210 - Using Behavioral Finance To Strengthen Your Practice With Marshall Heitzman

That Annuity Show

Summary In this episode of That Annuity Show, Paul Tyler and Tisa Rabun-Marshall interview Marshall Heitzman, VP of Advanced Planning Consulting at TruStage. They discuss the role of annuities in comprehensive planning and the importance of understanding clients' values and goals. Marshall shares his personal experience with behavioral finance techniques and how they can help advisors connect with clients on a deeper level. They also explore the evolution of annuity products and the benefits of including adult children in financial conversations. The episode concludes with recommendations for further reading and ways to reach out for assistance. Takeaways

• Understanding clients' values and goals is crucial in comprehensive planning with annuities.
• Behavioral finance techniques can help advisors connect with clients on a deeper level and engage them in the planning process.
• Including adult children in financial conversations can strengthen relationships and ensure continuity of the client-advisor relationship.
• Simplifying the planning process and focusing on clients' values can lead to better client retention and referrals.

Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Background 01:18 Marshall's Career and Skills 02:15 Case Design and Solution Design for Annuities 03:35 Types of Advisors Working with Annuities 04:57 Overcoming Objections and Regulatory Changes 05:21 Behavioral Finance Techniques for Advisors 06:11 Time Objections and Building Relationships 07:49 Coaching Time-Pressed Advisors 08:18 Slowing Down and Having Conversations 09:47 Annuities as Estate Planning Tools 11:31 Evolution of Annuity Products 13:26 Behavioral Finance Conversation Techniques 14:08 Personal Story and Connecting with Clients 16:47 Communicating with Women in the Household 19:37 Better Client Retention and Referrals 24:39 Changing Advisor Mindset and Approach 26:11 Simplifying the Planning Process 30:09 Recommendations and Conclusion Paul Tyler (00:00.154) Hi, this is Paul Tyler and welcome to another episode of That Annuity Show. Tisa, how are you? Tisa Rabun-Marshall (00:08.246) Doing good, Paul. Good morning. Paul Tyler (00:10.578) It's good to see you and we've got another great guest today on our show, Mr. Marshall Heitzman, okay, who is the, an advanced planning consultant, vice president at TruStage. Marshall, did I introduce you correctly? Marshall Heitzman (00:27.793) That's it. Yeah, good morning. Paul Tyler (00:29.486) All right, well, for our listeners, I think we'll have some interesting conversation that a lot of our listeners will find useful. Do you wanna just sort of tell us, you know, who are you and, you know, what do you do at TruStage? Marshall Heitzman (00:42.568) Yeah, thanks. Marshall Heitzman, I am, as you said, VP of Advanced Planning Consulting at TruStage. I'm actually dedicated to their annuity distribution channel. So I'm doing advanced planning just on our annuity opportunities. And I think of it this way. I brought in as the strategy that leads to investment solutions. And so I'm kind of building out that strategy, talking the talk for. those who are maybe leaning more towards the planning side of the business. Paul Tyler (01:18.238) Well, excellent. And just maybe by way of background, you know, you've had a very interesting, you know, career, I think, working at a variety of different types of companies, right? I think you've worked at some fraternals. I know, I think you were at a large planning firm. Yeah, I guess, what, you know, skills do you bring to a role like this? Marshall Heitzman (01:45.216) Yeah, I would say that I've had kind of a diverse career a little bit a lot of sales support But I have done some roles in supervision and compliance And now back into sales support again, and like I said directly Dedicated to annuities at this moment, even though in the past I've done investment advisory and been on The the full investment planning comprehensive planning side of the business in the past Tisa Rabun-Marshall (02:15.586) So Marshall, can you speak a little bit about, I guess, either the case design or the solution design that you're working on as it relates to annuities? It sounds like you've either been brought in or come in recently to rethink the tools, right, and the solutions that the agents are offering. So can you just speak a little bit about, you know, what it is you're working on? Marshall Heitzman (02:37.856) Sure, as we've expanded our distribution primarily to independent advisors, bank advisors, in addition to our long history working with credit union advisors, we've realized there's approaches that are diverse, they're different depending on how, especially in the independent space, how an advisor wants to create their business. And we know that many are Doing more comprehensive planning, more what I would consider to be goals-based planning, and maybe it's taking just one step back from that annuity or investment solution and analyzing what are the objectives of the client, what are the goals, what are we really trying to solve