Why You Should Pause when Someone Says YES. | RR382

Hello, hello, and welcome to this week's episode

of Relationships Rule. Today, I am talking with Charles

Reichelt, founder of FTG Squared and a retirement plan advisor

with nearly 30 years of experience under his belt.

Welcome to the show, Charles.

Thank you, Janice.

I hope I said your last name right. I didn't

check it with you first.

You did perfect.

Okay, thank you. Exactly how

I pronounce it.

Thank you so much. So you are in Maryland,

right?

Yes. Yes. Baltimore, Maryland.

Baltimore, Maryland. And when I think of

Baltimore, Maryland, the first thing that came to my head Was

hairspray,

hairspray, great, great play. Yeah, John Waters is my

neighbor. Believe it or not.

Really, really. Oh, that's so funny. He lives

about a

mile away.

Oh, that's funny.

And you know, Star Spangled Banner was was written

here, and you know, Fort McHenry.

Wait, did oh, you're not. Sorry, I was

connecting it with John Waters, and that's not so. No, I was. I

was other things

about Baltimore that are yes, yes,

yes. That are famous. Okay. Oh, that's that's

very funny. Anyway, that's funny because that just came to my

head, and then he's your neighbor. That's so weird.

Anyway, it was one of my favorite Broadway shows and

movies and everything was great. Yeah, my

son's theme song. Believe it or not.

Sorry,

my son's theme song. Oh, really? Good morning,

Baltimore. He loves. Yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah. That's so great. Oh, that's so

funny. Okay, so before we get into the business side of

things, tell me a bit about your journey. What made you leave a

long career in the wholesale Side of finance and to start FTG

Squared. I think I know there was probably one little bit in

there about maybe it was retirement time. I don't know,

but go ahead. Yes,

yeah. So thanks for the question. The

reason I made made the switch is I was actually going to leave my

job at John Hancock back in 2021, but what happened was

COVID, and I have a family of five, and it wouldn't have been

a great idea to, you know, leave a great job at John Hancock and

decide to do this. So I kind of bided my time. I waited till

2024, and then you know made the jump to this job, this my

business FTG school.

Not your job now; it's your business. Now it's my

business,

and so I decided to do that because I I'd

had all the success I needed at John Hancock, and I'd sold a ton

of business over the years and had a fantastic career, and when

you get to into your 50s, maybe like your your granddaughter,

you don't always like to be told what to do.

Yeah, and

so that's what you you know you're told. Hey, you have

to produce this much every you know every year. Yeah, and so at

this age, you know you get to a point where you're like, at

least this is me personally. You don't want to do it anymore. So

you always start at zero every year, right? And you got to

climb the mountain. So I decided, you know, this now is a

good time for a break. And John Hancock had set me up super well

for retirement, and so decided to take six months off and then

do this do this business where this is kind of a give back for

me, at least to small businesses who sustained my career for 25

years plus.

Okay, and your business, FTG Squared. I love

the name because I finally know what it means. And so, what does

for the greater good mean to you in practice?

Sure, thank you. So, for the greater good means in

our business, in the in the investment business, in the

advisory business, we talk a lot about doing good. Like we help

people, we get them insured, we help them with estate plans. One

side of that is retirement plans, and when employees

actually decide to put money into a plan, they are doing good

for themselves. So I decided beyond just doing good for

yourself, they could do good for others. And so I basically give

away 5% of my revenue to a company here in Baltimore that

essentially Rebuilds neighborhoods without

displacement, without gentrification, and so it's a

full circle moment for you know for folks when when they work

with me.

That's very that's very special. The other

part of that, which you didn't mention, for me anyway, the FTG

squared. You work with your brother.

I do,

and I think that fits the the title as well.

He's DWR squared. Yeah.

Yeah, but you're both you both have the same

philosophy, obviously. But I know you deal with different

sides of the financial advising business. You're doing the

return. Plans, and I think he does something else.

