How Do You Know Who to Trust for Financial Advice?

Financial decisions are becoming more complex every year. This episode explores how to find trusted expertise, ask better questions, and build confidence in the advice you follow.

Tom Dickson, founder of the Financial Experts Network joined me on this episode of Get Ready Before Life Happens to explore why trusted expertise matters in today’s complex financial world, how advisors can better serve clients through collaboration and lifelong learning, and why understanding a person’s background and credentials is essential before following financial advice.

Key Takeaways

• Financial planning requires expertise across many different and evolving areas
• Understanding a professional’s credentials and background helps build confidence in financial advice
• Lifelong learning is essential in a rapidly changing financial landscape
• Specialized expertise can help people navigate complex financial decisions more effectively
• Consumers should research financial professionals and understand the source of advice before acting
• Trusted advisors often work collaboratively with specialists to better serve clients

In a world full of information, trusted expertise becomes even more valuable. The right guidance usually comes from people who understand their specialty deeply and continue learning as the world changes. Asking better questions about credentials, experience, and expertise helps people make more confident financial decisions.

Connect with Tom Dickson:

• Website: www.financialexpertsnetwork.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/financialexpertsnetwork/

Bio: 

Tom has over 40 years of experience in many sectors of the financial services industry, including asset management, brokerage, custody, trust, mortgage and fintech. 

It’s Tom passion for personal finance education that led to the development of the Financial Experts platform.  Launched in 2008, Financial Experts has educated tens  of thousands of Financial Planners with LIVE webinars that feature true subject matter experts. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

This is Get Ready Before Life Happens, the podcast helping you navigate life's what if. What changes when you learn from people with real experience and proven expertise? Welcome to Get Ready Before Life Happens. I'm your host, Tony Stewart. Today I'm pleased to be joined by Tom Dixon. Tom, welcome to Get Ready Before Life Happens.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Oh, geez, thank you, Tony. It's wonderful to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yeah, excited to share what you're doing because I think what you're doing and the point of what you're doing is so important, is about having information from people who actually really know what they're talking about. I think that's a real struggle in the personal finance world, is there's lots of people talking about money, and very few people actually know what they're talking about. So, you know, that this is, I think, very powerful. So, you know, tell us a little bit about yourself. What is your origin story and how did it lead you to create the financial experts network?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Uh so I guess I'd start with uh my my origin story as far as my background is I've been in the financial services industry for over 40 years, which means that yes, I tend to be a little older, but um yeah, I've been I've had the good fortune to work in many different parts of the industry from uh the mutual fund uh business to uh helping set up one of the early online brokerage firms, uh uh and uh again, just a wide range of uh uh uh opportunities and and just a great opportunity to learn different parts of the financial uh industry, uh, including mortgage uh and the like. And you know, I'll I'll use the mortgage part to kind of pivot. That's you know, that ties into the origin story of what I'm doing uh today. But you know, at the same time, I guess I've always been interested in uh money or what we know as personal finance. I've always been uh, you know, kind of curious about the markets and uh how that all works and uh from uh kind of an early age. So um yeah, it's uh just been something that's been of interest to me for a long, long time. And you know, I'll go back to your comment about, you know, there are so many, you know, folks who are supposed experts out there and at the risk of being a bit controversial, especially for those listening on YouTube or any other channels. I, you know, I think, you know, it's really important when you are listening to someone and you are, especially if you uh think you want to follow their advice, you you really I I think it's super important that you understand their credentials, their their background in in whatever area that might be, whether it's investing or student loans or college, you know, what whatever it may be. So anyway, um I won't get up on my high horse too too soon here yet, but uh that that kind of ties into what we're doing uh today. So so thanks for that question.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Yeah, well, and I I I think you bring up a really interesting point, and it it follows on what I was talking about is credentials and background and experience is you know, when somebody's talking about something, you know, we you know, hopefully most of us are thinking about this. For example, when we get here medical advice on the internet, we know, okay, if this person is not a doctor, we need to be a little bit more skeptical. Now, of course, there's some people who are not, and you know, everybody can, yeah, it's a it's a free country, you can or free world, you can make your own choices. Um, however, you know, taking into account the background that somebody has and the expertise does mean that they're qualified to give advice in a certain area. So I think that's really important. So what did you see in the financial services industry that made you realize there needed to be a stronger focus on real expertise?

