Can an Algorithm Listen? Financial Advice in the Age of AI

In this Only Human episode, Yohance Harrison talks with Emlen Miles Mattingly about how AI is changing financial advice without replacing human connection. They swap real stories about Hazel catching tax return mistakes, advisors using Claude and ChatGPT, and why better tech can help advisors listen more closely when clients are grieving, stressed, or making big money decisions. The episode also digs into Schwab’s AI strategy for smaller accounts and what that means for independent advisors. If you want practical insight on AI for financial advisors, tax planning, client empathy, and advisor technology, this episode delivers.

Transcript

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Welcome to Only Human. It's your host, Yohance Harrison. This is a podcast built for advisors to help you become a better human with your clients. I know AI is invading all of space and there's new tech and everything's moving so fast, and I know it can be frustrating. So I'm here to give you a little breath of fresh air and help you get in touch with your human side so you can be more human for your clients. My guest today, Emlyn Miles Mattingly. He is one of my good friends. We have been in this business almost the same amount of time, so we've been through a few different iterations of being a financial advisor. And today we're just going to talk about, of course, AI and being human. And, oh, he's got a special treat for you on his Mary divorce and tech on the side. And I, I, I agree with him. I, I, I, I'm, I'm with him right there. I want you to be thinking about that, though, as you go through this episode. Think about the technology that you have and think about what you know. Is this a technology that you need to continue to give your money to, or is there a better way to do it using some of the AI tools that are out there? I need you to not be afraid to start trying out some of these AI tools, whether it's Hazel, it's Claude, it's ChatGPT. I know some of you, as you're listening, you've got rules cannot do in your organization because of some of the compliance rules that exist. But these are tools that you can use in your personal life and they can enhance your personal life so that you can also be more human and be there with your family as well. So. Or whatever it is you want to do with your time. But with that, enjoy my interview with Emlyn. We had some fun and yeah, hopefully he's got all those tax issues worked out because I was nervous for him. We'll see you on the back end.

Yohance: My brother is so happy to be with you again. But this time, you know, I mean, we're a few thousand miles apart, so we're not live in the studio. That was fun. Did they ever put that podcast out where we were all together?

Emlen: I hadn't seen it. I had seen them do the advertising for it, like it was gonna come, but I never seen it when it actually came. I think that they may have stopped doing the podcast. Like, I haven't seen it.

Yohance: Did. No, they. Yeah, no, they stopped. I saw my show went out. Your show went out and then Jason's. They did Jason's show for the kind of wrap up. But that joint that we did together, man, there were some nuggets in that thing. We're gonna have to. Yeah, we're gonna have to do a Freedom of Information Act. Have them. Yeah, yeah.

Emlen: Because I think it was. Yeah, we just kind of chopped on a lot of stuff on AI, which I think even since. Which is crazy, right? That was like two months ago. And since then there's been more developments in AI, so. Yeah, definitely. I mean, we almost might be able to just do a refresher. Just have us do one, you know, post what we talked about that time because.

Yohance: Yeah, no, it'd be a good one of those callbacks, like if you, you know, we play a clip of this is what we said two months ago now, see how relevant or how that's advanced or changed. I'm sure it's all just expounded tremendously. But speaking of this whole AI thing, man, I. I am. Although, I mean, AI has been very helpful. I love it. It's. I'm now starting to explore using agents and, and how that's helping with, you know, client. All the client stuff that we have to do. You're using the. You're using Hazels as well, right?

Emlen: Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yohance: What do you think about the. The tax analysis you've been having fun with?

Emlen: That game changer makes my life much easier. I'm able to go in, do the tax analysis and have a conversation, a very good conversation with any cpa, no matter what they have. I just had one this week with a client going through some stuff. Crazy. I got to tell you this because I. I mean, it's not stock that I picked. She had two stocks in her portfolio. We had to go through this with AI. But I want to tell you this. She had two stocks in her portfolio. One had one. Just brace yourself. One had 17, 000 return. The other one had 28,000% return.

Yohance: Well, she had Nvidia and no micro killed Nvidia.

Emlen: I'm talking. No, no, I'm talking in the last six months.

Yohance: Oh, she did some penny stocks.

Emlen: No, it's not. No problem telling you, like, like I said, when you see it, it's like, what is going on? Because yes, we had to have a call anyhow. I use the AI, right? So I went in there and Hazel said, you know, this shows how much of a portfolio it was. We went through and talked about how we could strategically, you know, get out of those positions because it was like 87 concentration at this point because of the growth. So we went through a multi year diversification of those shares to, to try to be able to, you know, recoup some of those, those gains, actually kind of retain some of those gains. And we went through that. And when I talked to the cpa, he was like, oh, yeah, this is, you know, I screen shared with him and went through it and he was like, this is great, great.

Yohance: This is.

Emlen: Yeah, this is exactly what I was thinking anyways. And I didn't even have to, you know, it just, it put everything together. We did exactly what Hazel said, per. The CPA is crazy. So it gives you, I feel like a lot more confidence to be able to have those tax conversations with a client and be able to make better informed decisions faster about what they need to do. Right. Because this is kind of a big deal. She's had those, those stocks perform like that. And we want to make sure we can retain some of these earnings so some of the growth, you know, so we're, we're going through it. And I was kind of like, how, what am I gonna do? And typically that's the phone call that you make right. Prior to doing any research. It's like, hey, this is what's going on. Can you help me with something? This was completely different. It's like, hey, I need 30 minutes of your time. I'm gonna go over with you what I already have and you let me know what you think. And he was like, that's exactly what I would do.

Yohance: So I got some, I got some crazy stories to share with you on Hazel where I'm just asking every client for their tax return similar to how I used to do with a holistic plan. I dropped it in a list of plan. Run the report. But Hazel, hey, no shame to a list of plan. Hazel got you beat. That's all I could say, period. So I was finding a lot of mistakes because Hazel gives you that red, yellow, green, and those reds are popping up. And one of them. Let me tell you, one of them. One of them said, your client is extremely philanthropic. And I was like, are they? I'm thinking to myself, I mean, I'm sure she goes to Church. The CPA had put that she had given, like, $37,000 to charity. And I'm looking at the financial plan. I'm like, where did that money come from? And so I start. I started hallucinating. I'm like, oh, maybe she got a large gift or something or an inheritance and she gave it away. So now I just asked the client. I was like, hey, you told me that you give about 10% in tithing. She's like, yes, absolutely. I said, yeah, you didn't make $370,000 last year. It was like, no, I didn't. She's a nurse. I said, yeah, but your CPA says that that's what you gave. Excuse me. I shouldn't even call him a CPA. Your tax preparer.