He does. He does health insurance, and so we are great

partners to each other and great friends. And so it's it's

wonderful. He's just starting on his journey too. He's been doing

it for about I don't know six months to a year, and so he and

I are learning this as we go along. Yeah, learning to be

business

owners-it's different. Yeah, yeah, it's

totally

different. Yeah,

I know. It's like, what do you mean?

Completely

different. Yeah,

where are these clients coming from? Right, it's

so different. Yeah,

it sure

is. So you've built 1000s of retirement plans

over your career. What's the biggest misconception business

owners have when they think about setting one up,

they think it's going to be really hard and

time-consuming.

Okay,

I'd say that's the biggest misconception, and it

doesn't. I like to say it doesn't have to be. So I try to,

as a as a business owner and as part of my services, is to make

it as easy as possible for business owners to set a plan

up, and that can mean helping them with their data. It can

mean sitting down one-on-one with their employees so that

they don't have to promote their own plan. It can mean helping

them transition assets if that's if they have assets to

transition. So I'll do whatever I can as an advisor to make this

easy for founders and owners, and I think that's one of the

biggest misconceptions. Probably the second one is that this is

going to cost too much, and the reason that's a misconception

these days is because any company starting a retirement

plan should be taking advantage of the federal tax credits that

are available to business owners for five years, and in some

instances, it can it can lead to a very significant subsidy

against the cost of the plan.

Okay, and those are still happening in your

country these days.

They are still happening, believe it or not.

And we still are to convince people to to do something about

it, right? To to do it and to take advantage of it. So I'd say

those are the two.

Okay, excellent. Excuse me. A lot of people hear

retirement planning and they think it's all spreadsheets and

numbers. Where does the human side actually come into play?

Ah, that's a great question. So the human side

comes in and meeting people where they are today. So sitting

down with somebody, helping, trying to understand why they're

there, how long they've been there, what do they do for the

company, their personal circumstances, and then trying

to fit the plan and the idea of the plan into that world of

theirs. And when you do it that way, you can really get people

to accept the plan, and many times get them to participate.

You help them budget the amount that's going to come out of

their pay. You sit down, you do that piece for them, and then

you ask them, you know, is this affordable to you? Right, and

nine times out of 10, it

is. So I just thought of something aside from

what I have on my paper. There is that you know we think back

in it wasn't with my parents particularly. My dad was kind of

a a rebel in some ways, but a lot of people in my parents'

generation, and even my generation, I think you know,

had worked for a company forever and got the pension, and that's

just not happening anymore. People aren't working for the

same company forever. Loyalties out the window. Nobody gets a

gold watch anymore, and and and it isn't a given that a company

that you work for has a pension plan. So, are you going in and

is it? Well, there's sort of two things going on in my head here.

One is, are you you going in and talking to the owners of the

company to to show them that they can be the best employer if

they get people involved in this plan to help them and to help

their people, and also the people working today in it's

probably two different questions, but the people

working in these situations today, what's their mindset?

It's not the same as it was with their parents' generation or

their grandparents' generation either.

So when I'm working with a you know a founder owner,

at least initially, we're talking about their personal

circumstances,

right? Yeah.

What do What do your taxes look like? What is you

know building wealth through the business look like for you? Then

once they say yes to putting the plan in place, then it's about

meeting with the employees, and the byproduct of meeting with

employees and and showing them what it takes to retire is lower

employee turnover, and I like to say if I can save one person

from leaving a company in any given year, I just paid for the

whole plan because when you do turnover. Costs. It's typically

about 25% of whatever that salary is for the next year. So

if you hire somebody at $50,000 a year, let's just say that's

the number. That new person coming on board that's costing

the owner $65,000, right? Because it's it there's training

and all that stuff involved. Well, that delta 65 to you know

50 that's $15,000. That's more than any cost of a plan. So if I

can save that from happening one or two people every single year,

it starts to add up from a profitability standpoint. So

that's a byproduct of of of what we offer, what I offer, and then

I'll also say that a more prepared employee is a more

productive employee, and what I mean by that is they spend less

time on the internet on their phones worried about this one

little piece retirement, and I you know I give everybody my

phone number, my email. They can reach out to me anytime, and

I'll make myself available to talk with you know to talk with

employees. So that's the byproduct of this. So it's most

employees' mindset these days, though, is not about this

company is going to take care of me. It's more about self

reliance and having a what's called an employer match being

part of the program.

