Some Financial Advisors are just different. David Ortiz is the personification of an advisor who breaks the mold. In this interview on The Resilient Advisor with Jay Coulter, he share is approach to marketing, planning and living life to the fullest.
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Transcript
Jay Coulter 00:01
Jay Coulter here with the resilient advisors show. This is the most unique broadcast that I have ever done. I'm here with my good friend, David Ortiz, who has a very, very unique value proposition for his clients. He's one of the best marketers in the business. He's been featured on Michael Kitces, his podcast he's mentioned in Robert Sofia's book. And as you will learn, he has a unique approach to investing, planning, and most importantly, marketing. David, thanks for jumping on a live stream.
David Ortiz 00:32
Thank you, Jay. Great to see you.
Jay Coulter 00:34
Alright, so, I'm not in my studio. As you can tell, I've been down here in South Florida for the exchange ETF conference all week. David lives down here. He came and picked me up in what I think makes him so unique as a financial advisor. David, I'm gonna let you take everybody on a tour before we get started. But first tell them what are we taking a tour of?
David Ortiz 00:54
Well, this is my mobile office. It's a sprinter van, Mercedes Sprinter van that is a basically decked out. And inside here is where I conduct all my meetings.
Jay Coulter 01:07
Inside the Sprinter van, he cooks food for his clients and his prospects. They break bread, and they talk about their finances. Now your brand is the financial chef. How did you come up with that?
David Ortiz 01:17
Well, so the way that I I described my business is that I'm a classically trained chef from the Culinary Institute of America, and a certified financial planner. And I operate out of a mobile office with a kitchen in it. And when I meet with my clients, I roll up to their location, they hop in, and along with our financial meeting, I serve them a gourmet meal that I've prepared for them. So I am a... I am a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, in upstate New York, back in 1982. And I have also done, I was a software developer, and ran nightclubs and develop software for restaurants and just kind of fell into actually, finance because the software company I was working for went out of business, and I needed a job. And I answered to one of these blind ads for life insurance company. And it sounded fantastic. And that was in 1996. And I had a portable espresso machine and espresso machine and I would bake biscottis or scones and I go to my clients location and I set up and I we talk about the world over a latte. And I suddenly realize that our conversations changed when they knew about my food background, my culinary background. And then what I started doing is as I bring clients on board, I would do a dinner party at their home for them and four or five couples, and you know, not talking about me and business and you know, but invariably, all their guests want to know who's that guy running around that you're so friendly with? And they go well, that's my advisor. And they're all like, what, and so that, you know, that's kind of how it started out. And then I would donate dinners for silent auctions to charities where I would go to somebody's home and do a dinner for for eight or 10 people. And then honestly Jay one day in the shower, the name financial chef came to me the whole idea of combining it and I scream out to my wife and she thought I fell and cracked my head and I'm like I got it! I got it! And and it was the idea of the financial chef. And so what we did was we took a a restaurant in Coral Gables that had gone out of business, and we remodeled it. And we kept the commercial kitchen in the back. And we did an office in the front. And we started doing meals as the financial chef just for clients. No, no money change. But that's how we did business. So I had an opportunity to have a meal with somebody six or seven times a day, breakfast at seven coffee at 10. And early lunch, late lunch at a coffee in the afternoon. Happy Hour and at dinner. And so that's how we did business. And then we did very well that way. But the problem became that Miami like most major cities like Atlanta, if you're not in a comfortable driving distance, you're not going to do business with that person. And Miami being so spread out. So then the idea came for me to take it mobile. And that's what we have here. And so this is this is actually a regency RV it's built on the Sprinter chassis. Do you want to spin the camera? So let's let's take everybody on a tour. This is really, really cool. If you're watching live and you have any questions, just post a comment. We'll be able to get it through the virtual studio. Lisa, I appreciate you tuning in Lisa who runs the Advisor 2X program. They just wrapped up their very successful retirement and longevity conference out in San Diego. Thanks for watching, Lisa, let's go on a tour. Okay.
