August 21, 2025

Episode 371: Banks Sell Products, Not Advice

August 21, 2025

In this episode, Ben Felix and Cameron Passmore take a critical look at the Canadian banking system’s mutual fund advice model. A newly released study by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) and the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) confirms what many already suspected: Canadian bank branches aren't in the business of giving impartial advice—they're selling financial products. Ben breaks down the implications of this study, which surveyed nearly 3,000 bank-affiliated mutual fund representatives, uncovering troubling statistics about sales pressure, lack of credentials, misaligned incentives, and poor client outcomes. From limited product shelves and high-fee mutual funds to representatives with minimal financial education, the findings expose systemic flaws in the bank advice model. The second half of the episode is a conversation with Connor and Taylor Hewson, who recently joined PWL Capital after operating their own multigenerational advisory firm. They reflect on the decision-making process, their practice’s evolution, and how joining PWL aligned with their mission to deliver better, evidence-based advice to clients. Their story illustrates the professionalization of financial advice in Canada and what’s possible when advisors choose client outcomes over product sales.

Key Points From This Episode:

(0:02:33) Introducing Connor and Taylor Hewson and their firm’s integration with PWL Capital.

(0:03:55) Why Canadians’ loyalty to banks puts them at risk of poor financial advice.

(0:06:22) Bank branch “advisors” often lack credentials and act as commissioned salespeople.

(0:08:08) Overview of CBC’s 2024 investigation into bank sales practices.

(0:10:11) The OSC and CIRO’s comprehensive 2024 survey of bank mutual fund reps.

(0:11:47) One-third of bank reps agree their pay structure prioritizes sales over advice.

(0:13:17) 35% of reps experience sales pressure “often” or “always.”

(0:16:32) Almost half of bank reps believe clients would benefit from non-bank products.

(0:18:52) A shocking 23% of reps couldn’t define “MER”—a key mutual fund concept.

(0:21:03) Advisors often make the same poor investing choices as their clients.

(0:23:55) Why credentials like CFP and CFA—and firms that support them—matter.

(0:26:18) How PWL Capital’s structure addresses the problems with bank advice.

(0:27:43) Taylor and Connor’s journey from family firm to joining PWL.

(0:31:18) Why they shifted from resistance to excitement about the acquisition.

(0:35:46) Letting go of the need to “do everything” and focusing on client relationships.

(0:40:06) How clients reacted to the transition—and the surprising questions they asked.

(0:42:40) What they’d tell other advisors considering a move to PWL.

(0:44:41) Building the future of advice by creating a true apprenticeship model.

(0:52:12) Why advice—not just products—should be the center of financial services.

Read The Transcript:

Ben Felix: This is the Rational Reminder Podcast, a weekly reality check on sensible investing and financial decision making from two Canadians. We are hosted by me, Benjamin Felix, Chief Investment Officer and Cameron Passmore, Chief Executive Officer at PWL Capital.

Cameron Passmore: Welcome to episode 371 and in addition to a great topic that you will talk about in the main part of today, Ben, it's a very exciting episode for us to get a chance to introduce you to all our listeners and our viewers to the newest team that's joined us. So listeners have heard us talk a lot or frequently about how we're looking for new advisors to join. So we announced earlier this month that we are welcoming Taylor and Connor Hewson who are co-owners of TCM Financial Studio in Regina, Saskatchewan to the PWL team.

So they're the first in our new world. They are a great team, Taylor and Connor and Crystal who's the office manager, phenomenal three humans, planners, professionals and all around really nice, good people. Third generation advisory firm in the prairies.

So today we had a chance to have a conversation with them to hear about their decision, the process, why they did it and what's in it for their clients. So it's a great story and they're good guys.

Ben Felix: Great business, great planners, great people. Super excited to be welcoming them and listeners, if you stick around, which I highly recommend that you do to hear our conversation with them, you'll get a feel for them and you'll probably get a feel for why they're such a good fit and why they feel like they're such a good fit with us. To me, it's just obvious.

I don't know if that comes through in the conversation or not, but I'm a big fan of them. Very, very cool. This is part of what we did with One Digital earlier this year and one of the reasons was so that we could do things like this and we've now done the first one.

There are more in the works, but it's very exciting to have accomplished this and have these great people joining PWL. So that's after the main topic. So we're going to talk about how banks sell financial products, not financial advice, which is not news to our listeners, but there's a new study on this that I want to talk about.

So we're going to do that and then we're going to have our conversation with the Hewsons, which again, even if you're not an advisor, even if you're not interested in financial advisor, M&A stuff, I think it's a good conversation to talk about what a financial planner does, what they do for their clients, why something like this is good for their clients, which I think is relevant to anyone who may consume financial advice. I do recommend sticking around for that.

Cameron Passmore: Love the line, once you see what we do, you can't unsee it.

Ben Felix: It's a really good conversation.

Cameron Passmore: I already said it, but it's worth listening. Let's go to the main topic.

Ben Felix: To nobody's surprise, especially our audience, banks sell financial products, not financial advice. This is a topic that we have touched on in past episodes. It's come up many times, I'm sure.

The reason that we're talking about it again is that two of the big securities regulators in Canada, CRO and the OSC, they teamed up to do a study on the quality of advice and conflicts of interest within the bank mutual fund dealer sales channel. That's what we're going to talk about. If you, listener or a family member of yours are getting financial advice through one of the big Canadian bank branches, it's a really important episode to listen to.

This is stuff that, again, it's not really news to us. There was some investigative journalism last year that broke this story. I think having this more systematic review that the securities regulators have done is pretty useful, insightful and an important information for consumers to hear.

The big issue, obviously, is that Canadians who are taking advice from their banks, which many Canadians do. I did it when I had my first job and I started making an income.

Cameron Passmore: Most Canadians do.

Ben Felix: Yeah, for sure.

Cameron Passmore: Not many, most.

Ben Felix: What do you do? You start making money. You go to the bank. I remember setting up my RRSP contribution to an actively managed mutual fund because that's what the bank advisor told me that I should do.

Cameron Passmore: Oh, and the stories you hear, the allegiance of Canadians to their banks is wild. I was talking to someone who works in a bank, came to visit this week, talking about how someone wouldn't deal with their bank because they couldn't get a loan back in 1974 or something. They've got this love-hate for different banks.

Everyone loves and hates a different bank, which is so interesting. There's only five or six of them in Canada. Where are you going to go?

Ben Felix: Part of the problem is that, yeah. I think the trust that Canadians have in the banks is incredible. Our banks are also incredibly profitable.

They've been great businesses if you'd invested in them. Incredibly solid too. Stable.

Cameron Passmore: We all benefit from that. We went through the financial crisis.

