Ep54 - Rethink: Why BlackRock Is Investing in Human Advice – Featuring Liz Koehler

BlackRock's Liz Koehler joins Adam Holt and Derek Notman to ask a provocative question: is empathy an asset class? Koehler explains why the world's largest asset manager is investing heavily in human advice, sharing insights drawn from thousands of top-performing advisors on what actually differentiates great client relationships. The conversation covers the growing importance of active listening, family-dynamics expertise, and other interpersonal skills as client expectations continue to rise alongside advancing technology.

• Why BlackRock is investing in human financial advice
• Empathy and active listening as advisor skills
• Lessons from top-performing advisors nationwide
• Navigating family dynamics in client relationships
• Rising client expectations for personalized advice

Full timestamped transcript.

[00:00:30] Derek Notman: Adam, is empathy an asset class?

[00:00:36] Adam Holt: Sounds pretty cryptic to me.

[00:00:38] Derek Notman: It's cryptic, but not crypto. You can't buy it on any exchange, I'll tell you that.

[00:00:43] Adam Holt: I'm thinking about it. This is like really intellectual comeback.

Why do you ask that question? Specifically?

[00:00:52] Derek Notman: Well, clearly, as , financial advisors, we touch our clients money in one shape, form or another, and we typically quote, unquote, invest it somewhere. But how are we helping our clients , , invest in empathy? And then also, are we investing in empathy for ourselves and even the places that we spend our money on as firms to drive value to our clients?

[00:01:16] Adam Holt: I was recently in a group of very smart leaders in our space, and it turns out that despite empathy being thrown around like a basketball, very few people actually understood what that meant. What is empathy? Why are people talking about it?

[00:01:37] Derek Notman: I don't have the definition in front of me, so I'll probably get this wrong, but in my mind,

[00:01:42] Adam Holt: Mm

[00:01:43] Derek Notman: empathy , is basically like the process of understanding someone on a much deeper level by really good listening.

[00:01:52] Adam Holt: hmm.

[00:01:52] Derek Notman: Like, I want to be able to empathize with you and I, to do that, I have to understand you.

Maybe we have some shared experiences,,

[00:01:59] Adam Holt: the conclusion of this group, was that empathy is an emotional awareness of someone else's journey and what they're going through. It's emotional intelligence, effectively.

[00:02:14] Derek Notman: Yeah. Emotional intelligence. That makes a ton

[00:02:16] Adam Holt: Why does that matter though? But why does it matter? That was the big question. Wait, why do we keep throwing around this? Because if you understand the problems and the journey and the challenges of others, you can help them solve those problems or alleviate the stress associated with them.

And as a vendor, a supporter, an advisor, a coach, a parent, someone who cares about someone else's journey. You can elevate their experience and you'll get something in return. Usually it's relationship building. Usually it's loyalty. And for those of us that are in the business of providing advice and guidance, long term empathy goes a long way in designing the customer experience that someone's going to have associated with your brand that's referable and that has long term value in your business.

[00:03:06] Derek Notman: So what you're saying, Adam, is that empathy is an asset class and that we should be investing in it.

[00:03:11] Adam Holt: That's I guess the answer. Yes. It's an asset class.

[00:03:14] Derek Notman: it's not your traditional quote unquote investment. And it sounds like to be really able to invest in empathy. One has to listen has to pay attention. But then also you keyword experience, create an experience that.

That promotes that does that sound right? I don't know.

[00:03:34] Adam Holt: It's true.

So this sounds like a really intellectual conversation, but I think the reason you asked about it as an asset class is because it comes from a conversation that you and I had with a member of the largest asset manager's leadership team. And this was a rare opportunity to hear from Liz Koehler, who runs BlackRock's advisor engagement program.

And this is what we heard in our interview from her, is that the largest asset manager is actually investing in empathy.

So Derek, help us get to know Liz , and her story.

