John, good to see you. I really like today's topic, why DIY investors earn less according to Vanguard's advisors Alpha study, a good financial advisor can add about 3% in net returns per year, 3% a year. That bears repeating. What do you think is behind that performance gap?

Well, I think the main thing behind the performance gap is the fact that what Vanguard doesn't state is that's not just investment performance, right? That is having a comprehensive financial plan right where we're tying in income, we're tying in investments, we're tying in Medicare, taxes, estate planning and understanding how each move you make is linked to what another financial category. And having that financial plan that really takes advantage of good and bad markets or good and bad situations within your life, that's where the 3% alpha is, and a lot of it has to do with our favorite subject, and that's taxes, absolutely so I want to throw a few more stats at you, John, I know you are very familiar with this study. Dow, bar, you reference it a lot. They come out with a study every year and explain how DIY investors often underperform the market as well, because we as humans are driven by emotions. Can you explain?

Yeah. I mean, you, you hit it right there. It's emotions. Yeah, it's and, and, you know, that's one of the biggest things that when I was getting my retirement Management Advisory accreditation, we have a whole, the whole first block, the whole first modules of that education is based on behavioral finance. People are driven by fear and greed, plain and simple. You are Erin, I am the viewer is. And you know, unfortunately, here's a thing you may not want to hear. Wall Street is not your friend, and we as investors have to understand that the system is not in our favor, does not work in our favor. And there's been hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars spent understand how we think and how we will respond in good and bad markets. So you have the you have the graph here down below. We've references this behavioral finance chart, and this is how it goes. There are three numbers that are casually put in our faces every day. This the S p5 100, the Dow and the Nasdaq. And this drives a lot of emotions. Why? Because Erin people see that the S p5 100, the Dow Jones, is at all time highs. And they say to themselves, well, I want to get in on that, right? I want to be part of that ride. The problem is they're getting in the top right there at that euphoric stage, and that is the worst time to buy in in the market. So for as a reference point, this is like right around July of 2024, this is the point of maximum financial risk, right? Because the markets go up, they typically go sideways, and then they'll go back down, right? Very rarely, if you do, they go up up, up, up, up, up and keep on going up and never coming down. That's never happened. Very rarely do they go up sideways, up again. So you have, you're buying in at that point, a maximum financial risk. 2025 has ushered in volatility. At the time of this recording, right? The S, p5, 100 is down double digits, and we're seeing a lot of people now start to worry. And we hear the headlines, you know, tariffs or dodge. And people get get emotionally tied to these headlines, not understanding the analytics of the market and the technical analysis. So then what happens is it starts to go down. People panic. They they sell on the emotions of the headlines or what they're seeing in their 401 K or their IRA, they sell out, and then Wall Street pulls the old bear market rally on you. And then it says, Oh no, I the market shot back up. I made a mistake. They buy back in. And they say, I'm not going to make that mistake again. And then the market plummets. And then they get to that point of despair. They where they can't afford to lose anymore, so they sell at the bottom right, and when the market goes back up, they're too afraid to get back in because they've seen those bear market rallies, and they don't buy back into the top. So they're doing the exact opposite of what everyone's beloved advisor Warren Buffett says to do, and that is, instead of buying low and selling high, they're buying high and selling low, right? And for us, it's about communicating with our clients. And our clients have known that since October, we have been taken or, I'm sorry, since September, we've been taking a little bit off the table in terms of risk because we understood we are already at the highs. Now is the time to take some profits and in a sideways market. As things have gotten worse and worse, we have gotten more and more defensive, not on an emotional but on a technically driven strategy, right?

And this goes back to what I'm hearing you say, John, when you have that financial plan where the volatility is built into it, you're not making these knee jerk reactions, and you're not able to take advantage of a down market.

