Annuities play a pivotal role in comprehensive financial planning, as does taking the time to understand clients’ goals and values. So says Marshall Heitzman, TruStage VP of Advanced Planning Consulting, who sat down with hosts Paul Tyler and Tisa Rabun-Marshall on a recent episode of the “That Annuity Show” podcast.
Heitzman shares his personal experience with behavioral finance techniques that:
- simplify the planning process and focus on clients’ values to build deeper relationships
- improve client retention and referrals
- open the door to including adult children in financial conversations
- help ensure generational continuity client-financial professional relationships
Listen to “That Annuity Podcast” episode 210: Using behavioral finance to strengthen your practice with Marshall Heitzman
Listen to the 32-minute podcast right here. We’ve also included highlights from the transcript below if you want to read along.
Then, check out our Behavioral Finance Advice program, which offers tools and resources that can help you better understand clients’ core values and motivations.
Episode transcript
Opening & introductions (00:24)
Paul Tyler
Hi, this is Paul Tyler and welcome to another episode of That Annuity Show. Tisa, how are you?
Tisa Rabun-Marshall
Doing good, Paul. Good morning.
Paul Tyler
It's good to see you. We've got another great guest today on our show, Mr. Marshall Heitzman, okay, who is the, an advanced planning consultant, vice president at TruStage. Marshall, did I introduce you correctly?
Marshall Heitzman
That's it. Yeah, good morning.
Paul Tyler
All right, well, for our listeners, I think we'll have some interesting conversations that a lot of our listeners will find useful. Do you want to just sort of tell us, you know, who are you and, you know, what do you do at TruStage?
Marshall Heitzman
Yeah, thanks. I’m Marshall Heitzman. I am, as you said, VP of Advanced Planning Consulting at TruStage. I'm actually dedicated to their annuity distribution channel. So I'm doing advanced planning just on our annuity opportunities. I think of it this way. I’m brought in as the strategy that leads to investment solutions, and so I'm kind of building out that strategy, talking the talk for those who are maybe leaning more towards the planning side of the business.
Cultivating values-based client relationships (05:33)
Paul Tyler
How do you get advisors today who may not necessarily consider annuities to be core to their business to either consider them or start a conversation with a client that leads to the sale of an annuity?
Marshall Heitzman
Our firm — and I know there's a lot of firms out there — but our firm in particular is very interested in behavioral finance. We've adopted and applied our behavioral finance techniques really across the board. We have every one of our annuity distribution channel employees earn a behavioral finance certification so that we can show advisors what we're talking about, apply it to their practice, to their goals analysis, and help them dig into those client relationships. Really find what is most important to the client and are we aligning our financial goals towards those most important values.
And to be honest, it connects with those clients who really would rather go to the dentist than sit down with their financial advisor and talk about their financial plan.
Paul Tyler
So listen, Marshall, I’m a financial advisor who wants to drop a ticket and sort of move on. How do you coach me through the process of slowing down enough to have that conversation? And also tell me how you help me start to use some of these great behavioral finance techniques you have.
Marshall Heitzman
This is a relationship business and I know that even with our transactional clients, we have some relationship with many of them, right? We know what's going on and at least we're engaging in some small talk with what's going on in their lives and certainly we want to earn more of their business beyond the one transaction that they walk in with.
It's all part about cultivating that relationship. Asking them questions. And ultimately, the conversation we want to get to is that values question. What is most important to you? And if they don't know, we've got exercises that we can introduce that help them discover what their most important values are.
And I'm going to add that a lot of advisors listening right now are probably saying, ‘Well, I already do that. I just ask them.’ A lot of times what we're hearing from advisors is that they go through these exercises and their clients kind of self-discover for themselves one or two most important values that they didn't really think about. Or, working with their spouse they realize something new about their spouse and how they're working together and what's their top values collectively that maybe they weren't feeding into or designing their financial plan to deliver on.
The appeal of behavioral finance (13:21)
Tisa Rabun-Marshall
You talked about discovering new values or new goals. I'm just curious if you could share a couple of like — it's a two-part question. One is, is that a fully guided conversation by the advisor? Is there any sort of pre- or individual kind of self-assessment work leading into the conversation that the client would do? And then just an example of a question or two that helps to sort of tap into or discover those new values. I'm just curious what that talk track might sound like.
Marshall Heitzman
Yeah, we've created some scripting, or at least like an outline. And those familiar with planning, they're going to recognize that a lot of the scripting and the leading questions and so forth, are going to kind of follow that financial planning model. In our pre-conversations, you guys invited me to share stories. So if you want me to share a very personal story about what really convinced me this works, I will.
Paul Tyler
Absolutely.
Tisa Rabun-Marshall
Sure.
Marshall Heitzman
It's my wife, so I'll say up front that I have full permission to share this story. I do it often. She's pretty proud of it. But connecting with those clients who really don't like to handle their finances and just kind of want to get it over with in the meeting, do what they have to do, and move on with their lives. I would say that's my wife.