[00:04:17] Derek Notman: So one, she's just awesome. I think you're going to love listening to her her style. , she's the head of advisor engagement, , as a managing director at BlackRock, which we all know is the world's largest money manager. She's been with them for over 20 years. She's got her CFA. She even has a master's from university of Pennsylvania.

in positive psychology she clearly is coming at empathy from a unique angle. , and her group, they work with thousands of top advisors across the country, which I didn't know existed.

So we can get a lot of insights just from her and her team's experience , on a pretty large scale.

[00:04:55] Adam Holt: And I would say I was ignorant about this whole unit at BlackRock, right? Supporting these advisors, best practices, business consulting, study groups, events, a whole bunch of that. I, of course, I love the topic of advice engagement. It happens to be one of my pet projects around the whole industry. , and so I was excited to see that BlackRock is really doubling down on advisors.

So , let's hear from Liz.

[00:05:17] Derek Notman Tank: Thank you. Liz It really appreciate you joining us today. You know, you've been a BlackRock for just over 20 years. It looks like now. So congrats. And it looks like most of your experience there has all has been around advisor engagement, working with advisors in some capacity.

And then you also come at this from a background in psychology. And so, I'm curious to know what's your unique perspective of the financial advice market as it is today.

[00:05:47] Liz Koehler Tank: Yes, thank you for having me. It's really wonderful to be here. . I think my perspective is it's, it's more important today than ever before. When you think about changing client demographics, you think about the concentration of more wealth with high net worth families and also, massive generational wealth transfer.

uh, the continued emergence , of AI, right? This need for personalization and for more custom guidance, , is only growing. , and I think expectations for that human touch and insight is also growing.

at the same time, I believe that the skills required to do this well, are also evolving quite a bit and growing in terms of what we see with many of the top advisor teams we work with. So it's that genuine empathy. It's that active listening.

It's that problem solving. Expertise in new areas, whether it's tax management, private markets, family dynamics, right? These are all big opportunities. But what we're seeing is it requires advisors to have both the energy and the desire to continue to grow and evolve. And the last thing I'll just say is that, most leaders,

don't always have the skills or the time or the resources to teach their teams how to deliver on some of these expectations. So the other pieces that training and that development of talent to be able to grow in their expertise at a much faster pace is a challenge for many folks that we see.

[00:07:12] Adam Holt Tank: totally relate to that. Both of us as practitioners having the challenge of growing a business as well as being an advisor. It's a very strange entrepreneurial journey, delivering service while also figuring out how to scale. I'm curious, what do you think the missing opportunity is then that advisors just don't see coming?

[00:07:30] Liz Koehler Tank: Well, I think it's related. You know, it's the importance of people and talent. So yes, that includes recruiting, which I know is a big topic in our industry today, but it's also setting teams up for success. So it's taking the time to understand their people at a deeper level. Coaching career development.

, we know we need more great talent to come into the industry to serve clients, but we also need to carve out the time to understand the energy, the motivation, the drive of our people to help them achieve their own goals. , and also how those goals and those values. tie to the goals and values of the business overall.

I think that's such an integral part of its success. So , please don't get me wrong. There are many advisors who are great at this, but a lot may have gotten into the business with a different type of a passion, which was often to serve clients. And so they're finding this need to quickly evolve.

And the only other thing I'll mention , is This also relates to another hot topic is succession planning, right? A big topic. We're hearing a lot and almost 75 percent of advisors don't have that formal succession plan and close to 25 percent of those retiring in the next 10 years, , don't know who their successors going to be.

One of the biggest challenges we hear around succession planning is that emotional aspect of transferring clients. So then how do we develop or find that next generation of talented leaders as more and more advisors are looking to retire? So I think it's all related and it comes back to where I started, which is the importance of the people, the talent and that development.

[00:09:00] Derek Notman Tank: Really insightful and it's actually really refreshing to hear you mentioned the part about, almost more of the soft emotional side of , why are the advisors doing what they're trying to do. And tying that into all of the more tactical things that are really important to run a business. So, I think you've mentioned this before, but , you have, , a resource at BlackRock, I think it's called, , the Advisor Center

Given what you're seeing there and what resources you guys have, are there any specific action steps that you would recommend any of our folks listening today, whether advisors, firm leaders, owners, other fintechs, that they should rethink how to address the missing opportunity that you just mentioned?