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Uh you know, I guess a a couple things come to mind. You know, one is financial advisors, financial planners, whatever term you want to use, um, they have to be knowledgeable about such a wide range of issues. Um, you know, whether it's uh again, investments, uh understanding which mutual funds are now ETFs to pick and choose for their clients, to investment theory, to um tax planning, tax issues, which has certainly become uh a hot area in the last few years, to estate planning, to college planning, to uh student loans, to buying their first house, to Medicare to Social Security. I mean, it's just so much, right? So, you know, so I felt like um there was an opportunity to educate uh really financial advisors, those that serve in a trusted advisor role to help them be a better advisor for their clients. And that's really what drives us now. So, you know, so what I set out to do in and around 2018-2019 was to kind of reconstitute uh an educational platform that I had started years prior and with a deeper, more comprehensive focus on really uh finding true experts to educate these financial advisors on on these wide, you know, wide range of topics and issues. So again, they can it sounds trite, but this is really what what we focus on uh so they can better serve their clients. So, and the other part of that, just to add on, if I may, is that um, you know, there are certainly other educational platforms out there in the financial advice industry available to financial advisors or CPAs or those that serve clients. But uh, and while a lot of them do great work, I'm not here to disparage them by any means, but their model is they focus on having a few very smart people try to educate their listeners or their followers. And I just don't think it's possible for one or two or three people to be true experts in a very, very complicated uh field. And so to give you, for instance, uh Tony, last year, you know, on our platform, which is known as Financial Experts Network, we had over 100 different subject matter experts educate our listeners. And we serve thousands of financial advisors and tax professionals that actually listen into our webinars. Um, so again, a hundred different people. And so we spend a lot of time really identifying and and cultivating those experts, and that's that's really what's different about what we do.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Yeah, well, I I think that's interesting and important is because I think people look at a financial planner, for example, and you know, as you mentioned, is financial planners have so many things. So, for example, CFPs would have seven pillars of knowledge, you know, insurance, estate planning. You didn't even mention insurance, and that's a huge area. And I'm not saying that as a gotcha, but to more to the point of there is so much to cover in financial services that expecting one person to be able to know it all. And I think this is from a consumer standpoint, from an expert standpoint, if you are an advisor, is to know the limits. The best advisors I've ever met are the ones who know exactly the limits of their expertise, what they know, and when it's time to call in another expert as part of their team as a collaboration. So if you're out there and you're watching, let's say, your favorite personal finance content creator, if the experts are struggling to know all the things they need to know to be able to do their job, is it something to consider? Does this person who doesn't have any real training, are they able to talk to all these different areas in a way that will actually be helpful for you? Do they have the background? Do they have the expertise? But even more important, do they have the opportunity and the ability to learn more about this thing? So is so as you mentioned, you have a hundred different experts on, you know, you know, across, you know, I don't know how many areas you covered with a hundred experts. I would imagine some of them there's a little bit of overlap in the content. But I I think it gets back to that is finding people who are qualified. So I I know in my career, I was a fee-based insurance consultant and I worked with financial planners who recognize that they needed somebody with extra expertise in life insurance. So, you know, as part of that, do you find that when people, you know, members of the financial experts network, do you find that they're thinking, oh boy, here is an area I really didn't know much about. I thought that I knew much about. Are you getting that kind of feedback?