Emlen: There you go.

Yohance: Said you gave $37,000 in tithing. I was like, let me see your 20, 24. Your 20, 23. This guy been doing the same thing every year, getting her these massive refunds and just making up a number for her contribution.

Emlen: I believe it. I've seen that. I've seen the same thing. I had a client. Same thing. Had a client, and I had to. I. Actually, this is before Hazel.

Yohance: Ha.

Emlen: This was right before Hazel did the tax planning. I sent her to the CPA that I work with, and he was like, is your client doing charitable contributions? Like this year she's done. I was like, no, she. Same thing. Same exact thing, except for I had to send it to a CPA to get that. And I could have got it at Hazel if Hazel. Hazel wasn't available.

Yohance: When we had that, I had another one that said that the client had losses on stock and husband and wife. Husband owns no stocks whatsoever. So investing is the kind of guy to keep still. Keeps cash in the safe. Okay. Wife worked for a company that had a RSU plan.

Emlen: Okay.

Yohance: And I said, have you ever sold any of your rsu? She said, other than the ones I'm forced to sell, no. So highly concentrated in this position. I was like, yeah, but your tax return says that you are carrying forward some losses. Did you sell some stuff two, three years ago? I mean, maybe I did. I don't know. I was like, well, let's pull those 1099s. Let's see. 1099s. Had nothing compared to what was being put on that tax return. And so of course, I challenged the preparer on. I'm like, what is this? He's like, IRS barely checks stuff like this. I was like, bro, but it's, it's not true. So there's a box you can check on the losses that says that you don't have the evidence. You may basically kept your own records or something like that. He'd been doing that for years. And when he would run out of the, you know, he'd do $10,000 or whatever. When it would run out, he'd put another random number. 11,340 is a loss. And then taking the 3,000 a year off of that, this is only gaining like 700 bucks in real money. I'm like, this is to, to, to.

Emlen: To produce a fraudulent return. And I feel like that is something that happens because, because the, the lack of the IRS's ability to audit personal tax returns, like, it's less than 1% of those that are actually audited.

Yohance: Yeah, but, but if you were in that 1%, it's 100 to you.

Emlen: Oh, no, I get that. I get that. But I'm saying this is, this is where these guys, these people are, these unscrupulous tax ex. Advisors are doing that kind of stuff. And that's the reason why they're like, well, the percent chance of me getting caught is, is so low that I'm just going to keep doing it. And my clients love it, so I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing. And that's unfortunate because that shouldn't be the case.

Yohance: Hazel caught several people who, their tax preparer was doing their 8606 wrong for the backdoor Roth IRA. That happened at least five, five or six times. I had one. And so one of the benefits of Hazel knowing who my client is and having access to my CRM, I plugged in one client's return and it said, well, wait a minute, what about their child? And I was like, oh, that's a good point. But I know it's, you know, two households. I was like, I know they go back and forth, but then I touched the client on. I was like, hey, were you supposed to claim your son this year? She's like, yeah. I was like, it's not on your return. I swear it's on there. I was like, no, the, the. Your daycare is on there, but you should have been head of household and having him as your child tax credit, and yet that child tax credit. I was like, if it was a 12, $1400, something like that, just, I mean, just pick it up off the floor. Here it is. And the tax preparer did the taxes for both of them, left the kid off both returns. Like, but, but again that, that's so. Yeah, Hazel's been amazing, man. It's it that the, the tax has been good. I did something new this year. Well, you know, I've only had Hazel about a year, but I, after I did the tax analysis, I'll go back to the analysis and then I'll plug in their year to date paycheck stub for the husband, wife, give any information I know about, any gains, losses, anything I know and then, you know, I'll tell it, hey, everything else, assume it's the same as last year for charity taxes, I mean property taxes, etc, and it does. Analysis is telling me if they're under over withholding.

Emlen: Beautiful.

Yohance: Hit the button, go make some coffee, come back, it's done. Yeah, I have, I have CPAs asking me, hey, can you send me your hazel report? I'm about to start charging for them. Like, look.

Emlen: Yeah, they ask where they get, where'd you get them from? I had someone tell me that they showed one to their CPA and they were like, are you like, where'd you get this? It's like, well, you know, AI. They're like, what, are you trying to replace me or something? Someone's like, are you trying, are you working with someone else? They're like, no, no. It's just so, I mean, I think that, you know, as we talked about in the other show, talking about AI and its impact, I think that it's going to make good advisors better.

Yohance: Right?

Emlen: Absolutely. I think that if you know what you're gonna do, because AI is only good as the information that you put in. As you've been alluding to saying, you know, I had to put some new information in and updated everything. And I think once you, you know, as an advisor that's doing good work for people, I think it's only going to allow you to do more work, deeper work for the people that you're already, you know, working with because of the checks and the balances. And then not only that, like when it does, when Hazel and a lot of these AI things do this, but I know specifically when Hazel does it, like if it's talking about tax information, it's pulling this information off the IRS website. If it's talking about, you know, probate or something, because I do it with my, I haven't checked My estate plans. That's another thing. I don't know if you've done that yet. I just did an estate plan.

Yohance: I haven't yet. Oh, yeah, well, I. I've had it. I've had it. Read old estate plans that lines give me, but I haven't had it. Check any of my current ones. I might have to try that.

Emlen: Just throw it in there, see what it says. And then it's. It's pretty. It's pretty cool. The other thing is, for the financial planning, they have the modes. If you haven't used that yet.

Yohance: Oh, man, I mowed it up. I got creator mode. I have financial analyst mode. I have my pod pal, which is my pod podcast pal mode that my assistant uses. So she just takes the transcript. So I've built the whole mode. She takes the transcript, plops it in there. It writes the blog, it writes the caption for YouTube and all that stuff. It writes to LinkedIn post it. You know, of course human still has to go in there and say, all right, that sounds a little chopper. Let's fix that up a little bit. But yeah, matter of minutes. Oh, yeah, I'm all about the modes.

Emlen: So it's been. I was talking to another advisor the other day and he was telling me about the financial planning mode that he's put in his. And it'll put out a. Spit out a financial plan within minutes.