Ben Felix: True. The issue that we're highlighting here is that when Canadians walk into the bank branch and say, I want to invest my money, they're often being sold suboptimal high fee products by salespeople, not necessarily advisors. That's a tricky line to walk, I guess. It's a tricky statement to make because they are licensed to sell products, but they're often not certified financial planners, CFP professionals.

As we'll talk about in a minute, they typically don't have other professional credentials. They've got the basic license to sell mutual funds. Canadians are being sold high fee products by salespeople with limited expertise in portfolio management and financial planning.

Even though this is something we've talked about before, I think it's worth addressing with this new information that we now have from the study the regulators have done. I also want to be clear that we're talking about retail bank branches. This is walking into a bank branch in the city you live in or the town that you live in and asking to meet with a financial advisor, which most banks will have.

That is different from the bank owned wealth management offerings, which are more independent. You could find someone at a bank owned brokerage using dimensional funds, for example. You could find one.

Doesn't mean that they're all doing that or mostly doing that, but you could find one. The bank branches are different and that's what we're talking about. Another thing I want to say before we jump into the information, the main information, is that none of this means that there are not great advisors working at bank branches.

We know that there are because we've hired some of them and they're fantastic people and they're fantastic advisors. I think the issue that we're highlighting here is that the incentive structure and sales culture within banks is a big part of the problem. Still, caution is warranted if you're taking advice from the bank. It's not that they're bad people, it's just a tricky incentive structure.

Cameron Passmore: Exactly.

Ben Felix: In March 2024, and we have talked about this before, CBC News found that customers at Canada's big five banks, TD, RBC, Scotiabank, BMO, and CIBC were being pressured to buy financial products that they probably didn't need and the bank employees were being told to push those products and services in order to meet sales targets or risk losing their jobs.

The result of that investigative journalism was that they found that bank employees were giving questionable advice, like telling people to invest in the bank's mutual funds or GICs instead of paying off high interest credit card debt, misrepresenting the importance of mutual fund fees to long-term investment outcomes, and upselling customers on more expensive financial products than what they probably needed.

Now again, in the CBC investigation, bank employees don't seem to be malicious. CBC interviewed some of them and they were like super stressed out by the pressure to sell. Some of them had left the bank because they were so stressed out.

Some of the answers given by bank financial advisors in the investigation showed that there wasn't just a conflict of interest problem. There was probably also a lack of education problem that was contributing to the quality of advice. Some of them didn't know how mutual fund fees worked or they had completely ridiculous return expectations for mutual funds.

That suggests to me again that it's not like they're just out to screw people over. They just don't know what they're talking about and have a really difficult incentive structure. One advisor in that investigation even said, like on camera, on hidden camera, that mutual fund fees are nothing to worry about, which is like they're probably the most important thing to worry about if you're buying a mutual fund, at least one of them.

That CBC investigation is based on a relatively small sample. I mean, they sent in people with recording devices, what do you call it, mystery shopper?

Cameron Passmore: Mystery shopper, yep.

Ben Felix: Sent in people to go and ask for advice while recording and they documented their findings, but it was a relatively small sample. I think you could argue that it maybe wasn't representative of typical bank financial advice, but in response to that reporting, the Ontario Securities Commission, and good for them, by the way, for the regulators to do this, the Ontario Securities Commission and the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization in November 2024, they teamed up to coordinate a much more systematic review of the sales practices at bank affiliated mutual fund dealers.

They took note of what CBC said and they said, okay, we need to look at this and they did to their credit. They conducted a voluntary anonymous survey that was sent to all mutual fund dealing representatives working in one of the bank branches of five of Canada's bank affiliated mutual fund dealers located in Ontario specifically. They told the banks they were going to do this.

The survey asked bank mutual fund representatives about the sales environment, sales pressure and product availability in their bank branches and also ask questions designed to assess the knowledge of the representatives. It was completed by 2,863 respondents. It was pretty good sample, obviously much broader cross section than CBC's reporting, which ended up still being accurate, but this is a bigger sample.

The results did not show significant differences across banks or regions. The study's authors suggest that the results and implications of the analysis are applicable across Ontario. They basically say all the banks are the same.

If you're thinking about a bank mutual fund representative, their findings are going to be representative of that person, at least on average, I guess. There could still be good ones and worse ones than the average. This part is really interesting.

They did look at what is the average bank mutual fund representative look like. The average representative who completed the survey, I guess that is a limitation is that this was voluntary, but anyway, the average bank mutual fund representative who did complete the survey held one professional designation or credential, commonly the Canadian securities course or an equivalent. Those are the bare minimum required to sell mutual funds in Canada.

They have six years of work experience as a mutual fund representative. 10% of their total compensation is variable, including things like bonuses and profit sharing. They typically offer financial products in addition to mutual funds, including mortgages, lines of credit, credit cards, bank accounts, and GICs.

This one's a pretty wild statistic, or maybe not, if you believe that bank employees are mostly salespeople. Only 9% of these mutual fund representatives hold other credentials, other than the baseline requirement to sell products. 9% of representatives hold other credentials, most commonly the CFP.

Those advisors do tend to offer more planning based services through the bank. 9%, most of them, 91% don't have more advanced credentials. I thought that was pretty crazy.

Now, the actual results of the survey where they're asking the questions about the sales culture and stuff are pretty wild. 32% of the representatives surveyed agree that the way representatives are compensated places more value on sales volume than on the quality of advice given to clients. Did you hear that? 32%, a third of representatives.

Cameron Passmore: Anecdotally, we've heard that from people that joined us and other people we've spoken to, there's this quota system, like certain point system. Certain products with certain points, they even talk about the ratio of points earned to effort spent.

There's a sweet spot where something might be too much work for the number of points you get, so you avoid certain types of services. It's unbelievable.

Ben Felix: I didn't include it in my notes much, but this study does talk a lot about the scorecard systems that different banks use and how that puts pressure on people to sell certain products. I didn't include too much of that in my notes, it was an interesting part of this report. A third of people agree that the way they're compensated place more value on sales than advice quality.

About half of representatives, 47%, disagree that the way they're compensated could create an incentive to prioritize sales goals over client interests. More than half agree that the way they're compensated could create an incentive to prioritize sales goals over client interests, which is another just crazy statistic. One in three representatives agree that the way they're compensated could create incentives for representatives to prioritize sales and revenue targets over client interests.

35% of representatives agree that the way they're compensated may increase the risk that recommendations made to clients are not suitable for those clients. I mean, it's like yikes. The first time I read it, I was thinking like, you would expect this at a car dealership.

Everyone has that perception of car dealerships. I don't think that the same perception exists for financial advice, which I think is part of the problem. When you walk into a car dealership, you're expecting to be sold a car, so I think you go in prepared for that.

