Ever wondered what actually happens after you book an intro call with Mason & Associates? In this updated episode, we walk you through our new client experience from start to finish, including how our process works, what our fees look like, and what it’s really like to work with us long term. Even if you’re not ready to become a client, this episode gives you a clear picture of what to expect so you can make informed decisions, whether you hire us or someone else.
You’ll learn who our services are designed for, why we work within a specific niche, and how we structure relationships to stay professional, friendly, and client-focused. We also explain why financial planning can’t be implemented in a single day, how we decide which advisors you’ll work with, and why most of our meetings are remote. The goal is simple: remove uncertainty, reduce stress, and help you understand what a healthy, ongoing advisory relationship should look like.
Listen to the full episode here:
What you will learn:
- What you can expect from this episode. (3:25)
- Why we will always keep it professional and transparent. (5:45)
- Who should be scheduling an intro call with us. (7:30)
- If you are the right client for us. (13:00)
- What it looks like when you work with us. (16:40)
- How we decide which advisors work with which clients. (21:00)
- Why you cannot implement an entire financial plan in a day. (30:10)
- What it looks like to be a client. (41:00)
- What our fee structure is. (42:30)
Ideas Worth Sharing:
- “We only hire advisors we believe in, so whoever you work with, they will be competent.” – Mason & Associates
- “Can we implement an entire financial plan in a day? Absolutely not. Things change frequently, and implementation takes time.” – Mason & Associates
- “We can help you implement what we discuss in the first meeting, but we will also be there to make any adjustments as we go.” – Mason & Associates
Resources from this episode:
Did you enjoy the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast? Never miss an episode by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, and YouTube Music.
Read the Transcript Below:
Congratulations for taking ownership of your financial plan by tuning into the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast, hosted by Mason & Associates, financial advisors with over three decades of experience serving you.
John Mason: Welcome to the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast and the Mason & Associates YouTube channel. In this episode, we’re discussing the new client process and experience. It’s an updated version of a podcast that we released a few years ago where we highlight our fee schedule, the steps to become a new client, and probably also highlight what it’s like as an ongoing client of Mason & Associates.
Unlike many content creators, we’re financial planners first, and we do this second, and in each episode we share real life examples and strategies from helping federal employees retire successfully, maximize their federal benefits, and navigate complex financial decisions.
Are you ready to move from general education to personalized advice? Start that process@masonllc.net or 757-223-9898. Not ready to become a client? Completely cool. Keep hanging out with us as we release new content. Subscribe. Hit that bell notification and please share this content with federal employees across the country. We wanna help more people just like you.
Tommy, welcome to the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast.
Tommy Blackburn: John, thanks for the great intro. As always, it is great to do these episodes together. Glad to have you. Glad to have you back and looking forward to sharing what we do, what that new client process is, and if you’re not ready, as you said, ways that you can stay engaged and either just stay engaged in that form or perhaps become a client eventually and share it with those who it could be helpful to. One of the simple sayings that the firm started off with, I believe, was we answer the questions you have as well as the questions you didn’t know to ask. It’s that peace of mind, that clarity, tying it all together as you go into retirement.
Commercial: We’re excited to share that Mason & Associates has been recognized with an Inc 5,000 award as one of America’s fastest-growing private companies. This recognition means the world to us, and it’s a direct result of our talented team, loyal clients and listeners like you who continue to support what we do. Thank you for being a part of this milestone with us and we look forward to what’s ahead.
This rating was given in August, 2025 by Inc. in consideration for the 2024 calendar year per ink’s methodology. An application fee was due to assist with processing. Applicants Mason & Associates does not receive compensation by or for this rating.
John Mason: Well, it’s really well said, Tommy. And I think as we lead into this episode, one, if you’re already a client, please don’t turn it off. This is gonna be an update that you can share with people that you think should meet us. If you’re not quite interested in becoming a client yet, don’t turn this off because we’re gonna talk about what that looks like and maybe one day you will be ready.
So we want you to know what to expect. We want you to know what that looks like on the other side. Of course, if you just like the general education, please stick around and learn more what it’s like. I think, in a minimum, Tommy, people should leave this episode understanding what a well thought out financial planning onboarding process looks like.
Hopefully, through our other content, we’ve dispelled the myth of insurance salespeople or money manager or what have you, but I think through this dedicated process that we have to onboarding new relationships, it should pave the way for people to just be more educated and informed, whether that’s hiring us or somebody else.
Tommy Blackburn: Absolutely. I’m really looking forward to get into the process and it is, we believe, designed to take some of the stress or fear. It doesn’t; it’s not the fastest process that is intentionally designed so that we have a chance to develop a relationship. Everybody feels comfortable and feels that they understand what they’re getting into, as well as understand that nothing is irreversible for the most part.
And so we’ll get into that. And what I mean there, since I mentioned it, is it’s a liquid relationship. We’ve said this in previous episodes. There are no gotchas. We’re not gonna charge any fees. Nothing we invest you in cannot be undone. We can help you transfer pre-tax funds back to TSP if that’s your retirement vehicle, transfer to another custodian.
It’s all highly publicly traded how we manage investments, that’s usually one of the scarier pieces of the relationship. So kind of just wanna come right out the gate and say that we do occasionally have some new clients who things need to move quicker. And assuming that we both can get comfortable, there are times that we will customize the process as long as we feel like we’re not skipping anything critical.