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Oh, uh absolutely. And, you know, let me just add on to what you said. I I think it's uh brilliant how you how you put it in terms of you know, working with financial advisors who who know their limits and what their domain of expertise or domains might be. I I too would share that. You know, I've worked with financial advisors for 25 years. I just as you made that comment, it made me realize I'm hitting my 25-year mark of working just with financial advisors nationwide. I've worked with thousands of them. Um, I've educated with our webinars close to a hundred thousand financial advisors who have signed up for one of our webinars. But anyway, all to say that I have studied them over the years, um, much like you. And, you know, I would always say that the more most successful financial advisors that I've worked with, they will they will introduce their services as as a team effort. They they talk about their team. And it doesn't necessarily mean that they have people on staff working at their company per se, but again, successful advisors that serve very wealthy households, they will say, geez, we're here to be your quarterback or whatever term of choice you want to use, right? But boy, when it comes to taxes, I use this CPA. If it comes to estate planning, I use that estate planning attorney. These are outside firms, outside people. So um, so I couldn't agree more. I was ready when you started to say this, to jump out of my chair in an excited way that I'm uh it's a hallelujah. I mean, again, I just think if, especially if you're listening to this and you say, hey, I'm I'm not a millionaire or whatever, but boy, I like this person or these people on YouTube. God bless you that you're trying to get that education, but just make sure you're very mindful of these people only have a limited amount of experience, typically with these topics that they're trying to educate you on. So anyway, back to your question. Yes, my listeners app absolutely. I have um, you know, again, thousands of financial planners that that listen to our webinars on a on a frequent basis. Um, and many of them will uh email me. We have testimonials on our website saying, geez, Tom, you help me become, and I'm uh it's humbling that they will email me privately and say, you helped me become a better advisor because I had no idea about this, or I learned about that, or you know, um, they're very uh uh, very uh they have high praise for our experts. Our each and every session, each and every expert is rated by our listeners. Uh our average, uh on average, 87% of the listeners rate our experts and programs is excellent. That's a pretty I'm pretty happy with that. I want it to be 100%, but anyway. So um, yes, most of them realize that's why they're there. That's why they come to our webinars because they know they have to keep deepening their learning and and their knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Yeah, and I want to get into uh something you said because I think it's really important is when we talk about wealthy people, is wealthy people are using the most popular thing for wealthy people are family offices. And family offices consist of a variety of practitioners. There's an insurance practitioner, there's the investment practitioner, there's an estate planning practitioner, there may be a philanthropic advisor as part of the team. So when you're looking at the wealthiest people, is to the takeaway from that is that they understand they need a team of experts, that they're not relying on just a single person. And so, as a single person, you're always stronger when you're part of a team. And again, I come back to the medical world and think about when you go to see your general practitioner for your physical, is if something happens during a physical, let's say with your knee, your general practitioner is going to send you to somebody who specializes on a knee. And so that's sort of a way for people to think about this. If you're an expert, is knowing when it's time for you to call in another expert. I think that is the mark of somebody who is mature in their profession, is that they know when it they can call in another expert and they're secure in the knowledge that it's okay to call in another expert. But it's also okay if you're a personal finance coach, is to know that financial coaches are doing wonderful work. There are many amazing financial coaches on. I've had quite a few on this podcast, and they do great work and it's to understand what the role is that everybody has. So, you know, when you get to the expert level, is you know, that's for when you need a specific expertise. So a financial coach or somebody who's teaching you how to reduce debt and manage your debt on YouTube, that's okay because they can teach you those basic skills. But it's just when things get a little more complex, is you match that complexity with the expertise of somebody who knows about that complexity. So that's really it. You can change your oil at home, but if you have an advanced thing happen with your car, you're gonna need as an experienced mechanic. And so that's that's how to think of all this. Um, so Tom, you know, tell us a little bit more about what is the financial experts network. And I think the thing that's probably most important too is who can attend the webinars? Is it just financial advisors? Can insurance agents join? Can financial coaches join?