So as we're recording this today, the world

is talking about a very interesting concept, which is

quite scary to some people. I don't know if you've been

following on the news the the AI employee who left Anthropic and

who also used to work for OpenAI and is very concerned that you

know the the AI bots are going to take over the world and there

will be no world because they'll destroy it and I heard Anderson

Cooper speaking to Darius, I forget his last name, but the

owner of Anthropic last night, and it was really interesting

because there is that to deal with, and he's the the guy that

I forget his name, but the guy that quit his job, he's saying

things like he's not going to save for retirement anymore

because he doesn't believe that he'll be around at that time,

which is pretty dooms, you know, doomsday kind of thing. But have

you run across that at all? Do you? What do you think about

what?

I have not really run across that. I guess the way I

look at it is okay. So the world's going to end. We're

going to why save for retirement? Well, the bottom

line is it's not going to end tomorrow, and you still are

paying taxes. And so, whether you believe that the wealth will

be there or not, there's still the benefit of the taxes. So

that, in in and of itself, is is can be enough for a lot of

people to to make the

good answer

yeah to make the change

yeah

I'm also not a believer in you know a lot of people ask

me oh Charles what's happening in pension law these days what's

going what's the next thing coming you know and I always say

I don't know, and I and I don't care. And they're like, "Why? I

said, "Because until it actually happens,

right, it

doesn't worry. Like, why worry about what's going to

happen?

Yeah, yeah, I know. Let's just live

today. Yeah,

I know. Seize the day rather than worry in

advance, for sure. Especially that's how I look at it, but it

is-it's an interesting conversation that's going on for

sure.

Oh, sure.

Yeah, but I hate to

be that person who said, "Oh, yeah, the world's

going to end. I know, and then it doesn't, and then you're left

holding the bag.

Exactly. Oops. Exactly. Exactly. Hang on one

second. There we go. I just lost you because I moved my screen.

Okay.

That's all right. Yeah,

so that I don't, and no one has brought that up to me

yet. Yeah.

Well, that's good.

I'll wait. I'll listen. I'm sure it will happen. I'm

sure it will happen.

Okay. So let me see. Okay. So let's talk now

about how you and I connected. A mutual contact introduced us,

and that's exactly the kind of relationship building that we

talk about on relationships rule. So, how has referral

networking shaped your business?

Well, for me, it's everything. I don't. I don't do

any kind of cold calling. I don't do any kind of marketing

beyond human connection and human referrals. So, I I rely on

it 100% and so for me I've got to do it keeps me sharp. I got

to do a good job, and so knowing that in the back of my mind that

somebody you know referred me into a certain piece of business

is very important. So that I know, hey, I better do a good

job here because I want them to also refer me to the next to

somebody else, right? And so that's how I've decided to build

this business is trusted connections, and I don't know

any other way to do it, quite frankly. And that's how I've

just chosen to build my Business.

So, when you started your own business, did

you start a new system for doing that to keep track, or were you

doing the same thing in your business when you were in the

big company?

It's interesting. I was doing the same thing that I was

taught in in the big company, right? And that that didn't the

first. I mean, as you know, as a business owner, you don't always

know what's going to work. That first approach didn't work,

right? And so I realized, well, I better start reaching out to

people that I just know, and you know, having lunch or breakfast

and telling them what I'm doing and do they know anybody, and so

I did that for a while, and then my business coach helped me

create a system of ways of introducing people into my

network and vice versa, being introduced into their network,

and that's my business has really taken off since since

working with my business coach.

So, so you you shifted from just sort of in a

way, for lack of a better word, pitching to the people that you

that you knew because that's what you used to do in the big

companies, like you.