here, and making sure that our solutions that we would recommend actually fit and advance them towards that goal. Paul Tyler (03:35.866) Maybe talk to us a little bit about the types of advisors you're working with. We talked about this just before the show started, but maybe give us your segmentation of the people you're working with to help sell or help introduce and make successful in the annuity space. Marshall Heitzman (03:54.824) Yeah, you know, you've seen it, our industry is changing before our very eyes, right? There used to be some clear delineations between those who used insurance products and those who didn't. And now, maybe regulatory changes, maybe we're just becoming a little bit more aware of everything else around us. There's many, many more advisors that maybe haven't used annuities so much in the past that are now. They're recognizing especially if they're doing goals-based planning And I'm gonna say in this best interest regulatory environment They're realizing well if the client says this is what I want Honestly, the best solution is this product and maybe I haven't used that very much in the past But if this is what the client is describing that they want and I know that this is the best solution I better be prepared to be able to offer that solution, right? Paul Tyler (04:57.742) Yeah, well you mentioned regulation and when the regulation gets more intense in a particular space, sometimes people don't want to get in. How do you get advisors today who may not necessarily consider annuities to be core to their business to either consider them or start a conversation with a client that leads to the sale of an annuity? Marshall Heitzman (05:08.125) Mm-hmm. Marshall Heitzman (05:21.992) Our firm, and I know there's a lot of firms out there, but our firm in particular is very interested in behavioral finance. We've adopted and applied our behavioral finance techniques really across the board. We have every one of our annuity distribution channel employees earn a behavioral finance certification so that we can show advisors what we're talking about, apply it to their... to their practice, to their goals analysis, and help them dig in to those client relationships. Really find what is most important to the client and are we aligning our financial goals towards those most important values. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (06:11.746) Do you find you hit objections from, Paul was sort of talking about getting agents or advisors to start working with annuities with this goals-based planning that you're describing. Do you find objections around the time? If they're sitting in a bank or just more transactionally focused, it sounds like to me, obviously, to share the level of detail you would need to, to understand goals and motivations and all that. It takes some time. It might be two, three, four appointments building that relationship. Do you find any objection on that side or is the kind of tool well received, value understood right away? Just curious what you might be hearing from agents or advisors when you're rolling this out. Marshall Heitzman (06:55.052) No, it's a great question and the answer is yes. We do get that objection a lot. You know, I don't have time for this. I've got a lot of clients. And let's face it, a lot of clients are transactional. That's what they want to be. They don't really want to dig into all the planning. But I guess part of the lesson that we've learned hearing back from advisors who have tried some of the concepts and applied it to their business is that playing that long game can really pay off. Longer, deeper relationships, not even with those clients, but also with their family. It's a great referral source. And to be honest, it connects with those clients who really would rather go to the dentist than sit down with their financial advisor and talk about their financial plan. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (07:34.134) Right, the referrals. Paul Tyler (07:49.498) So listen, Marshall, I'm an agent who, actually I'm a financial advisor. Yeah, I'm one of those time-pressed agents that Tisa just talked about. I want to drop a ticket and sort of move on. How do you coach me through the process of slowing down enough to have that conversation? And also tell me how you help me start to use some of these great behavioral finance techniques you have. Well, I want to learn a few tricks. Marshall Heitzman (08:04.085) Mm-hmm. Marshall Heitzman (08:18.524) You know, we've got, not tricks, not tricks. You know, this is a relationship business and I know that even our transactional clients, we have some relationship with many of them, right? We know what's going on and at least we're engaging in some small talk with what's going on in their lives and certainly we wanna earn more of their business beyond the one transaction that they walk in with. Paul Tyler (08:19.798) Not Shrex. Marshall Heitzman (08:46.768) It's all part about cultivating that relationship, asking them questions. And ultimately, the conversation we wanna get to is that values question. What is most important to you? And if they don't know, we've