Absolutely, absolutely. And if the market continues to go down, we have, we have strategies of how we are going to take advantage at certain levels, and whether that's Roth conversions and tax strategies, tax loss harvesting, even though a lot of our clients right now are are in such a defensive position, they're not going to sustain a lot of losses. But right? What's your plan if the market goes down 30, 40% right? We have those contingencies. We have the contingencies of, what if the market does the bear market rally and then drops, and what if the market all of a sudden starts to go back up? But we're playing the odds. Folks, how long have we been in this bear? We are in a bull market rally for well over 27 months. We've only been in a bear market for here for about a month and a month or so. So bear markets don't last a month.

Many DIY investors believe they can save money by avoiding advisory fees. How do you help clients understand that you provide.

Yes? Well, the short answer is, you could save money by not paying advisory fees, but you could also cost yourself a lot in in making investment mistakes, making tax mistakes, in those, those taxable accounts that could well be beyond what an advisor is charging you. And here's what I tell people, cost is only relevant in the absence of value. My clients are not coming to me saying, hey, oh, well, you know, I paid this much in fees because they understand, hey, they understand how much they're paying, but they understand the value in it. As a fiduciary, that's very important, because my clients know exactly how much they're paying us. It's on their statement, it's on their their annual review forms. They understand that cost. But when we're able to sit here and you know, in a down market, they are seeing the communication, the confidence we have in our systems that will save them much more than 1.35% in fees that we're charging annually. Or, you know, we may do some advanced planning where we charge a secondary planning fee, but we end up saving a client $70,000 on their taxes. There's value there, folks. And going back to again, taxes, a lot of our tax management, we have very conservative settings. If taxes just went up 2% but you followed some of our strategies, we, we just, I just did a an analysis for a new client that says, Listen, we could save you over $300,000 in taxes over your lifetime by just taking some little, some little steps every year. That's value. That's the 3% Vanguard's talking about, for someone who's thinking about hiring an advisor, what's the best way to start that conversation to determine if they should and what should they expect in that first conversation?

Well, for me, and I'll just speak on my part, a lot of people that come into me who have interviewed other advisors and have chosen to work with me. They were blown by they were blown away by the fact that when they came in, our first meeting is not about how much money do you have, where is it and what's your rate of return? Ours is about getting to know the clients, and that's extremely important, because it's your financial plan. And nobody in my office has ever come in said, yes, my goal is just to keep pace with the S, p5, 100. I have clients that are coming in telling me, Listen, I just want to live a retirement where I have peace of mind that I'll never run out of money. I want to go on vacations. I didn't get to travel, right? We had three or four kids. We're always busy, you know, with the kids, I want to travel now, and, you know, I want to make sure my grandkids are taken care of stuff that gets down to their core. And for a lot of people, you know, we spend that for 75 minutes talking about their vision, and giving giving them clarity on what their future could hold, and giving them a plan that is designed the life they want and and to me, that is what you know you want in your advisor, and is your advisor really going to take account for you and to try to really personalize everything to you, and are they going to be involved in your life, or are you just another account number? You have to be able to decide that in a fairly short time. But I really think that you know, if you have a guy, a guy or a gal, advisor that is just focused on the numbers and not so much focused on what you want to achieve, that's a telling sign, right?

Well, said, you know, again, I'm so glad we got to have this conversation, John, because it's such an important conversation to have and talking it through with you, you can understand, at least I can understand, the discrepancy between those numbers. So just a reminder for our DIY investors out there, we know that, you know they put a lot of thought and time into this. We do have great resources on your YouTube channel, but when it comes down to working with a professional John, if they want to sit down with you to talk about creating their own unique financial plan. How can they get a hold of you? Yeah, well, you know, for your do do it yourselfers, you can visit our website, www.gosecurus.com, or if you're just interested in learning more about financial planning, we have our podcasts, we have our YouTube videos. Everything is on that website. We do this to educate people. Now, while you're on the website, you can visit the contact us tab, and from there, you can schedule a 20 minute phone call where we'll answer any questions you may have, or you can schedule a complimentary vision and clarity consultation. And if you have just a simple question, a one off question, you can just give us an email at info@gosecurus.com, great John, thank you for your time today. Thank you, Erin.