But very happy to talk through this process today. And John, it all starts with that introductory phone call, which nowadays can also be a Zoom. And in fact, I think we almost prefer that we do a Zoom versus a phone call. But if we don’t wanna do a Zoom, we can certainly do it, quote unquote, old school and just do it over the phone.
John Mason: Well, let’s talk about the intro call here in a second. But boy, you said great stuff right from the beginning. So, audience, highlighting some of the stuff that Tommy said is one, it’s liquid. So we don’t have any time commitments, like you said, Tommy. And if somebody hires us today and wants to terminate the relationship tomorrow, that’s completely possible.
And we always say, we’ll smile as you become a new client, and we’ll try to smile on the way out if that ever happens. Doesn’t happen that often, but occasionally it does. We want to be professional throughout the entire incoming or outgoing of the relationship. So yes, it’s very liquid, very transparent.
We’re fee only, f-e-e, fee only, which means the only people that can pay us are our clients. And that means no commissions, no insurance sales, no products, sales, no 12b-1 fees on mutual funds, et cetera. So liquid fee only, transparent, and you only hire us for the length of time that you want to hire us.
We hope that’s for a very long period of time in an ongoing relationship. And to be fair, we have had to end relationship with clients in the past too. So it is a mutual decision to both onboard as a new client as well as a mutual decision. Like, are we still adding massive value? Does this relationship still make sense?
And to be transparent, sometimes compensation may drop to a point where it doesn’t make sense for us to continue serving some families. And in those circumstances, we wanna make sure that that transition is also good too. So very transparent. And I guess as we dive into the intro call, let’s also call out who should be scheduling the intro call.
An intro call should be somebody who, ideally as a federal employee, it’s in our niche. If they’re not like super niche down as a federal employee, the second part would be enter near retirement, somebody with a million dollars or more of assets. We typically work with those people.
Now, occasionally, we’ll see an introductory call come in for somebody that’s 35 and a hundred thousand of credit card debt. We do help those people when they’re on the calendar, but ideally, probably not the person that should be scheduling that call. And the reason we’re saying this, Tommy, is occasionally people get upset with us if they’re 35 or 40, and they don’t fit the niche and then they’ve carved out time and their spouse is there and then we turn them away because it’s not who we work with.
So we do wanna be transparent that in or near retirement, a million dollars or more, people who are looking for an ongoing relationship. Some of those other people that don’t fit that category, if you schedule it, we’re probably gonna hold the call, but just understand that it probably is not going to materialize.
Tommy Blackburn: Yes. I really appreciate that, John. I mean, some folks have put it as, in, in the medical terms and even in the law world, right? Like you have the general practitioner, then you have specialist, and there are some people in your example who specialize in getting out of debt. That while we think certainly we can provide some good education and thoughts to help, that’s not our service model. That’s not our specialty. Our specialty is, as you laid out, it’s those in or near approaching retirement with a million or more of investible assets, even more so, especially so if you fit in that federal niche. But we have plenty of clients through other walks of life, whether they’re small business owners, private sector, some others are HII, Sentara, Dominion, some of the defense contractors.
But truly that niche specialty with the federal employee. We do occasionally get some 35-year-olds, as you said, who have either just been extremely successful early in life, had an inheritance, so those folks can fit as well if they meet the, we have assets to manage and we can begin that type of planning, that type of tax planning.
But the specialty, who we really specialize with, is that in near retirement. And if you do call and you don’t fit, we’re gonna do everything we can to get you pointed in the right direction. which is probably not us, ’cause that’s not, that’s just not our service model and not who we specialize. But we will try to point you in the right direction, get you referred to the folks who can help you.
So I think that’s wonderful, John. We don’t wanna waste your time. We don’t want you to waste our time. For those who do fit that profile that we laid out, the purpose of that first phone call is meant to be low commitment. It’s just a time commitment, and it’s just a chance for us to, we say, 15 to 30 minutes.
I think John and I can honestly run a little longer than that as we try to get to know people. It’s just who we are. Sometimes we stick to it, but there are plenty of times I think him and I run over when we conduct these calls. Purpose of the call, though, is how can we help each other? Are you a good fit for us? Are we a good fit for you? What are you looking for? Do you fit the profile? And are you looking for a long-term relationship where you can get clarity of how to take distributions, generate retirement income, due tax planning, how to transition to that retirement, or put a plan into place for retirement?
And if we fit those, and we both want that ongoing relationship, then we can continue through that process. I think it is important to say here as well, John, sometimes we have folks who they fit the profile, but you may not be looking for a relationship or you’re looking for a one-time engagement. And that’s not our service model currently either.
Perhaps one day that’s an offering we would have. But, to be frank, it’s not in the pipeline. So I just want the audience to understand that, too. If you’re kind of a do-it-yourselfer, you wanna just a check, somebody to kind of give you a checkup or a one, one-time plan, that’s not what we’re looking for.
So you could fit all, you could check all the boxes except for that one, and we’re still not gonna want to continue and hopefully we’re just sharing this ’cause we don’t, again, we don’t wanna waste anybody’s time. We’re looking for ongoing relationships. That’s who we’re set up to serve.
John Mason: I’d like to elaborate on a few of those statements because I think you hit everything, the purpose of the introductory call. I wanna reiterate to our audience.
That should be Zoom if possible. Now, we recognize that you may be at work, or you can’t Zoom, or you can’t activate your webcam, but 100% it should be both spouses. If there’s two of you, there should be two of you on the call. That’s always better with the two of you. And it should be Zoom. Zoom is always better than phone.