Cameron Passmore: You went into that brand. You expect that person to be a brand expert and to be biased for that brand, but you're right. You go into a certain brand, name a bank, you expect an advice. I think that's a fair statement.

Ben Felix: 68% of representatives say that they experience sales pressure at least sometimes and 35% experience pressure often or always.

Cameron Passmore: Wow, one in three.

Ben Felix: That was a – One in three, often or always. Two thirds, at least sometimes. It's no joke. Again, we shouldn't act surprised.

We've talked to people who have worked at banks and we know that this is the case. We know that people have left the bank because of the sales pressure. Both people we know and people in that CBC investigative report.

It's not terribly surprising, but seeing the data around it is just like, man, it's really as bad as people say. 44% of representatives agree that there is a fear of job loss due to not being able to meet sales, revenue, client or asset targets. Also crazy.

Only 25% of representatives indicated that clients have been recommended products or services that are not in their interest at least sometimes. That's good, I guess. If you're a consumer of bank financial advice, it is a pretty scary statistic.

If we say that 25% of representatives indicate that clients haven't recommended products or services that are not in their interest at least sometimes. That's pretty wild. The study does find, again, unsurprising relationship between sales pressure and advice not being in the client's best interest.

Representatives who reported experiencing higher levels of sales pressure were more likely to agree that clients have been recommended products or services that are not in their interests. Again, not surprising, but still seeing the data is like, man, wild. 55% of survey respondents reported having concerns related to sales pressure at least sometimes, while 25% reported having these concerns often or always.

The representatives are concerned, but this part is really interesting. A large portion of these concerned representatives are reluctant to raise their concerns at their workplace due to fear of reprisal. That makes sense.

Of those that did raise concerns, 43% of them indicated that their concerns were addressed rarely or never. Again, the representatives are aware that this environment is suboptimal for them and probably for their clients as well. Many of them are scared to raise the concerns.

The ones that do are saying that their concerns are not being addressed. All things considered, the results show that most of the mutual fund representatives working for one of the big five bank mutual fund dealers have at minimum some concerns related to sales pressure in their roles. Many of them are reluctant to raise those concerns in the workplace and the ones that have voiced their concerns, they feel they're not being appropriately addressed.

Now, sales pressure is one thing that bank customers should be concerned about, but I think the other issue, and this comes back to your point about the car dealerships, Cameron, you walk in expecting advice, but even without the sales pressure, I think it's difficult for bank representatives to give objective advice, because they're limited in their product shelf. Again, like you walk into a Toyota dealership, you expect the salesperson to sell you a Toyota. When you walk into a place looking for financial advice, maybe people should expect to be sold to whatever bank fund, but the reality is the bank advisors are often limited to using bank products.

That of course makes sense for the bank because actively managed mutual funds, GICs, all these financial products are super profitable for the bank, but that doesn't mean that the products from that specific bank are the best thing for the clients.

Cameron Passmore: Keep going, lines of credit, credit cards, mortgage, it doesn't stop, car loans, and we need all of that. We need a good banking system. That's not our point.

It's getting the advice, proper advice to your clients.

Ben Felix: 78% of representatives surveyed say that their existing range of products does meet the needs of their clients, so that's good, but almost half of them agree that their clients would benefit if they could be offered a broader range of mutual funds, including mutual funds from providers other than their bank. That just makes sense. I kind of just said it, but a bank's mutual funds, which are often, at least by number of funds, going to be high fee actively managed funds, maybe they do make sense in some cases, but it's pretty hard to argue, I think, that limiting the available products to that bank's funds is going to be a good thing for clients.

That study is supported by a 2018 paper in the review of financial studies. We've talked about this podcast before, which uses data from a large retail bank to analyze how banks and their financial advisors generate profits from customers. The authors of that paper find that transactions initiated by bank advisors earn the bank higher profits than independently executed trades placed by the same client.

Unsurprisingly, the bank's own mutual funds and structured products are the most profitable products for the bank. Bank profits increase with trade size and bank advisors recommend transactions that are most profitable for the bank. If these profitable transactions were also making clients better off, I think it'd be easy to argue that there's really no issue.

There's nothing to see here, but this 2018 paper also finds that bank-advised clients have a worse performance than unadvised clients, suggesting, again, that advisors put the bank's interests before their clients. I do want to mention, again, that these issues are more with the incentive structure and sales culture at the banks than with the advisors themselves. I can't reiterate enough that I don't think bank advisors are malicious, even if they are affected by conflicts of interest.

Their knowledge levels are likely also affecting their ability to identify the conflicts and other issues with their advice. About 80% of representatives in the CRO and OSC regulator study believe that their peers are sufficiently knowledgeable on a variety of financial topics. They asked the advisors their perception of their peers' knowledge, but one third of representatives reported that clients have been provided with incorrect information about the products or services being recommended at least sometimes.

This is a crazy statistic. 23% of representatives in this study, in this survey, were unable to correctly identify the definition of a management expense ratio, which as I mentioned earlier, I would say is one of the most important attributes of a mutual fund.

Cameron Passmore: That's nuts. That is unbelievable.

Ben Felix: 23%. That's, which again, it's not surprising. It lines up with CBC's investigation.

It's whatever, but it's also terrifying.

Cameron Passmore: It goes back to my early days when we didn't care about the MERs, but we knew what they were. We knew what an MER was.

Ben Felix: I remember man, when I first got my mutual funds license, I'm pretty sure I've said this on the podcast before, I had not a clue about anything.

Cameron Passmore: I didn't have a clue. Nothing.

Ben Felix: I didn't know what an RSP was.

Cameron Passmore: I didn't know what a self-directed RSP was. I knew nothing.

Ben Felix: It's crazy to think about that you can sell financial products.

Cameron Passmore: We were let loose and you had to sell to make your rent payment, make your car payment. It's completely ridiculous in hindsight.

Ben Felix: The knowledge piece, I think that also lines up with academic research. We had Juhani Linnainmaa on this podcast a while ago. His 2021 paper, he's a co-author, The Misguided Beliefs of Financial Advisors in the Journal of Finance.

They find in a Canadian sample actually, they don't specify what firm or whether it was a bank or not. We just know it was like a mutual fund dealership, but in a Canadian sample of financial advisors and their clients, advisors typically make the same mistakes personally as they do in their clients' accounts. They trade too much.

They chase past returns. They prefer expensive, actively managed funds and they under-diversify their portfolios. The advisors' personal accounts in that study underperform just as much as the clients' portfolios do.

I think that study shows that advisors, they're lacking knowledge. One other interesting thing that they do to show that advisors weren't just doing this to sell. They weren't saying, look, I'm doing the same dumb stuff that I'm telling you to do, so that clients would listen.

