Ed Dressel  0:07 
Welcome everybody to another podcast with RetireReady Solutions and Grow Retire Ready clients. I have the privilege of being with Josh Richardson today, and it's just a lot of fun. Josh, thanks for joining me. I had the funniest way of meeting you. You called me last, I think May or June.

Josh Richardson  0:23 
Correct

Ed Dressel  0:23 
And do you remember what you asked me?

Josh Richardson  0:26  
Yeah, what is TRAK and how can I get it.

Ed Dressel  0:29 
Which is not the way I start most conversations. I was a little shocked to actually ask Josh. So tell me a little bit more for the listener today who is thinking, this is always value added. This is not going to be--it's going to be, how is TRAK used in the sales setting? We're going to focus on that a little bit more than just kind of talking about the industry. So if you're not interested in that, you can transition out. I don't want to be too salesy without it saying up front, I don't intend to be. But Josh, you called because another advisor in your team, Norwood, was the number one salesperson, and tell me a little bit about that conversation you had with him.

Josh Richardson  1:03 
So Norwood--I would like give a little history here. I'm two years into it. So being a college athlete, all the things I'm very competitive, very competitive. So when I keep seeing this gentleman who's been doing it for years and years and years--I'm talking about 20 plus years--he's just always on top, number one on our leader boards, no matter what category: single flex life, things of that nature. And when, the time when I started, nobody told me about TRAK, you know, a year and a half into it, I'm doing numbers by hand. I'm trying to figure out how to show people their pension, trying to understand how their pensions work. Details going online, doing a lot a lot of research. And finally, we had a kickoff event for the company that we work for, Sterling. And I finally had a chance to talk to Mr. Norwood. He's out of California. So I finally got a chance to sit in front of him. And it shocked me his age, how old he is and what he is doing. So I was like, man, this is there's got to be there's got to be a tool, there's got to be something that I'm missing. And when I finally asked that, he laughed, and he said, TRAK, baby. That's all what you need to know, T R A K. Go, call it go, look it up. That's enough said. You'll thank me later. So I was like, man, I knew it. I knew there's something that this guy is doing different from what I did. And so after the convention, we got home, and that led to my phone call with you, saying, hey, what's TRAK and how can I get this. Tell me. Mr. Norwood didn't tell me anything about it. He just said it's something you needed in this business if you want to be successful.

Ed Dressel  2:39 
So let's back up. We'll go back there in a little bit. That was a lot of fun. The conversation puts a smile on my face every time I remember it. And I had the pleasure of meeting Norwood. He's so kicked back and relaxed and a musician at heart, you could the soon as you see him, you go, I bet you he's a musician. And not your typical aggressive salesperson. And you're not overly aggressive. You're the competitive person that anybody looking for a salesperson is going to hire. And let's, let's back up a little bit. You're from Lubbock, Texas and been in the financial planning world two years. You're working for Sterling National Financial Group. What did you do before you got to Sterling?

Josh Richardson  3:15  
Very good question. So I did multiple things. So I went to college and wanted to be an accountant. I took my test, CPA. I did CPA for about three or four years, taxes on the tax side of the world. I grew up in San Antonio. Met my wife in college. So that's how we got to Lubbock, Texas, West Texas, because it's where she's from. When you come to West Texas, there's only two things that you know: farm or oil. And me being the city boy that I was, I was at that time, I didn't know either. I didn't know nothing. So after I figured out that the CPA life wasn't for me, I went to farming. So I was the first in my family to farm in West Texas. That was an experience in itself. Did farming. Did that for quite a while. I stopped farming two years ago when I decided to go financial full time. I started a trucking company, helped my friend and started an oil field company that's been in all over the place. Did a lot of different things. Jack of all trades is, as they say, and it helped me learn. Helped me understand to what I wanted to do. What got me into this, Ed, was my wife is a teacher. She played college basketball as well. So when she came out, she wanted to be a girl's basketball coach. She did that for many, many years, until she found out that she wanted to do something more. So she became a principal. What I'm getting at is, when she became a principal, and we got to talk about retirement, we got to talk about a lot of things. She didn't know. She didn't know anything about her pension. She didn't know how it worked, she didn't know what it's going to look like. She didn't know the minimums or the maximums or anything of that nature. So I sat there and I got to wonder, how many other people are like this, just like my wife. No offense to her or anything, they just got their hands full doing many other different things. And, come to find out, there's a lot of people in education world that don't know what they're doing. So, long story short, I got into, I think the place was called Family First, Trust--big people that did life insurance, just mortgage protection, things of that nature. Two, I got with Tim or Christian who has worked through Sterling. They're looking to hire new folks two years ago, and that's where I am today. Got on and Scott Bell, who's the owner of Sterling Financial. His story is phenomenal, how he got started. His mother was a teacher, and helped her understand her pension. So he created this company about 15 years ago, and it lined line it up for what I wanted to do. So it just, it all came together. And with TRAK it makes it's a perfect marriage. So it all worked out great.