If we can’t get two of you and we can’t do Zoom, then of course we’ll take whatever to try and add value to your family. But understand both people present in Zoom is certainly the best option. Our commitment to you, Tommy, and we always say this, our commitment is that you’re going to leave that call better off than you were beforehand, which means we’re not gonna be able to give you a ton of advice. We’re not gonna be able to give you investment advice. But if you have questions on survivor benefits or you’re vacillating, we’re probably gonna have an education on why survivor benefits is a good deal, and we want you to leave that call better off than you were before, either leading to become a client or an advocate of the firm sharing about how good your experience was with that call.
Now, other firms out there do intro calls, not throwing stones; they do them with maybe an operations team member or a marketing person or what have you. We’ve toyed around with that idea, but right now we have like real life financial planners who serve clients every day who have like 70, 80, 90 relationships.
We’re the ones taking these calls. So it is high-quality advice. If you look at the hourly rate of the advisors that are on these calls, they’re not Virginia Tech students with one month of experience. Everybody here that’s doing these calls right now, Kyle Eagle just onboarded, but the senior partners here all have 12 to 15 years or more of experience.
We’re the ones handling those calls, so you’re gonna leave better off than you were before. We don’t do one-time financial plans, but we always say, Tommy, if somebody is 50% or more thinking, yes, they want an ongoing relationship, we’re willing to take that bet. We’re willing to go on that journey with you because we know, or at least very confident, if you allow us to present your initial plan and you were 50% thinking you wanted this, we’re probably going to show you through our process how we can demonstrate ongoing value, and that is likely going to lead to an ongoing relationship. Sure, we’ll get, stiff is not the right word, but sure, some of those won’t materialize and we’re okay with that. If you’re a hundred percent out, please don’t ask us to prepare your initial plan. Please be fair to us. If you’re 50% or more, we would love to take you through that process.
Tommy Blackburn: Absolutely. I completely agree. It’s liquid, right? So we’re looking for ongoing relationships. We want you to at least be open to it, and hopefully, looking for it as well.
But as we go through the process after the financial plan, that’s where I’m fast-forwarding. But after that is when it’ll be, do we wanna have the ongoing relationship? Do we wanna onboard for that? There’s an exit ramp there. The answer could be, “Hey, I wanna think about it.” Or, “At this time, I appreciate everything you did, Mason. But no.” And that’s okay as long as your intent was, yeah, I am open-minded to that ongoing relationship and believe that’s what I’m looking for. Then we want to take you to the process. There’s really no commitments at any point through the process other than when you say, “Prepare that financial plan.” ‘Cause we’re gonna do it, and there will be a fee, which we’ll get to.
And even when you become an ongoing client, as we said, liquid relationship, it can end at any point in time and we have no incentive in making anybody unhappy. So even if the relationship ends, we would do everything we can that we’re allowed to to help with that transition to make it smooth and pleasant. We want to part as friends to any extent we can if and when we cross that bridge. So from the initial call–
John Mason: I have to hop in real quick ’cause I had these thoughts, undiagnosed ADHD probably popping into my head, but a lot of thoughts here. Who we work with, we’ve already described the niche, but let’s quickly talk about, Tommy, what it looks like when you’re working with us.
So we’re doing an intro call that’s typically phone or Zoom, but as an ongoing client of Mason & Associates, we’re primarily meeting with people virtually. So we do think that’s important for you to know as well that even if you’re local to Hampton Roads, Virginia, we’re doing most of our meetings virtual.
Now, we do have a physical office space in Newport News, Virginia. It’s here. It’s available typically for signing documents, or notarizing, or witnessing. We really prefer, Tommy, and we’ve talked about this in many episodes, the educational experience of a virtual meeting, we find to be significantly better.
And it also allows us to–Kyle Eagle does not live in Hampton Roads, Virginia, and he’s our newest team member, and he can serve our clients where he lives and he doesn’t have to be here, which is pretty cool.
Tommy Blackburn: And he is not going to be the last in that role. We definitely are gonna continue to have people who are not local to this area joining our firm as we continue to grow and build it out.
So virtual is the way of the future, we think it is. Or it’s here. It’s not even the future; that’s the present. It’s the way we’ve been operating for quite some time now. We think it’s a great experience. It’s very educational, allows us to focus in together. It’s very convenient, it’s comfortable, comfort from your home or wherever you may be.
Same for us. Nobody’s held hostage. There used to be, not saying us, but other firms will get you in here and we’ll, almost like the timeshare, where there’s a million doors for you to go through before you can finally exit. And we’ll see if you, wear you down.
Virtual, you’re in complete control. Exit a meeting if you feel like you need to abruptly. We do, as you said, if we need to have a handshake meeting and you’re around here, happy to do that. Sometimes, clients, they’ll drop off things, they want stuff signed. Occasionally, we can do an in-person meeting, but we really, 99.9% of the time, we’re virtual.
When we do our strategic planning meetings, those need to be virtual because of the efficiency of that schedule and just maintaining punctuality, needs to be virtual. So I think that’s a great point, John.
John Mason: And then secondly, to that is we’re national, so this is not meant to make us sound like more sophisticated or real than anything, but like we’re registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission or the SEC, which means we’re allowed to work with clients throughout the country.