Yohance: Mine is. I have one called Para Planner. It needs a little work just because. Well, I need a little. It's on me. I need to be more consistent about the input that I give it.

Emlen: Mm.

Yohance: And what information is being provided for then what it spits out. Because I gave it a template. I said, hey, I want my financial plan to look like this. And oh man, these PDFs are beautiful that it's come. That is creating. But I need to give it a little bit more flexibility so that if the information's not there, it's not trying to still solve for it like education planning. So I haven't given it the freedom to understand. It looks everybody doesn't need a 529 plan for their kids. There's no kids. Don't worry about it. Or if the kids are. If it's not a goal. So again, it's some work I need to do. But thank you for reminding me of that. That's. I got some time off coming up next week, so. And I'm not going anywhere, so maybe I'll work on my modes.

Emlen: Nice. Yeah, I mean, it just makes life easier when you get back. Right. So that's what I think about. But yeah, AI is gonna, AI is going to continue to disrupt and change how advisors interact with clients, how deep they can get in the work that they do with clients. And I feel good. Advisors are going to become a more valuable resource to their clients during this time when AI is such a, you know, such a big thing.

Yohance: Yeah, I, I, I agree. But in a way, doesn't kind of feel like we're starting to turn more into financial therapists instead of financial advisors. I mean, thanks to the AI, I mean, I'm not doing, I feel I'm not doing as much technical work as I used to because I get to use AI to do that. But then I find myself having more, I feel like my clients are crying with me more.

Emlen: I think because you can be more present. Right. I don't have to write down all these notes so I can plug them into this software that's going to help me put together the plan that I know they need already. But this is, this is something that I have to do with the software and I think it's not working against the, so like one of the things, like I could say this and you know, no slight on E Money, I think they, they do something great. But to use the program, to use E money, you have to take a class just to use it. I don't have time to go take a class when I know what I need the outputs to be like. I understand what my client needs and all this stuff and I didn't like having to do all that. So now with, with the help of AI, with the note takers, with the other things that they have from the financial planning, you can have a really robust con. Be totally present with your client and just ask the questions, let AI capture all the important stuff and then you can go back through the conversation and put together what you need to do for the client. And this is why I think they're crying more, because they know you're locked in and you can just talk and just do what we're good at and not, not necessarily to talk, but to listen.

Yohance: Right.

Emlen: And so once we, you know, I think the crying happens, the more you listen. If you're not listening, then they're probably not crying. Right? That's if you ask a good question and shut up, then they'll just, you know, that. And I feel like, um, that is one of the, the places where advisors have the opportunity to really get deep with their clients opposed to how it used to be before, where you know, you get off the call with the client, and now you're trying to fight with the technology to get it to say what you needed to say so you can present the client with their client.

Yohance: That not only fight with technology, you're fighting with yourself. Like, wait, did I write down the kids names or do I have the right date of birth? What did they. Were they born in 93 or was it 03? They said the kid was 10 or 20. All that stuff I, I think is, that's what I really appreciate about the note takers is like you said, free me up to be totally present. And even though I'm doing 95 of my meetings on Zoom, being able to look that person in their eyes and, and, and ask them, you know, that all important question is how. How'd that make you feel? Or how do you feel about that? Or, you know, when you have the husband and wife or wife and wife, or husband and husband, and they're together and you see one of them get a little antsy or uncomfortable during the conversation, like, hey, what was that? You know, tell me more about that. Yeah, I just had. I just had a client, unfortunately, that lost a family member. And the insurance company, of course, reached out to her because she was a beneficiary. And, you know, the agent that reached out to her just started browbeating her, like, this is a substantial amount of money. And he's like, oh, well, you know, how old are you? And, you know, I heard you have a kid on the way. You know, we should start investing this money. And, you know, it just started selling her own stuff. And so of course she hits me up. I said, I'm so sorry. I know we don't have a meeting until next month, but something happened. Here's what happened. You know, I just got on the phone with. It's like, I can call. You might be a little late, but I'll call. And. And said, hey, so are you okay? And it's just silence. And then, you know, and I hear her fighting back to tears. She's like, you know, I had someone very close that passed away, and apparently I'm getting part of the death benefit, but they want me to invest it. And I don't know what all he's talking about and, and talking about taxes. I was like, wait, taxes?

Emlen: Yeah.

Yohance: No, I was like, it's life insurance. Like, yeah. I was like, there's no taxes, I swear. He said I was gonna have to pay taxes. I was like, no. He's like, he's trying to get me to. To do some annuity or something. I was like, of course he is.

Emlen: Oh.

Yohance: I was like. I was like, here's what you tell him. Run my check.

Emlen: Yeah, man, send me my money. Run me my money.

Yohance: She said. She said, what? I said, no. I said, say it just like that. So you get him on the phone and say, yo, run my check.

Emlen: This is my address.

Yohance: And if he doesn't understand that language, say, make a check payable to my name. Here's my address where you can send it. I want nothing else. And if he starts saying, whatever, whatever, say, man, speak to your supervisor or your boss, your manager, whomever, or hang up on him and just call the 800 number.

Emlen: Check will be there. Should have been there in seven days.

Yohance: That's what I said. Check will be there in less than a week. She's like, and I don't have to pay taxes on it. I said, if this is a life insurance beneficiary. No. I was like, if it's an IRA that you're getting the benefit of, it's like, they usually take the taxes out before they give it to you, but we can talk about that. But if this is truly life insurance. No. She's like, no, I got the paperwork. It says life insurance. I was like, tell them to run your check. And then she just starts balling. She was like, okay, so. So then what do we do? I was like, we're gonna do nothing for a little while.

Emlen: Yeah, just sit it in the bank.

Yohance: You're about to have a baby. Let's sit in the bank. She was like, can I at least pay off my credit cards? Like, yeah, pay off the credit cards and let the rest sit in the bank. She's like, I think I want to give some back to my family because they had to pay for the funeral and all the stuff. It was a little unexpected. I said, yeah, do that too. She was like, oh, my gosh, this is such a relief. She was like, thank you. So. And it was. Then it was just thank you in tears. Thank you in tears. Thank you.

Emlen: You know, it's crazy, Johan. So you say that story and, like, it's like, what. I. I hear these other advisors, and I'm like, what. What is going.

Yohance: What do you.

