More Knowledge, More Wealth Ep 197: Grading AI - How Good is AI's Financial Help
[00:00:00] Good day. This is Gabriel Shahin, certified financial planner and your host of More Knowledge, more Wealth here on every weekend, talking about all important topics of personal finance. My goal is to go over the knowledge you need to increase your wealth now to the listener, you can always reach out to myself or anyone of our colleagues here at Falcon Wealth Planning.
[00:00:53] Our phone number is (855) 963-2526. That's 8 55. 96 Falcon like the Bird, or visit our website@falconwealthplanning.com. That's falcon wp.com for short, and you can go and visit our knowledge center where we have all these podcasts that are on video and a knowledge center that has so much important information that already has over a million views in less than a year.
[00:01:19] And if you have a question you want us to answer on this podcast, go ahead and send it to. radio@falconwp.com. That's radio@falconwp.com. Now I'm the president of Falcon Wealth Planning. We are a fee only non-commissioned, true fiduciary firm. Folks. We handle everything that involves a dollar sign, doesn't matter what the question is, where you are today, how investments and retirement and taxes and insurance and estate planning, how it looks like answering those, really relating the show to your.
[00:01:46] Specific situation. We are offering a free financial assessment. We we're offering one to two meetings, one to two hours of our time. Folks at no cost. Folks, give us a call. We would love to help. We've got offices all over. We can help you. It doesn't matter where you are all across the country. Our phone number is eight five five nine six three twenty five.
[00:02:06] 26, that's 8 55 96 Falcon like the Bird. We're happy to put together a personal confidential conversation and assessment to answer these questions that you may have. And really a big topic that I wanted to go over with you. I've be getting a lot of messages on. This is about artificial intelligence and ai and I had and went over a few weeks back, I went over a show on grading.
[00:02:29] Uh, artificial intelligence, ai and grading their answers of how to get wealthy, how to help the rich become richer, so on and so forth. I thought I should just answer and go over something very similar to what I did a few weeks back. Now I use my chat GBT for my chat G B T that I use as Monica. Now, what's Monica?
[00:02:49] Monica is Google's version, so that's the one I use folks. So I ans asked the question. Uh, and that question was questions to ask your financial advisor. I'm gonna grade these questions today, folks. I'm gonna tell you if this is a good type of, uh, system that can actually help you. I'm gonna grade each one of the 10 questions that they recommend that you ask your financial advisor.
[00:03:16] I'm gonna just give it simple a plus all the way to an F minus, and if I really hate it, an F minus, minus minus. So we'll go over that today. Now, And then I'm gonna give an overall grading. By the way, I'm gonna squeeze it all together and say, Hey, is it better than just asking your neighbor that may or may not know anything?
[00:03:36] So first question to ask folks is what experiences and qualification, qualifications do you have in financial planning? So the first answer, what experience and qualifications do you have in financial planning? I would grade a solid A, it's fair question now. Why not an A plus? Well, let me answer and what I'll also do is answer it the way I would.
[00:04:00] But here's the thing. The experience and qualifications do you have, being a financial planner is subjective. Like what do you know based on what they say? So for example, are they a chartered financial? Analyst versus a certified financial planner. And there are so many now new designations out there that quite frankly don't require any education, any experience, requirements, and minimum standards.
[00:04:25] Some of these you just take literally, not even a class, you just take a test for continuing education to get these certifications. So these could be considered. Qualifications and it's subjective. What do you think the advisor's gonna say? Oh, I'm very experienced. Oh, and I'm very qualified because I'm so experienced.
[00:04:43] You get what I'm saying? So a answer, something that I would say is in my experience, I mean, I've been in the industry, uh, since 2003 in the financial industry. Uh, I have my mba. I'm a certified financial planner, uh, specializing in tax planning. I've been recognized just week, this past week, a loan as an Investopedia, 100 most influential people in finance.
