Click below to listen to Episode 158 – Benefits Of Using A High-Tech Financial Advisory Firm
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Benefits Of Using A High-Tech Financial Advisory Firm
Whether you live in the same city or you’re thousands of miles away, we can serve you better because of these high tech solutions!
Just in the past 5 years, technology has changed immensely to allow Christian Financial Advisors to better serve clients all over the United States, not just locally. The Covid-19 pandemic really pushed the ability to serve individuals without having to meet face to face. Through Zoom and other video chatting platforms, Docusign and online document signing programs, and sharing important information all online through secure vaults, Christian Financial Advisors can serve clients no matter where they reside.
It’s so important in today’s day and age to have the ability to access paperwork, documents, and your financial advisor quickly and efficiently. All you need is internet access. Tune in to see how we are better able to serve our clients through the use of modern technology platforms AND why it’s so important to use a high tech financial advisory firm.
HOSTED BY: Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
CO-HOST: Shawn Peters
Mentioned In This Episode
Christian Financial Advisors
Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
Shawn Peters
Integrative Financial Planning
Bible Verses In This Episode
1 Peter 4:10
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.
Want to ask a question about your specific situation? Schedule a complimentary 15 minute phone call.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Intro:
Welcome to Christian Financial Perspectives, where you’re invited to gain insight, wisdom, and knowledge about how Christians integrate their faith, life, and finances with a biblical worldview. Here’s your Christian Financial advisors host, Bob Barber and his co-host, Shawn Peters.
Shawn:
Welcome to another episode of Christian Financial Perspectives. As always, we’re so glad that you’ve joined us, whether that’s watching online or listening on one of the many podcast directories. If you do enjoy financial topics, but covered from a Christian Biblical worldview, then we would love for you to hit that subscribe button and maybe like, comment, let us know what topic you’d like us to cover in the future. And today, we are gonna be covering the benefits of using high-tech financial advisory firm or a high-tech financial advisory firm. So Bob, why don’t you give us a little intro on this?
Bob:
Well, you’re the one that’s gonna be really…because you’re the high tech guy around here. Okay.
Shawn:
Well, I try to be.
Bob:
Definitely, but I know I put the outline together and the industry has changed so much now. It’s amazing to me that when I first started 30 years ago, it was all about, your financial advisor in your local neighborhood, and you had to sit across the desk from them to do business. That is all so much changed today, especially for us at Christian Financial Advisors because we serve people nationwide and thank goodness for all this technology. So we’re gonna go through, like you say, the seven benefits. I wrote this very quickly. It’s gonna be a little bit lighthearted today, too. We’ve been covering some pretty deep financial stuff like last week was the different stages.
Shawn:
Of life.
Bob:
Yeah. And so, this’ll be a little bit lighter, but it’s a very good program for you to hear, this subject.
Shawn:
I think it’s good, too, that what we’re covering today should be helpful to you. It is descriptive of how we do business here as a firm, but we did try to present this in a way that would be helpful for people just to think about options that they might have available that, like you said, it’s changed a lot over the years. I mean, even just looking back over the last 10 years, how much things have changed. And so, with that being said, in today’s high tech world, you really no longer need to just settle for an advisory firm that just happens to be in your local neighborhood because they may or may not be able to address your needs and wants.
Bob:
Yeah. You can find whatever financial advisor will perfectly fit your wants and needs. As you know, Shawn, the way people find us is they go on the internet and they search for a “Christian financial advisor”. And that’s why we’re called Christian Financial Advisors. Which is a very, it’s a niche. There’s very few advisors in their local towns, if any, and that’s why we serve so many people nationwide.
Shawn:
Yeah. And it’s been really a blessing, Bob, to see all of the different places that people are coming to us now that the number of geographically nearby clients that we’ve been bringing on over the last year or two alone has been very, very few. Most people, I mean, we’ve been getting people from Montana and Oregon and New York state and Pennsylvania.
Bob:
We just got two last week from Michigan. So they’re coming from all over
Shawn:
Because as you said, these particular clients, they’re looking for a Christian financial advisor.
