Animal Spirits Podcast - Talk Your Book: Future Proof Festival

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

On today's show, Michael and Ben are joined by Matt Middleton, CEO and Co-Founder of Advisor Circle to discuss: how Advisor Circle was started, why conferences needed to change, Future Proof 2022 and changes coming for 2023, what value an advisor can get out of the festival, and much more! Learn more about Future Proof at: https://futureproof.advisorcircle.com/    Find complete shownotes on our blogs... Ben Carlson’s A Wealth of Common Sense Michael Batnick’s The Irrelevant Investor Feel free to shoot us an email at [e-mail] with any feedback, questions, recommendations, or ideas for future topics of conversation.   Check out the latest in financial blogger fashion at The Compound shop: https://www.idontshop.com   Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. Wealthcast Media, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life, and investing. Join Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing, and watching. All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ridholt's wealth management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ridholt's wealth management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. We're so excited to be joined today by our friend and co-founder and CEO of Advisor Circle.

Mr. Matt, welcome to the show. Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me. All right. So for those who are not familiar with Matt, you're definitely familiar with what he's doing with us. Matt is one of the people, main people, founder and CEO, behind the best conference in

all of wealth management called Future Proof. And it is 50 some odd days away. And I'm getting giddy. I'm super excited. Matt, for people that have not had the pleasure to interact with you, just a quick background. Who are you? And how did we form a relationship? Yeah, absolutely. So my career started at a pretty big media conglomerate called Informa back in 2010. Um, It's a company that really focuses on the B2B space, publishing, live events, business intelligence. And so I started my career there, working in the event space, found my way into financial services through payments and fintech. Then Informa in 2015 acquired a company called Inside ETFs, which was the event's arm of ETF. which is where I met most of the folks that are part of advisor circle now.

We scaled inside ETFs to being the largest investment management conference in the world, specifically focused on the exchange traded funds industry. After that, that's where, you know, we all got connected. We created a fintech event for advisors, Walthstack in 2019, and then boom, right? COVID happens. the entire events industry completely comes to a halt. How harrowing was that period for you? I mean, obviously, there's a lot of businesses and industries that were just thrown a huge wrench.

But for you, what were you thinking at that time? Well, it's interesting. So there's two different thoughts, right? I was thinking something, and then the business was thinking something. And, you know, as an industry, everyone was saying, okay, digital, digital, it's the only thing you could do, right? So what you actually saw in the market is a lot of new event tech startups come out with the promise of virtual events, live events are dead, who would travel across the country or the globe to go see people. You know, content is pretty much everywhere. And that is all true.

So at that time, you know, most folks were scrambling to take what was in-person meetings and just simply shift that into the virtual world. Very interesting, though. they actually didn't think about the production of a virtual event, and it is far different than what live events are. And so most of those events were very poor in terms of performance and experience. I did a few speaking gigs virtually, and it was not great. It's a weird. For anyone. It's a bizarre experience, right, and it was always the people weren't quite ready in terms of understanding how to use the Zoom and how to bring people in for questions, and it was always a little awkward. Yes. And yeah, and I mean, it still is. And so that virtual event world really

hasn't been solved. Thankfully, we're, you know, COVID is behind us in a way where we can have live events again. So, you know, at that time, you know, my mind was centered on, do I think live events are going to come back? And the answer for me was yes. And then I looked at, well, what's going to change? And if you really look at live events in the B2B space, specifically in our area prior to COVID, they all were the same. There was a lack of innovation. There wasn't a lot of technology. We talked about it a lot on stage, but we actually didn't incorporate it into the events.

And so thinking about post-COVID, the focus that we all came and the thesis we all had was simply the experience is going to matter than anything else. And how could we create a live event that is large-scale by nature that covers a large swath of the industry, but that creates an experience that you can't miss. Because if we could do that, we could connect people at the human level, which we hope will allow people to learn better, connect in more unique ways and foster relationships. And really, that's kind of the genesis behind future proof. So as we were thinking about getting the band back together and really going for something big, we learned what not to do. And we learned what we didn't like doing

and not just us, but people went to conferences not to see somebody on stage who they could easily listen to from a podcast. The main draw is the people that are actually inside of our industry and the connections that we can make and learn and share and collaborate. So how did we lean into that idea in a way that is just a complete 180 that existed prior to COVID with the event space? Yeah, no, it's great. And I don't want to diminish the role of content in live events, but to your point, it is not the most important thing like it used to be. That's a pie chart, and that's not the main portion of the pie.