Jay Coulter 04:53
All right. Where would you like to start? And this is going to be a little clunky because I'm gonna be moving the camera around.
David Ortiz 04:57
Okay, so come on this way coming... coming out. So as somebody kind of comes in, comes in the door here. So, we come in, and we have. So we have a little couch over here and place for the eating. And then I do my presentation, I have this beautiful presentation screen that's over here. And and then little kitchen area and make a meal. And my clients sit here on the couch. And we can have a nice, comfortable conversation we can be anywhere. And having a meeting. As a matter of fact, as you just learned, here we are, you came to Miami, and we're sitting in Little Havana on a street corner right on a street known as Calle Ocho. And we're having our little meeting and I treated you to a Cuban sandwich and, and a Cuban steak sandwich. And we're having a great time right here. Oh, so we have this is a Murphy bed. So the couch, slides down, and then the the Murphy bed pops up. This has a slide out. So we have all this room in here. And this is how I meet with my clients. And it's just a just a wonderful way clients, they really love it. It allows me to be super efficient, I just roll up to their location, they hop in, we do our meeting, I go off to the next one. And you know, and that's, that's how we roll.
Jay Coulter 06:32
Awesome. All right. Now if that isn't one of the coolest things you've seen in the industry, I don't really know what would be the show up to your clients house be able to cook food as a world class chef. It's just a different value proposition. Now that you've seen the rig, David, let's talk a little bit about your practice. So the folks that typically tune into this, how I serve series that they like to hear how advisors work with their clients. So let's start at the operational level. What technologies are you using today?
David Ortiz 07:04
You know me well. Is that a loaded? Question?
Jay Coulter 07:06
Is it is a loaded question.
David Ortiz 07:07
I think I could win the competition for the largest tech stack by any advisor
Jay Coulter 07:12
Without a doubt, I can verify that.
David Ortiz 07:15
So, you know, basically, I have used technology because of my software development background as a way to be as efficient as possible. And to keep headcount down. If we can accomplish things by a monthly subscription. You know, we really try to do that. As you know, I'm, I'm a CFP, I'm a RICP and I'm also an enrolled agent. So we are like everyone in this day probably focusing on retirement income planning, we take a very strong tax approach. So we use, you know, all the big ones out there, you know, Michael Kitces.
Jay Coulter 07:51
Well, let's talk about that
David Ortiz 07:52
Okay, so I use the Michael Kitsis roadmap, I've learned so much, you know, his whole new system of what he's done is absolutely amazing. So we use Holistiplan, we we use Right Capital, we use, you know, a bunch of things.
Jay Coulter 08:07
So actually, let's talk about Holistiplan and how you use it. So Holistiplan is, is a newer player in the space, I've seen a lot of advisor clients start to adapt it to their practice, how do you use it?
David Ortiz 08:19
So now that I that I mean, I am an enrolled agent, I do taxes for selected clients. And the way that we're using it is we take the tax return data that I've prepared now and put it into Holistiplan. And we have these conversations about what ifs. And we do that early in the year to make sure that we have, you know, three quarters of a year to be able to make any kind of adjustments, and you don't need to be an enrolled agent to do that you can just take the tax return that you get from the client and upload it and then create a scenario and start working with it. I'm a big proponent of the bucket planning system, bucket planning, segmentation, doing income based plan. So we have a lot of technology around that. And you know, we make the moves of any kind of planning based on what we see in Holistiplan, and what kind of tax effects so we look at everything and evaluate the tax impact of any kind of a move that we might make.
Jay Coulter 09:22
So if you're not familiar with how a Holistiplan works, you literally upload the tax return in 60 seconds later, it spits back an analysis that you can use with clients. David, before we move on, I do have a another question. This one is from Lisa Allen. And she wants to know do you only meet with clients this way? Or do you have an office as well?
David Ortiz 09:40
I don't have an office so this is this is the face to face to the clients.
