Transcript

Ben Smith:                   Welcome everybody to the Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. This is our inaugural episode, the maiden voyage, if you will.

Curtis Worcester:         Number one.

Ben Smith:                   Number one. I'm joined by the cohost, Curtis Worcester, the Larry Bird to my Kevin McHale. How are you doing today, Curtis?

Curtis Worcester:         All right. I'm well, Ben. How are you?

Ben Smith:                   I'm great. So for those joining us for the first time, this show is by us. Curtis and I work for Guidance Point Advisors. We provide financial planning and investment consulting advice to our clients. One of the things that happens with these meetings when we talk to our clients here at Guidance Point is sometimes we're trying to figure out the money thing. How much money do I have? How's it going to last? When do I retire? These sorts of very standard questions.

Ben Smith:                   But a lot of times what you start getting into is you start digging into the client themselves and saying, "What are your fears? What do you want to do with your life? What is your purpose?" That's what we wanted to do with this show is go beyond the money thing and let's go beyond the conversation of what's a Roth IRA versus a pre-tax IRA. Let's really talk about these underlying fears, these underlying concerns, these purpose-related things and what makes people tick, so that we can then do better in terms of aligning their financial resources to that purpose.

Curtis Worcester:         Exactly.

Ben Smith:                   That's a lot of this show. Again, we hope this keeps going. This is something we're really serious about, and we have some really great guests lined up for future episodes. But for the first show, when we were planning this out, Curtis, we talked about, all right, how do we kick this off? How do we really get this going?

Ben Smith:                   We said, "You know what? What makes the most sense is maybe just dive into who is Guidance Point Advisors?" Who are we? What are we about? For that, we wanted to bring in our managing partner, Wes Del Col.

Ben Smith:                   So Wes is joining us today. Again, Wes is the founder and managing partner of Guidance Point Advisors. He has a really extensive career in financial services. We wanted to get into that a little bit and then talk about what makes us different at Guidance Point.

Curtis Worcester:         Yeah.

Ben Smith:                   So, at this point, I will welcome Wes to the show. Wes, I appreciate you coming on.

Wes Del Col:                 Thanks so much for having me. Very excited to be here on the maiden voyage, as you stated. This is exciting. I'm sure this will be a very long and prosperous journey.

Ben Smith:                   We don't want this to be the Titanic that everyone listens to this show and says, "That was awful. Don't ever go again."

Wes Del Col:                 Exactly.

Ben Smith:                   So hopefully we're booking people for future shows. So, Wes, what we want to do when we're creating a show is have you on as our guest and have this interview that we're doing with our guests start with their bio, is get into, well, where you're from, talk about your upbringing, and then how you got into that career path and how you fell in love with the expertise part. Would you mind walking us through that in terms of your upbringing, where you're from, and how you fell into financial planning?

Wes Del Col:                 Sure. I was born and raised in Boston, downtown on Beacon Street, in an apartment. Perhaps it's important to just give a little context about my parents. My father was raised in Fort Lee, New Jersey. His parents had immigrated here from Italy. And so, I grew up in an Italian background.

Wes Del Col:                 My mother had grown up in Dorchester, Mass. They met on a beach on Cape Cod. My father was celebrating. It was 1965. He was celebrating graduating from college and had gone down there with a bunch of friends. My mom was down there also with a bunch of friends. They didn't know each other. They met on the beach.

Wes Del Col:                 They had moved initially to Fort Lee, New Jersey. My father was involved in a mutual fund servicing company at the time. This was in the now early '70s. And so, they decided to move to Boston, because that's where at the time and still is today Boston was a big mutual fund servicing area.

Wes Del Col:                 I then went to school in Brookline, Mass. I went to high school in Connecticut at a boarding school. Then it really wasn't until college that I started to think about what I was going to do with my career, what I wanted to do in life. I had taken some of those tests like the Myers-Briggs test and these other personality tests in the '80s, and it always came out for me as teacher, coach, maybe even psychologist, something in that realm. And so, I thought I would become a teacher, at least that was the day one goal.

Wes Del Col:                 And so, my senior year in college, as we often are all doing, we're calling around trying to find our contacts, reach out to people to see what jobs we could potentially get. A lot of those people I was trying to get out to were friends of my father's. And so, most of the stuff that people had was financial services-oriented.

Wes Del Col:                 I also, as things play out, had three friends at the time, high school friends, who were moving to New York City to start their own careers. And so, I said, "Geez, why don't I try to jump on with them?" I ended up getting a job at a company called Colson Services Corp., which was the fiscal and transfer agent for the Small Business Administration.

Wes Del Col:                 So it didn't have anything to do with teaching. At that job, though, was a lot of loan servicing. We were doing processing for the SBA, which is the Small Business Administration. And so, I was getting a feel.

Wes Del Col:                 I was really only there, though, for one year when I took a leap and went over to Lehman Brothers. I started there on a team of six people. I was the lowest man on the totem pole, just working as a sales assistant.

Wes Del Col:                 That was really my first introduction to Wall Street. It was a very vibrant place to work. My boss had a lot of personality. It was a trading floor-like environment with a couple hundred people. We were doing private client services. So similar to what we now do today, but in a very different model, which I know we'll get into later. But that was really where I first started to understand, to fall in love with the markets, and to get an understanding and appreciation for wealth management.

Ben Smith:                   Wes, in terms of obviously moving from Brookline, Massachusetts to New York City ... So Lehman Brothers, it was Manhattan at that point?

Wes Del Col:                 It was Manhattan, 3 World Financial Center.

Ben Smith:                   So how was that transition for you? Because that's obviously now ... You're used to a city with Boston, but even more so into New York with three buddies. That's kind of a trial by fire as well in terms of the city itself.

Wes Del Col:                 It was amazing. I mean I grew up in an apartment, so I was accustomed to living in the city. But New York, as we all know, is a totally different animal.

Ben Smith:                   That's right.

Wes Del Col:                 I was taking the 4 train downtown, and my eyes were very wide open at the time. I was 22, 23 years old. I was learning a ton, how to get my Series 7 in a week to satisfy my boss' requirements, that kind of stuff.

Ben Smith:                   No pressure.

Wes Del Col:                 Then in those days, this was in the mid to late-'90s, we were more buying and selling stocks for people, doing a lot of option exercising. The phone would ring off the hook, you'd pick it up, someone would want a quote, they'd want to trade. It was just very active.

Wes Del Col:                 So I fell in love with it and liked that pace in a work environment. So I found it very stimulating and exciting. To this day, I mean things have changed a little bit. Now obviously we're a much smaller company. But many of the things that I learned in that first job have carried over still to what we do today.

