Participants:
Steve Wershing
Julie Littlechild
Joe Messinger
Steve:
Welcome to Becoming Referable, the podcast that shows you how to become the kind of advisor people can’t stop talking about. I’m Steve Wershing. Our guest today is Joe Messinger, CFP, CHFC, CLU, and co-founder and director of college planning for Capstone Wealth Partners. Joe’s target market is families with college bound teenagers. Specifically, Joe helps families who cannot qualify for needs-based aid figure out how they will pay for their kid’s education as part of a comprehensive financial planning engagement. Toward that end, Joe is recognized nationally as an expert in college funding strategies and actually trains other advisors on how to become experts themselves. Our conversation is dense with great ideas and advice on developing a niche, whether or not it happens to be related to college funding. We talk about the importance of defining your target market using characteristics your clients will recognize among their friends. We talk about what makes for effective resources you can offer to attract referrals.
He describes how to develop strategic partners who will refer you and how to become the one at the party people want to meet. Here’s a hint, it’s not by calling yourself a financial advisor. Be sure to stay through to the end where Joe describes the importance of being passionate about the niche you choose, how that can propel you to be even more compelling, and attract more clients and referrals. So, without further delay here’s our conversation with Joe Messinger. So, Joe Messinger, welcome to The Becoming Referable podcast. Thanks for joining us.
Joe:
Yeah. Thanks for having me. Excited to do it.
Steve:
So, you’re an expert in the college planning area of financial planning. What kinds of things distinguish an advisor who’s an expert at that versus somebody who’s not?
Joe:
I think for us we really would say we are college planning but it’s really the college funding. I think most advisors know how to save for college. We’re really focused on how to help families actually pay for college, which I think is kind of the missing piece that a lot of advisors maybe don’t have a ton of knowledge or education on. A lot of times it’s not their fault. It’s really not part of the curriculum that we go through getting into the business.
Steve:
Okay.
Julie:
We’re going to ask you a lot about the details of this but I’d love to know why you went down this path and really built expertise in this area?
Joe:
Yeah. It’s kind of an interesting story of how we got here. My background for about eight or nine years was with some large firms, large broker dealers before, then were looking to go independent and serve folks in this space. I was an advisor for almost ten years. I started getting questions from my friends as I was in my early 30s that were graduating from MBA school, doctors, dentists, those types that had significant amounts of student loan debt. They came to me and said, “Hey. You’re a financial advisor. Help me with this.” I said, “I have no idea how to handle this.” I would ask around, ask CPAs, other top advisors that I had talked to in our firms and really nobody had any solutions. The other piece to that was I realized that for those folks it’s 100 percent reactive. There was no proactive approach to how to figure out a reasonable student loan amount or how to actually pay for college before they signed up.
Julie:
Interesting. Yeah.
Steve:
What did you do at that point? What was your next step once you found that out?
Joe:
So, yeah. Myself and my partner with Capstone Wealth Partners … We wanted to create an independent firm. We said let’s serve college bound families. At that point we said well we’d rather be on the proactive side, so helping families when they’ve got a freshman, sophomore, junior in high school, affordability parameters. Help them navigate whole process with student loans, tax credits, financial aid and all those pieces of the puzzle. So, from there we launched Capstone, which is the name as you can tell. Capstone Course and all those pieces … It was intentional from the beginning to be an independent fee only firm serving college bound families from there. That’s really how we got started and it’s grown from there.
Steve:
Tell us a little bit about what that’s meant in terms of your… I mean we’re going to jump directly to this because I’d like to then build back from it, but tell us a little bit about your experience of getting referred once you established Capstone and what kind of an effect that’s had on your business.
Joe:
I really can’t express enough how… We talk about having a niche market, but the beauty for us is we get referrals and introductions from people that no other financial advisors are talking to. I don’t think a lot of financial advisors get a half dozen referrals from ACT prep companies and career counselors on a monthly basis, so for us those types of folks and as well as our clients. They don’t need to know anything about the family’s finances other than that they have a college bound teenager. For us the referability part… That’s all they need to know about that family and everybody that’s in that position. They know other folks that are similar to them and usually in a similar socioeconomic. It’s made it pretty easy. I think the thing with the niche and really having a focus is it allows you to know where you’re going to get up and go to work every day.