They continue making the same mistakes after they've left the financial services industry. They weren't just like putting on a show. They really believed in the bad advice that they were giving.

Again, I think conflicts of interest are an issue for sure, and this study shows that. I think that highlights the education piece and the misguided beliefs paper and what we see in this regulatory study really highlights the importance of raising the education bar for advisors. Now, solving where that bar should be across the industry from a regulatory perspective is a big job.

I do think it's moving in the right direction. I was part of a proficiency committee for CRO that was working on a resetting, what that bar looks like. I think it is moving in the right direction, but separate from regulation, investors seeking advice can still look for advisors with more than the bare minimum regulatory credentials.

I think it's pretty wild that you go into a bank and 9% of advisors are going to have their CFP. You've got to look for credentials with rigorous credentialing programs. What did you actually have to do to get this title, CFP and CFA are no joke from that perspective.

There are many other ones that are good and there are many other ones that are not so good on the requirements to achieve it. You also want credentials that have ethical standards. A big one that I don't think people think about enough is enforcement for professional conduct and ethical conduct.

Again, CFA and CFP are good examples where they have actual enforcement and committees who are dedicated to that, volunteer and staff. If someone makes a complaint about someone with one of those designations, it is pursued. If it's proven that you were unethical or unprofessional, you can lose your credential or be suspended or whatever.

I think that's an underappreciated element of any credential. I mentioned them already, CFA and CFP, I think are two very solid ones, both in Canada and the US. I think it is also worth noting that how an advisor is registered does matter.

A discretionary portfolio manager in Canada is generally held to a legal standard with a deemed common law fiduciary duty to their clients and most non-discretionary mutual fund representatives. Because that's not statutory, it really does depend on the situation. The more trust that there is deemed to be in a relationship, the more likely you're deemed to be a fiduciary.

In the case of a discretionary portfolio manager, where the client has given discretion to the portfolio manager to act on their behalf, that's why it's generally viewed to be held from a common law perspective to a fiduciary standard. I think a lot of people, consumers, assume that financial advisors are required to act in their best interest. That's just not the case.

Now, I don't want to just bash the banks that offering a solution. Acknowledging my own biases, I guess, as the CIO of PWL, I really do think that independent wealth management firms like us, like PWL, offer a better option for consumers than banks. I can't speak for other firms, obviously, but PWL does not tie compensation to product sales.

We require advisors to have advanced credentials like the CFA and CFP. We promote and fund ongoing education for advisors. It's a super important part of our culture.

We're also discretionary portfolio managers and charge fees directly to clients rather than earning commissions from product sales. I said my biases, but it's like, I'm not saying this stuff to convince you that PWL is good because I work for PWL. It's the other way around.

I work for PWL because I think the way we are doing this is exactly how it should be, how financial advice should be provided to Canadians. I'm here because of that. I'm not just saying it's good because I'm here.

I'm here because it's good. We mentioned I started out in financial services with a commission-based job selling mutual funds. I remember looking at the list of funds that I could sell.

If I wanted to earn my commissions, I had to sell high fee actively managed funds or insurance. Otherwise, I wasn't paying them.

Cameron Passmore: Index funds weren't even an option when I started.

Ben Felix: I had them on the menu, but they didn't pay any commissions. Like, yeah, you want to use index funds? Go.

Cameron Passmore: Fill your boots.

Ben Felix: Good luck paying rent.

Cameron Passmore: I didn't even know what an index fund was.

That was 91, right? Different era.

Ben Felix: I do feel for the bank advisors who are in a similar position as to the one that I was in and that we were in back in the day, Cameron, but that doesn't make raising awareness about the problems with bank financial advice any less important. Consumers ultimately need to hear this information. What's important for consumers to understand is that CBC News investigative journalism and a recent survey conducted by the OSC and CIRO suggest that financial advisors at branches of Canada's big five banks are under heavy pressure to sell financial products that are often not in the best interest of their clients.

One in four representatives in that OSC and CIRO study report that clients have been recommended products or services that are not in their interests, which is pretty wild. That's anonymous self-disclosure from people working in that channel. The study suggests that this may be tied to the sales environment within the big five bank affiliated mutual fund dealers, including compensation, incentives and performance metrics.

There's a high degree of pressure to meet sales targets and the frequent use of scorecards to track, compare and emphasize those sales targets. That's causing obvious problems with the advice that's being given to people. I think that kind of sales culture and incentive structure, it's maybe appropriate at a car dealership, but I think it ties back to consumer expectations.

When you walk into a car dealership, you expect to be sold a car. I think financial advice deserves a higher bar and consumers, I believe, should be looking for advisors with credentials like the CFA or CFP, employed by firms that encourage education, high quality advice and client outcomes, rather than product sales. We didn't plan this topic to be before our conversation with the Hewsons, but it couldn't have been a better setup for our conversation with Taylor and Connor.

Cameron Passmore: Yeah, it's a perfect setup. With that setup, let's go to our welcoming conversation with Taylor and Connor Hewson.

Taylor and Connor Hewson, it is so exciting and fun to welcome you on the Rational Reminder podcast and also to PWL.

Taylor Hewson: Thank you.

Connor Hewson: Thank you. It's great to be here.

Cameron Passmore: I feel like we've been here for a bit. No kidding. I mean, we've been pretty good friends now for a while, which is pretty cool, but to have you as part of the team is truly amazing.

We're all super pumped to have you here and to get a chance to have you share your story. You have to share. What does it feel like to officially be part of this team?

Connor Hewson: Very exciting. I've got goosebumps. Honestly, I have goose pimples if that's British English.

When I talked to my wife, I was recalling back to, I think it was 2020, where I mentioned to her, it would be cool to be part of PWL, just because I could tell through listening early on the alignment with what we were doing and what you were doing. I thought it came together nicely yesterday. I was on the PWL website with the whole launch of the news and everything.

I was coming over in the tagline, simplifying wealth for Canadians on the PWL site. On our site, our tagline is simple, thoughtful financial solutions. I think that just basically says it all right there.

Maybe we could have saved a lot of time with due diligence and just put those taglines together. Goosebumps, Taylor. You had a bit of a different experience leading up to this.

Taylor Hewson: We're both super excited, but that's after a lot of work that's gotten to this point. The excitement has gone up and down. If you were to ask me two years ago, would we consider merging with another firm or let alone getting acquired, I would have said, you're nuts.

That's crazy. We've been on a good road. We're not in a position where we needed to sell.

I came from, although I do remember watching PWL from afar and admiring what you were doing, which is why we reached out to you, Cameron, a year and a half ago. Gone from that, that sounds crazy to now, as I'm explaining this move to clients, it's clearly coming through how exciting and how great this move has been and I think is going to be for both of us.