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Yeah, great, great question, sure. Um, you know, essentially our focus is uh broadcasting live webinars that feature true uh subject matter experts. Again, to give you a sense of it, in uh 2025 we broadcast 125 live webinars. So we are typically running two or three a week. We again we cover a wide range of topics. I'm the editor, if you will, of uh of the platform, and uh I'm constantly looking for ideas and strategies that I think would be of interest to my uh to my audience. Um our audience is is I would say roughly is 90% financial planners, with uh really a focus on um, you know, kind of holistic financial planners, those that are interested in every aspect of a client's life. So, yes, insurance is a part of it, but guess what? It's again a wide range of topics. Um, we do have roughly, I'm gonna I'm gonna call it 8% are tax professionals, so CPAs, enrolled agents. And then, you know, we have uh I'll say in the 2% bucket, we have lawyers, we have, you know, financial coaches, like you say. Um, you know, we even have folks that it's it's interesting that have retired from the business uh uh uh the as a financial planner or a tax pro, and they still sign up. So it is professionals only. Um, and but yet we don't, you know, again, if it's a financial planner and insurance, we do have pure insurance agents as well. We have people from State Farm and other agencies that are in. But I would say our our uh biggest uh segment is uh is the financial planner. And an indicator of that is uh, you know, we have so anyone can sign up and and should sign up and try one of our webinars for free. That's the best way to kind of see and hear what we do. So I encourage you to do that. If um if you have any interest, uh you you can certainly look at our upcoming webinars on our website. I know Tony, you're gonna share that later. Um, and uh uh, but if you do, we so you know, of the 125, they're all available for free. If you do consider subscribing, there are benefits to that from continuing education credits to access to all the presenter materials, uh, replays. Um, we do a summary now for every uh webinar replay uh and the like. So anyway, I hope um that gives your listeners a little more uh about us. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yeah, and and is there a lot of people in uh the audience who I know run in financial services, you'll be able to uh connect with the Financial Experts Network. There'll be a link and you'll be able to find out more. And for people who are not uh professionals, is Tom and I are trying to figure out the best way to bring some of the experts from the Financial Experts Network onto the podcast or do other collaborations with YouTube Shorts, and so people will be able to learn from those experts as well. So if you're not a professional, keep an eye out for um future developments on that, because we both feel that it's so important for consumers to also have the ability to learn from true experts. So, you know, on that note, Tom, how can people distinguish between real expertise and surface level information? You know, when there's a lot of noise out there, how how how can people start to do that?

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Uh, you know, again, if it's if it's a consumer, um, you know, I I guess I'll I'll answer this in two ways. You know, one, again, if you're watching, listening to folks on YouTube or Facebook or TikTok or whatever, uh again, I I think you want to dig deeper. Um, I think you really want to understand their background. I mean, I've seen some out uh some influencers out there that talk about going from Wall Street to, you know, to now they're helping thousands or tens of thousands of people. Not everybody that was on Wall was truly on Wall Street or says they were on Wall Street was truly on Wall Street. And what does that really mean? I mean, um, again, I think you really want to be careful and understand, you know, do they really have much of a background in the area that they're talking about, whether it's investing and trying to give you ideas on that, or you know, even things like budgeting and savings, you can't really get hurt, I guess, with with some of that. But I I think you really want to make sure you understand, you know, do they have an education in this area? Did they work in this area? How many clients did they have they really helped with this, other than having followers? So um, and related to all this, especially if you're taking uh financial advice, you know, if they are giving advice around specifically investments, they should be registered to do so. They have to be licensed to do so. If they are licensed and you are listening to anyone that that does uh represent, you know, as having, you know, again, those kind of credentials, you know, one thing that you can certain you can and absolutely should do if you're especially if you're evaluating a financial advisor or any planner for that matter, um, go to uh the website finra.org, f-in-ra.org. They have a broker check function that you absolutely can and should use to check out the background of any, again, licensed financial advisor to make sure you know they could have a spotless record or they may not. And again, you want to start there, it'll have all their work experience, et cetera. But if there were any uh kind of closets, uh issues in their closet or whatever the saying is, you you would find them there. And there's a there's a uh another site if they are registered just with the SEC that you can go to as well and in a similar way do their background. So I just wanted to put that in there that because again, if you are looking to hire a financial planner or a financial advisor, there are these websites out there that is part of your due diligence, you want to investigate.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Yeah, I I think that's so important. And you know, as a note though, for people out there, there are some people who are not registered, they're uh usually sometimes CFPs. And so um, you know, that that there are other ways, you know, if they're a CFP, of course, you can check with the board, the CFP board to see if there's a disciplinary record. Um, and with the internet, you can pretty much ask ChatGPT, you know, you know, tell me the good and bad about this person, and they'll find all this information out to you. So you don't have to go to FINRA. You can just ask ChatGPT, does this person have any complaints or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Yeah, great point. And and it's and again, especially if they're a Fin influencer and they're on the social media, I mean, Red Reddit, if nothing else, is probably you know gonna have feedback on them. And you definitely should take that step. Of course, there are Google reviews and uh you could start in Google, you could go to GPT Cloud, what have you. But my guess is also if they have a big following, you're gonna see comments uh in Reddit or something like that as well. So yeah, great, great point. But um, you know, for the professional side of it, Tony, um, you know, what I would tell you part of the kind of the value of what we do is um uh you know, I'm I'm researching 24 by seven the ish the topics and the speakers that we have on our webinar series. So they go quite we are vetting them behind the scenes uh fairly intensely. Um and and that's again, that's my job, if you will. I'm I'm uh I'm the one that's that's doing that due diligence to make sure that whoever's coming on to talk about the guide to retirement, for example, today from JP Morgan Chase, we had a webinar on, you know, one of the top re retirement research uh persons in the country. Uh, or you know, what you you name the topic, uh, Medicare, Social Security, et cetera. We're doing a lot of research to make sure that this person is really a true expert in that area. So again, that's what we're doing day in and day out for the webinars that we broadcast.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Yeah, well, that that that's great. And you you you brought something to mind when you said somebody saying they walk worked on Wall Street. So I think it is important because if somebody worked for, let's say, JP Morgan, since you just brought them up, not not to pick on them at all, but if somebody worked managing, let's say, their social media feed, that's very different than somebody who was a portfolio manager at JP Morgan. So that's also the thing to think about. It's not necessarily where they worked, it's what they did. Um, so that's that's an important consideration. So, Tom, can you go a little bit more into what you are looking for when you're vetting an expert? Because I think that that'd be helpful for people in thinking about like, okay, is this somebody I should be listening to or not?