Curtis Worcester:         I know you just mentioned it briefly that's where you started to fall in love with the industry. Can you just elaborate on that a little bit and what in those experiences really made you fall in love with wealth management?

Wes Del Col:                 I think there were two things that were playing out for me. One, I did love the stock market and everything we just talked about in terms of the vibrancy, of being in a large firm, working with clients. But there was also another part of me which I mentioned briefly before, which was more oriented around psychology, interpersonal skills, working with people.

Wes Del Col:                 So I think, for me always, the teaching, the coaching aspect, the question was: is there a way potentially to marry the skills I thought I had from an interpersonal and what I enjoy doing from a human side to this developing skill and expertise on money management and Wall Street? The way for me, I think, to naturally do that was I thought I should become a financial advisor, because it marries those two qualities-

Curtis Worcester:         Sure.

Wes Del Col:                 ... especially in the early 2000s, if we're fast-forwarding a little bit. One, it was transitioning from more of a brokerage model of buying and selling for people to really more of an advice model. That was much more suited to my personality characteristics. And so, that's really what I started to love and come to in the career path was the marrying of those two things.

Ben Smith:                   So some of this is you're covering why am I a financial advisor. It's marrying the psychology to the technical skills that you were gathering. But obviously, at that time, you're thinking about where you want to be and who are you and where you're going. But ultimately what gave you the freedom, why are you a financial advisor, is kind of this, like, well, you could have taken that form in lots of different ways. You could have worked for Lehman and maybe done a little bit more on their private service or private wealth management team.

Wes Del Col:                 Sure.

Ben Smith:                   So as you're figuring out, well, why are you a financial advisor, talk about, well, what structure you wanted it to be. Because, again, you have the brokerage model, which is still even relevant today ...

Wes Del Col:                 Sure.

Ben Smith:                   ... to the advice model as well. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Wes Del Col:                 Yes. I think, as I said earlier, for me it was the best fit. So it was utilizing interpersonal skills with an expertise and a love of the markets to help people really achieve their goals. When you think about people's financial goals, and you guys know this now working with clients too, everything is intertwined with their personal lives as well.

Wes Del Col:                 In the brokerage model, it's really more of a transactional situation, whereas when you get into more of a fiduciary concept, which I know we'll get into later in what we are, and putting the client's interests ahead of our own, working with them more on the financial planning side, you get a much more in-depth understanding of who they are as a person. I think you develop a different level of relationship with them. And that's really what I was after and what I liked most about the job.

Wes Del Col:                 And so, that was a natural progression for me, to want to go in that direction and not just be in a transactional environment where you're making a commission and you really don't have the client's best interests at heart. I think when you move to the other side and you are interacting with clients in that manner, it's so much more fulfilling, at least it has been for me.

Ben Smith:                   Right. I'll echo that back to you, Wes, is for my journey coming in is that same thing, is I knew I didn't want to be in a transactional role. I knew I didn't want to just be, "Hey, I'm trying to convince you to do the buy or the sell of it," without aligning it to, well, why are you doing what you're doing?

Ben Smith:                   I think that's what's been pretty nice and, obviously getting to know you, is that we spend a lot of our time on the why, is what are you trying to accomplish in your life and why are you doing this? Why is this important to you? Why is that not important to you? All of those things make a big difference. Then saying, "Well, here's the tools of the trade, stocks, bonds," whatever the things we're doing with our clients, that we're doing it to build the house.

Ben Smith:                   I use this analogy a bunch is, hey, when you're building a house, if you work with an advisor and he just sits down with you or she sits down with you and says, "I have a really great hammer and this hammer has done a lot ... It's hammered thousands of nails. It's just great. You're going to love it. Then this screwdriver. It does a fantastic job screwing in these screws," you're not talking about the house that they're trying to build. It's this, "Hey, here's the house. I want it to be able to have this room in it because this is important to me."

Ben Smith:                   That's what I think is pretty interesting about fiduciary, the financial advice world, is that advice is talking about that house and what's important to you, what sort of things you want to do in those rooms. Then you talk about building it, not like, "Well, let's spend all the time on the tricks of the trade and the tools and the technicals and all of that." It doesn't matter if you don't know where they're going.

Ben Smith:                   I know that we've had this conversation a lot back and forth, and it's just something where you see the disconnects in terms of the financial advice world with that.

Wes Del Col:                 Absolutely. I couldn't agree more.

Ben Smith:                   So one of the things I want to rotate to you too is as you become a financial advisor and you're getting there, what are some of the least favorite things that you have about the financial advice world? Because it's not just, "Here's where we are and here's what you're seeing as we're learning," but there's things that you're going, "Well, I don't like this and I do like that." I want to spend a second on what don't you like?

Wes Del Col:                 So as the industry has grown and changed and firms like ours have evolved, the tasks associated with regulation and compliance have also crept up. Oftentimes, from a regulatory standpoint, they don't care whether you're small or large. They expect you to do the same things.

Wes Del Col:                 While I completely understand that we need to be regulated and that compliance is an important part of our business, some of those tasks feel mundane. You're doing a lot of work that feels like it's not necessarily even in the best client's interests, but it is checking a box, if you will, from a compliance standpoint.

Wes Del Col:                 I guess I wish there were more either uniformity or structure or organization around understanding what you had to do from a compliance standpoint. It's pretty broad. So I would say, in terms of the aspect I don't like ... And, look, every job has operational tasks, different elements to it that are not the exciting part. For me, personally, because I'm also the chief compliance officer, it's hard, it's part of what we do, I understand it, but it can be cumbersome.

Curtis Worcester:         Got you. Make sense. So we just spent a good amount of time talking about you and your journey, Wes. I want to rotate this conversation to the business Guidance Point Advisors. Can you just talk about how Guidance Point Advisors came to be and then how we've grown since then?

Wes Del Col:                 Sure, absolutely. To pick up where I left off as an intro to Guidance Point, I left Lehman Brothers in 2001 and went back to business school up in Boston. Then when I came out of business school, I got another job down in New York for a smaller firm called Retirement System Group, RS Group, mainly a retirement plan consulting firm, but they had a wealth management arm. I will work there, helping to build out the wealth management infrastructure from basically 2004 through 2008.

Wes Del Col:                 That company was sold to a larger retirement planning firm in the area. They didn't really have a wealth management offering, which is what I was doing at the firm the whole time.