Yeah, so like, well, in the big company, I had one

audience to talk to, right? Is very, it's not easy. I'm not

going to say it was easy because it wasn't easy. But when you're

just dealing with one audience and one type of personality, you

develop a way to to work within that group pretty quickly,

right? Yeah. But in dealing with a broader audience, you know

everybody's different.

Yeah. So you have to be

you have to be very you know I'll say savvy to a certain

extent and make sure you're communicating at you know at the

right level and and in the right way with people.

Well, and also you don't have the big company

behind you, so it's the trust is going to be directly related to

its trust in you, and so it's building the trust in in you,

not with the big umbrella behind you. So that's correct, right?

So, so what does it look like when a referral relationship

goes really well for you?

Well, I guess when a referral relationship goes

really well, first off, the conversation is kind of natural,

right? I'm an open person. They tend to be if they're more open,

it's very easy to have that connection, and then you know,

typically by the end of that conversation, you have a good

sense if you're going to work together, and then it becomes

more just a certain milestones every time you meet with that

person. Okay, I just did. Here's the next milestone. Here's the

next piece of the process, right? And as long as they

continue to follow you, they'll be your client, right? And so

that's how that's how you know that's what a good referral is

for for me.

Did you find that you had to, as they say, play

the long game and slow things down?

Oh, big time! Absolutely, like my business

coach, because I was always about close. You know, always be

closing, right? Yes, yes. ABC. Yes. And I was really good at

it. But in in this business I'm in now, you know, like what my

coach said to me right away is like, all right, when somebody

says that they want to work with you, you just need to pause and

like tell them, let's schedule another time, right, to talk.

And so I was. That was not my mo. My mo was okay. Somebody

says yes. Yeah, let's get to work. And I was. I would just.

So what did what was

his what was his rationale with that?

Well, just kind of what you just said-building the

relationship with the person versus

yeah,

stop and let them think. Make sure it's the right

thing. That's versus

yeah,

yeah. Versus you know when you heard yes in the sales

model, when you hear yes, you're supposed to be quiet. Don't say

anything else and begin the process of

yes, yes. Isn't that funny? I know. It's like, I

mean, I still do that sometimes. If someone says, "Yeah, I'm

ready to to do that, and said, "Well, let's why don't we get

started now or something? I mean, yeah, or let's book a

time. But I know, and I believe me, I don't have the 30 years of

training in sales that you have. I. I was a teacher when I went

out on my own. I didn't know how to market or sell. I mean, so

you know, it's trial and error all the way. But

oh, 100% And so I totally like. That's what I do

now. Is I pause and say, okay, that's great. Let's let's let's

set up another time and and let's talk about this, you know,

in more detail,

yeah, yeah. No, that's that's that's good. In an

industry that's as regulated as yours, how do you build trust

with? How do you build trust with a new client quickly

without cutting any corners?

That's really tough. I've got. I'll be. That that's a

tough one because we have so much paperwork that we have to

do in our business, and so you know I have to learn to prepare.

Like my first couple clients, I think I like overwhelmed them

with the paperwork, right? You know, and I've learned to do

better with that and kind of set it up like, hey, by the way,

you're going to get a lot of paperwork, and here's what it

all means. And I'm happy to walk you through it. So, you know

that that was definitely a learning curve for me. Well,

yeah. So I'm going to back up a second

because I think that part of the work towards that trust would

have been done before that, I would think. Also, just by doing

your homework when you go to meet someone for the first time,

because we have so much at our fingertips now, like our

LinkedIn profiles, our the websites that people have, and

that kind of thing. And I don't, I don't know, but when I'm doing

my LinkedIn training with with my clients, or I'm telling them

to look beyond what you quickly scan on someone's LinkedIn

profile, because there's so much more you can find out by just

looking at where they went to school or seeing if they have

any auxiliary courses that they've done, or that they have

an interest in soccer because they coach their kid, or

whatever. But most people don't pay that attention. They stay

above the fold and they don't go down and and look. And I think

those things can really, you know, help. I mean, just like

that little thing I said to you this morning about Baltimore,

because that just came to my head. But that's because I'm

always looking for a connection, and you gave me one. Like it was

beautiful. John Waters lives near you. That's amazing. You

know, so I can go off on a tangent and talk about Broadway

shows. I like. I don't care because it's it's whatever is

working, right? Yeah,

absolutely. Yeah. So I always yeah like I like that. I

mean, I try to. So I live my life in the moment. I I try to

really listen very intently. That's so important. You know,

that's my goal is to just listen. Now, I I don't always do

it. You know, I'm not I'm not perfect, but that's what I try

to do is listen and and then build like you said, build the

connection, right?