SPEAKER_01 25:34

You know, I I would say, Tony, that's interesting. I um it it large a lot largely it starts with the the topic or the idea or the what have you. And um I read uh multiple publications every day. I'm constantly on the hunt for again ideas and stories that I think would be of interest to my uh to my my listeners. But and so I sort of start there, and then once I find something that kind of piques my curiosity, then I'm starting to research the expert and to see, okay, what uh background do it does he or she have in this uh this topic? Uh oftentimes it could be someone who, you know, let me think uh uh Tuesday, for example, of this week, we had a professor of finance from George Mation University on, Derek Horsmeyer, who does a column uh monthly for the Wall Street Journal. Well, I I've had Derek on several times uh in the past, and I just uh saw a column that he did uh I I think I guess last month on gee, should young people save more in a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA? And well, guess what? He has had a team of PhD students do a bunch of research on it, and I thought, ah, that that would be fascinating. So so that was sort of an easy one, Derek. You know, is so I have you know a decent number of academics on who are continually doing uh uh research on topics, issues that would be of interest to my audience. So that's sort of one cohort. The other can be practitioners or people that are in the business. So there are, you know, certainly a subset of financial planners, advisors, insurance professionals who are they're interested in research. They're you know, kind of doing the deep thinking and and a lot of time, they a lot of times they want to share their good work to their credit. They're very generous with sharing what you know what their findings have been. So, so there it's you know, again, a question of just researching, okay, how much expertise and experience do they have with this. Um, and then you know, there are other uh kind of parts of the industry where you have folks uh, you know, for example, from you know, larger firms, they might be part of an advanced planning team, or I can have estate planning attorneys on CPA, sort of those professionals as well. And again, it's you know, I always ask, well, one of the questions I I will ask of any potential speaker is, okay, how much experience do you have with this topic? How many times have you done this with your client? You know, what have you really done in this area? Um, because I want to make sure that we don't have someone that comes on and says, hey, I just came up with this idea yesterday, and let me share it with the world. That that doesn't really work uh well for us. So anyway, there's it's a it's a uh it's a fairly intensive process on a day in and day out basis.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Yeah, well, and but you know, the the important takeaway I think for everybody is that it's about research and it's about matching up expertise with the topic. And I think that's the biggest takeaway if people take away one thing from this episode is to match the expertise and the topic to the background, right? I would say to match the expertise to the topic, and that that's where you really want to be paying attention. Um, I know personally when we did our estate planning, is I wanted an estate planning attorney who also had a degree in taxation. Because to me, I think that's an important distinction. So for me, that was something that I was looking for. So that's so when you're thinking about Tom, as you mentioned at the beginning of the process, if you have an area, you know, my area, we needed our own estate planning done. So that's what I was looking for. But if I was also going to research estate planning, I would think about well, do I want an estate planning attorney who is more familiar with family law? Do I want one who has a degree in taxation? You know, things like that. So even when you start looking at these different experts, is it can really branch out into different areas. And that's where it makes a real difference. So if you're somebody who's 70 years old, you want an estate planning attorney who talks about issues for seniors rather than somebody who's talking about young families. That's the other thing. So when you're looking at some of these influencers and have millions of followers, yeah, you know, is they're the jack of all trades, but possibly master of none because they're talking to everybody. So your personal financial situation is always unique. And you know, for people watching and listening to the show, you know that I have on experts in very specific areas. And for that particular reason, is so that you can find out about those things. So, Tom, you know, as we start to close out, is you know, how does FEN actually work? Can you just give us a quick overview of the benefits of FEM?