Whereas if you’re a generalist, you really kind of wake up and sometimes feel unemployed. You don’t know how to approach things, where for us we can really be very targeted in who we reach out to, in who we connect with. Our message is very succinct and we don’t try to serve everyone. Everything from our marketing, our business development, our client acquisition, and our client service is all around helping this one particular group.
Julie:
Go ahead.
Steve:
I’m sorry, Julie. I’d like to highlight one thing that you just said, Joe, because I think it’s so important. You were talking about the only thing that people need to know to be able to refer you effectively is that they have a college bound teenager. There are so many advisors who create their target client with characteristics that their clients wouldn’t necessarily know about their friends, like their net worth or their income, or those kinds of those things. If you could talk for a minute or two about the fact that the reason to refer you, the thing that qualifies you to be their financial advisor is something that’s obvious to their friends and how important that is. Can you talk about that a little more?
Joe:
Yeah because for us when we’re talking with clients I’d say our most powerful thing that we do is our weekly newsletter that’s extremely targeted. It’s all just about providing tremendous resources for families that are college bound. We always say come from a place of abundance, give, give, give. Those that are the right fit … They’re going to say, hey. You know what? I’m going to book a college strategy session with these guys. I heard about them from a friend at school, I heard about them through this other channel of other thought leaders in different spaces. It really just makes things … I think much easier for folks to go to our website. When we talk about referrals from clients or our centers of influence, we always say let them know about our free resources.
Just send them to our website and let them kind of explore there because it’s a big hurdle for us to ask clients, hey. Give me the phone number and email of your best friend that is a potential client. Whereas if you have your website and everything’s built out, I think that’s really important to give them an easy access point so that they can come in with a low hurdle and let their friend or colleague make that decision to book an appointment.
Julie:
You’ve obviously done a great job at creating shareable content, which is so important. Right? Because if you think of it, it’s about a subject that we actually want to share information on. I’ve never sent a friend an article on an investment strategy. I just haven’t. I’m sure there are others who have, but I do send articles on parenting or college savings, or financial literacy, or all of these things. I think Steve… You highlighted that great point that Joe made. I would also say it’s not only simple but this is what people actually talk about. It’s a subject that friends talk to friends about. Do you also find that you’re just getting more referrals because of those kinds of conversations?
Joe:
Yeah. I say it this way often. When I’m talking to other advisors, I say if you go to a cocktail party, or some kind of event or gathering, nobody wants to talk to the financial advisor but everybody wants to talk to the college guy. That’s how I say it. I don’t introduce myself as a financial advisor anymore. I say I help parents pay less for college. There’s a very different dynamic. Somebody will say, oh. Tell me more about that. It’s created a much easier entry point to create conversations because like you said, sharing an investment article … These parents aren’t concerned with how they’re invested until they can figure out how to pay for college. Until they can get their heads around how I’m going to pay for four years of college for my three kids that’s going to be 100 to 300,000 thousand dollars each, I don’t really want to talk about the investments until I figure that out.
Julie:
The very focus of your business sounds incredibly like a Google Search term as well. This is the kind of thing people would be looking for information online. Do you see a lot of prospects just coming cold because of what they’re looking for?
Joe:
We do get a fair bit of traffic but I would say that if they’re referred or they find us through another channel, the runway’s much shorter. They’re much more likely to book in more quickly because of that credibility. I think we’ve been very fortunate to have some great partners that have positioned us as their college funding experts on their team. Independent counselors and ACT Prep folks that … If they see us on their blog or we’ve guested there, that really allows people to find us I just think quicker. We certainly have people that have found us on the internet but I think the referrals or introductions, or seeing us somewhere else, is really what drives our traffic.