[00:05:06] I've also been by Think Advisor and Investment Advisor Magazine as a leadership. Uh, Uh, award. I've got an advisory of the year advisor, financial planner of the year, advisory firm of the year, uh, advisors to watch through advisor hub, uh, through ra Intel, through wealth management, uh, folks, uh, almost every single accolade there was for me to achieve.
[00:05:30] Thank God we've achieved and Falcon Love Planning as a whole. This is how we operate. We are one, we call it the Falcon family. So the Gabriel Shahin show, it's the Falcon Wealth Planning Team and family, and this is the answer. We involve and answer all questions that has to do with the dollar side. We get 800 prospects a week that reach out to us.
[00:05:50] Think about that for a second. 800 a week. We help 10,000 people a year, not including our existing client base, which is in the thousand. We manage thousands of accounts. I bet you it's probably 5,000 different accounts that we manage. We've only been existence since 2015. Now that is over eight years. But the point is, is we have been consistently recognized who are.
[00:06:14] Almost every city wire Financial Advisor Magazine, advisor Magazine as one of the fastest growing firms of the country. So yes. Are we qualified? I actually don't know who's more qualified than us, so that's just how you answer number one. I give it maybe a b plus and for ourselves, that's the long-winded answer.
[00:06:34] By the way, folks, if you're just joining me, you're listening to Gabriel Shahin, certified financial planner, and you're host of more knowledge, more Wealth. You're on every weekend talking about all important topics of personal finance. Number two is what is your investment philosophy? I will give that one also an a.
[00:06:47] Uh, the reason I give that an A is because I think it's very important. Now, you're probably gonna get a long-winded answer. I'll give you ours. Our answer is we believe in low cost, highly liqui liquid, no commission. Globally diversified portfolio in the form of indices, indexes, investing clients at indexes.
[00:07:08] That is our philosophy. Our philosophy is nobody can outperform the market. No investment professional, no money manager, no hedge fund manager. Heck, Warren Buffett had a million dollar bet with a hedge fund manager 10 years bet that just ended a few years back and he destroyed the hedge fund manager.
[00:07:23] This was a top hedge fund manager. What's my point? Nobody can outperform it. So the problem is, depending on how fancy they talk and how beautiful their brochure is, you can get convinced because what do you truly know about their investment philosophy? You think they're gonna present something that doesn't sound attractive to you, so you really have to know a little bit more.
[00:07:42] But I still give that a solid a cuz it is important because it not be, it might be not be exactly what you believe in now. Number three, how do you charge for your services? I think that is good. I'm gonna give that also a. Probably a b plus. Now it's a fantastic question from a big, high level point of view.
[00:07:59] I give it an a plus plus. But here's the thing, somebody's gonna say, yeah, I charge a percentage of assets. Yeah, I charge a flat fee. Here at Falcon Wealth, we are fee only. our clients are the only person who could pay us. Whether they pay us a direct fee based on the work that we do, a planning fee, or if they want us to manage assets, we do a percentage of the assets.
[00:08:17] But other firms aren't so transparent and they don't have to disclose it to you. Yet again, you have to know what to ask. Let me give you an example. How do you charge for your services? Okay? You could just simply say you charge a percent, but what they're not telling you is there's another percent fee inside of you're the 1% they charge.
[00:08:34] So the funds that they choose you for you to invest in also may charge a percent, and they may be paying them a kickback. Which is called a revenue share, which also can be in what's called the 12b-1 fees. In addition to that, there could be campaigns, sales contests, additional commissions that they may not have to disclose to you, and the wholesaler may be taking them to season tickets or courtside seats, the Lakers game.
[00:08:56] Cause they put so many people in this product. So how do you charge? They're only gonna answer the direct charge that you may know. They're not gonna tell you all the conflicts of interest there. Number four, what are the risks associated with the investment strategies you recommend? Now this I give like a B.
[00:09:15] Why? Well, I mean because everything has risks are, are you expecting to have no risk? Like I, I'm confused. What is the actual intent of the question? Literally? I mean, the question we have to ask ourselves is of the investment strategies, is it something that you do in your own portfolio? How did it do in 2008?
