Executive Summary
Many financial advisors have asset minimums to ensure that they generate enough revenue from each client to be compensated appropriately for the value they provide (and the business cost to deliver it). But when it comes to having conversations about net worth with prospective clients to find out if they qualify for those minimums – especially those who are friends and family - the situation can quickly become awkward given the highly personal relationship individuals have with their money.
In our 27th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and financial advisor communication expert Carl Richards talk about some ways to broach the sensitive and potentially difficult conversation about assets and net worth with prospective clients, and how to gracefully defer from taking on prospective clients who don’t meet the firms’ requisite minimums. Because even while the natural inclination for many financial advisors is to help anyone who asks, regardless of net worth, doing so often becomes increasingly difficult as an advisor’s firm grows and the capacity to spend time with clients who don’t actually meet their minimum fees becomes smaller and, in many cases, non-existent.
The first issue to consider when requiring asset minimums is simply to recognize that it’s not always apparent who may qualify (or not), which means it’s crucial to meet with prospects, conduct an initial discovery meeting to learn about goals and values, and to get a rough idea of the prospect’s balance sheet to safeguard against making premature assumptions about what the client is really worth. And in the event that a client does not meet the firm’s minimums, the advisor can still conduct a brief follow-up meeting to provide a few basic recommendations and resources to the prospect without much effort, and then describe to the prospect what the firm’s typical clientele generally looks like and what the minimum fees are… a simple act of goodwill to help the client, and also an effective marketing strategy, as prospects who are grateful for the guidance they received from the advisor may still be able to refer people in their network who are appropriate clients (having been given a description of who the firm does work with, in the process of being helped themselves)!
However, while spending time with prospective clients and running through a complete discovery meeting can be a rewarding process for both the client (for the free guidance they receive) and the advisor (for the opportunity to help someone in need and the creation of a new, potential referral source), it is also a time-consuming process and an advisor’s capacity may not often permit them to meet with all prospects without some screening mechanism in place. One potential remedy is to help people better understand who the firm works with before even reaching out to the advisor… which can be achieved through the firm’s website. Details about the typical clientele or specific niche served by the firm, together with the firm’s asset minimums and fees published directly for all to see, can help deter unsuitable prospects from reaching out to the firm in the first place (effectively allowing them to self-select out themselves). And including some potential resources (e.g., books, white papers, etc.) for individuals who may not be a good fit can again leave the individual with something of value from the firm, even though they may not be a suitable client.
Ultimately, the key point is that even though the ‘required minimum’ conversation can be awkward, there are ways for financial advisors to have these discussions as a meaningful discovery process that can even serve as an effective marketing strategy… and even (briefly and time efficiently) help those who might not be ideal clients in the process. Furthermore, maintaining a website that includes a profile of the ‘ideal client’, together with a clear description of the firms’ fees, can also keep discovery meetings with prospects who are unable to meet the firm’s required minimums to a manageable minimum!
Authors:
***Editor's Note: Can't get enough of Kitces & Carl? Neither can we, which is why we've released it as a podcast as well! Check it out on all the usual podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts (iTunes), Spotify, and Stitcher.
Show Notes:
- Will Monthly Retainers Be The Next Big Business Model In Financial Planning?
- "The Dan Sullivan Question”, by Dan Sullivan
- "Think and Grow Rich", by Napoleon Hill
- "Richest Man in Babylon", by George S. Clason
- "I Will Teach You To Be Rich", by Remit Sethi
- "The Investment Answer", by Dan Goldie
Kitces & Carl Podcast Transcript
Michael: Welcome, Carl.
Carl: Hello, Michael. So excited to be here.
Michael: Looking forward to our episode today. I want to shift some of the conversation a little to a discussion I actually had with an advisor recently who was kind of expressing this challenge: she has hired some younger advisors in the firm who are in their late 20s and early 30s. It's a well-established firm, they work with some fairly affluent clientele, and they have a half a million-dollar minimum.
The good news is that the advisors are bringing in clients – they're actually trying to hone their business development skills and bring in clients, but the bad news is that they're mostly bringing in people from their own circles who don't meet the firm's minimums.
When she tries to challenge them on it, "Hey, this client isn't a good fit, we have these minimums," her advisors are pushing back with "Well, this is my circle" or "This is who I can get." Apparently, one said, "Well, I'll do the work on my own time so I won't screw up our firm's profit margins." And she's really struggling with how to get them to basically honor the firm's minimums and how the business is built.