Ben Felix: Tell us about your practice. Who do you guys serve? What do you offer to clients?

Connor Hewson: What we do for our clients, Taylor and I, we like to joke that we've been a mini PWL. Obviously not taking everything you guys have done over the years, but there's just a parallel there. We just explain it, I think, similar to how you have.

We're portfolio managers with a financial planning focus and that's always been the way. I think it's the evolution of this for us the past 13 years. Credit to my dad because he opened it up and said, what's the next chapter for this looking at the wealth management world?

Then we went to that point from the active management mutual fund license to Taylor and I coming in and getting an IROC license and started using total market ETFs and now we're portfolio managers using DFA. But what made it such a huge move is, and Cameron, you've touched on this before, is it just frees up your time, that markets work mentality to have so many cool conversations with people and that's always what Taylor and I have been interested in. That's led to a ton of growth for us, which has been super cool just to see it just by referral grow in a way.

I would say that's what we do for clients are going to give you a bit of an evolution of how this all started.

Taylor Hewson: Yeah, you can take it back even farther. Our grandfather started, we were joking about before he came on, you're really in the insurance business. I still say that he started this just because we work with clients that he started working with and that we'll still talk about Grandpa Phil when I go into a meeting or what's super cool is I was at a client's farm in Southwest Saskatchewan on Monday, dealing with this move to PWL and I'm sitting there talking to the grandson of the grandfather of the farm that my grandfather worked with, definitely selling insurance. Now his grandson who's running this really big operation, which I don't think his grandfather would have ever imagined this could look like this and I think our grandpa would do the same, is that he would be baffled by what we're doing in the financial industry because to him it was sales, it was relationships. I don't want to be disingenuous to that generation because what they taught us is that it's the relationships that matter.

Whether you like it or not, there's an element of sales in the sense you have to build trust and you have to build relationships. We've evolved from that and we just keep getting better and wanting to learn more and building on top of that foundation. That three generation and so as with all the news of the acquisition and even sharing with our family and Connor and I's spouses and stuff, it's a big shift because it feels like it's something that was ours and it was our family's and there's a lot of longevity to that and it could feel from the outside looking in.

It certainly did when we started this conversation. It was like, what are we giving up? Then I'm like, oh no, it's not giving up anything.

We're just moving and building on what we've already continued to build on the last 30 years.

Connor Hewson: You mentioned that he hopped off his sprayer and signed the documents on paper on like the hood of a car.

Taylor Hewson: It was very typical Saskatchewan, yeah.

Connor Hewson: I think my dad or grandpa used to joke about like doing paperwork on the hood of a car in the prairies and I thought that was funny to hear that experience yesterday.

Taylor Hewson: I got to actually do it. I finally got to do it.

Cameron Passmore: The classic image. Why did you guys go from that's a crazy idea as you call it to actually joining us?

Taylor Hewson: Well, I think that's a testament to you guys and the people involved because when we first started this conversation, you did challenge us to, before you think about anything else, you need to decide, do you want to be a part of this team? If you know whether you want to be a part of this team, you need to meet this team, you need to talk with them. Every time we met with you, you kept saying the same thing and so we did.

We just spent time reaching out to people at PWL from advisors to leadership and just having conversations and every time we did, it just kept getting warmer and warmer. Not to say we didn't have peaks and valleys through that 15 months of initial conversation to, okay, I think we're more serious about this and then we get all the due diligence and so I think I bring it back to the culture that you guys have built. Yes, it's very aligned with what we were building on a much smaller scale and I think that just got sealed off at the employee summit that was last month in Quebec.

We just felt like we were home. We haven't talked about Crystal yet. Crystal, who's our office manager and she needed to be able to come with us and feel comfortable.

We needed her looked after through that whole weekend. I didn't even see her. She was just meeting people and having great conversations and just having a great time, which was awesome to see.

Cameron Passmore: She's an awesome addition to the team.

Taylor Hewson: Amazing. There you go.

Connor Hewson: It's interesting hearing you talk about that though, Tay, because that wasn't like a reason why we sought out to initially come over and join the team.

We were already happy with the culture that we had built. Crystal said it's one of the best places she has worked and all of those things. I love Mike Sullivan's comment about acquiring firms that don't want to be bought.

I think that can lead to such really cool things, I guess. I wanted to shift, I guess, to the structure of our business, I think, as a smaller boutique firm. I think we originally looked at the website, looking more into you and noticing the broker-dealer and the client service all rolled into one.

That made a lot of sense to us, especially for probably six years X-raying our business. We had a lot of growth and got to the point of like, okay, what's next? How do we keep being leading edge?

That was important to us. We're competitive and we want to do the best things we can for our clients. After looking at PWL, it's like, okay, that makes a lot of sense.

We wish we could do that. We need a bit of scale to do that nowadays. How do we build that?

Is it realistic to build that? Ultimately, we got to the point of like, should we join that? It just makes us better right away.

I think it comes down to a bit of the reality of where the world is with just technology and wanting to also have everything align with the investment philosophy and the approach. All the technology that surrounds that is really cool that it can be customized to be like, okay, this is just with the benefit of the client in mind and supports the process. I think that was what initially led us on this whole thing.

Then I would say the unexpected wow was the summit. Ben, you've mentioned that before. We haven't experienced that before.

There's just something in that room. You can't even put it into words. It's just there's something special there.

Taylor Hewson: Now that we know what a PWL is like on the inside, and even as we were still going through our due diligence, I would just be on social media and looking in the industry. Now that I've seen this model and got to understand this model more, I look at what we were doing. There's plenty of ways to run these practices, but I just can't imagine doing it any other way.

I've seen something I can't unsee. Now that I know this exists and I know what it's like, I'm like, oh, man, maybe I want to look away, but I'm like, no, this is too good. They just keep coming back.

Ben Felix: You mentioned having peaks and valleys as we went through the due diligence process over the last 15 or so months. What concerns did you guys have about making this decision and how did you address them as we went through the process?

Connor Hewson: I think initially we were on this path and we thought there was only this one path for us to operate the way we want to do. It's go through this broker-dealer relationship or this model. I think initially we thought it was like a shifting of gears, but it took us some time to realize that this is like an evolution of what we were already doing that really helped with that original thinking of trying to adjust and be open to going through the process of having more discussions with PWL and reaching out to more people that work there in all different departments and having really deep conversations. It took us a little bit to get to that point. It's obvious to mention that if you've got something good going, it's hard to also make it like you're growing and you're happy, the work environment's good.

It's hard to decide, let's go join something bigger. I don't think we could join any other team after. We've had other businesses approach us to join or to buy, acquire other businesses and never been the right fit.