Wes Del Col:                 So at that point, I was deciding between either trying to leapfrog and join another firm or hang my own shingle and start my own firm. I had what I thought were probably 10 or 11 clients that would come over with me, whether I started a new firm or went somewhere else. I decided to go the independent route, which means I hung my own shingle and started Guidance Point Advisors. At that point, I was just a solo practitioner. So this is now late 2008, early 2009. It was just me for about four years. During that time too, I-

Ben Smith:                   Can I pause here for a second, Wes?

Wes Del Col:                 Sure.

Ben Smith:                   Because there are some really good questions I want to ask here. One of the things is, okay, think back to 2007, 2008, and 2009. Your employer is leaving, is being sold, and you're saying, "Hey, I want to go hang my own shingle." It's 2008. The peak of the market was October of 2007, and we're starting to see the mortgage crisis happen and we're seeing subprime loans blow up. You're seeing your former firm, Lehman Brothers, over a weekend, goes away. And you say to yourself, "You know what the best thing I should do is? I should create my own firm."

Wes Del Col:                 Well, you'll love this. I said the same thing to my father, and he had what I thought was a great line at the time. He said, "It's either the worst time to start your own firm or the best time"-

Curtis Worcester:         There you go.

Wes Del Col:                 ... because the market was so far down. As you know, when you're starting a firm too, it takes several months to become approved, to get your ADV up and running. Thankfully, the old firm I worked for had gotten into contract over the summer prior to fall of '08. So that deal was locked in.

Wes Del Col:                 I could have stayed with that firm. I had that option. I just knew I wanted to go. It was a tricky time, but I did feel, to my father's point, that it was going to be the best time because it was only going to go ... Hopefully things were going to come back. It also gave me a little time to not feel like I had to have a ton of clients coming on board. I could get my structure in place with Fidelity and Envestnet. And so, it ended up working out, but it absolutely was a little hairy in the beginning.

Ben Smith:                   I know we'll get to this in a second, but I came from a bank, Trust Channel, and you go, "Okay, nothing's more secure and safe than banks."

Wes Del Col:                 Sure.

Ben Smith:                   It's like these banks were really capitalized and secured and all that. I go, "Okay, now I'm going to join an independent firm." It's like it never feels like there's the best time. There's always that risk, that jump you have to take, and it is extremely scary to go, "I've got to go out. Can I do this? Do I have the self-esteem and the confidence that I'm good enough to be able to go grow a client, book a business, and help people? Are they going to view me as valuable, or did they view the institution I was working at as the valuable part of the entity?"

Ben Smith:                   All of those things are really hard questions. Kudos to you in terms of guts you have to have to say, "You know what? I believe myself. I can do this and I will be okay."

Wes Del Col:                 Yeah. I would say this. I would have had more difficulty doing that if I didn't think that I had 10 or 11 clients to come with me. So I wasn't starting at absolute zero-

Wes Del Col:                 ... where I felt like I didn't ... And I'd already been doing the exact same things just for a smaller organization, so that helped as well. But it would have been very difficult to make that decision. If I just couldn't have taken any clients, I didn't have a non-compete, or anything like that, I don't know if I could have made that leap, to your point.

Ben Smith:                   I want to ask another question to that, Wes.

Wes Del Col:                 Yeah, sure.

Ben Smith:                   So, okay, now you're creating a firm. One of the always trickiest thing to come up with is what the heck do we call this thing? It's like I could call this anything. I can call it Wes Del Col Wealth Management or Financial ... And you're going, "What services do I offer? What do I want to do? How do people want to position?" all of that. So how did you come up with Guidance Point Advisors?

Wes Del Col:                 So I had been going through and cycling through in my head a lot of different names and things, and some were of Italian origin for go and that kind of stuff. But I knew Guidance was something that was going to be a piece of what we were doing. That just kept coming up in my thought process, like what are we really doing here? We're guiding people.

Wes Del Col:                 Then I can remember I was in my elevator of the building I lived in. I was going down and Guidance Point came into my head. I said, "Guidance Point Advisors." Then it wasn't like I was like, "This is it." I let it sit for a day or two. I think I told my wife about it, and my father, my brother, someone like that, and they said, "Yeah, that's it. That's a good name."

Wes Del Col:                 But it wasn't anything more complicated than that. I just came up with it in my head. I probably was looking at some other firm names that might have had point or whatever and combined a few things, and it was off to the races. I actually hired a Maine-based firm, because I knew AJ at the time. They helped me with design.

Ben Smith:                   That's AJ Walker, yeah.

Wes Del Col:                 Yeah, AJ Walker, who we'll talk about later, another partner. Yeah, then they'd created the design. And next thing I know I really just liked it. And so, we ran with it.

Ben Smith:                   Nice. So let's keep moving here. So you've launched the firm, it's up and running. You've brought over that initial core group of clients there. How did that keep progressing in terms of, all right, so we started, you're going. Obviously you go through the financial crisis. You've made it to the other side. What happens next?

Wes Del Col:                 So in 2011, I made the decision first, which was a big one, to move the firm from New York to Boston. At that point, I had been in conversations with AJ, who we had just mentioned, about combining efforts and possibly merging firms. He had more of a retirement plan consulting firm at the time.

Wes Del Col:                 And so, I thought, geez, Boston is closer to Maine. I also grew up here, as did my wife. We had three kids at the time in Manhattan. So it seemed like it could be just a natural progression to move to Boston. So that took place.

Wes Del Col:                 I had clients that were up here from Boston, some of those 11 I mentioned that had already grown. I would say six or seven of them were actually more Boston-based because of where I grew up and friends and all of that. I also had a slightly larger referral network up here.

Wes Del Col:                 So I just started building really singles and doubles, like meeting up with people who would refer me, maybe through an accountant, maybe through an estate planning attorney, and growing very slowly.

Wes Del Col:                 Then in 2012, and you know this story, AJ introduced me to you. We decided to all form the partnership in terms of coming on board. You had some clients. You were in the same boat in terms of having some individual clients that you were bringing over.

Ben Smith:                   Yeah. Maybe I can just time out and just fill it in real quick.

Wes Del Col:                 Yeah, sure.

Ben Smith:                   Yeah. So I get introduced to you. You worked with AJ Walker at the RS Group, right?

Wes Del Col:                 Correct.

Ben Smith:                   So you guys have been introduced at that point, had a working relationship, liked each other and knew each other. AJ was more on the retirement plan consulting, so 401ks and 403bs, helping those organizations launch their employee-based savings plans.

Ben Smith:                   AJ was entering into an agreement with the bank I was employed at, Camden National Bank, to essentially acquire the retirement plans that were there. So I was overseeing that division of the wealth management group there. But I also, kind of like you, had my own personal relationships with some wealth management clients and financial planning clients.