In taking the conversation a little bit further with her, what came forth was that it's not really clear that any of these advisors have ever been trained on how to have a conversation about minimums.
The Challenge Of Discussing Minimum Asset Requirements With Prospective Clients [00:02:42]
It can be a socially awkward conversation, right? Like, you're hanging out with your own social circle, who may not be people that have half a million to $1 million, particularly if you're in your 20s and 30s or even 40s or 50s, and you have to put out there somehow, "Hey, you're my friends and I'd love to help you, but since you don't have $1 million saved up, I can't actually help you."
It's a challenging conversation even in social environments with strangers, nevertheless with someone that you've got a friendship or a personal connection with. So I thought it would be a good discussion today of just how do you handle these conversations around things like asset minimums or fee minimums, and navigate these potentially precariously, socially awkward conversations?
Carl: Yeah. So fun. So as always, there's nuance to this conversation. We almost have to get the disclaimers or the assumptions out of the way first. Should we talk to the business owner, or should we talk to the younger advisors?
Michael: I think we should talk to the younger advisors. Not that I think this is even specific to young advisors, in particular.
Carl: Right. But in this case.
Michael: It's just that, mathematically, I do think it is a little more likely to happen. Established firms often have higher minimums and hire newer advisors whose social circles don't include people who meet those minimums. I think that certain scenario happens with some frequency.
Even for advisors who go on their own, at some point, they’ll notice it's really hard to turn a profit working with very, very small clients. Most of us tend to move upmarket at some point; the economics are better when you can only handle so many clients and you need a certain revenue per client. We all seem to start gravitating in that direction over time, at least to some extent.
Carl: Okay. So the first thing to think about as an advisor that is having a challenge around minimums is, number one, there are business models that work for that. We have heard of a few business models that work for this, like monthly subscription business models can work for this. All you have to do is take out a calculator and multiply $200 a month times 250 and just see about the profitable business. That's a whole other discussion.
But let's make an assumption for now that you're in a business that has a minimum, you're going to honor that minimum, and you just don't know how to have the conversation. Just to clear this assumption up.
Michael: Right. Like, I don't want to piss someone off, I don't want to make it more awkward. It’s too weird to tell your friends they don't have enough money to work with you. It's practically weird to tell strangers that they may not have enough money to work with you in any kind of social setting. How do you handle this conversation or even broach this conversation?
Carl: I think there are a couple of things to keep in mind. I used to run into this a lot in like civic or church groups because you're an expert in the field in your church group. That's really awkward.
I had a friend who worked for a firm with very high minimums, we'll go without a name, but it starts with a G and it has an S in the second one. He worked there, and his minimums were like $10 million or something. I asked him once and here's what he said. He said, "It's all in our heads."
This is kind of funny. I want to get to how I would handle it, but this “all in your head” thing is an interesting piece. He's like, "If you're talking to a brain surgeon and you know they're a doctor and you've got a problem with your knee, the brain doctor doesn't feel bad saying, 'You know what? I'm a brain doctor.'"
And I don't mean that the orthopedic surgeon may make more than the brain surgeon. I don't know; I don't mean it that way. Let's say that you're a foot surgeon and somebody has a problem with their wrist; you don't have a problem going, "Hey, that's not what we do. I don't even know." That's how my friend from Goldman handled it. He was just like, "We don't work with those situations." Now, of course, it still is weird because it's like...
Michael: Yeah. I get the analogy; I get the point. “Hey, I'm a foot doctor. I'm not a knee doctor or a wrist doctor. Go see one of them.” That's an expertise-based conversation. And I get it. I do think there's a difference in the expertise you need to work with decamillionaires versus the expertise you need for mere millionaires. Well, there are some differences in the complexity and dynamics.
I get that, but the reality in today's landscape, is that money is such a loaded thing; it’s such a loaded subject, it feels almost impossible to have that conversation without it, in some way, shape, or form, essentially translating to like, "You're literally not worth it for me. Like, you actually don't have enough worth to be able to work with me and qualify to work with me," which can easily, accidentally, be very socially belittling.
