Ryan Moran: Top Tips for Working With Younger Clients | Next Gen

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Young people are starved for good advice, and I think there's a real opportunity for advisors to work with younger people there.

Welcome to Barron's Advisor: The Way Forward Next Generation, a special series spotlighting the emerging leaders shaping the future of financial advice. Twice a month, we'll be digging into the strategies, insights, and game-changing moves that will help you take your practice to the next level. I'm Allison Tucci, and today with me is Ryan Moran, a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch. We'll be talking about how you could speak to the next generation of investors as a next-generation advisor. Ryan, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for being here. So for our listeners to know a little bit more about you, can you tell us about your clients, your business? Where do you focus?

Sure. Yeah. So we primarily work with multigenerational families. Business owners and C-suite executives would kind of be our, our sweet spot. And many families across our book where we're working with 2 and 3 generations of the family.

And you're in different locations, is that correct?

We are. We have offices just outside Philadelphia, New York City, and Southern California.

So Southern California, I'm assuming that's a different demographic than New York. I hear also your background's in entertainment.

Yes, correct.

Does that help at all with that geographic area?

I like to think so. I like to think so. I'm primarily out of our Philadelphia office these days. But yeah, we— I did work in the entertainment business in Los Angeles, kind of on the business side of movies and TV for many years. So, you know, working with some of the people from my old business has, has been nice. And but yeah, we have clients in over 40 states at this point. So for us to be kind of geographically diverse as a team has been a strength.

That's fantastic. And how long have you been in the industry for and how did you make that transition?

Been in the business just under 2 years now.

Okay.

And made the jump in 2023 while Hollywood was in the midst of a big strike.

Great timing.

Great timing. And Yeah, I think it was really born out of the fact that I was just interested in exploring something other than what I thought I wanted to do. And in many, many conversations with Doug on our team, who also happens to be my father, talking to him about, you know, what it is he really does. I think I kind of had a distorted view of what being a financial advisor was. I thought it was sitting at a computer crunching numbers all day. And in talking to him, I very quickly learned that that was not the case, that there was a lot of similarities to actually what I was doing in Hollywood as a development executive, which is meeting a lot of new people and cultivating and deepening relationships.

So for the young investor who says, I don't have enough money to talk to a financial advisor. I can just do it myself. I can open up a robo-advisor. I can leverage my 401(k). What would you say to them in terms of the value proposition of a person, a financial advisor?

Yeah, I think first off, I think young people are actually starved for good advice and quality service at the moment. And I think that nothing beats talking to a person. So there's a lot of fear about artificial intelligence right now. I feel a lot of security actually as a financial advisor because I think in the good times and the bad, people want to turn to other people in those moments. They don't want to turn to an app or an algorithm. You know, I also think that a lot of what's affecting younger investors these days, and I think it's very natural, is that they're being influenced by what they're seeing online. And naturally so. We spend hours a day looking at a lot of this stuff. And I think it would be easy for me to sit here and disregard it call and say, oh, all the advice is bad and you have to work with me. I think more often than not, the advice is just fine. But getting people to realize that there is a team with a lot of experience that has their back, that can give them advice that's custom to them, that is not a cookie-cutter video that is more often than not probably just meant to kind of attract attention. There's a lot of value in that. And I think there's a real opportunity for advisors to work with younger people there.

What would you say? When should investors start? What are those triggers of I'm ready to invest and I'm pivoting now from saving?

You know, there's a funny quote that goes, when's the best time to start investing? Well, the best time was 50 years ago, but the second best time is now. And that's the case for a lot of young people. They haven't started. They might feel that they're behind, but just getting them to start, I think, is really honestly the biggest hurdle. The idea of, you know, making a call or opening up a brokerage account seems big and complicated to them. But if you can spend the time to just get them up and running and they can see that snowball effect work over time, that's extremely effective.

What are some other issues, common issues that you see younger investors really struggling with nowadays?