There are some financial planners or registered investment advisors who are only registered in their home state or can only work with clients in a few states. We are able to work with clients throughout the country, which is very important. Just because we’re registered with the SEC doesn’t like signify that we have some credentials that make us better, but sharing with you that it doesn’t matter where you live.
If you live in Virginia and retire to Florida, that’s completely cool. Probably 50% or more of our clients are coming from outside of Virginia at this point, so that’s very important. Let’s move on to the next meeting. So, in every aspect of this, Tommy, we’re never gonna put pressure on people. So, welcome to the introductory meeting.
It’s nice to, or, intro call. It’s nice to meet you. Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna add massive value, answer the questions that you have, and try to determine if a relationship makes sense. At the end of that call, we will offer to people, “Wow, this sounds great. We would love to work with you.”
“Would you like to schedule now, the next meeting? ‘Cause I’ll pull up my calendar, we’ll get it on the books.” Well, the client or potential client may say, “Ah, I’m not really sure I want to do that.” “Perfect. I’m gonna send you a summary email and then that summary email will be a link to schedule. And then if I don’t hear back from you, I’m probably gonna call you in a week. Is that okay with you?” And either outcome is completely cool. We’re not gonna put pressure on you. If we want to keep the ball moving forward, we’ll schedule that’s the best option. Otherwise, we’ll send the summary email. and then we’ll typically say something like, “Please respond or acknowledge because sometimes these go to junk,” or if you’re registering for an intro call, folks, we’ve had people do this, don’t give us your spam email. ’cause if you give us your spam email and we try to send you the schedule email, it’s gonna go to your spam email and that’s not good.
So please, trust us with your information. We’re not gonna inundate your mailbox, we’re not going to take advantage of the fact that you scheduled a call. Give us your real email because we will follow up with you and send you a summary of our call, as well as a schedule link if appropriate.
And then of course, if it’s not making sense to move forward like, Tommy, you said we’ll refer you, we’ll give you some resources. We’ll help the best we can. Moving to the next meeting–oh, go ahead.
Tommy Blackburn: There’s also the other route, which is if it doesn’t make sense to move forward now, one, please let us know, just so we know we didn’t drop the ball.
We’re not gonna pressure you, we’re okay hearing a no. If it’s a no, that’s fine. The other route here is we have, if it doesn’t make sense today, as we kinda led with, we have a podcast that you’re hopefully familiar with if you’re listening to this, YouTube channel, newsletter.
So there’s other ways, even if now doesn’t make sense, if you’re not a fit currently, but maybe are fit in the future, whatever it is. So even if this process isn’t the right process for you today, we have these other avenues that we hope will be helpful to you.
John Mason: Good point. So moving on to the intro meeting. I know the first two meetings, audience, sounds similar. Intro meeting is 60 minutes-ish. Again, Zoom. We’re gonna ask you to fill out our fact finder, which is on our Mason & Associates website, where I ask you to upload a bunch of documents, things like…TSP statements, estate planning documents, tax returns, and more.
And we’re gonna spend 60 minutes, Tommy, basically expanding on the conversation that we had the first one, right? So 30 minutes, it’s a short conversation, 60 minutes expanding and confirming that, yes, this relationship makes sense. What are your concerns? What are you hoping we can do for you?
Let’s really talk about your goals. Let’s really figure out what’s going on. And, “Oh, by the way. We reviewed your documents, you reported your rental income wrong. You did this good, you did that bad.” We’re not gonna pull a lot of punches in that first meeting, like we are going to show you to a certain extent.
We’re gonna tell you the story and we’re gonna show you the vision of what it looks like to become a client, and we’re gonna give you some pointers along the way, and you may leave after that. And that’s okay, because we still have to demonstrate professionalism and competence. Obviously, we have this podcast that allows us to do that, but we still need to be able to show you that in a personalized individual 60-minute meeting, and again, no fee, two advisors and those two advisors, they may not be the same person that you had the intro call with.
So for instance, if Mike Mason takes that 30-minute intro call, your intro planning meeting, that may be with Tommy and Kyle or John and Ben. We like to try and have that first advisor stick with you through the process, but we’re also letting you know that may not always be the case. There is a nice part of having some continuity of having that initial contact point be there through kind of the on-ramp.
Tommy Blackburn: Yeah. And hopefully, even when we’re introducing new planners in that intro meeting, that’s so early in the process that there should be a fairly smooth handoff and the relationships are still being built.
So you should hopefully still feel very comfortable, and we’re only putting advisors, we only have advisors we believe in who are confident, for the most part, very well experienced. As you say, we’ve hired an associate planner with some experience and who’s rapidly gonna be gaining more and more experience.
So, you’re gonna, regardless of if it’s whoever took the call to who you work with, they’re gonna be confident and you’re gonna have this entire rest of the process to get comfortable with them. And to be frank too, so as an anecdote or a couple anecdotes, I have had several prospects as we call them, people who aren’t clients who are interested, reach out to me either through NAPFA, find an advisor, some other form, Google, and I will let them know, “Here’s the process that we’re going through. Here’s our website. Here’s where you can go schedule a call.” Chances are you’re not going to schedule with me for that intro call when you do it. Somebody else, Mike Mason, Kim Mason, is probably gonna take that call. Maybe Ben Raikes and they’ll figure out, are we a good fit?
And you can share with them, “Hey, I really wanna work with Tommy if he has capacity still.” And once we get past that intro call, I will be there for the future, you know, if that’s how the capacity is aligning for the firm. So I just wanna share, we are a team. We are very much a team. We don’t look at it territorially, and this is our process.