Ben Smith:                   I said, "Well, geez. Here's people that I know and I've had, geez, seven, eight-year relationships with. Would it be okay that they came with, because if maybe these other clients don't come? What happens if I'm out in the wind because not enough clients came?"

Ben Smith:                   So that was part of it, is I wanted to ... I obviously had retirement plans that I work with, but also personal wealth management clients and financial planning. And so, that's how you and I got involved, Wes, is that introduction. All of a sudden we went from, I think, your now new Boston office to Boston, Portland, Maine, and then Bangor, Maine.

Wes Del Col:                 Yeah, exactly, and we've grown since then. So then we added Larry, Curtis as well, Chris, Abby. So to speak just a little about where we are today even as a firm, so from those somewhat humble beginnings. I was just looking the other day and we have well over now 400 accounts. We have about 160 to 170 families that we're servicing and an asset base that's closer to $270 million. So we've grown fairly rapidly, I think all of us, but we've also added great people to help with that. And so, it's been a very, I would say, smooth ride.

Wes Del Col:                 The other thing that I would mention that's pertinent to the Retirement Success in Maine Podcast is when it was just me, it was much more Boston-based, New York. I mean we have clients all over the country and even some international clients. But right now we have more clients in Maine than anywhere else in the country, and that's a credit obviously to you and Curtis and Abby and AJ. Larry as well.

Ben Smith:                   Yeah, thanks for that, because it's something where ... Again, for our podcast, look, we know Guidance Point Advisors has reach in lots of different areas. I know myself and Abby and Curtis and Larry and AJ, we have a nice little core here too, and that's something where we just thought, well, hey Mainers can be a little bit of a different breed here too, good and bad. So let's have something that speaks a little bit more to them, which is the podcast.

Ben Smith:                   But again these are lessons I hope any client, it doesn't matter where they are, that there's some of us and all these shows that we intend to do going forward that anybody could really learn of it. You don't have to look to their local resource to access what we're talking about.

Ben Smith:                   But what I want to do is I also want to ask that question of the growth. It's one thing to say, "Hey, I was these humble beginnings," and just to go, "Hey, it's great. We just added this person, this person, this person, and things just happened. We grew to $270 million in assets and 160 families." Well, it's not that easy, right? It just doesn't happen that way.

Ben Smith:                   So there's something unique here is what I love about our team. I love working with you, Wes. I love working with Curtis and Abby and the entirety of the group here. There's something about it. Can you speak to that in terms of what do you think makes us unique? Then I want to ask the follow-up question of who do you work with? But can you spend a minute just on the ... Again, people have choices all over the place. They could choose any financial advisor. Why do you think they choose us?

Wes Del Col:                 I think they choose us because of the people. I really think what makes an organization unique or a person unique, I think, is that it's the people at the firm who make the firm unique. The common thread, I think, for all of us is that we all ... And you and I have discussed this, Ben. I think we all view ourselves as educators. We don't come from slick sales backgrounds. The way we're structured, we're not trying to sell anyone a product. There's nothing but the best interest of the clients in how we operate. I think we are all very much in line with that.

Wes Del Col:                 I think that's important because how we view ourselves and how that translates into the client experience results in a very intimate ... I don't know if that's the right word ... or trusting personal relationship with the clients that I think makes them feel very comfortable.

Wes Del Col:                 I also think a unique feature is because we're small and we're not about ... I know I just rattled off some numbers. But we all have a very comfortable amount of clients. It's not like we're overwhelming ourselves. That allows us to work with people that we think share our values, that we think we would work well with.

Wes Del Col:                 And so, you put those two things together, and it feels special. I think that translates through to the clients. I really think that that's the ... If you're talking about uniqueness, it starts with the people.

Ben Smith:                   What's really cool getting to know you, Wes, is when you and I are getting together and talking about our backgrounds, you talked about, hey, you actually thought you were going to be a teacher one day, is, "I went to school thinking this and this is where I want to be."

Ben Smith:                   Well, my father was a teacher for over 35 years at a local high school here in Bangor, Maine. So I've grown up around being the educator and teaching and all of that. I know Curtis has a similar story, too. His mom is also a teacher.

Ben Smith:                   So what's interesting is here we have this education bent. It's not only impacting our clients, it's also impacting the type of people that are joining our firm too, is that the ones that are sticking and the ones that are going, "Hey, that's something unique. The way they do something is something I'm passionate about because that's how I grew up and that's how I learned."

Ben Smith:                   So something like Curtis coming in on that too is continue to grow and we're getting momentum not only just from the client perspective, but also from people that are like-minded with talent and expertise and passion, because what you mentioned is I think the caring part.

Ben Smith:                   That's something we want to be relaying through this podcast going forward is, hey, these people at Guidance Point really care. They care about their clients. They care so much about their clients that they're obsessed with retirement, they're obsessed with everything retirement-based, which is why they're going to ask questions about anything from aging mental health to travel bucket list to whatever going forward. It's not just about, well, what impacts Ben and Wes and Abby and Curtis and Larry and Chris and AJ, it's about what is impacting you, because we want to make sure you're at the center of our service model, not us.

Wes Del Col:                 Yeah. One other point I would just make there is that we have a very, I think, interesting group of clients. We have some people who are very ultra high net worth, we have a lot of people who are emerging affluent, who are living more on a paycheck to paycheck basis. We have a lot of millennials, younger clients in their 30s, who are still building, just having kids. We have people in their 80s and 90s who are retired. We have a lot of people who come from rural areas. Obviously, we've talked about a lot of people from New York and in the Boston area, urban areas.

Wes Del Col:                 I think, again, the fact that we're able to connect to all of those different people speaks to what you're talking about, that it's really more about your values and the type of person you are than having any one attribute or filling anyone's slot, if you will. I think that's shown through in terms of the different types of clients that we have.

Ben Smith:                   Yeah. Again, it's not like a slick marketing type thing, we're trying to go, "Hey, let's just scale this to 100,000 times the the size we are today and have thousands of employees." It's more of, "Hey, we want to grow with people that value us and that we value them." There is a caring relationship that's happening back and forth.

Curtis Worcester:         So I want to keep talking about the business, Wes. One piece that I think would be helpful for our listeners and our clients to hear us talk about is so how do we get paid? I know you mentioned we don't sell anything. Can you just elaborate a little bit on how we work and the services we do provide?

Wes Del Col:                 So the typical pay structure for our business model is based on a percentage of the assets under management that we are managing on someone's behalf. So let's try to give a real world example of that.