One is I think it's hard for both the parents and the children to talk and have honest conversations with each other, and I think that's where we can help really bridge the gap between generations. More often than not, mom and dad are building their wealth to eventually hand off to their children, and yet oftentimes they're insecure or unsure about how their kids are going to spend that money or if they're properly educated. So we're big proponents of family education meetings where we bring everyone together and we tell the kids about what a great job mom and dad have done for the last 20 or 30 or 40 years and what it means for their future as well. So we're there to kind of act as the bridge between these generations, which is, I think, good for everyone. The parents and the kids both feel that they're going to be working with a team who has their best interest at heart. And two, it helps us keep the assets at the firm. I mean, you see the statistics about more than half of kids and heirs who inherit their parents' wealth will either fire or change financial advisors. I think we understand that we're not immune to that statistic more than any other advisors, so we're very proactive in terms of making sure that, you know, we're working with all the generations of a family.

So how do you approach or set up that meeting, that first meeting, really practically breaking down, you know, the agenda of getting that entire client base together, that Gen 1, that Gen 2, Gen 3 to the table and being open?

Yeah, so we'll usually have a really good sense of who the family is because again, this is usually when, you know, the parents are maybe, you know, in their 60s or 70s or 80s at this point and they're starting to really think about their estate plan. And where they see their money ultimately going to. And by then, we've often seen the kids grow up. We know what they're doing. We may or may not be working with them directly at that point. We usually are. And then it's really helping just solve the problem of how kind of uncomfortable it is often for parents. It's a great stress reliever for them to say, let's bring in the professionals. Let's all come sit at the table together. And just have an open and honest conversation about what are mom and dad's intentions in terms of leaving money to their estate and what does that mean for the children as well?

Are there any flags or do you pull mom or dad aside separately as a pre-call or one of the kids aside before pre-call and set it up? How do you orchestrate it? So very practically giving some tips to an advisor who might hear, you know, I need to do this, I need to bring this family in. What are the 1 to 2 to 3 things they should really consider to make sure that that call is successful?

Yeah, I think speaking with, if we're just talking about the situation of parents leaving money to their children, right, there usually would be a pre-meeting or pre-call with the parents where we talk through and say, what do you want them to know, right? Are we going to run the full gamut and, you know, open up the closet and say, here's everything that mom and dad have? So we want to be, first of all, we want to protect the confidentiality just because they're these people's parents doesn't mean they want them to know everything per se, right? So it's just being, it's just being ultra honest and transparent about what is their intention for the meeting and what are they hoping to get out of it. And then we're able to tailor our conversation and our recommendation based on how they want it to go.

You're listening to Barron's Advisor, The Way Forward: Next Generation. We're going to take a short break. Stay with us.

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Welcome back to Barron's Advisor: The Way Forward, Next Generation. Let's get back into the conversation. In terms of, you know, the next sort of big things on the horizon for younger investors, you work with them a lot. What are the top, you know, couple things that either concern you about what they have to think about over the next 5, 10 years or makes you excited about working with them?

I think they're tied together. I think a lot of young people are a bit scared about their future financially. And I think where the opportunity lies is getting them to understand and realize that when you have a sound financial plan in place, it can feel a lot less scary. A lot of people in their 20s are scared to look at their bank account or their credit card statement. And if you can get them to have that sense of ownership and control over their money, it becomes a lot less scary to them when it is— when they know what it is they have. And when you get them to the point of investing, when you get them to really understand what it is they're invested in, it becomes a lot harder for them to make those bad impulsive decisions of selling in and out and timing the market, right? Which whether you're, you know, you have $100 million or you have $100, our advice would remain the same there. You can't time the markets, right? So getting younger people to understand those kind of sound principles of investing, highlighting to them the very, very unique advantage they have as young people. They have such a long time horizon for their money to grow. And if you can build these good habits early, you can build a really, really successful plan for yourself.

So are there different types of investment products specifically that are more appealing appealing to young individuals given their time horizon, maybe their risk appetite? And we can go as far as Bitcoin depending on how much you want to get into crypto. But what do you think is appealing to the young investor?