I think that's going to be the biggest hurdle for us going from that you own 50% of the business and making all the decisions to being part of something bigger. It's just different.

Taylor Hewson: I think there's this idea that when you're an entrepreneur that you have to have your hands in all the baskets. Essentially, when you're starting up, you do and it's necessary, but really the evolution of a business is at some point, it needs less of you and more of others. That's the point where we got to was there's a thing that Connor and I do really well and is really valuable to our clients, which is the feedback we got, which is great.

That feels awesome. But when you start thinking of processes and technology and operations and leadership and strategic vision and stuff like that, you're looking internally. It's silly to think that I can do all that or do I even want to do that because that's going to take away from other things.

What do you want to spend your time doing? We realized we want to spend our time working with clients, building relationships and doing really good financial planning. If we're going to do that, then why are we trying to do everything else really, really well, which is just impossible.

But we had to get over that a little bit and take our own ego out of it a little bit and understand that if we want to build, I think we could have stayed status quo. Through attrition, we'd lose some clients, we'd gain a few clients, and we probably would have been, quote unquote, successful, happy, whatever that means, probably more from a financial perspective than anything. What this was is an exciting way to do more than that and have a bigger impact.

It's a natural evolution. It's giving up the idea that you need to be able to do it. And the team, I remember, Ben, when I reached out to you one of the first times, we were chatting and going along and you said, oh, man, I can't believe I've forgotten to talk about the team.

We have such an amazing team. And now I've realized what you're talking about, that feeling. And you kind of don't even think about it because they just sort of do their thing.

Everybody is eager to learn entrepreneurial, which is what helped us make that shift, is that there's still entrepreneurial spirit here. It's just spread out and standing and you're bigger doing the same thing together. So we still get to tickle that bone a little bit.

Connor Hewson: Tickle the bone. That's interesting. Taylor has the best sayings.

Taylor Hewson: Don't try it at home.

Connor Hewson: I'm glad this is recorded. We got to keep that one up.

Taylor Hewson: We're only two weeks in, but I still feel like I'm very much alive. If anything, I've had more entrepreneurial spirit injected into me the last two weeks.

Connor Hewson: And I think that's how we addressed those concerns was just actually hearing that that's the way things operate, the culture over here. But now we know it, which is great. So I'd say that's how we kind of addressed it.

But leading up to the summit, we had those feelings like, OK, here we go. We're going to meet the rest of the team. And I just couldn't believe how long it took people at the end of the summit to leave the lobby.

People just enjoy hanging out with each other. And I think that's great. To just finalize what Taylor was saying, I think also throughout this whole process, and it was probably a two year process, we always just tried to think of, OK, we got to look at what's best for our clients.

What's going to be the best platform? How do we continue to offer the best experience and advice? Taking ourselves away from that and be like, OK, obviously there's some things selfishly that we're going to have to adjust to.

But that's secondary to the fact that we want to continue to evolve this in a way that when we talk about three generations of clients, we want to take care of all those clients at the forefront. That was really a big focus throughout the whole thing.

Cameron Passmore: So you guys are sharing the news now with clients. How are you articulating the benefits of your decision to them?

Connor Hewson: We talk to most people directly. And I think just naturally, as you can hear through this conversation so far, the excitement from us, I think clients can pick up on that. The way that we've communicated it is the evolution, kind of the next chapter of what we're doing.

What was really cool, actually, we had probably like at least five or six meetings where the clients knew about the money scope or the rational reminder. I had a client or a friend text me from Nova Scotia yesterday saying, me and my wife listen to the rational reminder. You guys are joining them.

That's super cool. It was interesting to go through that process. And we got to the point where almost like you get sick of telling the story, but it naturally came through.

And I think our clients just picked up on that. And I'd say the biggest concern we got was like, are we still working with you? You always wonder what you're going to get back in a conversation like that.

We didn't think about that element.

Taylor Hewson: But it's a question you want. So am I still going to be with you?

Which is nice to hear.

Connor Hewson: So then we obviously had like a communication that went out after we had talked to most clients outlining what's going to change, what's not going to change, details like that.

Taylor Hewson: Everything's just gone great. I don't like bothering clients. You want to give them the confidence to go and live their life and then not have you kind of inserting yourself into a lot of time.

So I'm always sensitive to bothering clients. People have just been so responsible with getting us stuff like it's a big deal moving from one dealer to another and takes a lot of work. And it does require some work on the client's part, but everyone's just been great.

So I shouldn't be surprised, but that was obviously a concern that's underneath, but that's been way laid away.

Ben Felix: I remember going through the same thing. Our clients had the exact same comments or questions was like, are we still working with you? And is this good for you?

Saying that to the advisor that they work with, not so concerned with anything else. Am I still working with you? And are you happy with this transaction?

Connor Hewson: Did you forget the power of that? You always think, okay, I got to deliver like the best possible optimal strategy from like a number standpoint. But sometimes you just overlook that element of it.

I think it was cool to see the people maybe that you didn't expect to be making comments. You scared me. I thought you were leaving the industry.

Stuff like that. And I'm like, oh, I thought you were maybe someone who wasn't sure if you'd stay or leave. Just cool to get those comments.

Ben Felix: You guys are long time listeners of this podcast. What would you say to other advisors who might be listening right now who are maybe thinking about making a move to PWL?

Taylor Hewson: This idea of you kind of owe it yourself to give it a look at least. It is unique. You can't look to another model and say, well, these guys do it.

And I remember I was talking to other people in the industry, people I respect outside of PWL, balancing this off them as well. One of the comments was, if you were in the US, you wouldn't be thinking so hard about this. It's just a natural thing that people do.

They join together. They're better than the sum of their parts. But because we're in Canada and we just don't have this yet, it's causing some uncertainty.

The greatest thing about this team and as testament to Cameron and leadership team is everybody's just so open, willing to talk. There's no sales pitches. It's not rushed.

There was a year and a half long conversation and friendship building. If you're aligned on some of these things that you believe in terms of the financial planning focus and relationships being important, the fiduciary duty, the markets work mentality and things like that, you have to reach out just to see what's going on a bit under the hood. Because once you do, again, it's hard.

You won't be able to look away.

Connor Hewson: We've already had some of those conversations, encouraging other advisors. You can kind of think of, okay, that's not going to work. And you kind of just put that aside.

As soon as there's a different way to do things, you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your clients to dig in a bit. And you don't know how you're actually going to feel until you dig in with anything. You got to dig in and then you'll really start to get an understanding of what's going on.