Carl: No, I completely agree. There's almost no way. What I was going to say is, when my buddy told me that, I worked on that for a year or two. I just kept bouncing it around. I tried it, and I was like, there's no way to say this without appearing like, "I'm a brain surgeon, why are you asking me about your stupid foot?" There's no way for it not to come across that way.
How To Identify Suitable Prospects For Your Business Model – Without Being Offensive or Belittling [00:08:34]
So here's how I handled it. Here's what I would do. And look, I don't think I originally did this just because it was altruistic, right? Many of the people listening and watching this will relate to this idea that I felt like I had a "sacred responsibility." Like, I got into this industry by accident, applying as a security guard. I know, I know. But once I understood that I wanted to stay in the industry, I felt a little bit like it was a calling, right, like a service calling.
So I started doing it this way for that reason, but it turned out to be one of the best marketing decisions I ever made. So this goes for the person who's doing it and to the business owner who's like, "No, no, no, I don't want them wasting time," think of it as marketing. Here's what I did. I would just say, "Look, everybody deserves a first meeting." So if I had a friend, I would say, "Well, first of all, how do I really know that they don't have enough money?" Right? The first thing is, I don't actually know.
Michael: It's true. Money is such a quiet, taboo subject. For all you know, they really did inherit $10 million from someone, and they just kept it quiet.
Carl: And a bunch of that would be really important to keep in mind, right? Like, no matter what the age is, no matter what the relationship is, no matter where you met them. Yeah. So first, I would just be like, wait, it's not even fair for me to make this assumption, like, "Hey, I'd like to come and meet with you." "I'm sorry, you don't have enough money." "What? What are you talking about? I just sold a business for whatever. My parents just gave me whatever." So first of all, make sure not to make that assumption.
So look, “Come in, let's have a chat,” right? You do all the normal things. Come in for a discovery meeting. So you come in for the first meeting and go through the normal discovery. We don't have time here to go through what that meeting looks like, but essentially, this is what I tell the client, "Hey, Michael, thanks for coming today. It shows how committed you are to make good decisions with money. Let's get started. My goal today is to ask you a series of questions to understand clearly where you are today and make some guesses of where you want to go. And then I'll have all the information I need so that when you leave, I can put together a plan for you. Oh, relax, Mike, when I say the word 'plan,' I don't mean a 2-inch thick book, I mean...I'll try to keep it on one page. Right? So let's get started." And then I would just dive into the questions. So in the first 10 minutes, you're going to probably know if your judging the book by its cover was correct or not.
Michael: Because you're just going to start asking like, "Tell me how much money we're talking about?" How do you open to that conversation? Even down to like, "Can you tell me about your work and tell me a little bit about your goals?"
I can start sussing out if your goals are spending $20,000 a month and like, "So how much do you have?" This starts to feed a little because, like, "That's a hell of a spending goal. You must have a hell of a lot of assets." But otherwise, you still get to that either I've got to tell you how much you've got to have or I've got to ask you what you've got in a prospect meeting.
Carl: Well, of course, it's a prospect meeting, but they came in to meet with me, it's the first meeting. I'm going to hold a proper discovery meeting with them. It's going to take an hour. This isn't exactly the tone I would use, but part of that meeting is going to be me asking them enough questions to clearly understand where they are today and where they want to go. And then we'll understand the gap there, and we'll have enough information to put together a plan. And when they come back in for our second meeting, we'll present that plan to them. Relax, Michael, I don't mean a 2-inch thick plan, I mean a one-page plan.
So in that meeting I dive right into the questions. And you can use Dan Sullivan's three-year question. There's a book called "The Dan Sullivan Question." Dan Solin has some stuff on this. George Kinder has a great set of questions. Bill Bachrach and John Bowen have the question, right?
I think you first uncover a bit about purpose and values. Once you understand purpose and values, I always used, "Why is money important to you?" That was kind of a mash-up of Simon Sinek's work and Bill Bachrach's work. "Why is money important to you?" instead of "What's important about money to you?"
Then I moved from there to, "Okay, great." Then you're going to ask other questions. And one of the questions is the balance sheet question. You can say, "Okay, great, let's go through assets and liabilities real quick. So give me a sense of how much money you keep at the bank?" Right? It's not the first question, but it's like 10 minutes into it. We've had values, goals.
Michael: Interesting. And you frame it as just, "Help me understand your balance sheet a little bit and the assets and liabilities." That's how you sort of set it up?