Yeah, well, I think that we're obviously seeing that they don't just view traditional stocks and bonds as ways to become wealthy, whereas their parents' generation very much did and does. So we're having to speak very directly to that with with our young clients who are asking us about, about crypto, for example. Of course, they're going to be seeing a lot of this. They have friends that are doing it on the side and maybe they're doing great, maybe they're not doing so great, but they're curious about it.

So being able to speak to that fact, let's say a young investor came in, they're making, you know, $200,000, very decent living one way or the other, but they want to put a lot of their money into crypto. They saw their friends maybe be very successful. One of them is now retired in Miami. How do you feel and how do you really have that conversation, that realistic conversation with them about the products that are available and where they should put their money?

Yeah. One, I think, is just pointing them to the fact that while stocks and bonds might be boring, there is a, you know, 100-year history to prove that maybe they aren't that boring and that they can be the basis for really building wealth over time. There's just so much uncertainty around crypto. And I think that's really the word we kind of drive home with younger people is, do you really want to set up your life this way in this really kind of, you know, uncertain security where we don't know if it's going up, down, left, right, or sideways. I think it's hard with younger people to get them to understand that with crypto, for example, more often than not, there's no underlying asset that's driving the price of it, where with stocks and bonds, we can point to the fact that there's, you know, there's company earnings, right? There's profit growth. There's all these things that are giving tangible reasons to why, you know, when you look back at history over time, the stock market has done this and, you know, cryptocurrency is left, right, and sideways.

Any other pieces of advice for either a young advisor who's entering into the field that you wish you had 2, 3 years ago when you first started?

Be curious. Don't be shy about reaching out to other advisors. I think people want to help more than we think. I think a lot of young advisors can feel scared or intimidated by, you know, the experts in our field. I think people want to help other people. I really do believe that. And be open and drive conversations and be bold. Try to work with as many generations as you can. I think obviously as a young advisor, it's natural to go and want to, you know, work with the 35s and unders. Something I've been doing to kind of get out of that niche is I'm trying to in my personal business development, I'm trying to put myself in spaces that are not just for young people. I belong as a member to two art museums in Philadelphia. I'm a member at a film society in Philadelphia as well. So looking to just put myself in spaces where I can meet many, many, many different types of people, not necessarily just people my age.

Is there a specific business development tactic when you go to one of these events that you've seen be successful that you think, you know, I'm, I'm going to do this again. I did this at the film or the museum. I definitely have to do this on Friday night.

I think it just starts with making a connection with another person, really. You're both there really for the same reason. You're, you're either interested in art or you're interested in film. And I think that's where the conversation starts. And I think naturally, as you're talking to people, the what do you do conversation comes up. And, you know, of course, I'm not shy about telling people what I do. And in the case of, you know, the film society that I work at, I kind of again have this interesting answer of, well, you know, I used to work in this business and people are interested in film, kind of naturally have a lot of questions. And then it can kind of nicely segue into the fact that that was my old role. And now, you know, working at Merrill and helping people, you know, build their financial plan.

In terms of just the next steps and any advice that you would give, you know, someone who wanted to become a financial advisor, someone who wanted to transition into the industry as we're closing out this podcast.

This is a great business. And you might, like me, have a lot of misconceptions about what it is financial advisors do. Sure, there are a lot of numbers involved. And yes, sometimes you are going to be deep in spreadsheets, but this is a people business first and foremost. So if you're interested and you are curious about meeting new people and deepening relationships, this is a fantastic, fantastic business to join.

Well, thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed your time today.

Thanks for having me.

The production team for Barron's Advisor: The Way Forward: Next Generation is Ellie Ismailidou, Rebecca Bisdale, Paul LeBlanc, Kinga Rojek, Joseph Lesby, and Alexis Moore. Lissa Haggerty is the executive producer. Jenna Mathis is the director of programming for Barron's Advisor Programs. Greg Bartolus is the editor-in-chief of Barron's Wealth and Asset Management Group. We'll be back soon with another episode. Thanks for listening.

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.