Bob:
And the technology enables them to do that today, where it used not to. So I know you have a scripture that you came up with that goes with this and share how you came up with that scripture.
Shawn:
Yeah. So I was just thinking of with technology, really, it’s a tool. You know, whether like a hammer, screwdriver or whatever, technology’s just another tool. And I know in particular, Bob, when you first brought me on or back on for those who don’t know, I worked with Bob for a number of years and then I had to go off and work in technology for a while and came back. But one of the things that you had tasked me with when I first came back on Bob said, okay, Shawn, I want you to look at what we have from a technology standpoint and figure out how can we better communicate with our clients. That was one, right. And the other one was, again, is a focus on technology, but how can we make what we do better and more efficient?
Bob:
Yeah, that’s correct.
Shawn:
And all of that really comes back down to is, is that technology isn’t meant to replace people, it’s meant to give people more tools so that we can focus on the things that really matter, like serving our clients and being able to meet with them and help them where they are and provide that advice. So I was trying to find a scripture that I thought might work with this. I found 1 Peter 4:10, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” And so I felt like that was a good fit on with this kind of topic is that we’ve been given a gift. We’ve been given a responsibility as advisors to serve others and to help people with what God has graced them with and what God has given them. And so through the tools like technology, we can do that for people. And if someone finds that we’re a good fit for them, they shouldn’t be limited because we don’t happen to live nearby.
Bob:
That’s correct. That’s right. And there are so many benefits to working with any high tech financial advisory firm today. I’m amazed to see that there’s still quite a few that are not high tech. So Shawn, there’s seven benefits that we came up with. I know you expanded on those.
Shawn:
Little bit.
Bob:
So the first one definitely here, go for it.
Shawn:
Communication is effortless any time of the day. Because for us and any other high tech firm, you’ve got options to communicate via phone, text message. You can leave a voicemail if it’s not during business hours. You can do online face-to-face meetings through things like Zoom or go-to meeting. And then of course, good old email, and just expect, though, that this is really true for any firm, but your answers are not gonna be provided outside of normal business hours. That’s just, it’s not really fair. The people who work here, we also have families as well. The same way, if you’re not at work, you probably don’t want your boss contacting you all the time.
Bob:
But we get emails and texts all the time outside of business hours because that’s when they’re off work, they think of something I want to ask. So we get that and we…
Shawn:
Which is great. And then the very next business mornin, we can see that we can help respond to it. And so, that is kind of the nice thing of, oh, well I thought of it outside of business hours. I couldn’t jump on a call. That’s fine. Send us a text.
Bob:
Shawn, when I got in the business, and I’m looking at our list here, there was only one of these. That was the phone. There wasn’t the text, and just actual face-to-face sitting across from each other. But then again, you were limited by your location. Where today, really location doesn’t matter at all.
Shawn:
Yeah, not at all.
Bob:
And that’s just been thrown out the window. Okay.
Shawn:
Now, however.
Bob:
I do still like to meet with people. You know me, I love people. I like meeting across from the table 1 on 1 with you, if that’s possible. But 90% of the time, it’s not possible anymore.
Shawn:
So however, even though during business hours, we might not be able to respond if it’s the middle of the night or on the weekend, you can book an appointment 24/7 with online scheduling.
Bob:
Yeah. That’s nice, too. That’s a nice feature. That was never that way when I first started. Okay. All right.
Shawn:
Which kind of goes into point number two. The online and phone meetings are much easier and less time consuming when compared with traditional in-person meetings. I mean, have you ever gotten stuck in traffic going to a meeting or something like that? Yeah, it happens all of us. I mean, even if you’re only driving 10 minutes, there’s still a chance you’re gonna get stuck in traffic.
Bob:
Well, Shawn, when I first started in the business, that where we are in New Braunfels, Texas, in between Austin and San Antonio, Austin and San Antonio had not grown together as one gigantic big city now. And that Interstate 35 between Austin and San Antonio is as busy as the Los Angeles area. I mean, it’s just bumper to bumper traffic all the time. It’s a parking lot on Interstate 35. Even my clients that always used to come up from San Antonio and it’d be a 25 minute trip, now it’s a 45 minute to an hour long trip. And so, they’re deciding, instead of spending an hour coming down, an hour going back.