Correct. Yeah. So I mean, with us in Future Proof, from day one, we wanted to be different, right? We called it a festival, which in the industry when we announced it, it got a lot of people to scoff at and laugh, you know, or question it and we had no shortage of skeptics up until, you know, the event last year. And so with future proof, Matt, hand in the air. I, when you came up, came to us and said, we're going to do this in Huntington Beach. We have these hotels. We have this restaurant. It's going to be by the beach. When you told Michael and Josh and I

this, I was so excited. And then like my flight to the conference, I had a mini panic attack because I was thinking, wait, we've never done anything like this outside before. Is this really going to work? And then I got there. I was Tom Lee Bullitt. I was Tom Lee Bullish the entire time. I was like, I had like five minutes of Zublish. I had like five minutes of Zerohead and I told Michael this, but I, and then I got there and I saw everything and how it looked and how like amazing it was going to be. And I was, I quickly realized like, oh, this is going to work. But I mean, just the whole idea of having people speak outside and be on the beach and how in the sun and how that's going to work. I was like, wait, is this really going to work? And then it like, it just surpassed my wildest dreams. But did you have any thoughts of like, how are we going to pull this off? Yeah. I mean, look, I think the event transformed. way more than what we could have expected, one in a year one event, but two, just in general, right? I think we get a lot of credit for creating this, but it's the community that adopts it

and supports it and embraces it that really makes what we all experienced in 2022 and what will experience, you know, in two months in Huntington Beach. And so I think it's just the, it was it was the moment in time where people said, yes, I needed something different. And we were just the ones to say we could create something different. And so I do think there's a lot of nuance that we realized in running an outdoor festival than running in a hotel conference that we've worked through and we'll see some of those adjustments in 2023. But generally, yeah, I was certainly nervous the same way. It was just like this is something I've never done before. The traditional conference, whether it's wealth management or probably most other industries,

is you're in a hotel ballroom. And there's, sometimes it's, it's standing room only. And you're next to a friend and you have to whisper, right, if you're trying to communicate. And it's just, that's not, that's not why you're there. The best parts are in between the events. And listen, like I said, I'm super excited to see Cliff and God like. But there are other aspects of it. And so taking that where there's no windows and there's limited time to see your friends

and to learn about what they're up to, maybe do some business. Like, that was the focus. And so when we say that this is on the beach, it's literally, it's outdoors. What was it like getting all of the, I mean, it's in parking lots, right? So how did that process work out? Yeah, I mean, there was, so one, we had over 150, it's called third party vendors working to produce last year's event, we'll have even more this year. But it's everything from working with, you know, you're not working with one single hotel.

You're working with four. Now we're working with six properties for 2023. You're working to get permits with the city of Huntington Beach to use some of that public space. You're then working to create this space. I mean, everything is a blank canvas. And in one side, that is exciting and freeing. On the other side, it's really overwhelming because there's so much that could go wrong. that you don't typically encounter in a traditional, you know, event at a hotel.

And so, yeah, it's a lot. I mean, you know, our operations teams, you guys know, Lindsay and Co. I mean, they're the real magicians behind this orchestration. So, yeah, it's tough, I would say. I thought the stuff that we really got right last year, I thought was having the big stage right there and having that for Maine stuff, but also having the smaller breakout stages and the live podcast booth. I thought it was genius to have the food trucks

because every other comments I've been to before has been, all right, at noon, everyone's going to have lunch, and you wait in line at a buffet, or they bring it out to you, and everyone eats at the same time. Instead, this, you could kind of graze. I thought the food trucks was amazing. You guys shared with us one of the new food trucks coming, which is, I think, going to blow people away,

and it's going to be awesome. So I thought all that stuff, having the social areas was great. What are some of the things? Because it was an amazing event, but we realized, like, there are some things around the edges that could be improved after living the experience. So what are some things that are going to be a little different this year that's going to make it even better?

well yeah like we learned a lot right i mean just sheer shading free space for people to to hang if they want to break away from content or people or networking what have you and just do some work or answer a call you know having more space where you actually do not have to leave the outdoor area to go back to a hotel to do um more fans and cooling areas definitely something you know we've learned uh more spf sunblock certainly for that was that was a busy tent The Riddholz sunblock tent last year, right? Yeah, but I think it's more so of not like the festival operations. I think it's important to kind of set the stage of what does art industry standard event look like

and what does future proof do to combat, you know, those, I guess, challenges. And so one, think about it. You have an event that, to Michael's point earlier, it's forced. Everything about it is forced. Do you have structure where there is certain rooms you have to go into? Most advisors in our space are spammed way before the event, and so they try to avoid the trade show floor at all cost. Vendors are sitting there trying to hand out fact sheets and business cards,

and it feels this very forced and inorganic way to meet people to connect with the industry. On the other side, you're then forced with content for eight to nine hours a day, in various rooms, and you're constantly dangling carrots for attendees to do the things you want to do as an organizer. And what we did, as you pointed out, Ben, with future proof was we didn't have structured times for food. There's food for five hours a day. Go eat when you want.