got exercises that we can introduce that helps them discover what their most important values are. And I'm going to add that a lot of advisors listening right now are probably saying, well, I already do that, I just ask them. A lot of times what we're hearing from advisors is that they go through these exercises and their clients kind of self-discover for themselves one or two most important values that they didn't really think about or working with their spouse. They realize something new about their spouse and how they're working together and what's their top values collectively that maybe they weren't feeding into or designing their financial plan. to deliver on. Paul Tyler (09:47.862) Well, so just pushing a little bit more on the plan. You know, sometimes you don't really... People don't really think of annuities as estate planning, but they can be. And we see that with, you know, some of our customers. And Marshall, I think of our products in buckets, and I'd say we've worked hard to try to get a product in a lot of these categories. My category... When I think about annuities from an estate planning perspective, I think, first of all, you're going in... You're starting, you're almost approaching those retirement years. You don't really know what's going to happen. You know, we need more money. I think the, uh, some of these growth annuities have played a very good role to sort of accelerate the building that nest egg. Um, uh, some products I see have, I would almost describe them as the Swiss army knives of early estate planning. Oh, you didn't have insurance or you didn't, you'd like a little more death. coverage. Okay, we've got enhanced death benefits. You don't have long-term care insurance like most people. We've got a long-term care rider. Oh, and there's some liquidity in case some emergencies come up and you need an emergency fund. And then you kind of get all the way out at the end. And I've seen these bonus annuities really take off as people said, you know, I bought annuity 10 years ago, but I'd really like some of the features. I like some of the withdrawal benefits, some of the lifetime income benefits. Let's sort of... move over to something and take advantage of these new class of products. Where do you see... did I miss a category? And where do you see some of the evolution taking place on the product side here to help for those conversations? Marshall Heitzman (11:31.476) Exactly what you've described, you know, there's that variety of products. There's been a lot of evolution in product design, especially recently, I would say, in the annuity space. So the challenge, I think, is for firms to keep it simple. And we've got products that have a lot of those features that you described, and how do you offer something that's sophisticated and advanced. but also keeping it simple enough for not only advisors to understand, but also to be able to explain to their clients. I think that's the real challenge. We are in that RILA space. And even though we've seen a lot of movement towards fixed annuities with interest rates rising so quickly, long-term, like I said, we play the long game. We think the... the advantage of having the RILA space, a little bit more growth potential, is what we're hearing most clients need. They want the protection, of course, but many of them, in order to reach those goals, need more growth than what our fairly flat interest rates have been delivering over, let's say, probably two decades. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (12:56.778) Marshall, kind of going back to the behavioral finance concept, you talked about discovering new values or new goals. I'm just curious if you could share a couple of like, it's a two-part question. One is, is that a fully guided conversation by the advisor? Is there any sort of pre or individual kind of self-assessment work leading into the conversation that the client would do? And then just an example of a question or two to sort of tap into or discover those new values. I'm just curious what that talk track might sound like. Marshall Heitzman (13:37.364) Yeah, we've created some scripting, or at least like an outline. And those familiar with planning, they're going to recognize that a lot of the scripting and the leading questions and so forth, are gonna kind of follow that financial planning model. In our pre-conversations, you guys invited me to share stories. So if you want me to share a very personal story about what really convinced me this works, I will. Paul Tyler (14:02.847) Absolutely. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (14:03.746) Sure. Marshall Heitzman (14:08.101) It's my wife, so I'll say up front, I have full permission to share this story. I do often, she's pretty proud of it. But connecting with those clients who really don't like to handle their finances and just kind of want to get it over with in the meeting, do what they have to do, and move on with their lives. I would say that's my wife. I'm in this space, I understand what we're talking about. I'm the technician. mathematics degree, this is how I think, right? Numbers, goals, progress. My wife is the opposite. She's a creative, she's an artistic. And so the numbers are kind of meaningless to her. The way she thinks about our future retirement is the dreams, the concepts. Tell me what I can do. That's what... behavioral finance opened up. I was preparing our own behavioral finance presentations. I practice on her. She's a great test audience. And I presented a behavioral finance presentation just to her. And it really connected. More than just evaluating my performance. She's digging into, in fact, she stole my laptop. She turned it around. She's... Tisa Rabun-Marshall (15:31.059) Yes. Marshall Heitzman (15:31.884) paging through the slides and the notes, and she's saying, this is really good. And what really convinced me that this was effective was she said, if we had an advisor who talked to me this way, I would become more involved. Well, that was the moment, literally, that sold me on this concept as a way to connect with those clients who'd... really don't wanna do this, right? They're doing what they have to do. But it connected with her. And I don't think she's very different than probably half the population out there. And if it connects with her, if it pulls her into the planning process, obviously she's gonna be more invested, she's going to be more committed to keeping that plan and following through with that plan if we just put it in terms that she can relate to. She doesn't care about the numbers or returns. or budgets, she doesn't care to see that zero-based budget. What she wants to know is, what does my retirement look like? What am I gonna be able to do? Put it in those terms for me, and she's engaged. Paul Tyler (16:47.722) So I'm really curious, thank you for sharing that story. What was it that really hooked her in? My wife, sorry, I'm not very, she, she's just, she kind of dials, she turns, she has a volume knob that kind of turns off, so Marshall, I should take a lesson from you here. So what was it that really was the hook? Was it a question, was it a picture, was it a story? Tisa Rabun-Marshall (16:57.634) Do you have permission, Paul? That's the first question. Paul Tyler (17:15.758) that pulled her into the presentation you're making. Marshall Heitzman (17:20.956) It was the description of the approach and the style. The fact that we were getting away from hard facts, hard numbers appealed to her. The conversation around having, and no sales in that entire first meeting. We're talking about engaging with somebody, peeling the onion, what is most important to you? How do we design your finances to help you live those most important values. What is most important to you? How do you see yourself living it? And then we design your plan to deliver on that. That connected with her. She understood the. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (18:07.218) Yeah, I like the story too because I think it's a pretty known fact that who decision makers tend to be in households are often ignored in the meeting with the couple. Paul Tyler (18:22.978) You can say it. Go ahead, Tisa. You can say it. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (18:29.638) We hold the decision power in many households, meaning women in a traditional household of a marriage between a man and a woman. And often that style, the thinking, and just purely engaging and connecting with that woman in that setting, it just doesn't happen, right? So I mean, I hear success for men and women thinking, dreaming, values, but I do think it appeals. generally speaking, a little more to whether it's the creative mind or just a profile of person who thinks that way, which I think generally maybe women more often. I'm generalizing here, so I'm giving lots of caveats. So I could see the success not only that as a connect and get the couple to dream and think differently and speak differently about retirement, but there's success for the advisor. because ultimately once they leave that meeting, who's making the decision in the car ride home, right, is, has been sparked, has been activated. So I just. Paul Tyler (19:37.55) So Marshall, does this open up better communications with the women in the household? I don't want to, again, don't want to suggest that this is, you know, primarily for women. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (19:49.666) That was a much more direct way of asking Paul thanks. Ha ha ha. Paul Tyler (19:52.598) Yeah. Yeah, does it give me a better chance of retaining a client after, you know, if I've had a relationship with a man in the house, does it give me a better chance to retain that relationship when he dies and his spouse now controls all the money? Marshall Heitzman (19:54.216) Yeah. Marshall Heitzman (20:07.892) We think absolutely, yeah. And I'll clear the air and just make sure that everybody understands this is not a gender thing. But Tisa, you're right. We know that the person who's actually the decision maker is probably not the one doing all the talking in the meeting, right? It's in the car ride home. So we get that. And to be honest, it's a way of connecting with both, getting them to... Tisa Rabun-Marshall (20:17.111) Right. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (20:26.89) Mm-hmm. Marshall Heitzman (20:37.104) at the start, make sure that they're in alignment with one another. We hear from advisors a lot of times that start down this path and they're working with a couple, the spouses kind of have one or two eye-opening moments just between themselves about what's most important to them collectively. But it is about engaging both because Paul, you're right. We know at some point one of them is going to pass away. And are you connected with the surviving spouse well enough to continue that relationship? And are you connected with them well enough where they wanna bring the kids in and make sure that they understand what mom and dad's plan is and what's most important to them? We think that it's absolutely great for connecting with the next generation and what happens when these clients are not around anymore. I also think it's great for referrals because my wife walks out of one of those meetings and guess what she's saying? That's the best financial planning meeting I've ever had. And who's she telling? She's telling all of her creative friends, look, it doesn't have to be that bad. I've got an advisor who relates to me and values what I value and designs our plan around what I want to hear. You got to meet. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (21:46.882) Mm-hmm. Marshall Heitzman (22:05.052) him or her, right? We think there's tremendous value in that. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (22:07.53) Yeah. The generational comment is interesting to me, Marshall, because often, for whatever reason, parents might be reluctant to share the hard numbers with their children, but including adult children in the conversations about values and dreams, softer, easier, and so I'll share a personal story, which is, I think it was a little bit, maybe it wasn't fully intentional, but it happened a little bit more. organically, my dad's advisor built a relationship with my brother and I. We didn't necessarily go to financial meetings with my dad, but we certainly socialized. He made some points of reaching out for some community events and unfortunately when my dad did pass a few years ago, he was well poised, right, to explain to us what was going to happen with our dad's assets, but both my brother and I now work with him. And it's because we already knew him. We did not meet him when my dad passed. We met him several years ahead of time and had some rapport. So it's kind of just connecting for me, thinking, hmm, that's a conversation you could include adult children versus the math side of things. It might be a little bit more private for whatever reason. So another use case there. Marshall Heitzman (23:07.392) Yeah. Marshall Heitzman (23:30.732) I love hearing stories like that. And we get them every so often as well from our advisors who maybe didn't even know the kids, but they had organized their clients so well, even with simple little worksheets about where everything is, all of the key documents, the key contact information, keeping that all in one place. We've got some resources that we provide to our advisors if they wanna use them. And then we get stories back about Tisa Rabun-Marshall (23:46.86) Hmm. Marshall Heitzman (24:00.044) the next generation finding that single sheet of paper that had the treasure map, if you will, to all of the documents, all the legal documents, all the insurance documents, who to call, for what, and they win clients that way. We've had beneficiaries say, look, any advisor who works with their clients the way you worked with my dad. That's an advisor that I want to work with. I know where everything is when dad passed away. Thanks to you. Love hearing those stories. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (24:34.443) Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. Big moment of truth, for sure. Marshall Heitzman (24:39.039) Yeah. Paul Tyler (24:39.994) Right. I think Marshall, a lot of us in this business tend to be right-brain thinkers, and we want to start with the spreadsheet, not the conversation when it really should be the reverse. So listen, I'm a spreadsheet addict. I love this. Excel is me. Break me, Marshall. And what's the 12-step process or whatever it is to get me to rethink and have those type of conversations that Tisa mentioned? That your wife... Marshall Heitzman (24:46.303) Mm-hmm. Paul Tyler (25:08.77) said she loved. Marshall Heitzman (25:11.728) Yeah, we try not to make it too complicated. And a lot of advisors who hear this process say, yeah, I kind of do something like that. And it's worked for me. So I don't really want to pivot too hard into doing that much differently. But we do get plenty of advisors who say, OK, there's some great ideas in here that are really easy to implement. Taking one step back and just having that values conversation. It might take the whole first meeting. We might not talk about any business that first meeting, and that's a tough hurdle for a lot of advisors to get over. But play the long game, right? Invest that time with those clients. Those clients are going to be stickier. They're