From us on the outside, we had an idea, but it wasn't until we had hours and hours and hours of conversations with so many different people on the team that we started to get over some of those things that maybe we originally thought were issues. My advice would be if you're listening to this podcast and you are aligned in thinking, and maybe you have, like us, a bit of a disruptor's mindset, and we always were that in spirit, but now we can actually do it, which is really cool. And I think if more people can join like this, that we can actually disrupt, which is what Taylor and I kind of set out 13 years ago to do.

That's what excites us.

Taylor Hewson: I forgot about that, Connor. In our little magazine we had, this was 10 years ago, we had this graffiti-like title page. It opened the page and it said, it's a financial planning revolution.

It just occurred to me. So yeah, okay, good. We're still in the revolution now, still doing it.

Connor Hewson: Still doing that.

Ben Felix: So is that what you're most excited about, disrupting?

Connor Hewson: I don't think so. I think it's doing more of what we love to do. It's been a big reflection on, Ben, you had this six questions of identifying your values.

And I actually did that at the cabin over a couple of days last year and figured out as an owner operator, it's a lot of things I don't really like to do. It's cool that we've built this and Taylor and I built this together with our dad and stuff like that. But I think what excites us the most about this is being able to focus on, like Cameron said, the craft of financial planning.

We hear so many times with the advisors on the team at PWL that learning what they did one year compared to the previous 10 years.

Taylor Hewson: I've been in the industry about 16 years and all through it, I've been on different boards and different groups and stuff that are around financial planning and financial advisors. And with a look to that next generation, I have a bit of a education or teaching interest in me. So this idea of building something for the next generation to have a place where you could go when you're coming out of university and you want to get your CFP, you're interested in this financial planning thing, whatever that is, to come to a place where you can almost, it's becoming like an apprenticeship, which is so cool because we talk about professionalizing the industry and different groups have talked about that over the years and their strides are being taken mostly from a regulation perspective, whereas we're doing this from a corporate enterprise perspective, which is super cool.

So to be in a place where I know there's going to be younger people being able to come in and learn the craft of financial planning, I just am excited to be a part of that and learn from them as that next generation comes in, knowing that my clients are looked after. If something was to happen to me, Connor was in the picture. Actually, even if Connor was in the picture, I'd say, hold on here.

Connor Hewson: I'm pretty good on the bench for you.

Taylor Hewson: Tell my wife, hey, go talk to PWL. They are going to steer you in the right direction.

They're going to have your best interest. They're going to have your back. That does provide a certain amount of comfort for me, but then I also know that I get to go do that for our clients as well. It's huge.

Ben Felix: That's awesome. I love the point about actually building the thing that professionalizes the industry as opposed to talking about it or trying to change it through regulation or whatever. One of my favorite sayings from Cameron, and Cameron, I hope you don't mind me sharing this.

I don't know if I've said it on the podcast before.

Cameron Passmore: I knew this was coming.

Ben Felix: Shut up and build a business.

One of my favorite Cameron sayings, shut up and build a business. That's exactly what we're doing. We're not talking about it, we're doing it.

Connor Hewson: Well, that's awesome. It's been fun to follow the story of all this and then to now going to be alongside for it. That's another aspect of what excites us for sure.

Taylor Hewson: And sometimes you wonder what's happening under the hood, but now seeing is like, oh no, we're actually doing it. And we've got a team behind that's going to follow through with that because as a three-person team, there's only so much you can do.

Ben Felix: Nothing wrong with that, but it's cool to be a part of something that is exactly building that thing.

Ben Felix: Awesome.

Ben Felix: All right, guys. Well, super excited to have you here on the team. Thanks a lot for coming on the podcast.

Connor Hewson: Thanks for having us. It's great.

Taylor Hewson: Thanks for having us. It's been great.

Cameron Passmore: Okay, Ben, so much fun to have those guys join us on the podcast, but also in our day-to-day work lives.

Ben Felix: They had mentioned goosebumps. I felt it too when they're talking. We're building something pretty cool and being part of it, it's incredible.

Cameron Passmore: We both have some travel coming up this fall. What's this investor tour you're going on? Blossom investor tour?

Ben Felix: I'm not going on the tour. I'm just one stop on the tour. Blossom Social, I'll talk about what that is in a second.

They invited Richard Coffin and I. Richard and I know each other. They invited both of us and we were texting each other like, you're doing this thing?

We said that we'd do it. Good chance for us to hang out. This is the Blossom Investor Tour 2025 Toronto event.

They're doing it a bunch across Canada and I think in New York as well, maybe some other places. The Toronto event is going to be at the Rogers Center. It's on Sunday, September 21st from 11.30 AM to 6 PM. Richard and I are on the keynote panel. We've roughly talked about the topics we might discuss, but it's going to be moderated by one of the founders of Blossom. We're just going to talk about relevant topics, I guess.

Cameron Passmore: I would suggest that's a must see event. That's pretty cool.

Ben Felix: Blossom is interesting. It's an investing social network. It's kind of like a dedicated FinTwit.

The section of Twitter that talks about financial topics. It's kind of like a dedicated social media site only for that. The posts are more like LinkedIn style posts.

You get more space and you can add images and stuff like that. You can link your investment portfolio to your profile. If you have like a Questrade portfolio, you can link it directly to your profile and then it'll show your holdings on your profile, which is kind of cool.

I don't use Blossom Social. I did create an account so I could check it out just so I could kind of feel things out leading up to this panel. It's definitely interesting.

I do know a couple of the guys behind it. I met one of them at Future Proof and one of the other guys I've known for years. There's actually a thread in the Rational Minded community about the bad advice on Blossom Social.

A lot of the content on there is not really Rational Reminder aligned. Some of it's very beginner level, which is great. A lot of it is just contrary to things that we generally talk about.

There's lots of individual stock picks, lots of dividend investing. I don't really hold that against Blossom Social. That's kind of a reflection of the content that people like to see.

Twitter is exactly the same with the type of content that you're going to get there. There are some people that post Rational Reminder type stuff. Maybe I'll start posting there.

I don't know. It's pretty cool. The engagement is cool.

The platform is really neat. It's a really cool concept. They say that this tour that they're doing, they're hosting Canada's largest in-person meetup events for DIY investors with the goal to bring together like-minded investors for an evening of great food, drinks, education, and fun.

Toronto is the flagship event. I'll be there with Richard. It does sound pretty cool.

Tickets are $58. They run it to break even. They don't run it to be profitable.

Tickets pay for the event and food and you get some swag.

Cameron Passmore: That's on a Saturday, I guess, right?

Ben Felix: Sunday.

Cameron Passmore: Sunday. Because earlier that week is when you and I are in BC.

Ben Felix: I've got a very busy September. Yes.

Cameron Passmore: Then before that, a few of us are going to Future Proof.