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Sure. Yeah, yeah. Um, absolutely. So uh again, you know, anyone listening as a as a professional, you can and and should, if you haven't already tried out one of our webinars, you should come to our website, financial expertsnetwork.com, and look under upcoming webinars and pick and choose one or more of the webinars and and try us out. And uh that that is how we get the majority of our subscribers. So on one hand, you can listen for free. On the other hand, uh we have over 1,500 uh paying subscribers, and we have either monthly or annual plans. And uh as a subscriber, uh you get access to uh things such as um uh for every webinar, we have uh presenter material, so slides, in other words, and all of the content that our our experts produce and deliver, you get access as a subscriber to that. So that's sort of our paywall, if you will. Again, you get access to, we have over 700 webinar replays available now on our website and growing every week. You get uh uh actually a written summary. So if you miss our our webinars, you can actually go to the website and download a written summary, which I think is brilliant. Uh, it's amazing. Um, it's basically like the cliff notes for any of these complex topics. You get all of that as a reference guide. Uh, and then on top of that, and I would say this is sort of the last reason to sign up is uh if you need continuing education credits for CFP or you're an investment advisor rep or American College or CDFA or if you're a CPA, we do CPE. If you're an enrolled agent, uh we do all that as as well. And again, you have to be a paying subscriber to get that. But so so again, we have and and our focus is really live webinars, roughly 125 a year. We have all the replays, but in addition to that, as well, I'd share a couple things quickly. Um, we also have master classes. So I started uh the master class program in the spring of 2024, largely because while our experts do a phenomenal job of educating our listeners in roughly an hour, 60 to 90 minutes, we have a lot of QA. Um, you they can only do so much. So now we have four or five session programs on things like Medicare or college planning, or now uh we're doing one on estate planning um so that our experts can go that much deeper. So these are nine or 10 hour programs, all told, that really offer that opportunity. So we started to do that again roughly two years ago and have had a lot of interest in that. And then some of the other things that we're looking at now and working with you, Tony, is you know the area of podcasts, again, kind of repurposing what we broadcast uh into a podcast so that our listeners can grab it on the go and get kind of a short version, uh, again, a summary of some of what we do. And then last but not least, I'll say uh we're we're constantly looking to make for a better um subscriber member experience. We're actually uh we have a chat bot using AI where we have all this knowledge from so many experts. We're looking to make that available through a chat bot where you can come to a replay page and ask questions of the the bot, and it'll come back based on what the expert has has delivered in the transcript and other trusted sources and then give you answers. So anyway, that's in an in a nutshell what we do.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

Fantastic. Yeah, and for people watching and listening, you know, we'll wrap up with uh a link to Tom's website and you'll be able to check it out. But I I think the important thing for everybody, even if you're not a pro and you've listened this far, is that even pros are learning from other pros. And so that's that's the important takeaway here. So, Tom, the last question is what are three things people should know about the value of learning from real experts?