Carl: Well, we've already outlined values. We've had a discussion around purpose and values. I like to think of it as financial purpose, like, "Why is money important to you? Help me understand that." That moves into goals, right? "Let's talk about goals." And when I say goals, I always do the same thing. I'm like, "Relax, Michael, when I say goals, I know they're guesses, but just give me a sense, what would happen over the next three years in order for you to feel successful? Great. Let's move out a little bit. How about in 20 years?"
We can cover all that in another episode, but you've got some goals now. Then it's very natural to go, "Okay, cool, understand kind of where we want to go and what's important to you. Let's get really clear about where you are today." And there's so much gentle gingerness around this. Like, "What do you have? Let's talk about your balance sheet." I would just say, "How much money do you keep at the bank?
Michael: Okay, it’s X thousand dollars in my checking account.
Carl: What about investments? Do you have a retirement account at work? Okay. How much is there? Ballpark, it's fine, Michael, just ballpark. All right, what about other investments outside of your retirement accounts at work? Do you have any retirement accounts that weren't related to work like maybe an IRA or something similar? Okay. How much is there? Where is it? Do you have any idea about how it's invested?
This is all like Sharpie-level refinement, right? We get so caught up in the idea that we have to get it precise. We're making a 40-year forecast at this point in the rough; we let go of the false sense of precision. How much is at the bank? How much is in investments? What about in your non-retirement accounts? Okay, great.
You've got all those numbers written down. You now have a bunch of things that you know. It's the same conversation, like personality-wise, if this isn't a good fit. Like, "Well, to me, I want a Ferrari, and I want to be the most powerful person in my neighborhood." All right, well, that might be a good fit for you, but for me, it wasn't. So you know all these things, but now it's about these minimums. We're focused there. It's clear now the minimum is going to be an issue.
I just continue down the path. "Okay, great. Cool. Tell me what else. Do you have an accountant? Do you have an attorney? Have you had any of your estate planning done?" All the normal questions you would ask in a discovery meeting. "Great, Michael and Sally, it was great to meet you today. Let's do this. Give me four or five days. I have everything. Is there anything else?"
The last question always was, "Is there anything else I should know that would be important? Okay, great. Great to meet today. Let's do this. Give me four or five days to put together a plan. I think I have everything, all the information I need. And let's just have you come back in, and we'll spend another 45 to 60 minutes together, and I'll present to you sort of what I think you should do from here. I've got a clear picture of where you are today and where you want to go. I know that gap. Give me a couple of days to put together a plan." I'd say that the same way I would say it to somebody who told me they had $25 million or whatever, right?
Then they come back in. You already know, the moment they walk out, you sit down and write out a couple of bullet points. Pay off your debt. Start investing $25 a month at Vanguard. Only fund your 401(k) at work. Right? You can't work with me but...you type those out, you put them on a formal little letter, like a one-page plan, as formal as you want it to be, on your letterhead or not, whatever. Same thing you do for a client you want to keep.
They come back, and you say, "It was great to meet you. Based on what I saw, here are the things I would say. First of all, in the second meeting, we review. Let me make sure I understood clearly. Because if anything here, if I missed anything, we may need to go back, because all my advice to you is based on that I got this right. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You told me that time with your family, mainly outside, serving in the community is the most important. You have these goals. You want to retire here. You want $5,000 a month. You want da, da, da, da, da. Did I get it all?" "Yes." "Okay, cool. It sounds like we're on the same page.”
“Here's what I would do. Right now, it's really important for you to focus on paying off your debt, Michael. And in addition to that, I never find it to be too early to save. You want to build a little emergency fund. And I would aim for this. You can do that at the bank. And you've got your 401(k)s with that 3% match, make sure you're hitting that 3% match. And in terms of what you would need from me, that's really what you need. So take this and go do that,” right?
Meeting With Prospects Who Don’t Meet Minimum Asset Requirements – A Valuable Marketing Opportunity? [00:18:05]
Michael: So you're not even having a minimums conversation. Just like, "Here's what you need. Go forth." Like, "I gave you the plan, I’m not even going to charge you for it. Here's the stuff you've got to focus on. I wish you the best."