Shawn:
Plus the time here for the meeting,
Bob:
Plus the time here. So, you’re talking half a day. Now, I can have a 45 minute meeting through Zoom or a phone.
Shawn:
Exactly. With an online meeting, just jump in the appointment at the start time. And skip all the hassle of traveling to and from an advisor’s office.
Bob:
Which takes us to the third as we’re talking about this technology, is paperwork. Man, we used to use that printer. We barely use it now. Because paperwork is effortless and it’s digital. Now, time stamped, I like that.
Shawn:
Yep. So, all the signatures and initials, everything gets times stamped and dated for the exact day, hour, and minute that you digitally signed. And it can be totally handled through a secure email. So on the top of that, which is something I added for you, Bob, but no more missed signatures or initials or fields causing repeat paperwork. Because if you’ve ever had to do forms, especially paper forms, it happens and then you’re like, oh no, we forgot this one field or this one piece of information. Now, we can’t submit the form. So keep in mind though, just want to say for some of our older watchers and listeners…
Bob:
We can still print the paper.
Shawn:
We can still print the paper. We can do business reply mail. Any advisor you’re working with, especially if they’re not nearby, we wanna make sure that’s a good option because we might do all this stuff digitally, but sometimes we have a client that just really needs to hold it in their hand. And that’s okay.
Bob:
As we’re making this podcast right now, we know we have a client that wants to come in and see me in 20 minutes, they’re gonna be here. Across the table. So that is fine. And if you’re in Michigan or you’re in New York, or you’re in Chicago and you wanna fly down to see us, or you wanna pay for us to come up and see you, cause we are a fee-based advisor. Sure. We’ll come up. I mean, that’s not a problem getting on that plane. I’d probably send you, because I’m not that much into travel anymore, but…
Shawn:
Oh, thanks, Bob.
Bob:
Yeah, sure. I’m volunteering you right now, but that can still be done.
Shawn:
Are you man-a-teering me?
Bob:
But Yeah, exactly. But with Zoom, you’re gonna be able to see myself face-to-face. You face-to-face, our other advisors the same way.
Shawn:
And again, whether this is digital digitally signed or you did the business reply mail, no matter what it is, we always take everything that’s been signed and we scan that and put it into a secure digital vault, so you would have access to it 24/7. And that vault we call, it’s our client portal. We actually had a recent video on that, on how we do our financial planning. But that same tool allows us to also have this single repository. And one of the benefits to that is not only do you have access to signed paperwork from us, but if you have a will, your estate planning trust documents, insurance policies, there’s a lot of information that you can use that and store it in there, and then since we as as an advisory firm have access to it, now you’ve got kind of that extra security of, well what if something happens to you and you can’t find the original copies? Well, at least we could then help your family with finding that information. Or maybe you’re still here and you just can’t remember where that insurance policy was.
Bob:
Well, Shawn, by the time you see this, we’re making this before we go to Europe, but by the time we get back, we’ll have been to Europe, we’re taking our passport and we’re scanning it and putting it in there. So if we lose our passport. So, we have that we can go online and get to that.
Shawn:
So let’s go with number five. Financial planning is done efficiently online with values updated daily to reflect how they affect you in the long term as markets do change over time. So no more complex one-time reports that three months later they’re outdated.
Bob:
That’s right.
Shawn:
And there are still advisors that do that. You’ll pay $3,000 to $5,000 to develop this “financial plan”. Three months later, because values and other information change or you had a kid, like none of it’s relevant anymore.
Bob:
And financial planning like that doesn’t take near as long anymore either. Because it’s done, what I would say ‘on the fly’, I mean, I can have a meeting with you and you can be amazed at just in an hour or two how much we can accomplish. We can nearly do the full financial plan. And right then, it’s in your hands.