Steve:
Joe, can you talk a little bit about how to develop relationships with those kinds of partners?
Joe:
Yeah. Just kind of talking about being in a niche market in general. If we look at how it can work, it comes back to three key things because I’ve done a lot of work around how do you develop a good niche, regardless of if it’s college planning or another. I think you’ve got to have the technical expertise, so you’ve got to be the real deal. That comes from creating blogs, going out and really doing the work. I also think the other important piece there is the behavioral, emotional side of whoever you’re serving, so understanding where they’re at. We deal with a very emotional topic, which is paying for college. A lot of times there’s guilt or fear around that. If you’re working with divorced folks or you’re working with transitioning a business, liquidity events, whatever those are, understand some of the behavioral and emotional side so you connect with folks.
That last piece. It comes back to is it marketable and profitable for you to get into that space? Those three all have to work as far as giving back and making sure that it is a good niche for you. Do you want to work with them? Can you become a subject matter expert in that area? Not just with our niche but I think that’s true of all as far as being able to get in with folks because the referrals or building the network … It’s finding people that also work with those types of families. We’re just in a really unique position because no other financial advisor’s talking to these folks. As we’ve built out our resources, we’ve provided them with good resources and walked them through our process, which I think is really important if you’re going to build relationships with centers of influence. If they can understand the process and the light bulb can go off, that’s really what helps develop a strong relationship and then continuing to feed them … Kind of like we were talking about. Just really good free resources that they can continue to share.
Steve:
Okay.
Julie:
Yeah. You talked about technical expertise, and behavioral and emotional understanding. I assume those are some of the competencies that you think are really important if you’re going to develop a niche in this area. Are there others that you consider critical?
Joe:
For the college funding piece?
Julie:
Yeah.
Joe:
We’re working right now with Gen X. I think it’s important that you want to work with people at that phase of life. The reality is that the financial planning we do is actually much more in depth. If you really want to work with this group of people, I think you have to meet them where they’re at. Our average client age is in their mid 40s whereas most advisory firms is 20 years older than that. If that’s a group you want to work with, if you want to work with Gen X, I think that’s important just to understand there is some extra work that comes along with being in this space because of the detail that it takes to do college funding the right way.
Julie:
Now, the folks that you’re working with. Are they typically those who haven’t sought out professional advice before and this is their first foray into that? Or are you taking clients away from other advisors because of this specialty?
Joe:
I would say it’s a combination. If we’re a niche within a niche, our true space that we serve are those that are kind of what we would call the mass affluent with college bound and those that won’t qualify for need-based financial aid. We are working with higher income, affluent, just because of the communities that we target. I think we’re a niche within a niche because there’s plenty of information and resources on how to help people to get more financial aid. A lot of that revolves around insurance based, hiding assets and that’s not really what we see. Most of our folks … That makes very little if any impact. When we’re meeting with people, I would say probably the majority of them have worked with professionals in some capacity. Be it for an IRA or some insurance or whatever those pieces are.
A lot of times the way that we position that is if you’re open to a second opinion, how does that look? When we talk to them I say what’s you and your advisor’s current plan to pay for all four years of college for all three of the kids down to the penny? The answer I always get is well they don’t really do that. It’s not really that difficult for us at that point to say, well. Our process is built to give you a second opinion. We think a very reasonable three meeting process that will let you know what we would do given the opportunity going forward.
Julie:
Is that your college strategy session or is that a different thing?
Joe:
The college strategy session. That’s really kind of our free discovery call.
Julie:
Okay.
Joe:
Where it leads with almost everybody is we have a script that we go through. I’m pretty big on scripts, process and all that stuff. That college strategy session … We have found that when parents call that’s what they want to talk about, answering other pressing questions and being willing to do that at some capacity. We always say this is guidance, not advice because until you’re a client we can’t do that. Answer questions they have in general and then lead them down the path to our approach is a little bit different. I don’t think it’s different but we’re firm believers that we want our clients to understand the trade offs of college, retirement and how to make all of that work together. Not just college in silo.