I'm in this space, I understand what we're talking about. I'm the technician. Mathematics degree. This is how I think, right? Numbers, goals, progress. My wife is the opposite. She's a creative. She's artistic. And so the numbers are kind of meaningless to her. The way she thinks about our future retirement is the dreams, the concepts. Tell me what I can do. That's what behavioral finance opened up.
Tisa Rabun-Marshall
Yes.
Marshall Heitzman
I was preparing our own behavioral finance presentations. I practice with her. She's a great test audience. And I presented a behavioral finance presentation just to her. And it really connected. More than just evaluating my performance, she's digging into it. In fact, she stole my laptop. She turned it around. She's paging through the slides and the notes, and she's saying, ‘This is really good.’ And what really convinced me that this was effective was she said, ‘If we had an advisor who talked to me this way, I would become more involved.’
Well, that was the moment, literally, that sold me on this concept as a way to connect with those clients who really don't want to do this, right? They're doing what they have to do. But it connected with her. And I don't think she's very different than probably half the population out there. And if it connects with her, if it pulls her into the planning process, obviously she's going to be more invested, she's going to be more committed to keeping that plan and following through with that plan if we just put it in terms that she can relate to. She doesn't care about the numbers or returns or budgets. She doesn't care to see that zero-based budget. What she wants to know is, what does my retirement look like? What am I going to be able to do? Put it in those terms for me, and she's engaged.
Paul Tyler
So Marshall, I should take a lesson from you here. So what was it that really was the hook? Was it a question? Was it a picture? Was it a story that pulled her into the presentation you're making?
Marshall Heitzman
It was the description of the approach and the style. The fact that we were getting away from hard facts, hard numbers appealed to her. The conversation around having no sales in that entire first meeting. We're talking about engaging with somebody, peeling the onion, what is most important to you? How do we design your finances to help you live those most important values? What is most important to you? How do you see yourself living it? And then we design your plan to deliver on that. That connected with her. She understood that.
Tisa Rabun-Marshall
Yeah, I like the story, too, because I think it's a pretty known fact that who the decision makers tend to be in households are often ignored in the meeting with the couple.
Paul Tyler
You can say it. Go ahead, Tisa. You can say it.
Tisa Rabun-Marshall
We hold the decision power in many households. We meaning women in a traditional household of a marriage between a man and a woman. And often that style, the thinking, and just purely engaging and connecting with that woman in that setting, it just doesn't happen, right? So I mean, I hear success for men and women thinking, dreaming, values, but I do think it appeals,
generally speaking, a little more to whether it's the creative mind or just a profile of a person who thinks that way, which I think generally may be women more often. I'm generalizing here, so I'm giving lots of caveats. So I could see the success not only that it’s a connect to get the couple to dream and think differently and speak differently about retirement, but there's success for the advisor because ultimately once they leave that meeting, who's making the decision in the car ride home, right, is, has been sparked, has been activated. So I just —
Paul Tyler
So Marshall, does this open up better communications with the women in the household? I don't want to, again, don't want to suggest that this is, you know, primarily for women.
Tisa Rabun-Marshall
That was a much more direct way of asking, Paul. Thanks.
Paul Tyler
Yeah. Does it give me a better chance of retaining a client after, you know, if I've had a relationship with a man in the house, does it give me a better chance to retain that relationship when he dies and his spouse now controls all the money?
Marshall Heitzman
We think absolutely, yeah. And I'll clear the air and just make sure that everybody understands this is not a gender thing.
Tisa Rabun-Marshall
Right.
Generational connections (20:30)
Marshall Heitzman
But Tisa, you're right. We know that the person who's actually the decision maker is probably not the one doing all the talking in the meeting, right? It's in the car ride home. So we get that. And to be honest, it's a way of connecting with both, getting them to, at the start, make sure that they're in alignment with one another. We hear from advisors a lot of times that start down this path and they're working with a couple, the spouses kind of have one or two eye-opening moments just between themselves about what's most important to them collectively.
But it is about engaging both because Paul, you're right. We know at some point one of them is going to pass away.
Tisa Rabun-Marshall
Mm-hmm.
Marshall Heitzman
And are you connected with the surviving spouse well enough to continue that relationship? And are you connected with them well enough where they want to bring the kids in and make sure that they understand what mom and dad's plan is and what's most important to them? We think that it's absolutely great for connecting with the next generation and what happens when these clients are not around anymore.
I also think it's great for referrals because my wife walks out of one of those meetings and guess what she's saying? ‘That's the best financial planning meeting I've ever had.’ And who's she telling? She's telling all of her creative friends, ‘Look, it doesn't have to be that bad. I've got an advisor who relates to me and values what I value and designs our plan around what I want to hear. You’ve got to meet him or her.’ Right? We think there's tremendous value in that.
Tisa Rabun-Marshall
Yeah. The generational comment is interesting to me, Marshall, because often, for whatever reason, parents might be reluctant to share the hard numbers with their children. But including adult children in the conversations about values and dreams, it’s softer, easier, and so I'll share a personal story, which is, I think it was a little bit, maybe it wasn't fully intentional, but it happened a little bit more organically.