Jay Coulter 09:46
Yeah, so...
David Ortiz 09:46
I work out of my home office I where I do my work, but I don't I don't have an office.
Jay Coulter 09:51
Do you find that once a client has this experience here, they're they're more interested in coming in and you This is the problem with live television. Do you find that they always want to meet here? Or do they make the pivot to virtual?
David Ortiz 10:06
You know, it's, I think there's it depends on the level of technology, sophistication and client may have. I have older clients who are very tech savvy, they don't want to get meet in person. And then I have other people who, you know, they got to see you in person. So, but I do think like, everybody's realized that during the pandemic, clients have realized, oh, maybe I don't have to go there. You know? Yeah. Yep. Thank you, Kelly.
Jay Coulter 10:33
Yes, Kelly Biggs tuning in one of the industry's best internet marketers. Alright, so let's talk about the next leg in the tech stack. You're right capital. So I'm a big fan of right capital for most advisors, and most practices, why do you use it?
David Ortiz 10:48
So I use it because, as you know, based on things that I learned from Michael Kitsis, was creating subscription based financial planning. And I do that for, let's say, millennial couples, and we charge a, a subscription fee based on income, rather than on AUM assets, because they generally wouldn't have them. On our market. There are professional couples who are, you know, 30s to 40s. They're making really good money, they're three to 700,000 combined income, but they haven't had any accumulation. And so we use right capital as kind of the tool to show goals based planning and different types of scenarios. It also has a nice tax engine, nothing as complex as robust as Holistiplan. And what I find about Right Capital is that it's just very flexible, and doesn't have a lot of bloat in the software itself.
Jay Coulter 11:49
Well, I want to give a shout out to John Rhett for tuning in one of the industry's top consultants, and he says your great concept. This is somebody who has seen a lot of advisory practices, and it really speaks to how unique your value proposition is here. Another piece of technology that you use that I'm a big fan of is Snappy Kraken, how do you implement that into your practice?
David Ortiz 12:09
You know, what I what I love about Snappy Kraken is just the genuine thoughtfulness of how Roberts group, Robert Sofia's group creates content. To me, it's like no other content that you can get out there. And it's it's all done with eliciting personal emotions and responses from people reading it. I get so many just quick emails back. Hey, thanks for sending this I really enjoy reading this stuff, you know, and it's nothing salesy, and you know, and so we just start using it to continue to touch people and put them in our list. And when I meet somebody new, I send an email first and say, hey, it was great to meet you. I'd like to add you, I'm adding you to my email list. You know, you can always opt out, we send really cool content, nothing salesy, and, you know, and I take that step just to be thoughtful, and not to be known as a spammer. And then we we put that in them into the campaigns. And then you know, they go into our whole Snappy Kraken groups.
Jay Coulter 13:17
And they're more than just email, if you have a wide social media presence, you can run campaigns, they have native ready postings, and it's really a turnkey package that you can have your...
David Ortiz 13:27
Yes, no, I don't want to it's much more than than email. And I mean, it's, and it's multi multiple touches and in different channels. So your people are seeing the message and LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter, and you just launched the campaign, make sure your list is connected to it your different groups, and it just works. I even forget that things are going out, because they have a four or five or six or eight segment P segment. And then the client or somebody will send me something back. And I didn't even know which one they were talking about, you know, and I was like, oh, and it's so it's you know, that's just kind of all working there in the background. And it's just talking points. And people tell me that they really want like my clients see me that they like it a lot.
Jay Coulter 14:12
So tell viewers what you do for your investment solution for those clients that are hiring you and engaging you for AUM.
