawyers are absolutely critical and there's great recommendations that we can provide, it's usually in the categories like cybersecurity, private aviation, healthcare. And healthcare is a most broad— I mean, cyber and healthcare are huge, just very, very broad, broad topics. It can go in a variety of very emotional directions. Education advisory, bill pay, you name it. I, the list goes on and on. So what we've created is what we consider an introductory platform of curating sort of the best of the best. So I joke with the Rolodex concept is, you know, we work with our advisors to formalize and sort of almost in a way de-risk the idea of I got a guy who knows a guy, right, from your Rolodex and make it a little bit more formal. So there's a bit of an assessment that we that we do for some of these providers. We keep the list very, very short. We do an assessment of how good they are in their track record of expertise. Again, whether they are a cyber provider or a private aviation company or whatever it might be. And then there's the ad hoc requests that come in. So we have curated categories where we have a whole set of providers well beyond the accountant and the lawyers who we love. And then there's the ad hoc requests that come in, which is why I always tell our advisors to be active listeners, because that's when you can say, oh, well, you know, maybe we can suggest one or two others. And, you know, people are usually like, great, I didn't, you know, I didn't know. And the secret, the sort of secret sauce of all of it is when a client comes back to us and says, oh my gosh, I didn't know JPMorgan can help me with that. That's a surprise and delight. That's our version of surprise and delight, which again goes well beyond the traditional referral.

Right, and I can imagine that a lot of people don't even think to ask because in their minds there's no chance you even offer it, so they don't even ask.

Yeah, correct. Exactly right.

What are some interesting ad hoc requests, if you can think of any off the top of your head?

Yeah, there's, um, so everything that I just mentioned in that category, uh, in those varying categories, um, are topics that come up regularly. So in our curated categories, the way we essentially, the way we curate the categories is by sheer number of requests or of sort of inquiries that come in where we're like, "Oh, we should probably spend a little bit more time on this category because it's coming up more often than not." So those are some of the categories that I mentioned before. But even within those categories, you can get a little bit specialized. I will say elder care, for better or for worse, is an area that we all need to often spend time on, and that's an area that we get a considerable amount of requests We get curate— sorry, non-curated categories that we get could be things like how do we make sure there's the security around art and collectibles, or like fine jewelry that, you know, again, like sort of your safe deposit box isn't gonna cut, but you need a vault or some sort of significant security there, through to, you know, I'm going on an amazing trip with my family, and, you know, I wanna bring my older parent, or the grandparent or the matriarch or the patriarch of the family, how do we make sure we do that with the utmost of care? So it can go in a variety of different directions. Oh, through to, by the way, I should say, into the security and cyber category, you know, people that, you know, want to build bunkers or, you know, all kinds of things, right? It can go in a very vast direction.

Are there any areas where you're seeing increased demand on a relative basis, absolute, and/or even waning demand are these needs relatively constant?

I would say the most demand that we see, unfortunately, is in cyber. And when I say cyber, it's a very broad category. It's everything from, you know, being quite prophylactic and just making sure that you've got great security within your home office or whatever it might be, through to, I've been a victim of identity theft and I don't know what to do, through to malware and so on and so forth. So the cyber category, unfortunately, and now we get into AI and, you know, fraud and, and voice recognition and all of these things. So the cyber category, unfortunately, has been high, continues to trend in a very high direction.

Yeah, and I mean, I gather that it will remain at the forefront because you also have demographic shifts of aging of society, people getting ever older, and the technology with AI, everything is getting just increasingly Helps people, you know, execute this, unfortunately.

Exactly. There are bad actors everywhere. All this technology is absolutely tremendous, and we love all of it, but it absolutely activates and enhances some of the bad actors out there. So cyber, unfortunately, is one that continues to be very high. The second category that continues to be a very demanded category is the private aviation category. Now, pre-COVID, there was normal activity. Then COVID happened, and then it was insane, like just just the sheer amount of private travel grew exponentially, and then you saw a lot of consolidation within the private aviation industry and so on and so forth. But also, you know, folks just figuring out ways to be more flexible with their travel. So it's everything from— and by the way, when I say private aviation, it's certainly, I want to fly private, which is just the start of, you know, whether it's, you know, the charter or the jet cards options. But then there are clients who are looking to purchase their own planes. And that is a very big sort of range of interests in the space. And so guiding clients through that is very important based on where they're at in their wealth, with their demographic, their, you know, sort of wealth accumulation phase and so on and so forth. I would say the third category, which is also very big, is obviously the healthcare category. And that's everything from, you know, getting second opinions through to elder care through to mental health and so on and so forth.

And when you have the curated list, list, let's say, for any given category? I don't know what the number is, but let's say the 5 that you might recommend, or as possible—

It's usually smaller. It's usually like 3.