My dad's advisor built a relationship with my brother and I. We didn't necessarily go to financial meetings with my dad, but we certainly socialized. He made some points of reaching out for some community events and unfortunately when my dad did pass a few years ago, he was well poised, right, to explain to us what was going to happen with our dad's assets, but both my brother and I now work with him. And it's because we already knew him. We did not meet him when my dad passed. We met him several years ahead of time and had some rapport.
Marshall Heitzman
I love hearing stories like that. And we get them every so often as well from our advisors who maybe didn't even know the kids, but they had organized their clients so well, even with simple little worksheets about where everything is, all of the key documents, the key contact information, keeping that all in one place. We've got some resources that we provide to our advisors if they want to use them.
And then we get stories back about the next generation finding that single sheet of paper that had the treasure map, if you will, to all of the documents, all the legal documents, all the insurance documents, who to call, for what, and they win clients that way. We've had beneficiaries say, ‘Look, any advisor who works with their clients the way you worked with my dad. That's an advisor that I want to work with. I know where everything was when dad passed away thanks to you.’ Love hearing those stories.
The pivot to behavioral finance (24:52)
Paul Tyler
Right. I think Marshall, a lot of us in this business tend to be right-brain thinkers and we want to start with the spreadsheet, not the conversation when it really should be the reverse. So listen, I'm a spreadsheet addict. I love this. Excel is me. Break me, Marshall. And what's the 12-step process or whatever it is to get me to rethink and have those types of conversations that Tisa mentioned? That your wife said she loved.
Marshall Heitzman
Mm-hmm. We try not to make it too complicated. And a lot of advisors who hear this process say, ‘Yeah, I kind of do something like that and it's worked for me. So, I don't really want to pivot too hard into doing that much differently.’ But we do get plenty of advisors who say, ‘OK, there's some great ideas in here that are really easy to implement.’
Taking one step back and just having that values conversation. It might take the whole first meeting. We might not talk about any business that first meeting, and that's a tough hurdle for a lot of advisors to get over. But play the long game, right? Invest that time with those clients. Those clients are going to be stickier. They're going to want to bring their other business needs to you as well. And they're going to want to bring their other relations in to talk to you as well just because you take the time to understand who they are as people and what kind of values-driven relationship can we have together?
To me that's the way you just kick the whole thing off. You know, after that, we've got a lot of scripting and ideas and leading questions that we can provide but it plays really well into that planning process, that planning model that exists and is out there right now but it makes it simple. Simple questions, simple answers to common questions that your clients are going to ask you. Ways to put those clients' minds at ease because everybody is nervous about something, right? There's always something that they're nervous about. And the whole process is about delivering to your clients the idea that, look, no matter what happens, we've got it covered.
Tisa Rabun-Marshall
I would also think, too, it's a little bit of like Paul thinking like growth mindset for the advisors because it's not fully this or that, right? It's sort of like you likely have the analytical spreadsheet type of conversation down, but every client's different, everyone, you know, processes differently. So why not sort of expand? It's a versatility call to me. You can still work that way if it's working for the client, but if you wanna grow or track new or break into different markets, maybe try this approach and see how it goes, right?
It's an additive skill, being able to walk through this more values-driven conversation. You can always flip back to how you do it or how you've done it. So to me, it's more of a growth opportunity than it is like a full, you know, 180 of how you work. So that's how I would think of it if I was in the advisor seat of new skills not changing fully my skills.
Marshall Heitzman
For sure, I can geek out on financial planning software and spreadsheets with the best of them. And I've talked with many advisors in my past who claim this is the way all of my clients want me to work with them. They do the same thing. And I've come around to believe that, well, you are finding the clients who want to work that way with you, but what about all those clients who don't?
You're missing out on them. If you're saying all of your clients want this type of approach, all the other prospects are not coming to you, right? Because not everybody wants to work this way. So who are you missing out on, was my question for them. And I think this process, the behavioral finance approach helps to uncover that. Who am I missing? Who's being left out? Certainly, in my personal example, my wife definitely felt that way.
Closing remarks (30:00)
Paul Tyler
Interesting. Yeah. Well, we're kind of at the top of the hour here. Marshall, any recommendations for good books to read, good podcasts to listen to, as Tisa says, grow a little bit more as an advisor? And then how could people reach out to you for assistance?
Marshall Heitzman
Yeah, you can reach out to any TruStage wholesaler, you can call our annuity solutions team and they'll get you in touch with me, or you can connect with us through trustage.com and connect with our team that way.
We've done a lot of work. I'll recommend Morgan Housel. He has written a couple of books in this space. And in fact, we have him on — we have like a quarterly webinar that we'll invite him every so often and give a one hour presentation on what's new. But it relates really well to the whole behavioral financial advisor concept and looking at the values in order to create the goals. That would be my recommendation.
Paul Tyler
Okay, great. Well, Tisa, thank you. Marshall, thanks so much. It was great to meet you, great to have you on here. And if you're listening to the show, tell your friends, give us feedback, and join us again next week for another great episode of That Annuity Show. Thanks.