SPEAKER_01 35:10

I you know, I I think one is um a lot of these topics and issues are are so complex. And I think the the knowledge that our experts have that they've acquired over the years and many times decades of working in a very narrow field is the value there as you're, you know, again, we think of this as a team, right? I mean, you're as good as the people around you. That's what you know, our listeners get, you know, one of the biggest benefits is they get uh the knowledge in a in a kind of uh condensed fashion from these experts, ideas, strategies that are actionable that they can take back and and deliver uh to their clients. So I I think it's just um I think that's the biggest value point that we deliver is you know, off of every webinar. As I always say, if you can't learn something from our webinars, then then we're really doing a bad job. That's my goal, is that you're going to learn something that will change how it is you advise your clients and whatever the topic area may be. So um, so I think that's you know, again, I it's it's all about education, knowledge. You know, I I say our best so best member is one that's dedicated to lifelong learning. If that's what you're interested in and you really want to again enhance your knowledge, that's that's a benefit. Um, you know, beyond that, Tony, we aspire to build a community. Uh, you know, again, we have over 1,500 professionals that are subscribers today, a thousand plus CFPs. We have 700 of them or investment advisor reps. We're going to continue to grow that organically. But within that, you know, again, one of the things I I'll get uh requests from listeners that will say, hey, I need an estate planning attorney, or I need someone, you know, I've got a client case like this, you know. So I think we're we're in the early innings of that possibility of how we can, you know, uh empower our community to help help everyone in the communities to, you know, again, whether it's uh just having trusted resources, you know, I I have a lot of hope for what we're gonna do with that. So um yeah, so I hope that hope that gives your listeners a sense of of some of the benefits.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Yeah, so I I think you know, the three takeaways, you know, to sum up are really that these topics and issues are complex. And so knowing experts who, you know, who've spent their whole life working on something, you know, day trading is something that comes to mind. Is how can you successfully day trade when you're pitted against a professional investor who's gone to college, you know, they have advanced degrees in investing, they're backed up by the best software. Is it's hard to beat them. It'd be like playing, you know, one-on-one against an NBA professional if you're just a guy who goes out and shoots baskets. And so that's kind of the thing to think about when you're talking about the experts, is maybe think of it that way, is that you're trying to play against a professional athlete. So that's a difference that an expert can bring. You know, you mentioned dedicated to lifelong learning. The best professionals that I know in any field, you know, inside or outside the money field are the ones who are continuously learning, and that you want to have trusted resources, even if you are one of the experts. So that's something is that it's that team approach that's so important. So, Tom, to close out, where can people learn more about you and where can they find the financial experts network?

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Yeah, so again, uh, we have our website, financial expertsnetwork.com, financial exp-e-rts. I'll point that out, network.com. So uh you can go there. Again, you can look under upcoming webinars. You uh you can certainly, there are a few menu choices there under continuing education. If you're a CFP, you can get uh more information specific to that uh requirement. Again, if you're an investment advisor, rep in a similar way under the drop down there. And then also on LinkedIn, uh you're welcome to look for me uh and then Financial Experts Network. If you search on that term on LinkedIn, you'll find that my profile is is associated with that. So I would say again, either direct on the website would be best. And we do have a contact us form. If you have any questions, you can certainly fill that out. Uh, we respond to those uh generally within one or two hours and uh uh or again LinkedIn as well. And if on LinkedIn, you should certainly uh message me or do a the network connection request. I'd be happy to connect with anybody there as well.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

Fantastic. Tom, thanks for coming on the show. And for everybody watching and listening, as always, you'll find links to Tom's website, uh to the Financial Experts Network website and Tom's LinkedIn profile uh in the show notes. Tom, thanks again for a great conversation.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Thank you, Tony. Really appreciate the opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Yeah, and thank you, everyone, for tuning in. So I hope that this gave you a different perspective on learning and the value of learning from true experts. So if you learned something today, change that and to help you grow, please be sure to share uh this episode with a friend and to subscribe. You can also go to my website at tony steward.com to join the Get Ready Movement to receive uh my newsletter and the financial readiness quick start checklist. Because when life happens, the way you think about money matters.