Wes Del Col:                 If someone had $500,000 that they wanted us to manage on their behalf, and we were charging our standard fee of 75 basis points. That's an annualized fee. 75 basis points essentially means three quarters of 1%. So for someone with $500,000, that would equate to $3,750 annually. That comes out quarterly from the accounts. It gets calculated on an automatic basis. It doesn't have to be like a check written every quarter.

Wes Del Col:                 That fee is also, at least in our model, inclusive of financial planning, retirement planning. And so, it's all included in it. You don't have to pay any other additional fees to us. Sometimes the investments that you invest in may have small fees, but that's separate and apart from our fee schedule.

Wes Del Col:                 We also can, and we've done this ... I had a client last year that had all of their money in a 401k plan. They didn't necessarily need it managed. It was being managed externally. But they needed some help on the planning side just from a retirement standpoint.

Wes Del Col:                 And so, we just did an hourly structure where they needed a few hours of time. There's project-based. We can accommodate that as well. But the primary way is the percentage of assets under management.

Curtis Worcester:         Got you.

Ben Smith:                   Can we talk a little bit obviously in terms of ... So fees are a big part of it, but I know there's a question ... Or I wouldn't say a question. Maybe it's a myth, maybe it's a misnomer. But some people saying, "I can't afford a financial advisor." So can you talk about maybe who can afford, but also that thinking, what drives people to it, and then how we respond to that?

Wes Del Col:                 Yeah. So I think we just touched on it briefly, but for those people ... The woman I had just mentioned is a separate scenario, but I know, Ben, you've had even a couple of maybe millennials. These are individuals who are in their 30s. They have solid incomes, but they don't necessarily have a lot saved up. And so, they're saying, "Geez, I can't really afford a financial planner."

Wes Del Col:                 Well, the truth is you can. We could certainly work with you in that capacity either on a project basis, like we said, or an hourly basis, where we can look at things for you, we can build out different scenarios, whether it'd be education planning, retirement planning, budgeting, just so that you have a good feel for what you need to be doing, the steps you need to be taking, goals you need to be achieving even on a small scale. We can do that hourly at relatively low cost.

Wes Del Col:                 So you don't have to have a ton of assets. I think that is a misnomer about the industry that people say, "Oh, I don't have enough money to be serviced in this way." We think we have ways that can help those kinds of people as well. At least in my experience in the ... And I haven't had a ton of those clients, but in the times I have, it's been extremely useful. And in one case even, of course and then when they did accumulate funds, ended up coming on board as well because they understand what they're getting from us. So that's certainly something that people who don't have a lot of investable assets at the moment could still utilize through our services.

Ben Smith:                   Nice. I want to talk a little bit about another thing, is I think in the general public knowledge is I think financial advisor and financial consultant, all of that terms out there, that can describe what you talked about earlier, Wes, in your career is maybe a sales role, it could be an advice role. There's a lot of, I think, confusion, it feels like, from our end when we sit down with somebody about ... They don't know what to expect from us. They don't know where we sit. They don't know, well, where is the next shoe to fall and, "This is where you're going to get me, aha."

Ben Smith:                   So can you talk a little bit about the myth-busting here? What are some myths about financial advisors that you think are not true anymore or maybe don't apply to us in our business?

Wes Del Col:                 I think you just hit on the main one, that is there are so many overlapping terms, how we interact with clients, how do you get paid, what services do people provide. The truth is it's not all the same. The name financial advisor, planner, broker, fiduciary, all of these terms get thrown around. To your point, people don't necessarily understand what they're getting, and that can turn people off.

Wes Del Col:                 So I think that's imperative and something that we need to do as educators, as individuals when we're sitting down with prospective clients, is explaining exactly how we work with them, not shying away from the fee structure. I mean I've met with a lot of prospects where I sit down on a meeting with two or three people and we're walking through our structure and they'll say, "Geez, the other guy didn't even talk about how they get paid." I said, "Well, that's [inaudible 00:39:38]," whatever it is.

Wes Del Col:                 So I think that's important from us to help breakdown that myth. If they're not going to get it from anywhere else, we need to be able to express and have people understand how we work with them, what the fees are. For us, that's our only fee. There are no other shoes to drop, and that's the way it should be.

Wes Del Col:                 I know I like to be talked about when I'm being sold things or potentially purchasing services the same way that I try to express to people, and that's I don't want to be sold. I don't want there to be at the end of the project, "Oh, yes. By the way, we didn't tell you about this." That doesn't make people feel comfortable.

Wes Del Col:                 So I think we all do a very good job of laying that out in the front in the beginning of the relationship so that people do understand, because that's how you build trust as well.

Ben Smith:                   All right. So let's talk about, again, questions about financial advisors. Let's talk about, when we're working with a client, how do we see people and our clients define retirement success, because at the end of the day, it's not just, "Well, hey, here's my money. I've accumulated it. I'm now retiring and I don't know what I'm doing." I think we're trying to figure out with them, if you're looking backwards, if you're visualizing what retirement is, and what would you say were good outcomes, helping people figure that out. Can you talk a little bit about what do you think maybe the general public sees as their own retirement success, how do our clients see it, and how does that change over time?

Wes Del Col:                 Sure. So it's definitely changed over time. I would say the biggest thing that I've seen even in 20 years is that people are living a lot longer. So retirement is really being stretched out. And so, with that comes more choices, more things to manage and deal with, but also sometimes you need a larger pool of assets to get you to the finish line if you're talking about a quarter, sometimes even a third of your life that you're going to be spending in retirement.

Wes Del Col:                 So while there is definitely no standard definition for retirement success, I think part of the fun of our job is helping clients define what that success means to them and then helping them take the steps to get there. I can think of a couple of clients, one in particular, that were thinking about retiring a couple of years ago. Their kids were spread out. They had one living abroad, two in California. They were from the Boston area. They decided they wanted to make the leap and move out to California.

Wes Del Col:                 And so, they did that two years ago, and they fully retired. I just spoke to them two weeks ago. They're loving it. They're having a great time. They're close. They're getting to see their grandchild all the time. They're in a better environment from a weather perspective. So they're outdoors all the time. They're staying active. For them, that was and has been total success.

Wes Del Col:                 I have another client who's in her 60s, thinking about retiring. She wants to take many sabbatical and write a book for six months and then come back to work. For her, that being involved in work still after is really important.