[00:09:39] Liz Koehler Tank: Yes, this may seem like common sense. It's just it's not always common practice. And starting with the vision, right? What is your team or personal story? how is it that you're standing out from your peers? And then. What role will each member of your team play to realize that vision, right? Did they understand it and how it fits into that bigger picture?

, it's increasingly important today, not only for our people, but for clients. It's about deepening the team's emotional investment by laying that groundwork early on. right? Can you tell stories about how you got where you are today? What was it that inspired you? What mistakes did you make?

This all makes you more human. , it also helps your team and your clients connect even more deeply. and we do have resources on our advisor center, including tools, insights, practice management, that talk about this and other pieces, including the value proposition. , how do you think about why clients come to you?

What makes that business unique? , because ultimately people want to know the person behind the brand and we're finding more and more with advisors and teams we're working with is they're working on that personal brand and that personal story even more. People don't just buy what you do. They buy why you do it.

And it's that authentic ness that's so important more and more today.

[00:10:54] Adam Holt Tank: That's great. I really appreciate that. And I think that's going to resonate with a lot of financial professionals because you're right. The reason they got into this business is. To help people and scaling that or delivering that to more and more people, even their employees that become very much family members over the long term, a family by choice in many ways is, is really important.

I can appreciate that. That's actually something we'll take back to our team and implement right away. Curious if there's anything you think we need to debate or you The community needs to start talking about more,

[00:11:24] Liz Koehler Tank: So we talked a little bit about team and people and talent, which is incredibly critical. I would also say when it comes to clients, we do get the question sometimes, right? We know that the client landscape is evolving and changing. And people ask, are tomorrow's clients really that different than those of today, right?

Folks are living longer. , we get the question, won't I be fine, ? If I keep serving my clients now and with a similar approach. And I think We believe we do really need to think about and evolve our approach for the clients of tomorrow. , just a few reasons. I think it's by 2030 millennials are expected to inherit.

We know close to 73 trillion dollars from from baby boomer parents, but their wealth is also projected to grow 5 folds, right? Gen Z's income is going to be close to 33 trillion,, and exceed that of millennials by the following year in 2031. And we hear the story we know. A lot of women are next in line in terms of the wealth transfer.

And they're typically outliving , their male spouse by at least five years, I say all this because it's, it's also still true that, you know. We hear this 70 to 80 percent of these clients leave their advisor upon that point of inheritance. If the relationship has not been established with them.

, so I think retaining assets in that next generation needs to start with building those stronger relationships, but just really understanding who these clients are, what they really want, , they want someone , who they can trust to understand their values, who delivers more outcome based planning, more digital integration.

Thank you. Newer approaches to retirement and financial protection, and that wider network of specialists. I think that's also an important point. Uh, you know, long gone, in my opinion, are the days when clients expect their advisors to have all of the answers and to be their sole resource for their finances.

, now I think clients want the advisor to be a connection to other experts, right? They want, yes, more of their advisor's time and understanding, but they also want access to the advisor's resources that that advisor can help them make the best use of their time and their resources. So I would just say the question comes up sometimes, is it really going to be different?

I think the answer is yes. But. What I love is advisors are so uniquely positioned to be that accountability partner, to have that blend of expertise and emotional intelligence, to really meet the needs of future clients, if they're intentional about it.

[00:13:49] Adam Holt Tank: Liz. You have a refreshing take on looking at advice. And this is what Derek and I talk about a lot. I'm really curious because when we think of BlackRock as being a massive asset manager, right? One of the top , in the world, if not the top, depending upon which day we're looking on, what is BlackRock's take in your unit specific agenda to support advisors?

Cause I think there's a lot of us in advice that don't really. Think of BlackRock in this way. So what are you guys doing specifically for the market?