Ed Dressel  5:49 
That's fun. Now, the conversation, as I recall, like Norwood was the number one sales person, and you were trying to figure out, how do I beat this guy?

Josh Richardson  5:58 
Correct.

Ed Dressel  5:59  
And you called me and said, what's TRAK and how do I get it.

Josh Richardson  6:02  
Correct.

Ed Dressel  6:02 
 And then I had the pleasure of being down with your conference, and it was August, I believe.

Josh Richardson  6:07 
August of last year, yes, sir, 2025.

Ed Dressel  6:11 
And just had the funnest time. It's one of the funnest presentations I've ever had, because I didn't have to talk. I just let you guys. We talked a little bit, but it was all conversation from the floor, and I didn't have to sell it. You guys were saying how much fun it was to use it and to use it with a client. Because I think it's, you know, it's fun to sit with a teacher and say, let me tell you what you have.

Josh Richardson  6:27 
Right.

Ed Dressel  6:28 
Let me tell you how well you're taking care of because most of them don't have a clue. And it puts a smile on your face. And then they say, but I want to retire at 60. Let's  talk about how to get you there, or whatever the moving parts are for the person you're in front of a lot of people. It's sort of like finding out that your house isn't the biggest asset you have, your pension plan is. And it shocks people very pleasantly. It's like, oh my gosh, I got some good news today, and I hear that over and over. Tell me, when you sit down with a prospect client, you had a process before. What did that look like? And how did you work with a client, prior to TRAK?

Josh Richardson  7:05 
Yeah. Prior to TRAK, right prior to, I know about the one thing about TRAK. I did everything by hand, which took a lot of time before our second meeting, is what we call it. You know, our first meeting, we figure out what they want, where they're at when they want to retire--things of that nature. Which leads us to our second meeting, where we come back to where they understand their pension. And in order for us to understand their pension, we literally had to go online, find the handbook, read it, understand it. Once I understood it, I created an Excel spreadsheet and put everything in manually and let it all code it for us. It took us hours before a meeting for the planning and to do everything for us--the partial lump sum, or the lump sum. We had to do everything by hand, by the percentage,  by the handbook. So, you know, I'm grateful for it in the beginning, because we understand how the pension works in that state we were running. But it took a long time, and then I wasn't able to show all the years before and after, when they desire retire date, as we call it. I was only showing one or two, so at that time, that educator, that client, didn't get the full benefits or understanding of what if I do work four or five years longer. They don't understand if the benefit of doing it or not. So my sales were still good, don't get me wrong, but it was a lot harder work, a lot more time consuming. I wasn't using my time the best that it could, because I was doing so much prework by hand.

Ed Dressel  8:43  
Now let's talk about the client experience. What happened in the client experience back then? You've got two meetings and you're showing up on Excel spreadsheet. How was that at that time?

Josh Richardson  8:54  
I didn't know any different, right? So I'm putting everything in Excel spreadsheet and put everything in PowerPoints, trying to jazz it up as best as we can. But the end of the day, it looked like I put an Excel spreadsheet--looks like somebody put on PowerPoint. So the professionalism was the best at that time that I knew. I didn't know any different. I knew it could be better, because here we are trying to be professionals, and we're looking like somebody that did it in the back of his office, putting together a slideshow real quick. But the value--we still presented the value--what they needed to know. You know, we did the best we could at that time that I knew what was out there.

Ed Dressel  9:36 
So then you called me, I think it was in June, May or June, last year.

Josh Richardson  9:40 
Yep.

Ed Dressel  9:40 
And you said, "What's TRAK and how do I get it?" And I said, Tell me what the--I've never had that as a lead line from a salesperson. You picked it up pretty quick, and I know by August, you were off and running with it. It didn't take you very long to adopt.

Josh Richardson  9:56  
 No, sir.

Ed Dressel  9:57 
And what tell me about that process. How did that--what is the process now when you work with a client?

Josh Richardson  10:04 
The process now is 100%--I would say 95% of when we go in the second meeting, it we use TRAK. I mean, I use TRAK every time on the second meeting. What I'm getting at is 95% where we go to the next situation or the next topic, it's because of TRAK and the numbers that TRAK put out the presentation. That TRAK puts out the reports that we send to our clients that are phenomenal, top top notch reports, professional reports. When we get to the graphs or the spreadsheets that you guys put out--it's all right there in one spot. They're seeing five years after a couple years before, if they want to do the parcel lump sum option or one leave them as a beneficiary. What does that cost? Right? When we were doing it before TRAK, that's something we couldn't offer because we didn't know the rules. We didn't know that it changed all the time. So TRAK already had that built in. So it was another step a process that we could talk about--beneficiaries, what does that cost? Pension Max, as most people say. So when we go through that first page values at different ages, they see, oh man, I got to work more. Oh man, this ain't what I thought or, holy moly, I got to do better! Most of the time, now, when we show these to our clients, do I get the answer, man, this is good. I don't need to make any more. It's always the opposite. It's always, holy moly, you are correct. My gap is big. What can we do? So it sells itself. All you got to do is present. Let them see it. Numbers don't lie, right? And then you have retirement. The other thing that we show is retirement values or retirement. Forgive me that it's leaving me, but it tells them, if you if you start today, this is x what you need to start putting away. If you wait 12 months, this is what you need to put away. Lump sum today, or lump sum at retirement. It speaks for itself. So you don't get the questions anymore. Am I doing enough? Well, here are the numbers, according to your goals, what you want to make per month in retirement. This is what you're going to make in retirement, but it speaks for itself.