But you have to ask questions to get people to

talk sometimes. So, oh

yeah. And do you know do you

know what the anagram of listen

is. I've I've taken my anagram, but I don't know. I

don't I don't know. Silence. Ah, okay.

It's an anagram of listen. Yeah. So when you're

listening, you're keeping quiet. Quiet.

Yeah.

I always love That okay, okay. If a business

owner listening today has been putting off setting up or

improving their retirement plan, what are you going to say to

them?

Well, I'm going to say whether it's me or somebody

else, you should start soon. Start soon now because you're

missing out on compounding interest. To me, that's the

biggest thing. You know, get get invested, get get started with

the plan. It's so important because I was just reading an

article today, actually in the Washington Post. It was an

opinion piece, and we are very on the precipice of a

depopulation in the United States because our birth rates

are going down and because of the immigration policies that we

have, so population is shifting and it's going down. And the

amount of people that even have any bit of wealth set up for

themselves is is nominal. It's not a lot. So start today. Start

soon. Start putting the money into the plan as soon as you

possibly can, because that's that's the biggest factor is

what you put in, and time to that point in time when you're

going to take it out.

There's a book I read once, which I wish I'd read

a long time ago. For that, called the Slight Edge, by Jeff

Olson. It's all about compound compounding interest. Yeah, it's

a big

deal. It

is a big deal. Yeah, I

love it when I go. I've been so I've been in business

now for about 19 months, and so I've been able to now with some

of my clients come back and meet a lot of the employees again,

right for the second time, and I love it because they're like,

"Man, how much? Where where did all this money come from? And

I'm like, "It's because you decided to make this change in

your lifestyle, and you you know what we're putting it into is

there's nothing special about it. It's not like it's a crazy

investment or anything. It's it's very simple, but you just

you decided to take that leap and and do that, and now look at

look at what's happening. So I love that. That's yeah.

Looking back over your career, what's a moment

that reminded you why relationships matter more than

transactions in this business?

Wow, why relationships? Well, I'll speak to going from

one company to another, right? In my career in sales, and I'll

just say when I went when I left that original company in sales,

I thought that company was the best, right? And it actually in

sales, if you don't believe in what you're doing, if you don't

believe in your platform, your product, you're not you're never

going to be successful.

Right.

So you know, in moving over, I was always comparing.

Right. I was comparing this company to to the new company.

It took me about I don't know six months or so to kind of get

over that, but what I realized is that the company I was, the

new company I was with, really dedicated their time and

attention to people, and that's when the light switch flipped

for me, and I realized that in the old company I was really

just selling features, and in the new company, I was really

selling a lifestyle and and a betterment, this you know for

the greater good approach, and that it's simple what they did

differently, but it was monumental in the way I felt.

Right?

Yeah, that's a big that's a big switch.

It was a huge switch. Yeah,

yeah. And I, I think that as we get older, I

think we really start to notice and pay attention to how people

treat us in the sense that, excuse me, I don't have to work

with this person if they are right because I always say that

that I have to that if if someone's going to work with me

in in their LinkedIn first their profile but then you know using

LinkedIn they have to think the same way I do that relationships

are the most important piece and that's what I'm focused on when

I show them how to best use LinkedIn. So, and that's not

everybody. They just want how many emails can I, how many

messages can I send out this week legally, and just keep

sending out numbers because it's a numbers game for them. I can't

do that. That's not who I am.

Yeah, yeah.

So no,

I did a 180 after that sort of revelation. That's why I

stayed with the company for so long, and why I loved working

with them and for them.