I will also let people know if you think it’s critical that I take that initial call, we can set that up, but you should really feel comfortable with everybody on our team and we will get this correct. So again, we got to the intro meeting. I think we’ve covered that pretty well. Oh, you mentioned, we’ll start, one, yes, we won’t pull punches per se, we’ll deliver them diplomatically. But if you made it to the intro meeting, you already got through the first, are we a good fit? So chances are you’ve done a lot right. So I don’t think you should feel like worried coming into that meeting. Sometimes people get worried about getting financially undressed.
We’ve already kind of done a high level, “Yes, this is somebody we wanna work with.” So there may be some mistakes you’ve made that we wanna point out or some areas for improvement, but you’ve already checked every box we’re looking for. So I just want people, you shouldn’t have any fear or worry about what we may say in that meeting.
And there are a lot of fun too, for us at least, and I think for clients as well, because we do begin building the plan during this meeting. So John and I had one the other day and it was a lot of fun. We did a lot of prep before the meeting because the client had gotten us a lot of information and there were things about charitable giving, we were discussing and estate planning, and we began laying out, “Here are some paths that we’re beginning to envision. It’s all fluid right now. We need to get to know you better and really tie this all together, but here’s some brainstorming that we wanna share with you.” And it’s a lot of fun for us because clients, prospects then begin thinking like, “That does sound like a great idea.” Or, “Actually, here’s something you should know about me. Probably why that strategy’s not gonna be the right one for me.” So it is a, I would say the beginning of the fun.
John Mason: Well, you’re painting the picture, you’re telling the story, you’re laying the foundation, all of these things. And the relationship that you’re discussing was a lot of fun because we’ve known them for a while and they had the intro call with me not that long ago, and we were talking about some individual stock positions that seemed sacred. They were like, “We’re not gonna get rid of those. These are sacred. These have to be here. They’re very purposeful.” Well, then we started talking about charitable giving and ways to get rid of low-basis stock, and they were like, “It’s all on the chopping block.”
Like, well, so we’ve talked about before, how the story will change as you begin to get to know a client and you start demonstrating the value and even sometimes years into the relationship, what you thought was true or what the client communicated, in 2026, goals change, people change, and things evolve over time.
Tommy Blackburn: John, if we, one more. I know we’re belaboring the intro, but that experience has got me thinking because it’s so relevant of, I think hopefully what’s helpful for the audience too to hear was these most likely to become clients. They’re in the process. What they shared was, “We’ve gotten further with y’all and the 15-minute phone call we have with John and the hour-plus meeting, intro meeting, and we haven’t even hired you guys yet, and we’re already getting way more value than we’ve ever received.”
And it’s like we’re, “This is just the beginning.” So I just felt like it was such a compliment and hopefully a good, hopefully it just shares with the audience, like, this is what it will feel like or it should feel like.
John Mason: And they said, “And we haven’t even paid you a dime yet.” Yes. That is correct. So we’re a team, audience. We’re a team-approach team of advisors. We don’t compete amongst each other. So we’ve made it through the first two calls. We feel good about it. We’re preparing your initial plan. This is the time where you’re gonna have the first commitment. This is where you now owe us $3,000 for the preparation of your initial plan.
And we’re gonna answer the questions you have, as well as the questions you didn’t know to ask. We’re going to be discussing things like retirement, social security, Medicare, maximizing federal benefits, asset allocation, college, estate, if it’s financially relevant, life insurance, long-term care. A lot of this is going to be baked into your initial plan. Can we, Tommy, implement an entire financial plan in a day?
Tommy Blackburn: Absolutely not. One, it’s gonna change. We already know it’s gonna be wrong the minute you walk out of there because there’s assumptions baked in. Life is gonna change. And let’s be honest, most of us, if not all of us, are very busy and we just, we’re not gonna knock it all out at once. This is gonna be a process and it’s gonna evolve.
John Mason: And some of the recommendations, like let’s say you’re retiring at 57 years old and the recommendation is to activate one spouse’s social security at 62 and the other at 70. Well, those are gonna be in the initial plan, but there are some things that are in the plan that you can’t do yet.
So we like to say that at the end of this meeting, so we’re gonna send you a one-time financial planning agreement. You can sign it or not sign it in advance of the meeting, at the conclusion of the meeting after we’ve delivered massive value and we’ve given you this awesome roadmap for success and answered a lot of questions and given you a tangible, actionable takeaway document, we’re gonna send you an invoice through a company called Advice Pay, and that’s $3,000, and you can pay it via bank draft or credit card. There is no convenience fee and that is how that works. We’ll email you your balance sheet, the task list, and whatever you want from the output of our financial planning software.
It’s robust. We really feel like the balance sheet and the task list is what you need, but some people want more. And at the end of that meeting, my favorite thing I get to say in that meeting after we add value is, “Mr. And Mrs. Client or potential client, this is how we’re gonna do these things over time.”
Right? The entire time we’re presenting the plan, we’re talking about, “When you’re 62, I’m gonna help you apply for Social Security and when you’re 65, I’m gonna get you in touch with Brian Gay for Medicare. And when you’re 70, I’m gonna do this. And when you’re 70 and a half, we’re gonna do that.” So we’re, again, painting the picture and sharing the vision for what an ongoing relationship looks like.