Okay, 3, let's say. How does that work out then? So you say to the client, well, here, you know, these are 3 that we, you know, we heartily endorse. Do they then just do their own research and come back to you, or is that a separate session where you just kind of unpack?

Yeah, it's a great question. So it really depends on the client circumstance, the situation, and the advisor that we're working with. Usually the way it would It would be the advisor comes to my team and I and says, I've been chatting with my client and XYZ topic has come up and what resources do we have at JPMorgan? My team and I would go through either, you know, in the specific category, what are the options that are available? Some of the— let's call it this, say there's a list of 3. Some of the 3 might not even be, you know, let's say 1 or 2 out of the 3 might not even be necessary, right? So we could hone in depending really on what that client needs. But if the client says, oh, I'm curious, Greg, send me your list. Usually what we do is we sort of handhold an introduction. So it's an introduction, sometimes by the way, and this is probably the most important, is the advisor getting to know the provider. Because we want to make sure that the advisor feels comfortable suggesting the provider, because again, we've done great work on them, we know them, etc. And then it's time for the advisor to get to know them. And then we sort of chaperone an introductory meeting, and then more often than not, we step away away, right? That's then up to the client to decide to, you know, decides whether or not they want to move forward with that, you know, sort of provider and off they go.

Is there any general advice you would give to people, advisors who have clients, maybe not ultra-high net worth, but just in terms of tapping their networks or thinking about this more?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, first off, I would say, you know, as we all kind of, let's call it, cull the Rolodex, right? You sort of, you know, sort of look, look at where you have One, where you might be getting inquiries as, as an advisor, and two, where you feel super confident with like, let's call it 5 different people in your network where you're like, oh, time and time again, they always deliver great quality, they're reliable, and so on and so forth. Feel really good because again, at the extension of the advisor, I mean, it's their reputation on the line at the end of the day, right? Which is why That's why, you know, the trusted advisor is so critical. So, really culling through that list, making sure they feel really good about the quality of service that's being provided. And I, to be honest, I know there are, and this can be potentially controversial, but there are the situations with, you know, I scratch your back, you scratch mine, and referral fees and things like that. I would actually just focus on, I would move away from that as a focus. The program we've set up is just to the benefit of the client. Right? This isn't like— there's no incentive, right, other than to benefit the client, because the client will see through that, you know, immediately, right? So call that list, make sure you feel really, really good about that list, and then if and when things come in, it's easier to recommend, right? And then not only that, the follow-up is critical. So making sure that you know what that service was like. So what we do is we do these sort of quarterly, you know, sort of check-ins with our providers to say, okay, what's gone on? And there's no— there's certainly, there's no PPI that's transferred, there's no, you know, information that we're not allowed to share, but it's more like, what's the experience like? And then talking to the client, how's your experience been? And if the experience was fantastic, then it speaks for itself. And usually we don't even need to ask. Usually the client's just coming back saying, oh, Jess, this was fantastic. Again, thank you so much for helping me with this. I couldn't have done it without you. Like all of those things is what you want to hear. Then you know you've got the right set of curated providers.

Right, and you're again, you're expecting that positive feedback, but let's say 1 or 2 had a similar criticism where they maybe hesitated. You're like, hmm, we're learning something here. And you, so you learn something and you get points for doing the right thing and following up too.

Exactly. And the other piece is that there's no, you know, I'm not looking for exclusivity agreements. I'm not looking for any of that. You know why? Because I'm always looking at the quality of the provider. And quite frankly, there might be a situation where if we need to move away, it's okay. Like that, it's life. This is business, right? Business is business. And so having the opportunity opportunity to meet new providers, and we do day in and day out. And then the hard part is really being selective about the choices.

That's all been amazing and very helpful information. I think we're about to wrap up unless there's anything, any final words, anything you'd like to add?

You know, I would say the piece that I would hone as a, you know, people always talk about the success of the advisor and, you know, does this contribute to the success of the advisor, etc. And I would say we're not focused on the success of the advisor. We're focused on the success of the relationship, right? All of this is relationship. So it is building that trust. And so all of this is just an extension of what they're, they're already doing. They're already doing great work as the portfolio manager and investment professional for that client's portfolio. This is the extension of that which differentiates and creates that deepening of that trusted relationship. Again, not just for the immediate client, but hey, for the child or for the relative and so on and so forth. So it's a, it's a very comprehensive and kind of long-standing way in which to think about the business.

Great way to wrap it up. So thank you very much.

Thanks, Greg. Really appreciate all your time.

Thank you. Likewise. My guest has been Jessica Duyeb. For more podcasts and the latest wealth management news, visit Barrons.com/advisors. For The Way Forward, I'm Greg Bartolis.

This podcast was brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking, and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra-high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more at joinwfadvisors.com.