Yeah, no, that's great. Well, a couple of quick

flash questions before we wrap up. So, how do you today get

your pleasure and information-is it through reading? Is it

through watching? Is it through listening? What's your best mode

of?

Do you mean information for my business, or do you mean

information just?

Period.

Period. Do you read? I'm a big reader. I'm a big

reader. I'm a big musician. Oh yeah, yeah. We actually have a

jam session every month at my house. Where do you play?

Do you play?

I play guitar and sing, but we have a host of folks that

come over, and so like tonight's the jam tonight. Yeah, and we

have a beautiful weather here in Baltimore. Yeah, for this, so

those are the two things I do the most: reading and and music.

What kind of music

do you play?

All kinds. I play all kinds. I know that's not a great

answer, but well, is this true? Like I, I have I have a wide

palate. But

do you go back to? Does your music that you jam

with your guys. Does it go back to your youth, or is it present

day?

Both. I like. I love present day music. There's a lot

of. Oh yeah, I do. I old stuff, new stuff. I'm always trying to

mix it up. So I love

to. Who do you listen to then?

Gosh, I listen. I mean, I listen to, well, the Avit

Brothers. I listen to Wilco. I listen to Lord Huron. Yeah, I'm

testing myself. I know none of these.

So that's you know, like that's that's who you know

that's who I listen to. I have my favorites, of course, from

many many years ago, but those are my

well. I think because I think it's not that we

get stuck there, but I think when our youth is being, you

know, when we're in our youth, that's when it's most important

to us, and those are the memories that come with the

music, right?

100%

Yeah. So I just find that fascinating, but

that's amazing. That's that's a lot of fun.

And the other thing I just what I'll add is like, and

I think I just want to add this because I think it's important

is that as a male who's 59 years old, you like if you don't put

yourself out there, you know, to meet folks and be in the mix,

you know, you've seen the studies, right? So you know,

like the other thing I do is we have a great group of friends

and neighbors, and we have a running group. We do some crazy

stuff once or twice a year together. It's just an awesome

community. So, but you know, you have to be intentional about it.

You do, and so I've definitely, you know, I'd say for the last

10 plus years, been very intentional about mixing it up

with people.

Well, and I think that's what builds it builds

your community, but it also builds your business in the long

run. It will, yeah,

absolutely,

yeah. So that's that's great. I can see, I

already can see a lot more about you just from what you just

said. So that's amazing. Okay, one last question. Often I ask

my guests. I talk about my favorite word is curiosity, and

I would like to know whether you think curiosity is innate or

learned, and what are you most curious about these days?

Well, I I think it's I think I hate to say I think it's

both. It's it's it's innate and it's learned. Like I don't think

we just are born and then we're naturally curious. I think you

have to to learn

it. Okay.

What I am most naturally curious about is just

in my stage of life, we call it the Panini generation. You've

got your kids and your parents, right? Yeah. And so I am curious

about my health and just things I can do to improve my health

because I want to be active till I'm 100. So you know that's I

got another 40 years to go, and I want it to be a good, a good

life. So that's what I'm curious about is improving. That's

fair. That's totally fair. Well, thank you

for a great conversation, Charles. Yeah,

I love this. Thank you, thank you for including me on

this. Oh, you're

welcome. I love how you built a business that

that's not just about retirement plans, but about showing up for

people that others tend to overlook. It's a great reminder

that the strongest businesses are built on trust and real

relationships, not just transactions. So thank you again

for joining me, and thank you to my audience for joining us

again. If you have any, if if my audience has any questions for

you or is interested in a conversation about retirement

and retirement plans, where can they find you?

Feel free to call me. I'm always happy to have a

conversation. And my number is 301. Yeah, I've got

it. I will put it. Oh, you're gonna put it. I'm

just checking. I've got it. So if

you if you want to text me, you're you're happy to do

that too. Just let me know who you are, and then always happy

to take an email. So

perfect. All right, I'll put that in the show

notes. So thank you again. Thanks for being here, and thank

you to my audience as always. And remember to stay connected

and be remembered.

Thank you.