And it’s like, “Hey, Tommy, you have this beautiful financial plan now. Do you want to do it alone? Or do you wanna hire us in an ongoing relationship to help you implement the plan?” And audience, that is, again, you’ve had multiple different exits. You could have exited after the intro call. You could have exited after the interim meeting.
Now, we’ve developed a plan. You do owe us money for that, but do you want an ongoing relationship, or do you think you have it from here? Again, this is another opportunity for you to say, “Yeah. This team is what I’m looking for.” Or it’s not.
Tommy Blackburn: Yes, it’s great and it’s, we do it all the time. So it’s, you just get good at what you do and we love it, and it just changes. I think about a lot of tax planning and strategy goes into building the initial plan and the ongoing planning.
It feels like, and maybe my feeling is incorrect, John. I think you feel the same, though. It feels like tax laws change so frequently over our career and in particularly like this past decade, it just feels like constant updates to tax laws. And it’s true in every other part of the financial planning process as well.
State laws change, federal system changes, everything. There’s always adjustments and that’s too, where it’s, “Hey, we know life is gonna change. We know laws are gonna change, rules are gonna change, asset classes are gonna change. We can help you implement what we laid out today. But we’re also gonna be here to make adjustments as we go.”
And also, there’s like, here’s the optimal answer. A lot of times they’re simple math questions of, “Should I do this or this?” And we can easily say, typically, “The optimal answer is this, but life isn’t about just optimizing the finances. So let’s get to understand each other and what’s important to you.”
And maybe plan B, and I know we’ve talked about this in other episodes, “maybe plan B isn’t optimal, but it’s still great and let’s help you implement that solution that’s customized directly to you and your preferences.” So that’s the beauty of the ongoing relationship. Hopefully, and John, you may have more. You wanna elaborate on this, but I just want to kind of say, so going from the initial plan to the onboarding meeting, do you wanna do this together again? Would you rather us send you a link or do you not wanna do it? That’s certainly fine if that’s where we are. Do you need time to think about it? Look at your schedule. We can go about it that way. Or we’ll pull up the calendar and say, “Let’s move through this on the next process.”
And even now, going into that next one, money hasn’t started to move under this process. And I just say that because life changes. So we may record another episode a few years from now. Perhaps this process will have evolved a little further, but nothing has moved. We go to the onboarding meeting, we’re gonna send you the ongoing investment management agreement, and we will outline that in a second, but you’ll have a chance to review that before the meeting, sign it if you’re comfortable, or wait till the meeting to discuss, as well as our ongoing financial planning agreement, which will be the exact same one you already signed, except this time it’s gonna show, most likely it’s gonna show no fee because the investment management, the assets we’ll be managing for you will cover the ongoing financial planning. The onboarding meeting, and perhaps I’ll just pause here. John, case there’s anything you wanted to elaborate on that initial financial plan meeting before we go too far into the onboarding.
John Mason: Thank you. The initial plan is right, but it’s also wrong. So, understand this, something in the initial plan that we show you is wrong because of all the things that Tommy said, something is going to change. So we already know that the initial plan has some inherent flaws to it, which is why we don’t want to produce one-time financial plans and never see somebody again.
We produce an initial plan because you have to have a baseline for the recommendations that you’re making, not because it’s gospel. We produce an initial plan because we need a baseline for the decisions that we’re making, a process for success and acknowledge that that document has to evolve over time, acknowledge that there’s no possible way that we can see the future. We don’t want a bunch of one-time plans running out there that don’t get updated when things like tax laws and estate laws and things like that change.
Tommy Blackburn: I love it, John. I was just gonna say it’s a framework. As you’re saying, it’s a framework, it’s a blueprint, it’s not gospel, it’s a framework.
John Mason: And then we’re gonna link what it’s like to become a client or an ongoing client. We will link our strategic planning meeting episodes to this as well as down in the description. That way, you can know more of what it’s like to have those ongoing strategic planning meetings and, Tommy, you said it well, as we move to the onboarding, that’s when we begin transferring assets, and the expectation is that we manage all assets that are available to you. So if you have 1.1 million in TSP, the thought would be that we’re managing 1.05 million or 1,000,050, right? Because we’re gonna leave a little bit there to keep TSP open, but the bulk of the assets are under our management and applicable to our fee schedule if we’re in an ongoing relationship.
So I think that’s important ’cause we haven’t hit that yet, as well as we set a million dollars or more, or the people we’re working with. Let’s call that our soft minimum or desired minimum. There are occasions where we will drop that minimum down to 700,000 of assets. So really, 700,000 gets us to what is our minimum fee is, but we will typically try to steer towards a million dollars or more.
Tommy Blackburn: Exactly. And so, yeah, I think you’ve kind of nailed into that onboarding meeting. And we also call that as kind of the, you know, let’s just all make sure it’s almost another pause, another check as we’re heading into the, we’re gonna start managing things. So nothing’s moved. Are you okay with what the service model, the agreement, the fees?
Let’s make sure everybody’s very transparent. Once you sign, let’s confirm how we wanna manage these investments. And we do have what’s called discretion and just want to elaborate there. So once we start managing. We’re not gonna call you to pre-clear trades. And part of the value here is the efficiency, the delegation, and allowing us to handle things that you think is best.