[00:09:37] How did it do in 2022? Heck, if these portfolios and strategies were not even available then, is that something you even really want to invest in now? Because a lot of the time they're gonna try to sell you, especially some advisors out there. Most of 'em are commission-based for fee-based. We are not fee-based.
[00:09:51] We are fee only. Fee-based. People could still sell you things that make a commission. So the investment strategy and the risks associated with it, the risks isn't just how much you lose. When the market drops, the risks are liquidity. If you're locking your money up for a long period of time and you need your money, are there surrender fees?
[00:10:09] Why did you pay surrender fees cuz of the commissions that are involved with those? You gotta be careful. This is a not transparent industry and business that's out there, and the questions that artificial intelligence is asking you to ask, that's telling you what you should ask is just not good enough because you don't even know the answer that you're getting.
[00:10:27] Out of all due respect is accurate or not. As long as the person says it confidently and just cuz they speak clearly doesn't mean they're competent and it doesn't mean it's good for you. Just because they're confident in their delivery doesn't mean they should be. You should feel confident in their way that they can handle your finances.
[00:10:42] It's a very tricky industry out there. Alright, number five. How often will we meet to review my portfolio? I think that's a good question. I think I'll answer that in a, some people meet with people annually. Okay. That's very, no. Some people quarterly. And the question is, is the, the key question is my portfolio.
[00:10:59] So just talking investments, you're gonna meet with somebody four times a year. Here at Falcon Wealth, we meet four times a year. Three to four times a year, sometimes five or six times a year. Why? Because it's not just portfolio talk. Quite frankly, if somebody's just managing your investments, do you even really need a financial advisor?
[00:11:14] You get em for free these days at some of these or very low costs at like a Vanguard or Betterment or wealth fund. Do you really need a financial advisor? You get what I'm saying? Like what are you gonna be discussing if you're on track for retirement? You heard that one time from one person. Do you really need to meet with them four times a year to tell 'em you're still on track?
[00:11:32] You get what I'm saying? So the question that I would like to pose, which is actually in my opinion, a better question, is how often will we meet to review my situation? I give that a B as a question. A B is my grade. So, Because yet again, the value provided is everything folks. And one of 'em sounding sounds like something that could add value or need help for you.
[00:11:56] And what I'm saying is like, man, these are good questions and you're trying to compare it to your advisor and you're hearing some of my answers saying, huh. Sounds like you're offering a little bit more value and a little bit more service and can add a little more positivity to my situation. Folks, give us a call.
[00:12:08] We're offering a free financial assessment to help relate this show to your specific situation. Our phone number is (855) 963-2526. That's 8 5 5 96 Falcon. Like the bird focus. We're gonna go on a quick break. When we come back, we're gonna answer the remaining five questions that you should be asking your financial advisor.
[00:12:27] Now keep in mind what I'm rating is what artificial intelligence says you should ask, so we'll be right back with my grade after a few words.
[00:12:36] This is Gabriel Shahin, certified financial Planner, your host of More Knowledge, more Wealth. That's on every weekend. We're going over all important topics of personal finance. We're going over retirement planning, making sure you're prepared for retirement, social security and strategies, real estate taxes, avoiding them now and in the future, investments reducing.
[00:12:55] Fees, commissions, and so on. Insurance and estate planning. Folks, we are offering a free financial assessment that you could take advantage of. We have offices all across Southern California, including the Inland Empire. Give us a call to take advantage. Our phone number is (855) 963-2526. That's 8 5 5 9 6.
[00:13:13] Falcon like the bird, or visit our website, falcon wealth planning.com. That's falcon wp.com for short. Enjoy the show. We look forward to serving you.
[00:13:23] Welcome back folks. This is Gabriel Shahin, certified Financial Planner and your host of More Knowledge, more Wealth here on every weekend, talking about all important topics of personal finance. Now, my goal is to go over all important topics, and this one is talking about artificial intelligence and grading the advice that they're giving you.