If you want to grab a snack, great. If you want to sit down and have a proper lunch, we have that too. Hey, we have these content sessions. They're far ranging in topics and people. not everything's going to be applicable for you, but that is fine. Go peruse and find the areas that are most exciting. Pop in and out because there's no actual rooms that you're going into. Oh, and then we'll have over 150 vendors from all parts of the ecosystem.

Go and join them. But instead of having awkward exhibit spaces, create more inviting meeting spaces in the form of cabanas, where you could pop in and have a conversation but don't feel like you're getting pitched. And so thinking about really what's wrong with the traditional model and changing that is really how we created Future Proof. And I think most people that having experienced or still experienced that traditional model came to Future Proof and we're wowed for that. And a lot of people say, oh, it's the sun. It's the beached backdrop. And that's all true.

But I do think it's the mini elements and activities that really make Future Prove special and got us such a high ranking in terms of customer satisfaction. Matt, what are some of the things, aside from like the little things, you mentioned, like, we need more shade, we need more sunblock from my bald head, we need maybe more direction in terms of who's on stage when, like, okay, we're working through that. What are some of the things that are going to look markedly different this year that maybe weren't there last year that you're really excited about? Yeah, so we've incorporated a breakthrough, which is going to be the wealth management industry's largest meetings program. So, things about it, or if you could envision this, an acre-long space dedicated to pre-scheduled one-to-one meetings. So we're going to host over 10,000 meetings in those spaces. We have no conflict in terms of other activities going on at these times. So we structure it where it's a part of the agenda and the program. No content will be on stages.

Nothing else will be going on. It's really dedicated to allow people to meet with each other, discover new solutions and technologies and really grow. I think the biggest issue that events have once they get to a certain size is a lot of people go because it's the thing to do, but they actually are leaving the event with the lack of ROI or wondering, I didn't meet anyone new. And that sounds counter to what you're saying, right? Because the larger of the event, you should be meeting more people.

But human nature is larger the event, you find your tribe, which is usually people you know, and you hang out with them, whether that's, you know, during, in the day or scheduled dinners. And so, yes, you're strengthening relationships, but you're actually not expanding your relationships. And this is a B2B event. Our focus here is to connect people to allow from an advisor perspective, allow you to grow, allow you to recruit, allow you to retain employees. And then, you know, thinking about how do you facilitate that? Well, no one likes to be spammed before the event on LinkedIn, in email, right? The more the sponsors, the more attendees, the more emails, non-solicited emails you receive. It's everyone gets it. It's a,

it's a horrible thing to have. And so what we did is with breakthrough. Matt, I'm still getting those emails from an event that I was at three months ago. Yes, exactly. Circleing back. Yeah, I get it too as an event organizer and I attend a lot of events, right? I'll get them from, you know, sales folks at product providers. I'm like, hey, did you ever look at my website? I am not your client. I think the thing that helps make it not seem so much of a like transactional and just more of a meeting and talking is the fact that it's so much more laid back. People aren't wearing suits and ties. There might have been a few people that showed up last year and they quickly realized like, oh, people are in shorts and comfortable here. Michael

and I are in Hawaiian shirts where, you know, people are in T-shirt. And so it's a little more laid back and you don't feel like there's a transaction. And even with the vendors, a lot of the vendors last year got really creative. There were surfboards and skateboards and someone had a bar at that, you know, so it was more outdoor and there was tents and stuff. And I think the vendors will probably get more creative this year, too, now that they've actually seen. Because I'm talking for a lot of them, they realize, like, oh, we get it now that we can see it. And now we understand. And I think they'll get more creative. So it doesn't feel like as a transactional in nature. And those meetings don't feel like you're being sold to something.