Emlen: How do you. Like, I know that there's not, like, everyone is kind of a blanket title, right? I'm a financial advisor, but some people really shouldn't have that title. And I know we go to the c. The CFP thing and all that, but there's not every CFP is great either. I'm just saying, like people that don't really care about people, like, that's really what it's about. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you think about and you're talking about someone that passed away. I had a client that lost her husband and there's a lot of moving parts on what we had going on. And I remember where she jumped on the phone and she just got right into it, like, you know, because she's like, I've been on the phone with this, I've been on the phone with these people and every person is just like, I need all this stuff. And I said, same thing that you did. I said, hold on, hold on. Before we get to all the stuff, before we start talking about all the stuff, how are you?

Yohance: How are you?

Emlen: And there we go, we start growing.

Yohance: It's like somebody actually you're the first person that's cared about how she's doing more than you cared about what she's doing. And, and I think that's to your point. AI is going to enable more advisors to be more human, but they're going to have to proactively, consciously choose it or else they will become just as robotic as the AI.

Emlen: Oh, yeah. And I think it's. I feel like it's leaning that way. And the reason why I say that the advisors are going to become more robotic because I think that there's going to be. Going to be a real separation from the people that are using the AI and the people that are still just, you know, we've always talked about it taking care of the people and take. Trying to sell products. And I feel like the gap between the advisor that's really going to take care of their clients and, and, you know, like, we can't do everything but at least give them some direction on what they need to do. Whether it's, whether it's, you know, what you're doing with your estate plan, whether how you're handling probate. We got a client right now that's going through some probate because they had to do some things, but those are really, you know, selling house, right? Buying a house, going through a divorce. This is all stuff that I've went through.

Yohance: I got one of those, I got one of those right now. Right now. And it was so again, I used Hazel to help me out. Cause I took the, what I knew about the financial plan, Hazel knew about the client that's in the CRM. And I said, I got a crazy idea. Let me see if it Works. I want to know if they can buy the next house before they sell the house that they're in. How do we make that financially feasible knowing that, you know, things are probably going to not be the same come real soon? And Hazel gave me a few ideas. I was like, oh, this might work, but the amount of time I would have spent in e money trying to. Yeah, game plan. That. Oh, that would have been hours.

Emlen: And on the phone like, hey, so this isn't saying. This is. I'm not getting this. Compute this.

Yohance: This.

Emlen: This isn't.

Yohance: Oh, yeah.

Emlen: Can you help me get this right? Because I can't. This isn't. This number isn't. Oh, yeah. You have to trick the system into.

Yohance: You have to trick. Especially don't have an annuity in E money that has a guaranteed payout. Oh, my gosh. Oh, you have to do it as a transfer. I'm like, but it's not.

Emlen: It's not yet.

Yohance: Yeah, but that's how you got to trick the system. I'm like, I shouldn't have to trick the system. Like, all I did in Hazel, I just plugged in the annuity statement and I said, client plans to take income at this age. And it said, based on the statement, it's this. It looks like there's two years left. So they'll have this many more credits. So by then their income should be this. That's going to help satisfy the rmd. And then it asks, does a client want to do a QCDC or Q. What's it called? Qcd. Qcd. Qcd. The client want to do a qcd. I saw in the notes they did one last year. Yes, they do,

Emlen: man.

Yohance: It's just the speed at which I'm able to do things so that, as you said, I can go back to the client and listen with an open heart, with an open mind and be able to focus on them and to ask that question, like, how are you?

Emlen: Yeah, And I feel like that just little. Like. Like what we were saying, the better questions, the more connected you can get to the client. And I feel like when you. When you. When you have the time to just talk with someone or let them talk to you, you find out so much more. And. And. Like, we're all human. You know what I mean? Like, and I feel like it lets you relate to your client on a human level because of the artificial intelligence. Right. Which, which, which, which it's kind of, you know, like, how does that work? I said, this is how it works. We can just talk. And I feel like, it's a lost art. Like, oh, yeah. Like, I talked to. You know, this is something that's funny because I, you know, I got to bring up my kids. I bring them up all the time. So my son. I'm sitting here. We're sitting here, and this is just something about saying hi. So my son, you know, he's seven, so let. Let understand that he said he'll be eight on. He'll be eight tomorrow. But. So he's eight, but he sees his friends in public, and he just kind of like, walks by. I'm like, bro, that's your. Ain't that your. That's your. Your buddy, right? Like, he's in your class. I was like, how come he didn't say nothing? Oh, he's with his mom. I'm like, but you got to be able to just talk to people. Like, just go up to him and talk. I see it with my daughters that are in their 20s, and they're like, not like the. The ability to communicate with kids that age. I think it's like a. They don't talk like we did. We can talk about the pandemic and what happened, and that could be a result of it, but there's a lot of people that have lost the ability to communicate with other people. And it's weird to think that, right? In this technology age, you can spend so much time on social media scrolling and not talking to anybody.

Yohance: Not talking to anybody.

Emlen: You don't have to talk to anybody. And so when someone actually talks to you and ask the question, it's so refreshing to have a, Like a. Like someone genuinely, like, just ask a good how are. And it's crazy, right? Both of us said, we just asked the person how they were doing, and they start crying. Like, what are we doing in this world? We don't even have the time to ask someone how they're doing. I don't need to teach you how to talk. Just acknowledge people, you know, treat them like people and. And. And. And watch what happens. And it's crazy, man. I think that there. There's a lot of strange things going on in the world that has led people to not communicating effectively with each other.

Yohance: Speaking of decreasing communication, there was a CEO. I don't want to get this wrong, but it was either Schwab or Morgan that said clients under a million will get AI advisors, something like that.

Emlen: I mean, I. I feel like this is.

Yohance: I'm gonna look it up now.

Emlen: The same thing. Like, if you think about this, I think it's like how people are talking about. And I think we talked about this when we were in that call or in that meeting. I think I talked about the robo advisors and how people were all worried about robo advisors doing, you know, taking over. And I'm like, it didn't happen. People still want to talk to people. People still want to communicate with a real person. And so Schwab and they're gonna go, they're gonna, they're going to like, that's great for us. That's good. I think that's great news for, for the, for the, and I call myself a boutique. It's good for the boutique advisors because people want connection, they want human touch, they want the AI to do the research, but they still want that human touch.