[00:14:16] Liz Koehler Tank: Yes, thank you for the question. Look, I think just the same way we talked about clients are expecting more from their advisors today. Right. In the way of support and expertise and engagement. We feel the same should be said of advisors expectations of their asset management partners. And so BlackRock wants to be seen and experienced as that partner who doesn't only Provide products and solutions, but is there to truly help advisors as they think about their own growth and serving their clients.

And this is not, by the way, BlackRock coming in, trying to tell an advisor how to do their job, right? That's not our place. But we do have the benefit and the privilege of speaking with thousands of top advisors and firms and teams across the country every year. And so what we do see are some of the best practices that are being employed from those who are growing.

And that's some of the insight that we feel we can share.

[00:15:07] Derek Notman: Wow, Adam, that was a really great conversation with Liz and what's interesting is I feel like we only scratched the surface with the insights that she and BlackRock have. I mean, think about it, this team that she is running. Is talking to thousands of top producers across the country from all different types of, firm makeups and practices and so forth.

And we're lucky we got 15 minutes with her to learn just a little bit, but can you imagine all the learnings that they're having? It's fascinating.

[00:15:41] Adam Holt: The data that they have has got to be unbelievable. Not that that's easy to plow through, but the insights they might have in terms of money movement flows in, flows out types of investments that people are buying and then trying to figure out ultimately their why, right? I think their knowledge of the customer might be so deep that they can make these kinds of decisions.

But what I really thought was interesting besides the fact that Liz is such a succinct speaker is that. , they're attempting to evolve the perspective of their own brand of being a real partner with advisors because clearly they know that's where the money is going.

[00:16:22] Derek Notman: . Exactly. While they are the biggest in the world, right? So they see where things are going, where things are headed. And I would say it's pretty telling if they're putting time, money, resources, people into supporting more and more advisors. And just for those listening, , they don't have a tamp.

You can't go sign up to be a BlackRock advisor, , which is fascinating. So they truly are trying to help advisors and the insights that they are gaining. So if that's where they're putting their money, that I think that's really telling on where the industry, the profession, vendors, money managers, even advisors, and ultimately the end consumer are all headed.

[00:17:05] Adam Holt: Right. You didn't talk about how they're supporting the robo advice, direct consumption model. They talked about that. They're supporting an advisor driven

[00:17:13] Derek Notman: Yeah.

[00:17:14] Adam Holt: because that's where the money's going, these transition themes that she brought up from women and millennials and understanding that informs their investment decision of where they're going to put . Their capital and they're choosing to invest in helping advisors grow their business. I think that is really telling as this ongoing debate is about, well, what's the human role and advice and is it going to be direct and robo? They're saying not our data.

[00:17:44] Derek Notman: Yeah, , I mean that talk about a peek under the hood or behind the curtain, , , holy smokes, if this is what they're doing, then that's pretty telling and pretty awesome. What are some takeaways that you got , from our conversation with her that might be a little bit more, tangible for our listeners?

[00:18:01] Adam Holt: You know, the thing that stuck out to me was their insight on people and talent. Actually, that one is really my number one takeaway. I think there's been a huge discussion point, not only about succession and building your firms and rolling up into other groups to try to get practice management at synergies.

But I think the real interest is actually to deal with the biggest problem, which is succession and next generational planning, especially where your financial advisor firm is going. I know a lot of advisors I talked to are trying to figure out whether they need to merge with other firms to get other people, people has been the hardest thing.

To really get right. And we know that this is a people business. So they matter imminently. And I think, , the relationship is what keeps a client with your firm, not necessarily the advice delivery or the performance delivery. It's the people. What about you?

[00:18:52] Derek Notman: Definitely that people, you know, I, I think further down that vein is how to tell your authentic personal story

[00:19:00] Adam Holt: Hmm.

[00:19:01] Derek Notman: and, and you know, that ties into career development. The people talent piece, all of that, and it even Jamie Hopkins was talking a bit about this when we did , that special wealth stack, , a podcast episode.