[00:13:38] The question I POed was, What questions should you ask your financial advisor? Now, we already went over the first five. The first five just to remind you is what experiences and qualifications do you have at financial planning? What is your investment philosophy? How do you charge for your services? What are the risks associated with the investment strategies you recommend?
[00:13:57] And finally, number five, how often will we meet to review my portfolio? First half, I'm gonna grade it probably a b plus, slight plus. Okay? And I gave you the raises in that first segment. Now we're gonna go over the next five reasons, cuz remember, these are the top 10 questions to ask your financial advisor.
[00:14:16] Number six is, can you provide reference from current or past clients? I love how they ask for past clients as well. Uh, I'm gonna rate that a D minus, and here's why. Why in God's name I. Would they give you a bad reference? And who are you to determine if, number one, if they're even a client or not, or a past client or not?
[00:14:38] Who are you? You're taking it for face value. You're taking it based on their word. There is no regulation of if they have to give you somebody who's accurate or not, you, what if they give you their sister, like the different maiden name? You get what I'm saying? Like, we gotta be better here. We gotta be smarter here about this.
[00:14:54] This is a silly question. You think they're gonna give you a bad reference? Seriously, what are you gonna do with that information? You know what you should do is go on Google and read the reviews cuz those aren't pre-screened and they can't get rid of those. You get what I'm saying? It's just ridiculous.
[00:15:08] Go look at them up on broker check. How about that? You know what that is? Go to broker check Finra, F I n r A. Go ahead and put their last name in first and last name ideally. And pull up to see if they've ever had any disclaimers. People that got in a fight with them so much that they wanted to sue them and they went to the regulatory board.
[00:15:29] How is that, that sounds like a better idea, not Gimme a reference of your current and past clients. Gimme, you think they're gonna give you a reference of some that fired them? Are you outta your mind like, like, This is, this is crazy. The fact that this is a recommended question and like, would you even feel comfortable asking that, knowing the common sense side of things of how it would work?
[00:15:54] This is ridiculous. This is embarrassing. D i d given a D minus is, is kind in my opinion. Ugh. Happy I got that off my chest. Gimme a fricking break. Number seven, uh uh, by the way, for us, go, go look on Google. Don't ask us for reviews. Why? Because who's to tell you? It's even a legitimate review and reference that we're giving you.
[00:16:18] Like gimme a break. Go based on the interaction. Go based on what we've done. Go look up on Google, like go look at our assets under management. Go look at our growth. Go look at ranking reports. Don't, don't ask for a reference of somebody that God knows who they are. Number seven, how do you stay up to date on changes in the financial industry?
[00:16:41] I mean, I, I, I'll give that like a b hopefully there, forget continuing education. The industry forces you to go to like, forget that that should mean nothing to everybody. I mean, I shouldn't be that extreme, right? Because that's just one side of it. They force you to do that, but you're seeing and hearing and reading the same thing over and over, over again every year for continuing education.
[00:17:05] Like gimme a break. What you should be doing is, now how do I grade this? First and foremost, probably like a. What I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna change it to a C so I'm gonna change the grading, uh, to a C because really, yet again, how do you even know what they say is accurate and how do you stay up to date? I think, but first and foremost is going to industry conferences, being part of cohort groups where we're part of about three different cohort groups.
[00:17:31] In the industry, and I think being able to stay on top and communicate with them is gonna be important, extremely vital, and share best practices as well, plus scribing to the financial advisor, the investment news, the city wires, the wealth management, and seeing on a daily basis as we get. Six to 10 different communication pieces on a monthly basis.
[00:17:51] I think that's also gonna be very important as well. You're continually learning of new topics, new industry trends, and what's going on in the economy. I think that is more of a fantastic approach. And again, that's what we do here at Falcon Wealth Planning. But the question is a bit you're, you're either gonna listen, the person you're gonna meet with an actually interview has to provide value.