Steve:
If I could build on what Julie was just asking, how many of the people who come to you who’ve worked with some other kind of advisor, just utilize you for the college funding? How many may move from another advisor as a result of that college funding planning experience and become a broader client for you?
Joe:
That’s a good question too. When we were getting started, we did college planning just as a standalone service. We would work with folks from whenever they came on to getting their kids off to college and paying those first bills. Probably about two and a half to three years ago, we really said we just want to work with ideal clients. Our ideal clients are those that don’t want just college help. They also want all the broader advice. When we bring folks on, we actually no longer have a standalone service for college planning. It’s either we work with you. We’ll develop a financial plan and we want to help you with all aspects. We’ve just kind of said if you’re just looking for college funding, I’ve got folks that I can refer you to but we’re looking for only comprehensive relationships at this time.
Steve:
What proportion of your clients end up doing the whole thing because they don’t have an advisor and what proportion move from another advisor to take advantage of that service of yours?
Joe:
I’d say two thirds would be folks that have some kind of advisor and maybe a third hadn’t really worked with an advisor in the past.
Steve:
Okay.
Joe:
If I had to kind of peg it that’s probably about the mix.
Julie:
You said you loved process, scripts and what not. I think that kind of comes out. You talk about a college strategy session, your three-meeting process. I think it’s brilliant that it is all packaged in such a way. I mean that’s easy for me to say I’d like to participate in that free session. It’s specific and it’s focused. I’m not making a bigger commitment. Is that how you think? Was that an intentional way of building the business? Did you just figure some of that out as you went?
Joe:
We definitely figured it out as we went but I think early on what we said was being a fee only practice … I was coming from where I sold a lot of products, solved the problems. I really kind of early on said if we can package this and productize a service, help people to be able to kind of see because it’s hard to sale the value of financial planning. We always said how can we package this and position ourselves so that they are buying a package at a reasonable entry point? Because our goal is to get them as clients for life, so we’re willing to lose a little money on the front end if they bring their assets to us, grow with us and grow their wealth with us over the long term. That has been pretty intentional from the beginning to kind of like I said, try and productize what we’re offering, give people a ton of value on the front end and engage them for life.
Steve:
Do you productize your whole process or primarily the college funding piece of it?
Joe:
Really the whole process. We have built out what we call our foundational planning piece. It’s a three-meeting process. We call it get organized, get a plan and get ahead. Those three meetings are very structured where we’re going through college, retirement, investing and helping them understand how all those three work together. We specifically say we’re not going to get into tax, estate and insurance. We’re just going to focus on these three core to get us started because to be honest that’s what most people are really focused on in our space. We’ve kind of packaged that and made it so it’s a scalable thing that we can do the same process every time with every client.
Steve:
Okay.
Joe:
It’s obviously a unique plan but that’s kind of how it’s allowed us to really create our funnel so to speak and make sure we know where people are at. We don’t even talk about investments honestly until the last meeting of that process.
Steve:
Okay. I’m going to want to jump back a couple of times just to pick up on things you said before. One of them was to talk about a niche within a niche, and that you’re not looking for everybody who’s looking for college financial planning assistance or college funding assistance. You’re looking for the people who otherwise couldn’t really qualify as easily for needs-based assistance. So, how does that sound when you describe it to people? When you describe what you do, does that distinction become clear?
Joe:
Yeah. I think once they understand. Our college preapproval is our process, which is helping people get their budget and to set their affordability parameters long before they go shopping for college. It sounds like novel idea but college preapproval … We think college should be preapproved just like a mortgage. The other thing I say is there’s a reason I don’t test drive Lamborghinis. It’s ‘cause I can’t afford them yet. With college though, we’re giving 18 and 19 year-olds a free ticket. We’re letting them visit all of these major colleges before mom and dad have even had the discussion about what’s affordable and then bringing the student into that conversation. The worst thing that can happen is the student does all the work and they get into Cornell, or Yale or Stanford and mom and dad find out that those schools are going to cost them 70,000 plus per year. Telling that student, no, at that time is not great.