Yohance: I. I gotta read this. I gotta read this. Just the, the byline here. Schwab CEO says AI will serve below one million dollar clients ahead of Schwab's investor day. CEO Rick Werster also said the firm was on a multi year journey to bolster its workplace offerings, including retirement plan investments. Wow. Oh, that's good. So the retirement plans, maybe they won't make us pit stop money in a brokerage account before it goes to the solo 401k.

Emlen: Okay.

Yohance: Which is just a money grab for them and don't get me started on that. But yeah, no, the front door, the intel, the AI will become the front door for clients interact with the forum to serve mass affluent investors with less than a million dollars. So Schwab just said, if you don't have a million dollars, you don't deserve a human. Schwab is the largest institutional custodian on the planet. And they said if you don't have at least a million, you don't get a human. And simultaneously the other thing they announced, not in this article, is that they're building more branches. All the reason why I needed to get more of my clients over to altruist. Yeah, I said it.

Emlen: So, I mean, it's just one of those things. Like I feel like once again it's the opportunity for those advisors to make those connections with people. And when you have a large company like that saying that those, those connections with people that have under a million dollars aren't important to us.

Yohance: I mean, but okay, hold on, Emily. Hold on, hold on, bro. Hold on. So just today I met with a client, young physician. So making good money. We're talking 3, 400 a year in household income, but also had a couple hundred thousand in student loans for the financial plan. We said we're going to focus on the loans for the first year, and you're just going to throw 20, 30 grand a month at those loans. Okay. Now, again, this is a young family. They have concerns about home ownership. They have concerns about starting a family. Yeah. They have concerns about. He, as a physician, is concerned about moonlighting and getting 1099 income versus W2. They have concerns about should the spouse even work because of the tax bracket they're in. Like, is this really adding anything to our life? I mean, yeah. Okay. The social network of being able to have a job, and the rewarding part of, okay, I'm doing something, I'm contributing. But then when you look at the tax returns, like, everything you made went to the irs.

Emlen: Yeah.

Yohance: So kind of, you know, diminishing returns.

Emlen: Right.

Yohance: Diminishing return. And then kind of getting back to the therapy thing. Aging parents, siblings, and not aren't as well off yet that also need some assistance, you know, and just the questions that come into being a new part of society and making good money. Mm. It will take at least three years for them to accumulate a million dollars. Actually, we just did that math today. So right before we started this call, I was with him, and he was curious. He was like, how long will it take once? Because his student loans. He's about two more payments. He's like, all right, if we start taking this 20, 30 grand and we start putting in our investment accounts, how long will it take for us to be millionaires? And I was like, bro, it'll take less than three years. Schwab is saying that that client doesn't deserve human touch for until three years from now.

Emlen: And. And that time is for us, where we can go with those clients to a million and help them get there and help them, you know, I feel like, help them make the decisions that they know they need to make, but they want to have a conversation with a human about the decision before it's made. Like that. Like, I want to have, like, even. And it's crazy, because we even do this. Like, if I'm gonna buy. We're looking like. We're looking at the guy. Like, if I'm gonna buy an insurance policy, I'm saying I do this in terms of this. So I'm looking at a new. I need to get a new insurance policy. I don't sell insurance anymore. So I'm like, okay, I need to get an insurance policy. So then I. I'm looking. I was like, okay, I like this one. Before I pull the trigger, I wanted to call the company and be like, call the person that I was going to do the. The policy with over the phone and just kind of like, hey, this is what I thought I read. Just make sure that this is good. Oh, yeah, yeah, this is good. All right, man. You. You read it, right? Okay, cool. I'm ready to pull the trigger. I'm an advisor, and I want the human connection for someone to be able to validate what I'm thinking already. So how much more would a client want it and. And for you. For not you personally, but for you, Charles Schwab, or large. Large custodian to feel like, well, if this person doesn't have X amount of dollars, then they're not really worth our time. And I'm sitting here thinking to myself, like, tell me you don't want me in a more, bro. Like, tell me. Tell me you don't want me to be. Want me as a client anywhere else.

Yohance: Tell me I don't matter. Yeah, but really make me feel good while you say it, though.

Emlen: Yeah, right. So I just. I don't.

Yohance: I don.t.

Emlen: I don't get it. But I've never, you know, really got the. The larger custodians when they get to that. That size. Like, some of the moves that they make are always that. That's what the Robovisor came in.

Yohance: Yes. People start talking, hey, they got sued for that because they were. They had to pay a lot of money to the SEC and to clients because of their robo advisor. So it's.

Emlen: It'll be for AI next.

Yohance: So I have another one for speaking of insurance. And I'm the same way. So tell some put my. Some. My business in the street. I live in North Texas. We have a lot of weather. And over the past few years, my homeowner's insurance just skyrocketed. And so I was in a situation, was like, okay, I need some sort of relief. And I've been working directly with a property and casualty agent. And he said, I'm sorry, I can't offer you anything. And so I started doing a little research, and I found a company called Lemonade. I was like, oh, this.

Emlen: I remember Lemonade. They sell life insurance, too.

Yohance: Everything's online. You're speaking to a virtual agent the whole time. But I was. I wind up switching my homeowner's insurance to Lemonade and saved like, $3,000.

Emlen: Oh, don't start nothing. Now I'm over here like Lemonade. I need to get a hold of

Yohance: them until I had a claim. Oh, oh, and it was one of those situations where Emlyn, I wanted again, I'm an advisor. So I'm like, I'm going to do the math. Do I want to take the risk of filing the claim, or do I want to pay for this out of pocket? Well, I want to lean on the insurance company first to say, okay, you guys assess it and tell me, what would this be? Man, they cut me a check faster than I could blink. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I was like, I'm still doing my research. Once I get my contractor here, and he climbs up on the ladder and he looks up there. He was like, I mean, sure, if you want to give me $16,000 to replace this whole section of roof, we can. Or I can just repair this little part right here. It'll cost you 200 bucks. I was like, I like the 200 bucks.

Emlen: Right?

Yohance: Do you know how hard it was to give Lemonade their money back? And I'm talking again to a non human, and I'm like, no, I'm not going to cash the check. I wanted. I want to. What do you call it? Dismiss my claim. Well, it appears you've already deposited the check. Actually, I haven't. It shows that the check was mailed to you on this date. I was like, but that doesn't mean I cashed it.

Emlen: Yeah, it hasn't cleared.