, about how important career development is, but that personal story is what people connect with. And Liz even said, . People buy what you do, but they also buy why you do it and , I don't know about you, but when I started off at the insurance broker dealer, the, the main question about people and story was how many people do you know that you can go cold call

you know, that's about where it ended.

It wasn't about who's Derek and why is Derek doing this and blah, blah, blah. But it is a challenge because it's a qualitative thing that we have to conceptualize and then be able to articulate to our customers through marketing conversation and so forth. So I think it's really, really important.

But what Liz is saying is that those that are doing that are becoming more and more successful because it helps you stand out and be unique and it taps into the whole people by why you do it mentality.

[00:20:09] Adam Holt: You remind me of a situation actually just yesterday, as you know, I was at the wealth management awards in New York city. And part of the program is they put, I don't know, 120 or so CEOs and CTOs from RIAs and FinTechs and so forth in a room. And we had a discussion around , bigger trends.

, that are going on in the marketplace. And one of the questions that was asked to a panel of the CTOs, right? Chief technology officers of these major companies. They said, if we gave you 5 million right now, off budget, just 5 million, , what tech would you invest in? And you know what the universal answer was? People, it was people.

They wouldn't buy tech. They said, I would invest in the people that are making the decisions. Of how to organize the technology and how to deliver it. They would upscale their talent pool if they had more money. Interesting. So , here we are talking about people who are making technology decisions and they want to invest in people.

, how funny is that? I mean, it's an irony that of course should sit with all of us, the level of our talent pool and who we're putting together and of course, being authentic about those people that we add to the system is still so much a part of this industry and it still will be. For generations to come, well, let's, we can hopefully put that to rest.

If you get companies like BlackRock that are investing in empathy and coaching and development and customer succession planning, maybe we should all look at that internally and look at upon ourselves to, look in the mirror, if you will, and say, what am I doing to invest in my people, my team, my coaching and our organizations like BlackRock providing resources that I should take advantage of.

[00:21:53] Derek Notman: Tech is a tool, not one to replace people, but to be used by people. So let's get the best people in to use it. Right?

[00:22:02] Adam Holt: What else did you hear? That was a, that's a great takeaway for everybody.

[00:22:06] Derek Notman: You do have , this generational wealth transfer happening. And I, we've talked about this before. We've heard it before, but now we're hearing it from the world's largest asset manager that.

The need for the human touch for human insight is just continuing to grow. It is so, so important about that and that the consumer is looking for more than just asset management. And I think this is where we could really tie all this together is clearly BlackRock is an asset manager, but they're going above and beyond with value add services to support advisors.

And it's interesting is that the advisors that appear to be growing the most and succeeding the most are the ones that are using the same model with their clients. They're providing the additional relationship, the empathy, the outcome based planning, digital integration, where it makes sense.

, they're helping as a connector between teams and experts. And it's really more of a conversation around money. So instead of , Hey, yeah, I'll just manage your IRA. It's. Well, no, let's talk about all this other stuff too. Let's really get personal. Let's listen. Let's have that empathy. And so you're starting to see this.

I don't know. So this was interesting. Where did it start? Did it start at the top with the asset managers and trickle down to advisors and then the customers or did it start with the customer is now trickling the other direction? I don't know.

[00:23:26] Adam Holt: Oh, that's interesting. So you're taking the converse of this argument, which is where is that empathy of the customer's pains point really starting? So I think advisors. Have been generally aware that their customers have other problems that they may not monetize, right? So we, maybe we monetize by assets under management, but we're solving a whole bunch of other problems like financial planning and maybe, uh, risk management and stuff.

Maybe things we don't get even compensated for. In fact, one would argue that almost financial planning for many advisors is an ancillary gratis. Because you have assets under management with us, we're the asset manager and we're providing all these other great services that make sense from a loyalty stickiness value proposition standpoint.

We all know that to see this actually coming from larger organizations is interesting, and I think it begs the question for a lot of advisors to challenge are there vendors. FinTech, asset management, insurance outlets, providing other services that are empathetic to your needs. That means, are they partners with you?