Wes Del Col:                 So I think, for some people, income can be important. For others, health is really important. For others, it's giving back. There's lots of different ways to define retirement success. I think, for us, it's helping ... This is where maybe the psychologist part of all of our jobs come in, is ferreting that out for them and saying, "Okay. I think I understand what's important to you. Let's move things in a direction that'll help you achieve whatever that is." I think it has changed, but I think defining retirement success is something that's different for everyone, and we have to address it that way.

Ben Smith:                   Well, also in terms of success too is sometimes you have your best laid plans and you think this is going to happen at 62 or 65, whatever the age, and then something shocking happens in the world, as in the financial crisis from '07 to '09 happens. People were like, "Well, I thought I was going to retire now. What do I do?"

Ben Smith:                   And so, I think sometimes we're helpers in terms of keeping them organized, keeping them on track, giving them confidence when they lack confidence and self-esteem. So I think all of this is, hey, sometimes things change or, "You know what? I broke my hip and I'm now disabled and I can't do the things I wanted to do when we talked about that vision. I need to adjust our vision a little bit, and here's how I want to adjust it."

Ben Smith:                   Then, again, aligning money to purpose. I think if we keep doing that continually and keeping those two things aligned, I think that's where I personally see us as having success with our clients too, because that purpose is going to change and all of a sudden what you thought you were going to be all excited about at 65 is different than at 82, and that might be different at 90, because as we're getting maybe closer to end-of-life and thinking about that, legacy might be the thing that we all focus in on. What's the best way to leave a legacy and who do I want to leave a legacy to? What about charities? How do we start thinking about estate planning? We get involved in that.

Ben Smith:                   I think those are sorts of things that I've seen change as well, which, again, is why I like this whole Retirement Success as the show title that we're launching here is because of that, is that we all have this individualized idea of what it is. We're hearing it, but you go, "Well, I don't know. How do I align your state plan to that legacy purpose?" We're not estate planners. We don't want to be. We're not offering that service. But let's go help them find the resource and let's help have that conversation on behalf of our clients. So I love that. That's a really cool thing there.

Wes Del Col:                 Yeah. I think that's well said.

Curtis Worcester:         I know we're talking about retirement success here, and you gave us a couple of stories there. That's great because I think our goal for this podcast is to be story-driven. So that was great.

Curtis Worcester:         I want to talk about ... As you mentioned earlier, not all of our clients are in retirement, or they may not even be near retirement. You alluded they may not have those assets saved up at the moment. Can we go in deeper there on how we can help those who may be high earners and they have these retirement goals, but they're so far out? How can we still help them achieve those?

Wes Del Col:                 Well, I think the first thing you do in those types of situations and where it can be very helpful is the planning side of things, right?

Curtis Worcester:         Yeah.

Wes Del Col:                 You have the asset management piece. That's one piece. Then there's the planning piece. And what do we mean by planning? So we sit down with those individuals. We talk about where they might want to be. You do have to make some assumptions when you're doing some form of planning. But you'll lay out a structure. It's typically around budgeting. "So, okay, how much can we spend now? Where should we be saving? We've got a 529 plan, IRAs, 401k. By the way, we want to buy a new house. We've got a new dog. We all know [inaudible 00:47:12]." You can't feed all of these buckets. It gets too overwhelming.

Wes Del Col:                 So one of the responsibilities we have is to say, "Okay, let's break this down possibly into smaller steps of things you could do that you can accomplish that don't feel so far away." Like you're saying, those individuals who are in their 30s and they're saying, "I'm barely able to save right now." That's okay, but if maybe we can chip away this way. If you can show them, and this is the beauty of the plan, that if they only put away this much in this form, in a Roth or whatever it is, over time and they retire at 65, geez, look at that. You actually got 25 years of retirement out of this.

Wes Del Col:                 And so, you can help people start to think, "Okay. So these small things that I'm doing every day actually do have ... There's a real basis for them in my head," as opposed to, "I don't know. Should I not go out to Starbucks today because it saves $5? It doesn't seem worth it." So you can really help people.

Wes Del Col:                 I've heard that feedback from clients that the plan and the roadmap is very helpful in terms of them understanding why now they need to be doing things. So it can be very powerful in that regard for those people. It plays into helping people have different outcomes. I mean, Ben, you talked about it.

Wes Del Col:                 On the other side of the spectrum, you start to have people who there could be diminished capacity. There could be physical ailments once they're in retirement, things that they hadn't planned for. How do we help them on that side? Oftentimes that can be ... You talked about the estate planning, Ben, bringing the children, getting the children involved, having them understand where the parents are, getting certain structures in place on the account so that the kids have a say, so that that transition can be smooth.

Wes Del Col:                 Because one thing we've also learned is people in all ages don't love to always ask for help. They can be reluctant to. So it's up to us to almost make them feel like that's part of the service we're providing, and it is, and that's what we're there for. And so, I've seen that in a lot of places as well.

Ben Smith:                   I think from a certain generational perspective too, I think that some of the generations we're working with have difficulty expressing their fears and their problems and their concerns. They don't want to share that with you because they view that as that's a weakness. There's a level of trust there, too. And so, they just don't want to be perceived a certain way, and I think there's pride along that.

Ben Smith:                   From that end, I think that can be tough too, which is, again, from our end, if we can already have some of these conversations here in these type of settings, it maybe opens that door a little bit and gives them, hey, other people struggle with this, too. I think that's something where we can show it's possible and how other people have worked through it and found a possible solution. So that's really great.

Ben Smith:                   I'd love to ask you another question here, Wes, is it seems like a lot of the planning end is about the struggles that we have managing today versus tomorrow. I think that's where ... If somebody's coming to us, and I think that's a lot of it is you hear this fear, and all those retirees say this too, that they haven't ever had to spend from a pool of money before. That's never happened in their life that they've accumulated this financial resource. And they've been taught to save, they've not been taught to spend, right?

Wes Del Col:                 That's true.

Ben Smith:                   So then you have to flip the switch and say, "Yeah, yeah. It's fine. You can go ahead and spend from that money," and they go, "No, no, because my whole goal for the 30 years I've been training myself is to accumulate more of it, not to spend from it." So there's a struggle of today and tomorrow. Can you talk about what you've been seeing there and how we help people through that?

Wes Del Col:                 Sure. As you were saying that, I would say three or four clients were popping into my head who are going through that now in various times of their life. Sometimes it's not even in retirement. It could be in buying the house you want and there being-

Ben Smith:                   That's right.

Wes Del Col:                 ... a large downpayment. So your bank account balance is going to go down, but, yes, you're building equity over here. So you have to be able to think of it that way.