[00:18:12] If they're not providing value, who cares about anything? You get what I'm saying? And so you're gonna ask them what are they staying up to date? And you'll tell in that interview, in that meeting if in fact they're providing value. Alright, let's go number eight. So, uh, number eight is what types of products do you recommend for retirement planning?
[00:18:34] I mean, I'm gonna give this a B because I could look at this in a positive matter or a negative manner. So by the way, folks, if you're just joining me, you're listening to Gabriel Shahan, certified financial planner and your host of More knowledge, more Wealth. You're in every weekend talking about all important talk of personal finance.
[00:18:48] Right now we're just grading how artificial intelligence goes ahead and gives you advice on what you should ask your advisor. And I'm grading it and I'm gonna give an overall grade. So the, uh, number, uh, eight is what types of products do you recommend, uh, for retirement pro uh, planning? The idea should be no products.
[00:19:04] I mean, that it's, maybe, it is a good question because there should be no products they're recommending. They, the person you're working with should be selling you brain, not product. You go to the store to buy product. You don't go to a pr? Do you ask an account, Hey, what products can I buy today? You go to a lawyer.
[00:19:18] Yeah, so I have this issue. Can I have a product offering of how you can help me? The funny thing is the financial services industry does do that. It's sad, it's unfortunate. When you go to your local bank, commission-based bank, if you go to the big firms like Merrill Lynch, Edward Jones, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, whoever the case is. Folks, you have to understand the value add that's being offered. Now let's continue the conversation because remember the products. Is, uh, yet again, I rate that very, very poorly here at fa Wealth Planning, as you probably already figured, we don't sell product, we sell brain here at the firm.
[00:19:56] Uh, you don't wanna work with anybody that's selling you a product in the financial services industry. Sadly, that's the majority of the people that are out there. So please take a second guess of your situation. You wanna work with somebody who just like your attorney, gets paid hourly. Just like the engineer gets pay paid on the project.
[00:20:13] You don't want to work with somebody that's paying you based on selling you product. That's what a grocery store does. That's what a car dealership does. Those are commission based people. You're not gonna go to a car dealership and tell them, I have a hundred thousand in my pocket. What car should I buy?
[00:20:31] No, no, no. You tell 'em. I'm looking for this car and achieving this. Services, these amenities, this amount of seating, not how much money you have to spend. Uh, we're gonna switch it up to number nine. How will you help me achieve my financial goal? Now, I think this is a fair question. I'm gonna give that a solid a.
[00:20:53] Uh, how would you help, uh, for somebody here at Falcon Wealth is getting to know your situation, customizing a plan that can help achieve your specific goals, taking a look, and not just your investment situation, but your cash flows, your budgets, your taxes, your insurance, your estate planning, everything that involves a dollar sign.
[00:21:11] All of that comes together to help achieve your overall situation. If your goal is to retire comfortably, now that's you. You're retiring, right? What about your family? What if you have kids? Is inheritance important? What if God forbid, you die and now it's no longer successful retirement for your surviving spouse?
[00:21:26] You get what I'm saying? It's more than just how do I achieve financial goals? So if this question is okay, but you know what? They're gonna say, oh, I'm gonna get you enough rate of return, so you're gonna retire successfully. I rate this a B at best. So you just gotta be careful what's out there, and this is yet again why we're offering a free financial assessment.
[00:21:45] As you can see, most of Americans are looking at questions like this to help answer their specific situation. I'm here to tell you it is not right. This is why we're offering one to two meetings, one to two hours of our time. Folks at no cost. Give us a call. We would love to help. Our phone number is (855) 963-2526.
[00:22:06] That's 8 5 5 96 Falcon like the bird. We'd be happy to put together a personal confidential assessment to help answer these questions that you may have, because as we're realizing these are okay questions. They're not great questions, and at the end of the day, it's a customized approach for you. That's the goal, and that's what you should be looking for.