And if they're not, I'll let you know that there's a lot of organizations out there that actually want to partner. , I mean, this is a good question for you because here we are talking about our own services. Can we, let's, let's put the mirror on ourselves. What are you doing at Coupler? There you go.

I'm going to put you on the spot. What are you doing at

[00:24:45] Derek Notman: Yeah. Okay. Here we go. Uh, we've said this before that technology is essentially table stakes at this point and advisors are looking at what can I pay for what am I going to get? So you have to drive the value add. So a couple are, we're clearly doing lead generation in a different and better way in our opinion, but we need to do more than just deliver a lead.

What are we delivering about that? A lead that can enhance the things that Liz is talking about, like empathy and having deeper conversations and being able to do holistic planning and really understand the client better. And so part of our lead gen process is that when a new lead contacts. A an advisor, because that's how it is.

It's all consumer driven through our platform. We're going to queue up the advisor and say, listen, , this is when the customer wants to be contacted. This is how they want to be contacted. Hey, by the way, you're both dog people, uh, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. , this is what the customer's looking for.

Is it a transaction or a long term relationship? This is how they expect to pay for services. So the advisor is getting both qualitative and quantitative data before they've ever even talked to the lead. And at the same time, the lead has gotten all this great information about the advisor and why they got connected with them on a human level.

So you've enhanced human connection before they've actually ever talked to each other. And if I'm an advisor, man, you've just saved me a ton of time on stuff that I would have had to do otherwise manually. Now I've got all this data and I can have more meaningful conversations, deeper conversations, which means I'm going to be a better advisor to my customer.

And that's what the customer is looking for.

[00:26:20] Adam Holt: I didn't even realize that we had such commonality in that. And I think what you're saying is that , what your customer, what the advisor thinks that they're getting, they're trying to solve the problem, which is , I need appropriate leads. I need qualified leads to work with.

Right. That makes sense. Any business needs that. But what you're saying is that you looked past the problem of providing a lead and saying the real problem with the really lead is, is that. We can increase the likelihood that you'll get success if you have greater relationship connectivity up front. If you have the right lead right personality matrix of that's really insightful.

So that shows great empathy and actually delivering the product. I think for for us and why I said we have so much in common is that. As you know, the core of asset map was to try to visualize everything going on in the client's life on one page because of the complexity that aggravated us as advisors, right?

We're having to make so many decisions, usually in a vacuum because that information is hidden or , not in front of us when we need to make a decision. But the real challenge actually was getting to that situation, which is why we built discovery almost as a fun tool. It's a way to send a link directly to your prospects and say, Hey, take 15 minutes on your phone.

Fill this out and it'll accelerate our conversation. Next thing you know, we have thousands of households completing this every single month. Now, I thought it was going to be a total failure, but the empathy was around. How do you accelerate the time to get to that trusted conversation? Cause I've got some information about you.

Now I can have a relevant conversation as opposed to a, uh, Hey, do you, do you like movies? Uh, what do you, you know, Like that's who wants to start there now. So I think, , that's interesting how we've both taken some of this, but I think what , it's hopefully indicating for those of our listeners is being empathetic about the real customer journey and solving their problems before they even ask them.

And they don't even know that you solve that problem. I think that's a real trend.

[00:28:15] Derek Notman: definitely a trend. If I'm an advisor listening to this, I would be thinking, how am I doing that for my customers? But I also would be asking the question, are my vendors doing this for me? Are they helping me do this for my clients? Am I getting more than just the bare minimum at this point? And I

[00:28:33] Adam Holt: Just the product, right? That's a great point. So it's, you're not just buying the product, you're buying a whole experience. And are you really curating that experience intentionally?

[00:28:42] Derek Notman: exactly. Yep. I think that's a great way to take it off there. , that's exactly what's happening. And if, if, if the world's largest asset managers putting money behind that, then that means something,

[00:28:52] Adam Holt: Well, thank you, Liz, for taking the time to do that. We really appreciate your time and respect what you're doing there. Advice, engagement. As a service, really pretty cool.