Yohance: So I ultimately was like, I lost the check. I never received it. Oh, well, sorry. We'll send you a new one. No, no, no, no. Dismiss my claim. And I had to fight with the robot until I finally got a real person to then get the claim dismissed. Two weeks ago, I went back to my PNC guy and I said, run the numbers again. And he said, I've got good news for you. A lot of areas in Texas, the prices went up too fast too quick. I've re rated everything. Everything's been re rated. And we can get you back around the same level you were before. I said, let's go. But that human touch felt so. Because I know that when I have a problem, I can call Jason, and I know that Jason's going to take care of it. That matters. That matters. And again in it. But for that. For that two years of a 3, 500 savings, that felt like that mattered too, until I needed a human. And at that point, I was like, oh, man, I've made a mistake because I am stuck with this robot that's not understanding me. So. So I. And again, to the insurance point that you were making, I. I do offer Life and health insurance. And I've also gone at it with some of these insurance companies. I had to go fight for a client. I had an insurance company just recently cancel a policy for a client, said that it wasn't paid. Okay. The client travels internationally, paying the annual premium. She knew she was gonna be gone for a few months, so in August, she just wrote the check, send it to the insurance company. But it wasn't due until October. So the insurance company. No, no, worse, insurance company cashes the check. We got proof of that. So we got front, back of the check. So we know they cashed it. And they put it in a holding account and sent a client a letter saying, hey, you overpaid your policy. What do you want us to do with this money? Do you want us to apply it to your premium, but we can't apply it until this date because it's early, or do you want a refund? Well, you know, the client never got that letter because she's out of the country. Yeah, Fast forward. This is August, October, they sent a lapse notice. November, December happens. It officially lapses. They didn't even notify me.

Emlen: Oh, wow.

Yohance: I just happen to be going through a list of policies and I see collapse pending. I'm like, how is that? So I immediately go into E money. I see where the check was cash. I'm like, no, she paid the premium. What's going on? We've been fighting that insurance company for three months.

Emlen: Wow.

Yohance: They finally applied the premium. Because that was the whole thing. They're like, oh, well, your client. We sent the money back. No, you didn't. You did not. And even if you did, the client never cashed a check. You still have the funds. We had to take it so far up the flagpole, but finally they sent a let. Actually just got the letter on. Was that Monday? No, Monday was holiday. So Tuesday this week.

Emlen: Yeah.

Yohance: Same policy is back and forth.

Emlen: I see insurance man.

Yohance: But that's. That's goes to the human that took multiple humans.

Emlen: If you weren't there, then. If you weren't there, this. This doesn't happen. Her policy. Laughs. We don't even know. And I promise you she's still. The money might not get sent back for. Until she calls and has to fight with someone to get it back. To that point. Like, one of the things that. That really does bother me about the AI, like, because we've been talking about how good it is. But on the flip side, some of these companies, when you're talking to a chat bot and you Can't. You can't even. They don't even have like a 1-800-number for you to call. Everything's on chat. Oh, my God. Let me tell you, nothing, nothing gets me fired up like that because they can't. Like, there's some things that they just can't do, and they're not going to do it right just because it's a computer and it just. Just like with you. I don't need the check. I don't need the check. I'm sending the check back to you. No, you're not. You already. Like, I'm not arguing that. I'm not arguing with you. Right? Like, what are we doing right now? So that. That kind of stuff. And I'm not going to name companies specifically, but there's a ton of attack fintech companies that don't even have a number that you can call. You have to, you know, and then when you do call, you're on hold forever. And it's just like, man, come on, bud. Like, like, I. I can't. I used to do my payroll with a company that's a. That's a fintech company based out of San Francisco, and they. It's incredibly difficult to get a response. So then you have to send. If I have to. If I see another support email that I have to send it.

Yohance: No. You know, this is the only human podcast, sir. You get to drop names. We drop names on, like.

Emlen: Like, it's. I'm just like, yeah, you gotta be kidding me. How is it. How is this not. How is this happening? How can I not? So it was Gusto.

Yohance: It was Gusto. I knew it was Gusto.

Emlen: I mean,

Yohance: so I am a client of Gusto. Gusto does my payroll, but I also am an advisor on their platform. So I have 30 clients that also do payroll on there. So I would say I think I get a little bit better treatment because I got so many clients in there. But I. Here's one crazy thing about Gusto, man. They call me every day, every day. And that's because of some of the fights I've had to have with them in the past, where things aren't getting done like they're supposed to. So now I get a call almost every day saying, you know, this client hasn't signed this. This client hasn't done this. So they're. I. I think I'm one of their. They got me in a special group because I. They probably don't want to lose 30 plus clients all at once because they know as an Advisor. I could just pick them up and go to anywhere else. But I'm sorry I interrupted your story.

Emlen: Oh, no, no, no. Just. Just. Just fight.

Yohance: But, yeah, they're online chat.

Emlen: Horrible, Horrible. And then it's like, then, oh, you can email it support. So I email support. I get. You know, take them two days to get back to me. It was crazy because we had this whole thing.

Yohance: Wait, is it just your account? Are you still there?

Emlen: Yeah, I'm still there, but.

Yohance: Okay, well, if. If you need to, I can just put you on mine.

Emlen: Oh, no, this one right here. The problem that I had is so I. It's a whole story. This probably ain't even time for that story. This story is about some 940s and 941s that the IRS messed up, and then they blamed us.

Yohance: So that happened to me with adp. I went through that with adp. That's. That's why I left adp, because I. Adp. Craziest thing.

Emlen: They.

Yohance: Whoever was my rep, and this was a human error. So whoever was my rep on the other end, they put the wrong ein number on my 941. And it wasn't the number I gave them. I looked at all my paperwork. Like, I don't know where you got that. Somebody typed that wrong. And so all my nine 41s are going to another business's account at the IRS. And I get this nasty letter from the IRS saying, you haven't filed 941s in forever. And I'm like, I have proof of them right here. But then I look, I was like, wait, whose ein is this? I mean, I never thought to check the ein.

Emlen: Like, wow, I gave you the right one when we started.

Yohance: Oh, man. That was a fight with adp. And then I had to fight with California, too. It was.