We kind of have this process to say, look. The government is going to tell you what they think you can afford. I can tell you it’s never happened that people say, yeah. That’s exactly what we think we can afford. We work in this space where they go to financial aid night at the high school and that was great, but I got absolutely no value out of it because all I found out is I’m going to get nothing. They don’t help them beyond that. We pick up where that stuff leaves off, and even partner with those high school folks and people in that space because we work in an area that they’re really not versed in, which is the tax side, the financial aid policy of different institutions and all those types of things.
Steve:
I’d like to get even more granular on that. Like you were saying, if you announce yourself as the financial advisor at the party, that will subjugate you to the corner. Is there anything that you say at that point where people understand the distinction? Or is it just the college funding expert and we’ll leave it to get into a conversation before they understand the nuance for people who otherwise couldn’t qualify for needs-based aid?
Joe:
Yeah. Whenever I would say that I’m a college planning expert, a college funding expert, people always go, oh. Like 529 plans? I’m like well not exactly because I haven’t sold a 529 plan in over a decade. Are 529 and college savings plans part of what we work with? Yes, but the folks we work with … It’s actually figuring out how to fill the rest of the gap. That’s what usually clicks with folks, saying it’s not just about college saving. It’s about how to pay for college and not just save for college. That kind of helps distinguish. That’s where you can really engage people. They’re like, oh. Interesting.
Steve:
Yeah.
Joe:
How do you fill the gap? Maybe you’ve got 25,000 in the 529 but the schools you’re looking at cost 150,000 over four years. That’s a pretty big gap so how do we fill that?
Julie:
Right. Sorry. Was there something else you were going to ask, Steve? Because I was going to pivot a little there?
Steve:
Yeah. The other thing was to pick up, Julie, on something that you had said before about scripting, process and those kinds of things. It sounds like the bridge from either in the introductory session or from the introductory session to a relationship is scripted out, how scripted out is your onboarding process? Once people commit to becoming a client, how structured is what you do with them and what you say to them?
Joe:
I think we’re pretty methodical just because we’ve been doing it for several years the same way now, but I think it starts even before they book that discovery call. I’m really big on one to many before we do one to one, so doing a webinar. I really only do engagements now where I’m brought in as the expert. I think that’s important positioning wise, so other folks bringing us in and promoting it. The ones we do ourselves … They’re all promoted through our different partners. Like I said, one to many. Our target is we want to get 75 to 100 people on a webinar first and let them elect in if they want to have that call, that initial call. I think the initial calls are much more impactful if they’ve seen the basics of what we cover and understand our process. It lets them know our college funding and how we work. It’s a commercial but also a lot of education.
That way as they come in, we’re able to say what was it about the event that made you want to book in for the call? That’s a really great way to get started. Our process is built out that after that call, we’ll send out an electronic agreement that they can review and let us know if they have questions. It’s all signed and done online. All of the booking for the three-meeting process is all done electronically as well, so we use technology a lot.
Steve:
Great. Thanks. Go ahead, Julie.
Julie:
I was interested. You talked about obviously having technical expertise as a way in which you’re differentiated, the way you set yourself apart. Does the fact you are focused in this or on this niche, influence other parts of your business? Does it influence who you hire, how you train them? Does the fact that you’re dealing with people in their 40s influence your office environment, the way you communicate? Anything else that you’ve done to support the niche?
Joe:
Yeah. I would say the attention to detail is my partner, Ryan, that is extremely detailed oriented and actually for the vast majority … I don’t work one to one with clients anymore. A lot of that work is going to him and the rest of the team. Yeah. When we redesigned our office a few years ago, it was really designed with we can make this more elegant and modern. We don’t have lighthouses and compasses around our office. Yeah. We’ve got a map of The United States because when we’re talking about college we talk about what areas are you looking at? Different schools and have those kind of posted up there. We’ve done different things around that, that really is focused on having a great office environment that’s not stuffy, playing music instead of having MSNBC up on the screen. There’s no screens in our lobbies. It’s just some nice music and that’s very intentional from an environment standpoint. Wood floors and we’ve got a stone wall backdrop so it really is designed for a more modern, elegant look.