It's more of a conversation. I think that helps too. But Matt, with breakthrough, how are you, how is that, how does that come together? Like, why? So I'm an advisor, or if I were an advisor, why would I get, why would I donate my time? for, what am I getting for that? Yeah, so there's two parts to this, right? So breakthrough meeting program, facilitating 10,000 meetings across the entire ecosystem. We basically put this as a benefit for all attendees. They can participate in it to, again, like I mentioned, meet new people, you know, meet

with the colleagues, whatever it is, helps facilitate. So we provide an interface for these folks a month before the event. They could see everyone who's attending. There's no messaging. none of the cringe stuff that happens before events or the things that are just time wasted are built in. It's really simply, here's this company, here's these individuals, do you want to meet with this person yes or no?

And then the other side, similar to it's like a dating app, you're met with that request, and you could decide if you want to accept that or not. And then the magic is that it coordinates, a series of workflows coordinates that meeting on site. So that is the meetings program. There's a component of this, which is called hosted program.

And this is to an incentivization model for both advisors and the industry. And so for advisors, you could come to this event in our hosted program and get a free ticket plus a $750 travel reimbursement to participate in up to eight meetings with select industry participants. Now, the important piece here is this isn't like your timeshare model.

This is enforced engagement. You are basically accepting that you will look at these companies, and if any of them are interesting to you, you'll take that meeting. And so, again, whether you take two, one, or up to the eight, it doesn't matter. You're still provided that, you know, free ticket and credit. Wait, hold on, Matt, I want to be very clear that we're not misleading anybody. Do you have to do a minimum of eight, or what exactly do you have to do in order to get a free ticket and the $750 voucher?

What exactly do you have to do to get that? Yeah, so there is no forced engagement. So you don't have to do anything to get it. You basically have to agree that you will look to get that. So, Michael, example, you sign up for this. You get a free ticket. You get up to $750 travel reimbursement. You now go and fill out a profile in Breakthrough.

At that point, you're met with over 250 solution providers that, in theory, you might want to meet with. you select companies that you are interested in based on what they say in terms of their products and services being offered. Let's say in the rare chance that there is zero companies that you care to meet with there, you don't have to, you're not forced to take a meeting. You now still could use breakthrough to meet with other folks like other advisors. Maybe you're looking to grow, maybe you're looking to acquire businesses, what have you, several different use cases there.

So I could use, so I could use breakthrough just as a meeting spot to meet somebody else? Yes, that is really what it's for. It's to make your time on site more efficient, allow you to discover people that aren't in your group of people and technologies of solutions. Now, am I going to be under the sun? Do I need extra sunscreen? Or what does this look like? No. So we have a full acre, long area dedicated to space, as I mentioned. We're fully covered, fully fanned and cooled. So we're going to have, I mean, imagine this literally a car. carnival style tent where 800 tables are sitting under and every 15 minutes over the course of three, you know, daily segments, you have your meetings. And I mean, quite literally, you have a shot

clock. Yeah, we have a shot clock. So like on that 15th minute, that shot clock rings, the alarm goes off and you have 90 seconds to get to your next table. And so it's, it's, I don't want to say speed dating. Well, it's speed dating where you select the date. It is. Yes, it's highly qualified speed dating, if you will. So there's no quotas, but I think we should highly recommend people have to buy an Animal Spirit's Tropic Brother's shirt if they want to go. Yes, for sure. That's fair.

Did you guys sell out already? I was going to actually buy mine when I saw it on Instagram. We sold out once, and now we got a new shipment in to be better getting fast because they're going quick again. We did restock. We have to have a future-proof capsule. I know, yes. Yes, that would be nice. Anything else that we missed that we wanted to talk about? I think one of my favorite parts about conferences is honestly, Michael and I have been to a number of them in the past year or so,

and I think one of the funniest parts about conferences is that you know that there's a handful of people that literally go to every single one of them, right? That these people, this is like part of their job or they just love it, and they have like the conference circuit down. They know how to schmooze with people. They know what bars and restaurants to go to? They know where to get drinks.

What's the first thing that somebody says to somebody else at the conference? Oh, the icebreaker that everyone always says, I always laugh at this, is when did you get in? Right? You have to ask someone that at a conference, and no one cares what the answer is, right? Yes. Everyone asks that at a conference.

So when did you get in? Oh, I got in at 3 a.m. Oh, hold your flowers. That's the typical conference icebreaker. Here's what we did not mention, that I think I sold this short for the first year. The live music, we had Big Boy on, and I was like, oh, cool.