, all right, let's go to our community question before we wrap up here, Derek. This is from Lisa in New Hampshire, who wrote in a question that we actually don't get very often.

It's not a technical question asking , what Derek and Adam are working on when they're not doing a podcast too many things. What are you doing,

[00:29:21] Derek Notman: it's a, it's a good question though, because there's more to Derek than Adam, and then just our, our amazing jokes and conversation on

[00:29:29] Adam Holt: we don't do jokes. I don't know what you're talking about. We joke about each other, perhaps.

[00:29:34] Derek Notman: hey, you

[00:29:34] Adam Holt: butt of each other's jokes

[00:29:36] Derek Notman: If that makes someone laugh, we've done our job.

[00:29:39] Adam Holt: made me laugh. We, that's all we care

[00:29:40] Derek Notman: That's all that matters.

[00:29:42] Adam Holt: If we're laughing, you're laughing

[00:29:43] Derek Notman: Oh, that's funny. Well, obviously like I'm focused all in on my company.

Coupler, we're fixing lead generation. We're doing it differently. You definitely got to check us out. But what's cool is that. Today, , like two hours ago, we finally went live with our first large global enterprise partner and just super stoked.

It's a little scary, but it's super exciting. It's really cool. And it's just, it's been a lot of hard work. I'm just really proud of the team. , we're going to start learning a ton of really insightful things and seeing just how well , this platform works. Uh, and we also, like we're growing the team.

I brought on three developers last week, so we're growing. It's just really, really cool. So we're having a ton of fun and I'm up for an award for couplers and rethink. I think they kind of blended it at the luminaries next week or next November. I think it is. So that's pretty exciting too.

[00:30:33] Adam Holt: Very cool. That's awesome. Thanks for sharing that. I didn't know that. Um,

[00:30:37] Derek Notman: asset map? Like you got, you mentioned the wealthies, how the wealthies go, like what's going on with the asset

[00:30:41] Adam Holt: , we did well, it's one of those things that we love to go to every year. And, uh, we were up for three, we're finalists in three categories again, this year. Uh, we didn't win. All of them, but we did win specialty planning technology for the fourth year in a row, which is unheard of.

Nobody's won four in a row in their category. So I, for asset map, it's been an exciting journey. As many of you know, it started in my own practice and then evolved over the last 10 years, going viral at a top producer conference, , back when , that was the name of the game.

And, , it's really grown all over the place. So we've been as both, ironically, we both do business in South Africa

[00:31:20] Derek Notman: Are you all right?

[00:31:21] Adam Holt: which is really funny. I don't meet too many other FinTech CEOs that have also a parallel path of doing business there. , so we're real proud of our teams there.

And it's been fun. We just crossed 45 employees at AssetMap and I'm having to relearn what , my job role is. I, it's an interesting thing, scaling a company, let alone scaling a financial advisor practice. , but it's an exciting time, I think, for all of us. And we're really blessed to be able to do all this stuff.

, and share some of that knowledge with everybody here. So with that, , we hope that , , all of you share what you're working on too. , we'd love to hear more about you continue to build the community. And of course the community questions come into us from lots of different places. Derek, as you know, LinkedIn, emails, direct , sometimes even Twitter.

So please make sure you send those out to us.

[00:32:04] Derek Notman: Awesome. Well, I think that's kind of about it

[00:32:09] Adam Holt: Well, for now, I'm sure there's going to be something in a minute when we stop recording, but that was fun. I'm really good. I think the takeaway for me on this one is, is really to rethink what are we rethinking to rethink the level of empathy and service I'm delivering outside of the product I sell.

And are we being empathetic to our customers, real needs, , that unmet at this point in time? I think that's an, that's everyone should be thinking about that.

[00:32:35] Derek Notman: Amen.

[00:32:37] Adam Holt: With that Derek, great to spend time with you.

[00:32:39] Derek Notman: Good seeing your brother until the next time.

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