David Ortiz 14:20
So I was trained by Tom Dorsey at Dorsey Right. And so I do have a background in tactical management and I believe very much in downside protection and risk management. But I found out that that's not really what I'd like to do to be the technician. So on the Schwab platform, we are using the smart X tamp program. And what that allows me to do is to take all these phenomenal managers and strategies that are available through smart exon Schwab and I think they're on fidelity and you know, Interactive Brokers and Purchasing and different ones, and put them together as sleeves. And the way I describe that to my clients is that I, I talk about it in my culinary senses as well. And I say, you know, smart X is like going to Whole Foods Market. Now, smart X is Whole Foods, there's so much stuff there, I can't eat it all. It's not all good for me. But it's all there and things will change. And I go up and down the aisles all the time, I'm always in smart X's aisles looking at what's the new product delivery, and I find the best managers that I like. And so then I buy those, if you will, and I put them in my pantry. And then when I meet with you, Jay, I kind of find out what are your tastes. And now I take those ingredients, and I put them into a meal, you know, different sleeves. And and that's what I do for you. And it's been phenomenal for me because I have access to world class strategies and can build allocations for any situation. And because as I said, we use this bucket planning, segmentation, we have a different allocation, and different managers, depending on what segment and what bucket we're talking about.
Jay Coulter 16:13
Alright, let's go back to the Enrolled Agent status that you have you recently acquired that, and how are you going to use it inside of your practice?
David Ortiz 16:22
So I am going to use it really to benefit my clients by the knowledge that I've gotten in going through it, which was very hard. And, and, and but it really allows me to focus on their situation in a different way now, because as I understand all the mechanics of the tax system, and what works and phase out and so forth, as we're talking, it's a whole new conversation. And you know, the thing that I have learned and where I really have moved, and what I would suggest is understand taxes, and what's taxes, because that's what our clients and prospects, they're all worried about. And they're all hearing and so, you know, the days of just being an investment person, I think are you know, you're... are slim. I think those are those are the advisors who are are not going to make it going forward.
Jay Coulter 17:17
Yeah, you brought up Michael Kitces. Earlier down here for the exchange ETF conference, he was one of the closing speakers, he gave a whole presentation on that where, you know, the value proposition has to evolve. And you have to be able to show that you're doing more than just model asset allocations and helping people answer questions about their their financial statement. So why don't we wrap up with this. And this is the reason I think you if you're a financial advisor, you should follow David Ortiz and the work that he's doing. He has been in Miami for a long, long time, didn't need a map driving us through Little Havana today to go find this shop. He knows this town like the back of his hand, and he is moving to the other side of the state to go and build a footprint over there. And is one of the best marketers in the business. I think it'd be worthwhile for advisors to keep their eyes on what you do. What is your go to market strategy for the other side of the state.
David Ortiz 18:09
So one of the reasons we're moving is that Miami has just become way too busy here. And it's very difficult for me to operate my mobile office through the streets of Miami. And I mean, as you saw, as I picked you up in the hotel in Miami Beach, you know, it's 20 minutes just to go down 41st Street to get to the expressway. And so and you can't park and so where we're moving to is a suburb of Sarasota called Lakewood Ranch, it's now considered to be the number one multi generational community in the country. And they're building 18 Different communities there. Two of them are 55 plus communities where I'm moving into, and we're going to build a local presence being local resources in the community, helping out schools and different organizations and, and being more of kind of a hometown advisor because that's can't be done here in Miami anymore. You know, it's just way too crowded. It's and so the idea is really that it will be we'll do a lot of workshops in person. I've created as you know, food and finance workshops interactive, where I teach a cooking class and do a finance workshop at the same time and then we eat the food that we've we've collectively cooked at the end and to do events like that and become a local presence and in the community there.
Jay Coulter 19:37
David Ortiz is literally the most interesting advisor in the industry. I appreciate you doing this impromptu with me here. I know it's a lot of value for the people who are watching. Make sure you keep your eye on David and how we grows this new market. If you're going to be at the jolt conference in Las Vegas next month, both David and myself will be there. Also, if you're going to be at the Morningstar conference next month, I'll be there with my partner in that Project Katie Braden who was also have to thank for encouraging me to push the envelope and do more live streams when I'm not in my fancy studio where everything's all buttoned up so David thank you so much for coming on