I like Outcast. holy moly that was so much fun so much fun and this year we've got Methaman and Red Man and I gotta be honest my knowledge of their music is not where

I mean I remember like Outkest was enormous I knew all the hits I got to polish up in my Methaman and Red Man stuff I don't even know what to expect I don't know their biggest hits yeah I gotta be honest too

I mean I had a similar view last year so John yeah like John handles the music. And so when we went out, the festival, by the way. Yeah, absolutely. So we went out with like the festival model. I was like, you handle the music. And obviously he works close with Josh on that. And so even when they started setting up on that Tuesday, I was like, holy shit, this is like a real concert. So it shocked me as well. But yeah, it was amazing. I think meth men and Redman are going to be pretty legendary if you think about the age dynamics of

our audience. And surprisingly, we ask every single person at registration, what is your favorite genre of music? Yeah. Yeah. What type of booze? But the age thing is important, too, because this has to be easily the youngest conference attendees that I've ever been to in terms of, like, average or median age. It has to be. You know what's interesting? I think last year, it definitely felt that way. Well, look, the average age in our industry is 57. The average age of the event attendee was not 57 last year. It's got to be closer to 45-ish, whatever, whatever it is. It's mid-30s to late 40s, I would say, is our sweet spot.

I think we're seeing a lot more mature, if that's the polite way to say it, mature folks in our space now be aware of it. I think with the colors, the festival name, how we were very loud with our promotions before experience it probably turned off a lot of those more conservative or reserved folks. But now it's something that you just can't miss each and every year. Well, that's such a good point. Listen, we have a ton of fun at the event, but it's not just a party. People don't take time out of their very busy week, away from their family, fly across

a country for no reason. They're getting something out of it, and it's not just fun. These are forward-thinking advisors that want to stay on top of the latest and greatest and want to stay engaged, and that's who's in the audience. Yeah, I mean, the one thing, you know, the one critique I think we got last year from media and others, which couldn't be further from the truth, was it's a younger, junior audience. That's not true. And younger is true, but junior is completely wrong.

I mean, looking at the numbers now, you know, we'll have over 3,000 people there. Right now we have, you know, 60% are C-level executives at these firms. Right. Right. So these are the decision makers. It's an impressive group of people, yeah. Yeah, they're just not the gray-haired folks that may have started that firm. And what you're thinking about and what we're trying to solve here with future proof, right? There's the festival and the music and the cultural movements, which get a lot of the attention, rightfully so.

But at the core, what are we trying to do? We're trying to solve for advisors' issues around growth, recruitment, retention, and optics. And I want to spend just one second on optics because most people and most events are very insulated, right? You bring, you know, group of people focus either on like investment or practice management or technology. And what we did is said, like, let's break down all those barriers and let's create an event that very much feels like a consumer-focused event. The reason being is because we want to help with industry optics. When you look across all these surveys, whether you, you know, validate them or not, most of these surveys, from a trust standpoint, financial services, investment managers, financial planners, right?

You go on and on, they lack trust from the everyday person. How do we become more relatable as an industry to the people we serve? And I think future proof allows folks to be part of that, stay aware of what's going on in like the pop culture world, but also learn how to expand their business, hence future proof themselves and their business for the next 10 years. Matt, you mentioned culture. I think what we're going to see a lot of this year, is groups of advisors who work together, coming out together, to sort of use it as an offsite,

right? Like, there's going to be a lot more of that. Last year, we saw, you know, one person, two person from the same firm. I think we're going to see groups taking over the space this year. Yeah. I mean, that's a great point. What we're seeing is really a lot these, what we call them team packs. But, yeah, it's an opportunity for folks to highlight the work that some of their, you know,

staff does each and every year and celebrate them. It's a way for national teams to come together in person. It's a way for different functions in the firms to come together and learn and network. Example of that is, you know, we have a lot of folks that are bringing the entire C-suite. So see, it's not just, you know, the CIOs or the CEOs, you know, the CTOs. You're seeing COOs. You're seeing heads of recruitment come because the sheer volume of advisors that are there. It's a huge opportunity for folks. And so we don't really try to create the narrative of this is the only reason why you should attend or we only serve this function of your firm. It's ever evolving.

And what we are seeing is, you know, large groups from, you know, big firms and smaller firms come together to, you know, share in this kind of a celebratory moment. Well, Matt, I can't, I can't wait. I know I speak for all of us here. We are so, so, so excited. I just got excited again talking about it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. If people want to attend, but they haven't gotten a ticket yet, where can we send them? Futureproof.advisor circle.com.

All right, Matt. We'll see you in 50-some odd days. Awesome. Thanks, guys.