So that’s why discretion, it just allows us all to do, you know, you as client to live your best life and us as advisor to serve you best. So we’re not going to pre-clear trades that we make, but we are gonna agree upon here strategically how we want to manage the money, what fits with your plan? And we’re gonna operate within this framework we’re gonna make tweaks. We’re gonna make changes as we go. And if there’s any massive change in the strategy that we think needs to be made, then we’re gonna have a conversation before we do that. So an example to me would be, “Hey, we’re going from a moderately growth portfolio that we laid out originally in the strategy of 60% stock, 40% bonds, approximately, and for some reason, client, we think we need to go to 80% stock and 20% bonds.”
That is a significant shift of strategy. Well, yes, we need to talk about we’re not gonna make that change without a discussion. But if it’s just changing the weighting of asset classes, the funds or ETFs that we’re using, adding, changing some different asset classes as well, those we’re not gonna pre-clear with you.
And we’ll also have a good feeling like, ’cause we’re gonna know you very well and each advisor only handles so many relationships. The advisor’s gonna know, “Hey, is anything here gonna really be uncomfortable for this client?” Like as a firm, some change that we’re thinking about. So if that’s the case, then that advisor would reach out to you as well to say, “Hey, our recommendation,” for example, could be, if not saying that this is what we’re doing by any means, but let’s just say it was, we want to add a cryptocurrency asset class.
Again, please, everybody hear me, I’m not saying that is our firm’s position, just putting it out there as an example. And if we also knew that certain clients were very opposed or have expressed concerns about that before, well, it’s time for a conversation.
John Mason: Well said, Tommy. What does it look like to be a client? Part of the process is your lead advisor typically will serve about a hundred families, and that’s about it. They may have some support, maybe a second chair that sits with them, but the goal is about a hundred families per advisor. Science says that’s about how many relationships you can have that are meaningful.
And practical says that’s about how many relationships you can have before you start losing your hair. So a hundred families per advisor is the goal. The investment strategy is a strategic asset allocation. So although we have discretion, we’re not trading all the time; we typically rebalance quarterly.
We make small changes. Like last year we dialed up international exposure some, but we’re not making monumental shifts in the portfolio. So to your point, Tommy, once we’ve agreed on the initial asset allocation or risk profile, we’re not making huge tweaks to the portfolio. Annual rebalance on non-qualified accounts or less qualified accounts, rebalance quarterly.
And then that person we met with recently had a 198-page statement from another custodian, and a ridiculous number of holdings that were completely complex for no reason. I think our average portfolio is like 10 to 15 holdings ETFs. So we don’t use mutual funds very often. We use exchange-traded funds, low expense ratios, broad diversification, can trade throughout the day if we need to. So we’re not doing individual securities, we’re not doing individual bonds, and we’re typically not using mutual funds. We’re gaining broad market exposure through a diversified basket of exchange-traded funds, which provide us everything that we need with as few positions and as simply as possible.
So the fee we’re paid, Tommy, typically by an asset under management fee. So we’re fee only, but we’re an AUM, asset under management shop on $1 million. We make $15,000 a year. Our fee is 1.5%. On the second million, our fee is 0.75%. So if you have $2 million with us, your fee averages out to like 1.1. If you have more than 2 million, the fee continues to go down from there.
Our custodian is Axo Advisor Services. They have a nominal fee that caps out at 0.05% at the highest. $500 is the maximum annual fee per account that’s for the custodial services that they’re providing. So it’s an asset under management fee. It’s billed quarterly, it’s deducted from your account. 90 days look back in arrears is how the fee is assessed.
And again, every quarter, Tommy, our clients are gonna see this fee and they’re gonna see it on the statement, and then they’re gonna see your face, my face, Ben’s face, and they’re gonna say, “Is this worth it? Am I getting some value above and beyond the fee that I’m being charged?” And if the answer is yes, we move forward.
Again, if the answer is no, let’s have a conversation about what’s going on. Was it expectations? Did we drop the ball? We don’t have that conversation very often, but that’s how transparent this relationship is. So one point a half percent on the first million, 0.75 on the second, 0.5 on everything above that.
That is our current fee schedule. It is subject to change. But right now that’s the fee schedule. We don’t, I don’t think, envision anything changing in 2026 regarding that. So, I said a lot there.
Tommy Blackburn: You did. You said a lot of good and we prize transparency and so that’s why we’re sharing this, or while we’re going through some details, which hopefully is not overly detailed.
Beautiful thing about a podcast is you can speed it up if you wanna gloss through things. Fees tend to be important to people, so we certainly wanna put them out there. Those are our fees. John mentioned ETFs being our primary investment vehicle, which is absolutely true. We do occasionally use mutual funds when we have to.
But why ETFs? I just think is we started off, we’ve mentioned several times, like tax planning, tax strategy, and tax efficiency. ETFs tend to be more tax-efficient. Not all, I mean, mutual funds can be tax efficient, but by and large, ETFs and more liquid, and generally more tax efficient. We care a lot about controlling what we can control. And taxes to a degree we can control.
And so even the investment vehicles we use low cost, tax-efficient. Mention the fee, that also has a chance to talk about taxes as well. So it is not always the case; it’s certainly circumstantial. But us being able to take our fee, our asset management fee from an investment account, ’cause that’s how we do. We don’t send you an invoice.
Typically, there may be a one-off client situation where we don’t take it from the investments or we don’t have investments and we do an invoice, but if we’re managing the investments and we’re charging our fee, we directly debited every quarter after we’ve served. So in arrears, based on the average daily balance as John disclosed, to the extent we can take our fee from an IRA, that is essentially a tax-free distribution to you the client.