[00:22:26] The last one, what is your approach to tax planning? I'm gonna clap my hands and say bravo. That's shocking that they actually put that in there. It's funny because I actually did a similar show to this not too long ago and, and realistically, um, that was pretty impressive. Uh, they didn't have any of this on there of tax planning.
[00:22:48] Now most. Firms out there. So I'm gonna grade this one an a plus. Most firms out there are gonna say the following. Uh, they'll try to say they do tax planning, but when it comes to giving tax advice, sorry, please consult with the tax advisor. That's it. Just rolls off the tongue. That's what they do. That's what they say.
[00:23:02] Please consult with the tax advisor. Well folks, we are that tax advisor here at Falcon Wealth. So how do we approach it? We handle it, we lead it. We communicate with the accountants, the CPAs, and if they're not competent enough to do it, we have in-house accounting and CPAs. So for us, we love tax planning.
[00:23:17] How do you consider yourself a financial advisor? A financial advisor when you don't even understand the most important piece of financial documentation to your name, which is your taxes. By understanding what your just gross income tells you what the capital gain taxation is. By understanding what your taxable income lets you know if taxable and capital gains is tax free.
[00:23:35] If you, you should be withdrawing from your IRA where you should be investing certain investments, cuz it could be tax free dividends qualified. There's so many things wrong with this industry out here, which is quite frankly why we stand out amongst our peers. Peers. If you're listening to this, I know I, there's a lot of advisors that listen to this.
[00:23:53] Please continue doing what you're doing. If you're listening to your this show saying, how can I be better and maybe try to build a firm similar to Falcon Wealth so I can compete with these guys, please keep doing what you're doing. We work much harder than you and get paid much less. Why would you wanna be us?
[00:24:09] Yeah. We're growing ridiculously on assets and value and client base and every other aspect of it, but we're like the Costco of financial planning. Okay. Yeah. Really good quality. Don't get me wrong. We do a lot of work, but we don't make that much money per client where you make a lot more and you don't do anything.
[00:24:27] You see one of those earlier questions here is, uh, how, how many times do I meet to review my portfolio? Are you kidding me? Once, once every two years. That's all it takes. Are you kidding me? Something happens in the market. You get a phone call and an explanation and a boot out the door. It's value, folks.
[00:24:45] That's the importance. Tax planning is everything. And the advisors that are listening to this keep doing what you're doing. The headache, it'll take you to understand taxes, especially to handle the liability behind it and to have the in-house infrastructure to be able to execute it is difficult. I'll go as far as saying, not worth it for you.
[00:25:06] For us, we already built it, so for us it's easy. That's how we do it. That question, like I said, I gave it an A plus folks. Overall, I give these questions about a b plus. Okay? They're not bad questions. If you're just Googling and asking artificial intelligence, Hey, what question should I ask? Financial advisor.
[00:25:24] It's a b plus. Most of you would be happy with a b plus. Okay? Maybe you don't graduate Magnum CU laude. A lot of you don't care. Some of you say Cs get degrees. My point is this, when it comes to your finances, do you really wanna C? Do you really wanna B? No, I want an A plus. Plus. Failure is not an option.
[00:25:42] This is my life. And folks, if you need help with that, give us a call. That's what we're here for. Our phone number is (855) 963-2526. That's 8 5 5 96. Falcon like the bird. We'll be happy to put a personal confidential. Assessment for you to relate the show to your specific situation. Folks, that was a fast ass show.
[00:26:03] I wanna thank you for tuning in with me this weekend. Feel free to reach out to myself for and one of our colleagues here at Falcon Wealth Planning. Our phone number is (855) 963-2526. That's 8 5 5 96. Falcon like the Bird, or visit our website@falconwealthplanning.com. That's Falcon. wp.com for short. Folks, thank you for tuning in with us.
[00:26:24] If you have a question, go to radio. Send it to radio@falconwp.com. That's radio@falconwp.com. Have a fantastic weekend. Have a great week, and God bless.