Emlen: Yeah. So I'm fighting with the federal. The Fed, right? So I get. IRS tells me the same thing there. I get that letter. I'm like, what are you talking about? I have all of them. So I send the list, and I sent everything. So then we go back. Let me tell you what. Let me. It gets better, because it's not Gusto's fault. Gusto is actually good. This is the irs. This is the federal government, because they do a good job at everything. So what we had here is, I have 940s, 941s, right? So then we. I send them all the payments. Look, this is all the payments. And then he sends me. The IRS sends me something back and says, well, you've Been making payments because every payment that Gusto made, they returned oh, for years. Okay, so this is going on all the payments. So. So I get it. I get a bit. I get this thing. They're like, you have this. This. This balance, like. Like. And it's a. It's a. It's. It's a crazy balance.

Yohance: Oh, I believe it. Yeah.

Emlen: Crazy balance. Because they haven't gotten anything from me. And I'm like, well, I've been sending them. So then I sent all this stuff. Gusto sends me all this stuff. So this is what we sent. This is everything. And the IRS says, well, we have payments going to this ein number. I said, that ain't my ein number. I don't know what you want me to do about that. That has nothing to do with me. We sent all the money we're supposed to send. Every payment was sent on time. You guys sent them back, and you didn't send them to me. So I don't know who got them. Someone else got them, and I don't know what's going on. And so after. Like, get you on this, and we can get to the other stuff, but this is. I just got to tell someone. So we. After all this stuff goes on, right? I. I'm working with. My case is so big. I have a revenue officer. I didn't even know that.

Yohance: Oh, yeah. You know they carry guns, right?

Emlen: I didn't know that. Yeah. So they are. Yeah, so. So he. Yeah, he said he had. He'd been by my house. I was like, what were you doing?

Yohance: Yeah, I had to do this story for another day. I had to deal with one before because I. I got into a little trouble. It's all fixed now, But. Yeah.

Emlen: But I didn't even. But at this point, I hadn't. I'm like, what are you talking about? What do you. You know? So we get going, and. And then. And then all I get from him, okay? This is all I get. I sent him all the stuff Gusto showed me, Gus. I was like, we didn't do it. I don't know what they're talking about. This is what we got. I sent them all that.

Yohance: I sent that. The.

Emlen: To him, and he said, you know what? I just found out it was a mistake we made in Ogden. I almost threw my. I was like, so when were you planning on telling me that? Like. Because I've been. You've been. You've been hounding me, like, hounding you.

Yohance: Treating you like a criminal, right? About the Wesley Snipe shoe, bro.

Emlen: I'm like, what's going on? You know what I mean? And he's like, oh, yeah, we. We. We're already looking into it. I was like, so. Because he's. He's emailing me every week like, I need an update. I need an update. I need an update. I ain't heard from him since this happened. This is three weeks ago. I ain't heard nothing from him since. And I'm like, so are you guys gonna give me my money back? Are you guys gonna. What are we doing? Like, what's going on? And I want interest. Like, you guys charge me interest. Exactly. I want with interest.

Yohance: With interest.

Emlen: Oh, man, my bad. That got me kind of fired up, bro.

Yohance: No, that's all good. It's all good. Hey, it actually gives us a perfect, perfect segue. So what, this is the only human podcast. So this is a podcast that we do for advisors to help them find ways to be more human in an. In increasing. In an increasing environment where. Excuse me. An environment where AI is increasing at an exponential rate. Whereas we just learned. Schwab is trying to. Not trying to. Is saying that if you don't have at least a million dollars, you don't deserve a human. So that's a huge opportunity for us as advisors to be the humans for those clients. Now, in every episode, we play a little game with our guests. And you're probably familiar with the game with much more vulgar language, but I'm going to kind of reduce it down to something a little bit more palatable for our listeners ears. And it is called Mary Divorce and tech on the side. What is one piece of. One piece of technology or app that you are married to that you're like, yep, this is we in this till death do us part. What is one piece of tech that you are planning to file divorce papers or divorce papers are already filed? And what is that one piece of tech or app that you are starting to date on the side? The side tech. Who's your side tech, man?

Emlen: That's a good question. Okay, so let me see. So. So. Mary divorce inside. So Mary, man, it's been a good marriage, man. It's been a good one. I'm. I like. And look, this isn't even just a. It's altruist, but it's really altruist. That's been my. That's been my. I'm married there. I feel like I've been with a lot of custodians and. And. And I feel like that's. That's the one I'M married to like I feel like they have the advisor in mind, right? Like it feels like they have the advisor in mind. And that's one that, and I'm not. This, this is just, this is just real, real talk. Like that's crazy. I wouldn't, if you'd asked me if I was going to say that I wouldn't even thought you'd say that. But like as like this, this is real like yeah altruist man. They've saved me so much time, money, energy, effort, how easy things are. So yeah, that's been divorce man. There's a few divorces going on with some of this stuff here. So I, I mean, because I'm looking, I mean really my divorce, I haven't come finalized with it, but I'm divorcing some financial planning software. Okay. I, I don't know if I need as much as I've had. And, and there's there's a, there's a pinning divorce. There's something there. And then my, my side is, is actually coming becoming one of my main. So I, I was, I started with chat GPT and now I'm working with Claude and Claude is, Claude is my guy right now. Claude gets Clyde gets me. Me and Clyde got a good relationship. You know what I mean? And I, I, I rock with Claude. That's my side, that's my side piece AI right there. That does a lot of stuff for me. Like I have a case in point. I just had a birthday, just had a birthday last Friday and happy birthday. Thank you.

Yohance: Thank you.

Emlen: And Clyde set up my golf trip for me and my wife. I went in there, asked them like, you know, I want to have. My wife always comes with me. She doesn't play, but she rides all the time. And I was like, what's a good course where we can have her ride? It's not going to be a big deal. We're going to do this. Put in all the stuff Claude put out my whole. Not only is it helping my financial stuff, it helped me with my personal itinerary for my weekend vacation with my wife to go play golf at courses that were easy to have a riding golf a person that's not playing. I was like, and great recommend, great recos on food too. We had, I mean we had a phenomenal steak. I've been to, I've been to Monterey hundreds of times. Never been to this steakhouse. Walk by it all the time. Went on Clyde, wow. Go to the steakhouse. Went in there. I was like, oh my. We took Some friends with us. It was. It was incredible. So closet side piece, I think I'll be divorcing some of this financial planning software and married to. Married to altruist man. Married there. It's been, it's been a good marriage.