going to want to bring their other business needs to you as well. And they're going to want to bring their other relations in to talk to you as well. just because you take the time to understand who they are as people and what kind of values driven relationship can we have together? To me that's the way you just kick the whole thing off. You know after that we've got we've got a lot of scripting and ideas and leading questions that we can provide but it plays really well into that planning process that the planning model that exists and is out there right now. but it makes it simple. Simple questions, simple answers to common questions that your clients are gonna ask you. Ways to put those clients' mind at ease because everybody's nervous about something, right? There's always something that they're nervous about. And the whole process is about delivering to your clients the idea that, look, no matter what happens, we've got it covered. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (26:57.634) Mm-hmm. Marshall Heitzman (27:11.444) Right, we've got the plan. Somebody passes away earlier than we expect, we've got a plan for that. Somebody becomes disabled, we've got a plan for that. The markets don't cooperate the way we think, we've got a plan for that. Right, no matter what happens, we know where you're gonna get income, we're in the retirement planning business. We know where we can get income for you no matter what happens. We've got a plan built around that. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (27:37.166) I would also think too it's like a little bit of like Paul thinking like growth mindset for the advisors because it's not fully this or that, right? It's sort of like you likely have the analytical spreadsheet type of conversation down, but every client's different, everyone you know, process differently. So why not sort of expand? It's a versatility call to me. You can still work that way if it's working for the client, but if you wanna grow or track new different markets, maybe try this approach and see how it goes, right? It's an additive skill, being able to walk through this more values-driven conversation. You can always flip back to how you do it or how you've done it. So to me, it's more of a growth opportunity than it is like a full, you know, 180 of how you work. So that's how I would think of it if I was in the advisor seat of new skills not changing fully my skills. Marshall Heitzman (28:34.432) For sure, I can geek out on financial planning software and spreadsheets with the best of them. And I've talked with many advisors in my past who claim this is the way all of my clients want me to work with them. They do the same thing. And I've come around to believe that, well, you are finding the clients who want to work that way with you, but what about all those clients who don't? Tisa Rabun-Marshall (28:39.975) Hehehehehe Tisa Rabun-Marshall (28:57.023) Mm-hmm. Marshall Heitzman (29:01.148) you're missing out on them. If you're saying all of your clients want this type of approach, all the other prospects are not coming to you, right? Because not everybody wants to work this way. So who are you missing out on, was my question for them. And I think this process, the behavioral finance approach helps to uncover that. Who am I missing? Who's being left out? Certainly, my personal example, my wife definitely felt that way. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (29:01.215) Right. Marshall Heitzman (29:29.408) kind of wrote off the entire industry and just hoped that I would take care of everything because that's what I do. But now she's engaged, she wants to be involved, just because we're simply putting it in terms that she understands and can relate to. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (29:35.118) Mm-hmm. Tisa Rabun-Marshall (29:46.83) Great. Paul Tyler (29:47.794) Interesting. Yeah. Well, we're kind of at the top of the hour here. Marshall, any recommendations for good books to read, good podcasts to listen to, as Tisa says, grow a little bit more as an advisor? And then how could people reach out to you for assistance? Marshall Heitzman (30:09.876) Yeah, you can reach out to any true stage wholesaler you can call our annuity solutions team And they'll get you in touch with me or you can connect with us through true stage comm And connect with our team that way You know, we've done a lot of work I'll recommend Morgan Housel He has written a couple of books in this space. And in fact, we have him on we have like a quarterly webinar that We'll invite him every so often and give a one hour presentation on what's new. But it relates really well to the whole behavioral financial advisor concept and looking at the values in order to create the goals. That would be my recommendation. Paul Tyler (31:00.186) Okay, great. Well, Tisa, thank you. Marshall, thanks so much. It was great to meet you, great to have you on here. And if you're listening to the show, tell your friends, give us feedback and join us again next week for another great episode of That Annuity Show. Thanks. Marshall Heitzman (31:04.712) My pleasure, thank you.