Carl: Basically, but here's the part that's important. This is where it turns into marketing instead of a free, altruistic plan. This is where it becomes marketing from charity, was just say, "Look, based on how we work here at the firm," is my favorite way to put it. "Let me describe for you quickly our ideal client. We mainly work with business owners who've had a successful sale of their business. Typically they have no less than $5 million in assets. And our average fee is around $15,000. Our minimum fee is $10,000," or whatever.
I would just describe it that way and go, "So based on your circumstance and our normal client, there's not much of a fit there. But I've already told you exactly what you need to go do." I found those people to be insanely appreciative, and I found them to be great referral sources, and this is really important, not of people like them. They didn't go out saying, "Carl gave me a free plan, go meet with him."
Michael: Because you did have the conversation at the end of like, "Hey, I enjoyed the meeting. I hope this has been helpful for you. But let me just take a moment and tell you about the folks that I typically work with." So a final closing hint, we're not a fit. And you may just say outright like, "We're not a fit because this is who I typically work with."
But you've now made this an opportunity to describe for them what your ideal client looks like. So they actually understand it's not other people like them, but it is other people like this. So if you know one of those, you can still refer that to us.
Carl: And I don't think you ever even have to use the word like "you don't meet my minimum," "you don't have enough money." You just say, "I just gave you tremendous value; here's our ideal client."
I know some firms that have ideal-client-profile cards almost that they can give to people. Whatever you want to do. Like I can imagine sliding out across the desk and go, "Look, here's our ideal client. This is who we typically work with." So based on your situation, the best thing you can do is just go through these things that we gave you here. Here's our ideal client. It's not a good fit. Run along. Right. And I don't say anything like, "If you know anyone like this, send them to us," because that felt icky.
Michael: Yeah. And people can kind of get the hints like...
Carl: Yeah, without feeling gross and it working great. Good on you, but I couldn't. I found those people, I felt great about it, right? And it wasn't charity. Like you could say, "Look, you're going to do all that work?" It was two hours meeting with another human. I gave them a remarkable experience, Seth Godin's definition, right, worth remarking on, right?
I've defined clearly for them what they should be looking for. I found them to be good referrals of their friends, family, mother, sister-in-law, with the fit of our ideal client. "We work with doctors," “Hey, you know what? My sister-in-law is a physician. She was just complaining to me over the holidays about...I'll mention..." I found that happening more often than not.
That extra hour that I spent, A, I kept a relationship, B, that extra hour I spent turned into...it was just marketing. It wasn't a waste of time; it was marketing. And it was the nice thing to do. That's how I handled it. I'm not saying it's the only way; I'm just saying that's how I handled it.
Michael: Well, I like the framing and the approach, because you did help them, it just feels good, right? A lot of us are helper types. That's why we tend to get into this business. It feels crappy that people come to you for help and you don't help them. It's like, "I'm sorry, you don't meet our minimums. Move on your way."
So I like the framing, at the end of the day, that I'm going to help them, but I'm going to help them as directly and succinctly as possible. Like, it's a one-page plan summary. I'm not doing a whole plan. Am I not going to take all their stuff and put it back on my planning software? Like, don't overservice them, particularly since you're not even engaging them as a client to get paid yet.
But if you already know this isn't going to last past the second meeting, just make the second meeting as valuable as possible and give the stuff that they need, and you can check your psychic gratitude box, and it doesn't feel bad, and you can move them on. And they may even be so appreciative that once you to describe your ideal client, they actually do refer that person when they come across them.
Carl: Look, I started doing this because I couldn't come up with any better way. How do you possibly say like, "Oh, my minimum is $10 million?" Whatever, or $1 million or $10,000. So I found it to be the best solution.
Let me mention one more thing. It comes up occasionally. It came up recently in Australia, where I outlined this, and they said, "Oh, that's a regulatory nightmare. I have to have a statement of advice." Here's the way I solve that. You slide a blank piece of paper across the table and a pen. You stand up to the whiteboard and you say, "Here are the three things I would do." And you write them on the whiteboard. And you erase the whiteboard when you're done, right? And you say, "Look..."
Michael: Are they allowed to take a picture of it with their phone before they leave?
Carl: You may want to take notes of what I'm going to tell you; that's why the blank piece of paper and pen is in front of you. And somebody else said, "Oh, that would be even worse," and I said, "Okay, well, then meet them for coffee." Right?