Shawn:
And then, all you have to do is you go in and you just change, oh, did your income change or your expenses change or you bought a property. You just kind of confirm, “Okay. Are the details correct?” And if anything’s changed or updated, you update it. Boom.
Bob:
Can we put a quick link and YouTube.
Shawn:
Yeah.
Bob:
The one on integrated financial planning.
Shawn:
We’ll put a link in description and we’ll show that on screen.
Bob:
Okay. Sounds good.
Shawn:
Right over here. Right over here.
Bob:
Okay. All right. Sounds good.
Shawn:
So number six, you have total transparency of the values in your savings, investment, and retirement accounts and their holdings online anytime of the day. Again, kind of going back to that client.
Bob:
I like that. And that creates security just for yourself. I’m doing business with a advisor that’s a thousand miles away from me, but there’s total transparency. So, there’s nothing to hide. And you can see everything that you own.
Shawn:
I would like to interject here, though. We don’t recommend that you look at it every day.
Bob:
Oh no. That’s right.
Shawn:
What we’re investing is we’re investing for multiple years or longer as far as the timeframe. So there’s nothing wrong with looking at it, but I would just say unless you’re doing it for a living, don’t look at it every single day. Cause it can be stressful because no matter what you’re investing in, there’s going to be volatility.
Bob:
And they can fluctuate by 1% to 3% per day. Yeah. So, you are correct with that.
Shawn:
And then number seven, so using online forms, you can efficiently fill out all the important information for transferring an existing account or opening up a brand new account with your advisor. And then a short phone interview can be done if needed, after.
Bob:
I know this is something you’ve been working on a lot.
Shawn:
This is something we’ve been working on. And there, like I said, it’s not just us. There are a lot of different options. So definitely something that when you’re doing your research and you’re looking into an advisory firm, see what kind of options they have. Like, nothing wrong with asking, Hey, what’s the process look like, if they don’t have it already on their site, kind of spelled out of what does that timeline look like? Because as I’m sure those of you watching or listening, there have been times where you’re real excited about something, whatever it is, but you’re really excited about getting started. And then it just feels like, ugh, I’m still having to do paperwork or I’m still having, like, I just want to be done.
Bob:
And it does make it so easy, so easy.
Shawn:
And then for us, once we get all that information in, we double check it for accuracy and then send it out via DocuSign. So just a few quick signatures and initials, and we’re off to the races.
Bob:
Isn’t that, it’s so much easier now, too. Like you say, you don’t have to send the paperwork, you can send it through DocuSign, which is a secure way to do that. And then you get that copy of that that goes right into your vault. So there you have it, there’s the seven benefits of using a high tech financial advisor. And we are that’. We’re all seven of these here at Christian Financial Advisors. You have to be actually, because we serve so many people nationwide.
Shawn:
So, if you are evaluating and your firm of choice doesn’t have all of these, I’d like to throw our hat into the ring. We do have these. So you can reach us at www.christianfinancialadvisors.com or you can call or text us during normal business hours at (830) 609-6986. We’d love the opportunity to serve you and your family. Bob, got any closing remarks?
Bob:
I just love it that location, Shawn, no longer matters. That’s a big deal. Yeah.
Shawn:
Which is great.
Bob:
Yeah, it is.
Shawn:
So come on wherever you’re at. God bless and thank you again for joining us. Bye-Bye.
[CONCLUSION]
That’s all for now.
We invite you to listen to all of our past episodes covering many financial topics from a Christian Perspective. To make sure you don’t miss any of Bob’s upcoming episodes you can subscribe to Christian Financial Perspectives on iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify, or Stitcher. To learn more about integrating your faith with your finances, visit ciswealth.com or call 830-609-6986.
[DISCLOSURES]
Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc dba Christian Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor registered with the SEC. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the hosts, Bob Barber and Shawn Peters, and their guests. Bob and Shawn do not provide tax advice and encourage you to seek guidance from a tax professional. While Christian Financial Advisors believes the information to be accurate and reliable, we do not claim or have responsibility for its completeness, accuracy, or reliability.