Ep 432: Crafting ‘Input Deliverables’ That Show Financial Planning Value To Clients Without Creating Busy-work with Seth Scott
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.8 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2025
⏱️ 89 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Seth Scott is the founder of Heartwood Financial Planning, an advisory firm in Fresno, California that manages $100 million in assets for 850 client households. What makes Seth’s approach unique is his development of an “input deliverable” that simplifies tax planning for his ideal target client, allowing him to demonstrate value without creating time-intensive, custom reports for each individual. By offering this tool, he not only saves time, but also builds trust with prospective clients who may later seek more comprehensive financial planning services.
In this episode, Seth also discusses his transition into financial planning from previous jobs in urban planning and real estate, how he grew his business by serving retiring advisors’ client books without having to contribute upfront capital, and why he became a Certified Tax Preparer to better serve his niche. Listen in to hear how he makes inroads with his target clients by helping churches set up 403(b)(9) retirement plans and how his faith has guided him through the challenges of business growth and changing careers.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/432
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with |
| 0:07.1 | financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading |
| 0:12.4 | financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success |
| 0:17.4 | and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next |
| 0:22.2 | level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone. |
| 0:28.9 | Welcome to the 432nd episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast. My gets on today's podcast is |
| 0:34.7 | Seth Scott. Seth is the founder of Hardwood Financial Planning, |
| 0:38.1 | an advisory firm affiliated with Plan Member Securities Corporation that's based in Fresno, California, |
| 0:42.7 | and overseas approximately $100 million in asset center management for 850 client households. |
| 0:48.0 | What do you think about Seth, though, is how he has created what he calls an input deliverable |
| 0:51.9 | that allows him to demonstrate value more tangibly to his |
| 0:54.5 | ideal prospects by helping them solve a key tax planning point, but without the time-consuming |
| 0:59.5 | busy work of having to create a separate output for each individual client household. |
| 1:04.7 | In this episode, we talk in depth about how Seth's built and provides his input deliverable, |
| 1:09.4 | which calculates the appropriate amount |
| 1:10.9 | of tax exempt housing allowance pastors can take based on their circumstances, and then even |
| 1:15.2 | prepares a request and subsequent resolution that the church's board can use, all to demonstrate |
| 1:20.1 | Seth's expertise to prospective clients in the ministry. How Seth saves time by using this input |
| 1:25.9 | deliverable, which he only has to create once because |
| 1:28.3 | prospects then fill out their information in it to get the output they can use, compared to |
| 1:32.8 | creating a traditional output deliverable that most firms use where the advisor has to collect |
| 1:37.0 | and organize the data and the advisory firm produces the deliverable document separately for each. |
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