Wes Del Col:                 I think the key to helping people in that situation comes back to the plan, meaning if I can show you that spending at this level, and when you take into account inflation and taxes and social security that you're getting and all the other variables that are real in your life, and you can get to the finish line and still have that legacy amount that you'd like to give to your children, it eases the burden, the shoulders come down a little bit, people start to feel more relaxed.

Wes Del Col:                 Now the key with that, though, at least in the clients I know that we all work with, is you can't just set that plan and think and forget it, right?

Ben Smith:                   Right.

Wes Del Col:                 Because it ultimately is like a spreadsheet. It's only as good as the day you presented it. So what we do is every year on our annual reviews, we update that information, we look at it through the new lens, and we make sure we're still on track. Nine out of 10 times, I would say even closer to 10 out of 10, we are because we know what the inputs were when we originally started the plan. And so, even though things change, and they always change, that's the other thing, it's very hard when you start predicting out five, 10, much less 20 years out because life isn't static.

Wes Del Col:                 So part of our job is continually, not just through the plan but through our conversations with clients, making sure that we're updating and addressing everything that's going on in those people's lives. I think when you do that and put it in sort of a paper or internet forum that they can see and we can play with and move different dials to show how different things impact it, it shows it in a real world context that relates to them as opposed to saying, "$1 million at age 65 will get to where you want to be." That doesn't make me feel comfortable. Show me how I'm going to get there.

Wes Del Col:                 I think that's what we all do pretty well, utilizing all the software that we have and the inputs that we have. That's where, quite frankly, we all spend a lot of time with our clients.

Ben Smith:                   Yeah. I'd echo that the goal here is not survivability of money. The goal isn't just, well, how much money do I need just to survive for 30 years? If that's what we're solving for, I think that's a big disconnect to what people want. I will say, just in my career, what I've learned is I was so investment-focused, just all investment-focused. It's all about just, "Well, if you can just make the most return you possibly can, everything sorts itself out."

Ben Smith:                   And you find that, look, from a spending perspective, it's as big of an input to it and it can blow that up, too. So you've got to be really in-tune to clients, as you said, with the annual review process that we have.

Ben Smith:                   So here I've really learned that, is this whole ... And Curtis and I were in a meeting where one client said, "Hey, I'm really thinking about buying that boat. We've been talking about that boat. It is going to be a 30-footer. I'm really excited about it. This is going to run anywhere from $80,000 to $90,000 is the type of boat I spec'd out."

Ben Smith:                   Well, previously, and I think of my previous career stop, I would've been surprised by that, and they would have probably already just bought it and said, "Hey, Ben, bought the boat," like, "Wait, what?" This is something where if you're part of that planning process, geez, all of this then that what we're talking about, is balancing today and tomorrow, is showing them the trade-off, is say, "Hey, yes. Let's show you the path to yes and not be the gatekeeper to no."

Ben Smith:                   So how can I find that way to you really wanted the boat and one thing you always wanted to have is a life purpose of, "I want to be on the water more. I really get peace here. I get more calm. I can spend time with my family here on this boat this is what it represents to me."

Ben Smith:                   Okay. Well, if you start asking the next question, the next question, the next, "Well, how many weeks are you going to spend on this boat? Where are you going to dock it? What sort of travels are you going to do?" you start getting to the utility of it and it's like, "Well, hey, if you're only going to spend a week and a half a year on that boat, is it really a wise decision to spend $90,000 on that boat? Could you rent that for a week and a half a year and get exactly what you want? Maybe even a better boat than you thought were possible."

Ben Smith:                   Having those kind of conversations, widening it ... And I'm not saying you shouldn't spend it, but here's how it's going to impact tomorrow and the next day and the next day by you doing that, and getting to that place where it works. So I think that's a lot of it, too. I know you mentioned that. We can go all day on this, about those trade-offs.

Wes Del Col:                 You just brought me both ways on the boat, by the way. [inaudible 00:56:16] I needed a boat. I was getting excited. I was thinking I am calmer on the water. Now I'm just going rent one. See? You moved me in both directions.

Ben Smith:                   Yes. So we have to have that conversation. I know the person that we've had a conversation was going to listen to this show and go, "Yeah, that's me. Yeah, that's what I was thinking about." But I do want to talk a little bit now going forward here, Wes, is we just talked a lot about how things have changed in the last 20 years and, again, more of a sales advice type model is what we're seeing now. Can you talk a little bit about what you think financial advice is going to be like for the next 20 years? Then Guidance Point Advisors, how do you think we will change with it?

Wes Del Col:                 Yeah. So I think the delivery of advice is already changing. I think it's continuing to evolve with technology. I think we see on the investment management side algorithms playing a larger role. You hear a lot of talk about artificial intelligence in the future playing a role. I think they will and I think they'll play large roles.

Wes Del Col:                 I still believe there will be a role for humans and tech to work together. It's funny, as I was thinking about that, I have a couple that are millennials, in their 30s, and they're in the process of buying a house, clients. They came to me and said, "Hey, we want to have a chat." They already had all of this information, which if I was thinking back to like 20, 25 years ago, it would have been so much harder to have, the mortgage calculator online. There's all sorts of articles and information. They also wanted to potentially rent one of the units, buy a two-family, on the pros and cons of it. They had all of that already square-rooted, but yet they still wanted to talk to somebody about how it impacts them. So it wasn't just robotic or technology.

Wes Del Col:                 And so, I think for most of life's major decisions, if you have a trusted expert, I think that person will still play a role, even though AI will change and things will change some of that. I think the marriage of the human element and tech will best serve people.

Wes Del Col:                 I think at Guidance Point, we will continue to evolve, the same way ... I mean here we are doing a podcast, which wouldn't have been something that I think 10 years ago that I would have thought we would ever do. As you guys know, we talk a lot and spend a lot on technology, whether it'd be HubSpot and marketing or internally on things that Fidelity and some of the partners that we have from a custodial perspective utilize. The same would go for our back-office capability.

Wes Del Col:                 So we continue to invest in technology on our end because I think people are going to expect that and demand it of their service providers across all industries. And so, we're pretty in tune with that. Ben, I'd give you a ton of credit for that. I think you're the one pushing the envelope the most for us, and it's fantastic. And so, I think as long as we continue to evolve with it, we'll be just fine.

Ben Smith:                   Yeah. I'll add to that, Wes, is with AI and as something that you talked about, there's things ... Earlier in the interview, we talked about is there's things that we don't like. Personally, what I don't like are, well, the operations stuff, is that there's things that we do just, hey, it needs to get done. There's just things that need a process or needs to happen, and you just see more and more of that. You have this AI can take over a lot of the operations, that this stuff can be outsourced.