Ben Felix: I'm not going to that. Then right after this, I'm going to the Four Corners Conference, which is an index investing-oriented academic conference that a ton of past Rational Reminder guests are at.

I'm the practitioner discussant for Scott Cederburg. Scott will present his 100% equity paper, life cycle investing paper for 30 minutes. I'm the practitioner discussant for 15 minutes and James Choi is the other academic discussant.

It's my first academic conference. Should be a pretty neat experience.

Cameron Passmore: It's amazing. Then in October, I'm going over to London, actually to Windsor and I'm on a panel at the CISI Financial Planning Conference, which will be super fun. It's actually going to be panels.

Instead of having a typical panel, it's going to be a Guinness or some pub scene on stage, like a bar. We're going to be standing at the bar, I guess, just setting up a keg and stuff, which is pretty cool. My friend, Justin King, who's an advisor in the UK invited me to join him on the panel.

That'll be fun.

Ben Felix: That's very cool.

Cameron Passmore: But yeah, we have a busy, busy fall. Yeah, we're in Victoria on the 15th.

Ben Felix: Let's get some more people out. We have 12 people that have filled out our form to sign up. Usually, more people show up to these events than actually fill out the form saying they're going to come.

Hopefully, we can get more than 12 people out. That's Victoria on September 15th, Vancouver on the 17th in the evening.

Cameron Passmore: Four to seven on each day. Drop us a note at info at rationalreminder.ca. We can add you to the list and send you the details of the venue.

Ben Felix: There's a form too. There's a registration form that we'll put in the show notes and it'll be in the Rational Reminder community if people want to fill that out. We got a review.

Have you heard our new reviews disclaimer, Cameron, or is this your first time?

Cameron Passmore: I have not.

Ben Felix: Man, buckle up.

You ready? We have a review from Apple Podcast to read. Under SEC regulations, we are required to disclose whether a review, which may be interpreted as a testimonial, was left by a client, whether any direct or indirect compensation was paid for the review, or whether there are any conflicts of interest related to the review.

As reviews are generally anonymous, including this one, we are unable to identify if the reviewer is a client or disclose any such conflicts of interest. However, I can say that we have never paid for a review and have no intention of doing so because that would be pretty weird. Not our style.

Cameron Passmore: Not really how we roll.

Ben Felix: No. So this review says, Years of Gold, and it's by OrangeUGlad from Canada.

I've been alternating between back catalog and new episodes and I'm still blown away by the quality of this show. Pure gold. I really appreciated the last AMA, both because of the idea to add a special guest into the AMA and specifically for the frank discussion of critical illness insurance, that type was a bit less clear for me than life or disability.

Very nice review. Always appreciate the reviews.

Cameron Passmore: I've heard from so many people since we started mentioning that we're looking for advisors, people reaching out to say, based on listening to you and seeing the posts on LinkedIn, I just have to reach out. The number of people that listen, it's amazing.

I talked to a few people this week actually that want to, and this happens often, but just this week, there's a few that said, I want to get into this industry based on the podcast.

Ben Felix: I've heard that from a lot of people. They've changed careers because of this podcast. Man, that's wild.

I think it's because we bring a perspective that's like, you can do this professionally in a way that is evidence-based. It's not just a sale job and you're giving people advice that you can actually feel good about. I don't think that that's the common perception of this industry by a lot of people who are outside of it.

Cameron Passmore: No, because it grew up as a product industry and compensation tied down which product you move, not based on the quality of the service you provide. You attract people who are motivated based on compensation and payout, the percentage payout rate. You end up getting a focus on profitability and margin and high margin type clients and client profiles as opposed to investing in a platform.

This is what Connor and Taylor talked about. Once you see what's inside the platform, you can't unsee it. If you're a consumer out there going to market, what is best for your outcome?

Is it to have a team where everyone's rallied around one message, one philosophy, one belief system from CRM through to the marketing, through to how we communicate, to how we upload information to the online portal, to training, to education. Everything rallies around this oneness as opposed to being the lone wolf or in a silo. That line has really struck a chord with people.

Are you a financial nerd feeling like you're in a silo? Most people that reach out that have an affinity for how we communicate and the research that you share, once you hear that message, you can't unhear it and you're the wingnut in the office. You hear that all the time.

Ben Felix: 100%.

Cameron Passmore: And the people that are driven to this are usually mission-driven, purpose-driven, want to make a difference profile as opposed to how can I make the most amount of money in this industry. And that's the shift that we are living, I think.

Ben Felix: I think you're right. As someone who doesn't know much about this industry, I know you just talked through this, it's perceived as either a sales industry or I don't even know how people perceive stockbrokers, but I think the perception of a stockbroker is not great either. If you're like an engineer type person or an analytical type person or a person that just wants to do the right thing, and you look at the job of a stockbroker, it's like, oh yeah, no, I don't want to do that.

Then you hear that there's a way to give planning focus advice and advice focused on how people live better lives and a way to do that in a way that's evidence-based and that aligns your interests with those of the clients. You think about it, it's not super surprising that people hear, oh, that's how this industry can work and then they make that switch.

Cameron Passmore: And have a good career.

Ben Felix: Yeah. As long as it keeps getting professionalized as we're trying to do. Shut up and build a business, right?

Cameron Passmore: I've said that many times.

Ben Felix: Okay, anything else? I do have some construction going on below me. If you heard some banging, I'm sorry about that.

It is what it is. Hopefully it's not too bad.

Cameron Passmore: Okay, everybody. Thanks for listening.

Disclosure:

Portfolio management and brokerage services in Canada are offered exclusively by PWL Capital, Inc. (“PWL Capital”) which is regulated by the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) and is a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF). Investment advisory services in the United States of America are offered exclusively by OneDigital Investment Advisors LLC (“OneDigital”). OneDigital and PWL Capital are affiliated entities, however, each company has financial responsibility for only its own products and services.

Nothing herein constitutes an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security. This communication is distributed for informational purposes only; the information contained herein has been derived from sources believed to be accurate, but no guarantee as to its accuracy or completeness can be made. Furthermore, nothing herein should be construed as investment, tax or legal advice and/or used to make any investment decisions. Different types of investments and investment strategies have varying degrees of risk and are not suitable for all investors. You should consult with a professional adviser to see how the information contained herein may apply to your individual circumstances. All market indices discussed are unmanaged, do not incur management fees, and cannot be invested in directly. All investing involves risk of loss and nothing herein should be construed as a guarantee of any specific outcome or profit. Past performance is not indicative of or a guarantee of future results. All statements and opinions presented herein are those of the individual hosts and/or guests, are current only as of this communication’s original publication date and are subject to change without notice. Neither OneDigital nor PWL Capital has any obligation to provide revised statements and/or opinions in the event of changed circumstances.

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