So if we think about it, if we’re to send you an invoice for 15,000, you had to work. You had to earn it somehow through investments, whatever it was, you got taxed on it, so you had more than 15,000, maybe you had 20 grand, got taxed, was left with 15. Now you can turn around and pay Mason & Associates.
The alternative with the investment, one, is just very easy when we directly debit it from the accounts. But if it’s coming from an IRA, anything that comes out of an IRA has to be taxed, just like I said. So maybe it’s 20 netted you 15, so you could pay a fee. Well, here, 15 comes out of the IRA, if it was an all on IRA and you don’t pay tax on that.
Everything else that comes out of an IRA, for the most part, is taxed. This is a very tax-efficient way to pay us our fee. So essentially, you almost get a discount because the government is essentially subsidizing it. They’re not taxing you on that fee. So just wanted to share that. And one other thought as we bob and weave here is John said you’ll see our picture, which is true when you’re thinking about do I want to continue working with them, you’re also gonna see the Mason logo.
So I just wanted to drive home. It’s a team, it’s a firm. So you’ll be thinking, “Is Mason worth it?” And who knows, and we don’t really see this, but you may say, like, “Tommy, it’s been real. But I think that maybe I should work with Kyle going forward.” And that’s, we want, our firm is available to you and that’s okay as well if, assuming the advisor has capacity, but you know, a client of the firm just wanted to drive that home.
John Mason: We bill on the assets we’re managing. So not your house, not your cars, not your cash, so only on the assets that we’re managing. The fee is all-encompassing. We don’t charge per email, we don’t charge per phone call. It ebbs and flows to relationship, Tommy. So some years we may meet with a client five or 10 times.
Last year I met with a client probably 50 times, and that’s not an exaggeration. This year, it may only be two or three or five, whatever it is not always the same, and the fee doesn’t change 99% of the time when life happens. That’s why we have this effectively retainer fee.
When life throws your curveball, when life happens, the fee is the fee. It’s investment management, financial planning, disaster recovery, death of a spouse, retirement, tax planning, et cetera. It’s an all-encompassing fee. So you have access to us throughout the year. I think let’s transition as we try to wrap up this podcast with many of the people listening to this, maybe aren’t a perfect fit right now, and transparently, the easiest possible thing for us, one, we wanna work with you before you retire, okay? So let’s say you’re retiring at 60 and a half. That’s perfect for us. We get together at 59 and a half, we do your initial plan. We move assets under management. We get paid. You get a lot of value, everybody wins.
Well, there’s a lot of people who wanna retire at 59 who want to engage with us at 57 and full transparency, that’s a really awkward time. It’s just really hard because that means we’re probably not getting paid for two years, or we have to figure out how to bill you on a credit card. So if you are a 57-year-old, retiring at 59, schedule the intro call.
If you’re 55, retiring at 57, schedule the intro call. Let’s figure out together how we can work together, how we can do your initial plan, understanding that we’re gonna have to get compensated along the way in some fashion, but let’s figure out how we can get together, deliver value, and get you on track for that retirement.
Acknowledging the fact that if you’re a year or two years away from being able to transition assets, that’s an awkward time. We’ll figure out an appropriate fee together. Don’t let that be the barrier to scheduling that intro call.
Tommy Blackburn: I’m really glad you said it, John. And it goes back to that transparency.
We want to be transparent. And we wanna set expectations. And so if we are in that situation as a firm, I believe we generally are very transparent. Set the expectations of, “Hey, this is great. You’re gonna be a great long-term client. We’re gonna make an investment in you. We’re gonna go through this initial financial plan, begin building the relationship. We’re gonna come up with a customized way to keep this relationship going and get compensated something below, most likely what we are generally looking for, because we know it’s a long-term investment and we’re both committing to once you retire, once your assets are eligible to move, we’re going to do that.”
So that then when it comes time for, “Hey, we did agree to this.” If for some reason, hearts have changed, okay, that’s certainly fine. But we had this discussion and perhaps it’s time for this relationship to end, which we don’t really see that particularly when we have these conversations ahead of time.
Everybody knows. Here’s the long-term strategy and here’s how we as a firm, this is the investment we’re making. As long as you understand this is an investment for us, and here’s the expectation down the road, and I have one, I was disclosing to John before we started recording. I’ve got this case coming up very soon. Last year or maybe a little bit before that client was I in retirement.
They engaged with us. It’s been great. They had some assets to move under management, not enough to hit what we’re generally looking for. But retired end of the year, we’re getting together in a month to go ahead and roll TSP, which gets us to exactly where we wanna be with a new client and they’re excited about it.
We’re excited about it. It’s exactly the way it should be. And I think part of this is, yeah, just transparent discussions and setting expectations upfront. So I’m glad we’re sharing it just so the audience understands that situation as well.
John Mason: Wonderful. Well, Tommy, it’s exciting. 2026 is off to a wonderful start. Our firm is growing. We have additional capacity with our new as advisor and we’re excited to help more federal employees across the country, both on this podcast and our YouTube channel, as well as moving from general advice to personalized advice. Audience, you can do that at masonllc.net or 757-2239-898.
Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast and visiting us on our YouTube channel. It’s an honor to do this. It’s an honor to serve you if you’re an existing client, and we’ll see you here next time on the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast.
The topics discussed on this podcast represent our best understanding of federal benefits and are for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be construed as investment, financial planning, or other professional advice.
We encourage you to consult with the office of personnel management and one or more professional advisors before taking any action based on the information presented.