Yohance: Indeed. Indeed. I. I can agree with all three of those. I'm. I'm in similar relationships to. With altruists as well. I did just downgrade my financial planning relationship with E Money. I just decided I had all of my team members on. I don't need them all there. They're going in there less and less than most of the questions they can ask Hazel because I've been uploading.

Emlen: You can upload the plans there.

Yohance: Yeah, exactly. So once it's there or I just upload it to my CRM. So because you know, for security purposes, Hazel's recall isn't the best. But if it's on my CRM it just can go look at it at CRM. So I just take it put in text format and put it in a note in the CRM. And now the whole financial plan is. Is Hazel accessible without having to re upload it? And, and yes. My. I watched some YouTube videos on Claude just over the memorial weekend because it was raining like crazy here. I did a little staycation with the misses but then we came home on Saturday and then it rained all day Sunday, Monday. And so I said ah, let me. Let me see what this claw thing is all about. And I feel the same. I was like, wow, how does Claude know me so well now? I do know. One reason why it knows me so well is because I did that trick where you take everything you have in chat. Gbt.

Emlen: Yep.

Yohance: And put it in a cloud. But it's now knows me better than GPT. Well GPT. I'm like, you should know this. You have this, you have the files. Claude just does a better job of being able to access the history and access the files.

Emlen: Don't give it access to your. To your Google Drive then, then it'll change your. Have you done that?

Yohance: So I haven't. I'm still a little.

Emlen: Don't do it.

Yohance: Don't scared.

Emlen: You don't do it. Because I'm telling you right now, I'm

Yohance: still a little scared. I'm still a little scared. So I did give it access to my calendar. That was. Oh my. Oh man, we gotta go. But we could keep going. But man, I gave it my calendar. I did the most in depth analysis on my calendar using Claude and Hazel combined. So Hazel. Because Hazel has all my meeting information, it knows exactly how long the meeting was, etc. So that was really good. But I did this 90 day analysis on between Hazel and Claude that was connected to my, to, to my Google calendar and it was able to show me the different type of meetings I have. On average, how long my meetings last, you know, the percentage of people that cancel get rescheduled, how many actual hours I'm spending with clients. That was because when I look at my calendar, it says one thing, but when, when Hazel has the time stamps of when the meeting started to end it. Because sometimes I have a meeting scheduled for 30 minutes, it's only 20 or meeting schedule for 15 and it's 30. That data was so eye opening and it started and because again I started blending the information that was coming from Claude back into Hazel. And then Hazel said something to me that I was like, oh, that's scary. It said I should probably be spending a little bit more time with some of my higher net worth clients. I was like, that's not true, I'm sure. And then it showed me the actual number. I was like, oh. And I think what happens is that some of those relationships are really, really old. So sometimes they're getting the phone call that Hazel or Claude, my calendar is not picking up. But it really made me. And so I said that, I challenged. I was like, oh yeah. But so. And so I just talked to them this day and this day, etc, and it said that's great, but are you having the structured financial planning time with them or are you just reacting to what their needs are? And I said, shame on you, Hazel. The nerve of you to talk to me in that manner. You're in time out. I'm not. We're not. You know what, I'm, I'm logging out.

Emlen: Oh no, I'm not dealing with you today. You're keeping it too real today. Like, yeah, way too real. Yeah.

Yohance: Wait, but. But then I immediately hopped into Google, built a quick sheet in Google because I do have Gemini as well. So Gemini build me a quick sheet with my client list and broken down by Aum and then took the information from Wealthbox. When's the last time I saw them? Took that, handed it off to one of my team members, say, hey, I need you to go get these 20 people on my calendar in the next 90 days. And all of a sudden calendar just started filling up with them and then they're texting me, hey, I'm so glad we got a meeting there. I've got so much you need to talk to you about, like. Of course you do. And shame on me for just waiting to be reactive, because I've been managing millions of your dollars for the last 20 years, so.

Emlen: So you're married to Hazel. I would say Hazel. Not even. Not even. Altruist. Hazel. Hazel. Altruist introduced you to Hazel and Hazel.

Yohance: Yeah. Indeed. Indeed. All right, Emily, if there's anybody that wants to reach you, how can they find you, man?

Emlen: You know what? I'm in the Witness Protection program, so. He's gonna be hard, man. I'm in Witsack. But you might. If you. If you. If you go on to LinkedIn, it's gonna be there. My name Emily. Miles Mattingly. If you look at Instagram, I'm there. Inland, Miles. Battingly, same thing. It's E. Miles Mattingly. But if you put M on that. And there's only a few of us out there, so that's. That's where. That's where I spend most of my time.

Yohance: Or. Or you'll see them at Future Proof or fda. One of those. He's one of those guys he flies in on, like, the last day, and it's like, bro, you've been here. I've been here the whole time. No, you haven't.

Emlen: Yeah, but I make that cameo. I get there when it. When it counts, you know? I mean, it counts, right. Right before. Right before the libations get the kick in the. In. So.

Yohance: Exactly.

Emlen: That's what happened when we were at Future Foods last time. It sure did.

Yohance: I was like. I was like, you. Like, I've been here. Like, no, you haven't. I was like, yeah, we played golf. You weren't here for that. He was like, oh, y' all played golf? I was like, see, that's how I

Emlen: know you weren't here.

Yohance: You missed out on golf.

Emlen: Because they didn't tell me. I didn't know about that. That's. They did tell me, and I forgot. I actually forgot about that one. I remember that. About that. Anyhow.

Yohance: Hey. Yeah, we played Pelican Hill, man. It was great.

Emlen: Yeah, I remember that because I think, well, me and. Me and Scott ended up playing like Strawberry.

Yohance: Oh, you did? Yeah. I mean, you mentioned that. Yeah.

Emlen: Something after that, so.

Yohance: Yeah, you did. We did play. You did. Hey, brother, I appreciate you gracing us with your presence. We will see you again, I'm sure, really soon. If not, I'll catch you on a golf course one of these days.

Emlen: Absolutely, brother. Absolutely. Well, you know, I'll be in Dallas later on in a couple Months. So we're gonna kick it, then we're gonna do it.

Yohance: But that's, that's a little far out. No, we got, we gotta make something happen. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna make something happen while the sun's still out.

Emlen: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Yohance: Indeed. All right, brother, I appreciate you enjoy your weekend.

Emlen: Thank you. You too, brother.