That’s definitely been an impact. As far as our team, just the natural osmosis is that we find people to work on the team that also have college bound folks. The folks that work with me on my copy and help with our newsletter … All those pieces. There are other folks that may have been a good fit but because they understand the points we’re trying to get across, it made them standout as far as who we were going to hire.
Julie:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Steve:
One of the things, Joe, that you had said before was the importance of understanding the emotions of your target client. How has that been reflected in this experience that you’ve built for them? Now that we’ve talked a little bit about how you’ve designed it and what your process is, how is the understanding of their emotions reflected in it?
Joe:
Yeah. It really is an emotional topic. What I’ve built out and what I coach other advisors on now is how do you get them to understand where they’re at? Because a lot of times there is some guilt that they haven’t done enough, some fear that they’re not going to be able to do enough for their student and how they make up the difference. I think it’s awesome for us. We say we want to meet with parents first. We’ll bring in the student later to have a conversation, but from an emotional standpoint one of the things we do right off the bat is tell me about your college experience if you went to college. For mom and dad we say where did you go? How was it paid for? Did you take out any student loans? What was your applications like? What was your major? The whole thing there is by asking both of them, mom may have had it all paid for by her parents. Whereas dad had to work for six years, do it part-time and take out some loans.
They’ve never had the conversation about really having a philosophy for their kids. So, in coming in you’re having clarity because that’s a very different perspective they come from. Are the kids going to work during school? All those pieces of the puzzle. So, it really helps us understand from a perspective of what would they like to do for their kids. Before we even get into all the finances, it’s just let’s understand where you went to school and also leads to what did they do for a living, how did they get there and how college influenced that? The other beautiful part of is we then ask tell us about your student, and who doesn’t want to talk about their kids?
Julie:
I do incessantly talk about my kid. There you go.
Joe:
Yeah. We have a very engaging meeting that we really don’t get to the finances until the end where we’re kind of just talking about let’s talk about what you have done as far as what your plan has been to date for saving for college. That’s kind of connecting with them and understanding. You can really build that bridge. I always say at the end of a meeting the logical next step is that working with us is the best thing for you.
Julie:
Yeah. It’s such a rich area for conversation and deep conversation. I can see how this would just create a level of trust, perhaps faster than many conversations would.
Joe:
Yeah. The polls are all out there. It’s become pretty much a steamroller over the last five years. That the number one financial concern of Gen X is how to pay for college for their kids, those that have children.
Steve:
Yeah. I just read something recently that it seems like you’ve incorporated into your situation that having empathy for a client and their decisions is more important than telling them they did something wrong.
Joe:
Absolutely. Yeah. We always say we’ve got what we’ve got. We can’t fix the past. What we can do is build a bridge to get you done and pay for all four years of college and have your student graduate with manageable student loan debt without robbing your retirement. Is that something you’d like help with?
Julie:
I love it.
Steve:
Yeah. Referrals for you, like you were saying, is not really much of an issue. It doesn’t sound like you really have to do much. Do you do anything deliberate within the client relationship in regard to referrals? Or is your professional network cultivation providing you with what you need?
Joe:
The professional network has been huge for us. We’ve got a couple of tremendous resources that refers a lot of folks. To be honest we could do better at being more intentional with our clients in review meetings because once they work with us, we have two to three meetings per year with them. That’s actually an area where I feel like we could actually probably engage people a little bit more. But I also know that we’ve kind of been clear on if you get a newsletter or you have content, or there’s stuff that you feel like somebody could benefit from, please forward it on. So, we know it’s effective but it’s actually we don’t brow beat people with it either. We just say if you know a college bound family that could benefit from our resources, send them to the website.