Ben Smith:                   What you just said was really what's our value to our clients, what we've talked about several times today, is that that meeting, that sit-down, those conversations we're having. Then implementing, so the implementation and making sure that's happening.

Ben Smith:                   So it's more of project management and oversight of it, but do we really have to be doing all these things individually and personally ourselves? So the more we can use technology to take, I think, that stuff off of our plate, as long as it's done well, accurately, with as minimized error rates as we can, I think the better off we are.

Ben Smith:                   So that's why I think it's our job to continue to stress test, continue to make sure we're doing everything we can to spend more time with our clients and not get overwhelmed and spend less time with them. So I think that's a pressure we have within our business or our industry is there, and I think that's a big thing.

Wes Del Col:                 That's true.

Curtis Worcester:         So, Wes, I want to keep you thinking towards the future here as we sit here at the Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. Number one, what do you see your retirement like? What will a successful retirement be for you?

Wes Del Col:                 Man, that's a good one. We have the benefit of being able to watch all of our clients go through that process-

Curtis Worcester:         That's true.

Wes Del Col:                 ... and make that leap. I watch them very closely because, one, it's our job and, two, I want to feel out what works for other people and see if it could potentially work for others. I think for me, or what I've noticed, is that some sense of balance is the ultimate goal.

Wes Del Col:                 What I mean by that is when I envision retirement, whenever that is, 20, 25 years from now, I think of potentially still having a hand in work, doing something maybe a couple days a week, to be stimulated mentally. Maybe it's not work at that point. Maybe it's giving back in some capacity. But it also involves being physically active. I think I'd like to have the flexibility obviously to go visit my kids and hopefully my grandkids, travel.

Wes Del Col:                 So I think it's a combination and a balancing act in that those who appear to not go too heavy in one direction ... Because you do see it's not always the wealthiest person who seems the happiest in retirement.

Curtis Worcester:         That's true.

Wes Del Col:                 Typically, at least what I'm seeing, is people who appear to have the most balanced and moderation in a lot of different things. And so, that's what I hope to achieve. We'll see if I can ever get there.

Ben Smith:                   Okay. Well, Wes, we really appreciate you coming on the show today. So it's, again, really great to just get an intro to Guidance Point, again, kick off our first episode here. So really appreciate you coming on. We'll hope to keep you in the loop for future episodes.

Wes Del Col:                 Was happy to do it. Thanks so much for having me.

Ben Smith:                   All right. Thank you. It's really great to have Wes on our first show.

Curtis Worcester:         Yeah.

Ben Smith:                   Hopefully we did okay for our first time. I appreciate everybody staying with us and listening all the way through to the end. Again, for Retirement Success in Maine, what we want to do in these end-of-shows is do some takeaways, is what was something that we thought was notable or we want to highlight to you as the audience. Curtis, would you maybe kick us off with a takeaway that you had from our conversation with Wes today?

Curtis Worcester:         Sure, yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head. I think it was a great way to start this podcast series, was just to show people more about Wes and us as Guidance Point as a whole. I thought it went really well.

Curtis Worcester:         I think a key piece that is important for people to take away from this episode is we talked a lot about who can use our services and who can work with us and who we can work with, and the short answer is anyone. So really understanding the fees and how we can do these small project fees or these one-time fees.

Curtis Worcester:         I know Wes and I brought up quite a few times the younger generations and those who may be planning for a retirement that's 20 or 30 years away. You may not have the millions of dollars sitting in a bank account. Don't use that as a reason not to reach out to us because we're very flexible. We work with anyone. It's all about setting those goals and attaining those retirement goals.

Ben Smith:                   Great. I think that's a really good takeaway, is in terms of cost, it's always a big barrier for any of us, because I don't want to come into a meeting and just be embarrassed because I can't afford something. I use the example of lobster on the menu, and why do we not order lobster on the menu a lot of times because it's just market price.

Curtis Worcester:         Yeah. No, you're right.

Ben Smith:                   You don't want to ask what the market price and go, "Oh, never mind."

Curtis Worcester:         Right.

Ben Smith:                   So you don't want to get in that meeting. I know that's a big barrier here, and we want to make sure we're, a, transparent with what things cost and who we work with and how we work with them.

Curtis Worcester:         Yeah.

Ben Smith:                   One of the things that I want to highlight to you guys as a takeaway for today was, again, why did we start with Wes? Why did we start with Guidance Point Advisors? Because it really is not meant to be, hey, this is the advertisement of Guidance Point is just great and they're just great and we're just going to keep highlighting that into your brain for every episode. The idea being, hey, here's what we believe in. Here are our core values. Here's the things that really drive us and why we care and what things we want to be working with our clients on.

Ben Smith:                   Plus, this concept of retirement success. If we as financial advisors are just going to spend time on your money and not on you as the person ... Look, you're the client. Your money's not the client, right?

Curtis Worcester:         Right.

Ben Smith:                   You are the thing we're trying to help. The more we can understand you and retirement success as an idea for you, the more that we're going to be successful with you about money. It's not about saving it, spending it. It's about ultimately your attainment of happiness.

Curtis Worcester:         Exactly.

Ben Smith:                   If we can find ways to align your money to your happiness over time, the more successful you're going to be, the more successful we're going to be because we're going to be doing ultimately a better job for you. I think that's a lot of what we want to do.

Ben Smith:                   So why are we doing this whole podcast, Retirement Success in Maine? Well, again, retirement success is, I think, what are we solving for. Again, for our team, what we hear about is we get questions on, "Well, where can I go? What local resources do you have?" I think that's a lot of the premise that we wanted to highlight for you. So, again, we wanted to show you that as the piece today, so hopefully that did it.

Ben Smith:                   As a wrap up too, we do have a blog that we want to point you to. So you can go to our blog and you get a transcript of this podcast so you can read it. Maybe there's a part you just want to read over. You're welcome to do that. We're going to highlight resources so you can see other resources or things you can access. So for every episode, we'll do that. And you can listen to the show through this blog, too. So if you go to our blog, which is blog.guidancepointllc.com and it's going to be /1.

Curtis Worcester:         One. Number one.

Ben Smith:                   Number one. Yeah, just put one there. For every episode going forward, you can just use the different number. It will access each individual episode. So go to that. Again, that will be the place where you can get a warehouse of information and resources about this show.

Ben Smith:                   So I appreciate everybody tuning in. We're really excited and anxious to show you more. Again, we'll promise to continue to get better. Yeah, we'll see you next time. Look forward to number two.