In the States, I never had a problem putting that down on just like, "Hey, here's some advice, I never charged you. You were never an official client." That was not a problem. So that's how I would do it. It felt good to me. Not only did it feel good, but I also did it purely for altruistic reasons at first, and then I realized it's great marketing. So it checked off the boxes for me.
How The Right Website Content Can Help Deflect The Need For Conversations Around Minimum Asset Requirements [00:24:18]
Michael: Yeah. The other angle to this and, at least for me, the mechanism I ended out going with and struggling with these conversations early on in my career was, I started sending them to our website. Part of the reason we did that is, I know what happens when prospective clients come to your website, the first thing they do is they go to the about you page because they want to learn about you and connect with you as a human being.
For almost every advisor site, the number one page besides the homepage is the page about you. And the second page is about the fees. People get there pretty fast! Like, "Okay, yeah, you're a financial advisory person, but what's this going to cost me?" It's just part of human nature.
So we have a fees page, with the fees and the minimums right there on the page. And when they don't meet them, they don't call. They find their way to it. I don't have to say, "We only work with these people" or, "We only have these asset minimums." I think it's easier as you get more specialized into some niche, right? Like, I'm a knee doctor, you have a wrist problem, this isn't a good fit, or like, I specialize in optometrists, you are not an optometrist. Like, this is clearly not a match.
When we're generalists, it's harder. When the defining characteristic is not some specialized need or issue or niche, it's just anyone who has at least X dollars qualifies as my client, and I don't want to have the "do you have this much money" conversation. And maybe I don't have the time or inclination just to do that many one or two hours' worth of meetings with strangers who aren't a good fit. Ironically, the better your marketing is, the more that may be a problem, where you get too many of those free meetings.
I think historically, for most advisors, the idea of our website and our marketing is it's supposed to be this magnet. Like, if they see this and it's awesome marketing, they'll want to work with me. And I want that marketing to grab as many people as possible. What I actually found is your website is not only the magnet to bring people in and hopefully get them more interested in your services, it's also the filter to help screen out the ones that aren't qualified and not a good fit so that you're not necessarily having that conversation like, "Hey, just you want to see more about what we do, go to my website, take a look at the stuff there. If that seems like a good fit for you, I'm happy to do a follow-up meeting next week. Just let me know. Because our site tells it better than I can do anyways." And let them go there and see it.
People are usually pretty darn good at filtering themselves out, particularly because a lot of clients know they may or may not qualify, like, if they've had any conversation with advisors and they've ever gotten rejected for a minimum before, they're looking for it. They want to know. It's an awkward conversation for them to do. So just put it on your website, answer the question preemptively for them. You don't have to do it in a socially awkward conversation that feels bad for you or feels bad for them, and just let people screen themselves out. So use the website as a filter as opposed to just a magnet. That's what I found myself doing a lot mid-career.
During my early years, I could not have a conversation at all. Then I started sending people to the website using the filter. It's only more recently, even with as long as I've been in this, I started getting more comfortable just having that conversation a little bit more directly.
Carl: I love that. I love that.
Michael: Just let it be the filter. You don't have to do this as a conversation.
Carl: Totally. I love that. And I think the one thing you could add to that as I was thinking through this is like, I would love to see more advisors' pages, instead of saying "fees," I'd love to see "ideal client," right? Like who we like to work with. And a description of the thing I would add to that is just at the bottom like, "If this isn't a good fit for you, we've written this white paper or this book or we do this newsletter."
If they can leave with something valuable, because that's the other way people have done this is like, "Hey, I'm not a good fit, but you know what? This book is awesome." Like if you have a standard recommendation to give to people. Like Dan Goldie's "The Investment Answer" or any of those good books.
Michael: I'm actually a fan of Ramit Sethi's "I Will Teach You To Be Rich."
Carl: Yeah, totally.
Michael: And I know a few like "Richest Man in Babylon". There's a couple of good books out there. "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill.
Carl: I think those are great. And if you can on your website have something you've written that gives them a little bit that they can share with people. You're just trying to increase the odds that people land at your website and go, "That's me." Right? The more people that hit your website, the more chance there is of them going, "That's me." So yeah, I love that. That's a great idea.
Michael: Well, thank you for the discussion, Carl. I hope it's helpful food for thought for folks that have listened and maybe have trouble navigating this conversation.
Carl: Amen. Thanks, Michael.
Michael: Amen. Thank you, Carl.