Steve:
Yeah. I wouldn’t worry about being more aggressive about it because as long as you’re meeting your business goals by what you’re bringing in, I think you’re doing just fine. What Julie and I found in the study that we did last year, was that one of the most highly correlated things to higher referrals is just being really clear about who your target client is and talking about it frequently. You do both of those.
Joe:
Yeah.
Steve:
Let’s broaden this out before we wrap up because we’re coming up on time, but I’m interested in your perspective given how successful you’ve been at this and given how you’ve developed this. What advice would you give to somebody about developing a niche who was not interested in the college funding space? What principles would you commend to them?
Joe:
Yeah. I referenced a couple of them before but I really do think it’s, is this a space you want to work with? Some people … This is just not an area they have any passion for. You have to be passionate if you’re going to be in a niche. I think there’s lots of studies out there that a number of advisors are pretty miserable, especially as they’ve grown their practices, which I think is kind of sad. Because I think you can have a great practice, serve ideal clients that you love working with and really solve a problem for them. When you’re looking at that if you’re looking at developing a niche, what technical expertise and what group of people would you love working with, I think is the key. Can you market it and be profitable in your area? I’d say do a market analysis. We actually do that for advisors looking at our stuff.
Can this be a market that’s reasonable for you? Because if you want to work with corporate executives, it’s probably not great if you live in rural Midwest. You can have all the information and knowledge you want but that’s kind of the deal. Understand can you do a market analysis? Does it work where you’re at? I think another key when you’re looking at a niche was if you do think you can do all those pieces, be intentional. I always say if you’re building a practice, have intentional success. What does it look like? What I say is if you had a process that you can bring in only ideal clients as soon as possible, in over a five or six year run you could be at a hundred clients doing a half million to six hundred thousand in revenue. Would that support a great life for you and your family? Really just intentional success.
What’s the vision look like? If you’re bringing on clients on a consistent basis, what’s the revenue you need to do that? Focus on just working with ideal clients that are in your market space and I’m telling you your job actually becomes much easier once you commit to that. That’s what I would say.
Steve:
Yeah. That’s great. We’ve gotten an amazing number of suggestions and tips out in this. We could just keep talking about it for at least another hour but we do have to wrap it up. I know that you offer a course to teach financial advisors if they want to also become experts at college funding. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Tell people where they can find you?
Joe:
Yeah. Sure. Over the years just a number of advisors have called and had questions. I was happy to provide that, but we really just kind of said let’s just take what’s in my brain and put it into a course. We’ve actually got a free college funding crash course, which you can find if you just go to Capstonecollegepartners.com. That’s kind of where you can find everything we’re doing, including access to the free course. We’ve incorporated two hours of CFP continuing education in there for that. Then the full course. There’s two pieces to it. One is how to get educated. There’s ten hours on just all the nooks and crannies of financial aid, tax planning for college, all the pieces we put together, our preapproval process.
The second piece of that is supporting advisors in making this marketable and profitable. There’s pieces where there’s white labeled brochures and there’s PowerPoints that you can use to go and have great conversations and raise the bar. The mission of Capstone College Partners is really that we’ve done a great job and we serve our local community, but we really think we can raise the bar on college funding advice. That will help end the student loan crisis one family at a time.
Steve:
Oh. That’s awesome.
Julie:
Nice.
Steve:
Well, Joe, thanks very much for joining us today on the podcast. We appreciate your time and expertise. Thank you so much for sharing all that with us.
Joe:
Yeah. Thank you guys for having me. It was fun.
Julie:
Yeah. Thank you so much.
Hi, it’s Julie again. It was great to have you with us on Becoming Referable. If you like what you’ve been hearing, please do us a favor and rate us on iTunes. It really does help. You can get all the links, show notes and other tidbits from these episodes at becomingreferable.com. You can also get our free report, Three Referral Myths That Limit Your Growth, and connect with our blogs and other resources. Thanks so much for joining us.