Ed Dressel  12:21 
So I like a lot there, and I want to talk about a couple things there, the process. So you have a first meeting where you gather data.

Josh Richardson  12:27 
Yeah. We call the introduction, yes, sir.

Ed Dressel  12:30 
And what? What does that meeting look like?

Josh Richardson  12:32 
It just so the client or the educator books the appointment. Okay, we don't reach out to them. We're not cold calling. The client books the appointment. So then comes onto our schedule. So they're knowing, hey, we're gonna talk about pension, we're gonna talk about taxes, we're gonna talk about all the things you need to know in retirement. So when we, when we start this meeting, we ask the question, what led you here today? And they always say, I wanna know my retirement. I wanna know my pension. I wanna know if I'm doing enough. Great. What we call this is a retirement analysis. We're gonna go through, we're going--I'm going to ask you some noninvasive questions to help me understand what your goals are, what you're trying to get done, what do you have already to help you reach your goals? What don't you have that can be a financial risk that you're not aware of? And we're going to talk about many different things. Conversation takes about 15 to 20, minutes. By the end of that conversation, they understand what we're trying to get done, what we're going to accomplish, and that we're going to schedule other meetings here going forward. But there's other means.  There are going to be Zooms, where I'm going to share my screen, and you're going to see your numbers in great detail, and you're going to have lots of questions, and based on your questions, we're going to move forward. That leads our path. How do you want to move forward? And that's where TRAK comes in.

Ed Dressel  13:43 
So when you're working in that second meeting and they're asking questions, is that an interactive meeting with TRAK? Do you-are you like changing TRAK to adjust--to answer questions that they have?

Josh Richardson  13:53 
I adjust on the fly, if, just in case, if they see they want to retire at 60 and they will say, okay, what's 67 because TRAK only goes about four years out or five. I readjust the retirement age so they can see all the way up to 67 or 70, right there on the spot, so they understand the benefit of working to that time, among other things.

Ed Dressel  14:14  
And how does that change the client experience?

Josh Richardson  14:17 
One hundred percent. Because we're professional. We have a program here that we're using. It's not like, hey, give me a moment. Let me do some math. And they see me on the calculator and they're like, "How much trust do they have a man with a calculator and a pencil?" Easily, I could put the wrong decimal or wrong comma wrong place somewhere else. When you have a program that--and we tell them--we have a program that we use, that knows every pension in the United States. It gets updated every year when the pensions are updated. It does it for us. So this is how we know. We are very confident in the answers that you provide us. Now we're using your numbers, but based on your numbers, we're very confident what this looks like based on the programs and your pension for that state.

Ed Dressel  15:00 
What is your client's comments after a meeting with them?

Josh Richardson  15:03 
This is more. This is more than they expected. This is so professional. So clean. So easy to understand.

Ed Dressel  15:12 
And now you're working with the team. You're helping Scott lead Sterling National. What role does TRAK play? I know there's other software out there. How does it work with you? What do you guys--what's its value to your advisor team?

Josh Richardson  15:26  
Very good question. So another manager, managing partner that I work with is Mindy. Her and I, we see things eye to eye. We lined up pretty good. So we make it a standard. We make it a requirement that every new agent that we bring on know what TRAK is. They understand TRAK. And they must use TRAK because of the success of everybody that we have shown before--my success, and everybody else that I've taught to use it and the success they're seeing in the company. It's a night and day difference from the ones who are using TRAK and the ones who are not using TRAK. And so when we make it a requirement, everybody sees the benefit of it because they thought because they worked for other companies beforehand, that they don't have to do it by hand, or use chat GPT, or anything of those natures to help them figure out that pension. There's a software that does it for us, and it's pretty, pretty accurate.

Ed Dressel  16:20 
What would you tell the advisor that's using TRAK but not in every meeting or is not using TRAK?

Josh Richardson  16:25 
What I would tell them is, one, you don't have the client best service in mind. We're here for the client. We're here to put them in a better situation with what we know. Make sure they know all the knowledge. I would say TRAK is very up to date. Their software, very up to date in the rules for that state and that pension, and it's our job to help them understand so they leave with no questions unanswered. And then the second: you're leaving a lot of money on the table, as you being the agent with the potential things you can create of income for yourself. You're leaving a lot of money on the table.

Ed Dressel  16:58  
Has using TRAK helped you with clients, referrals, tremendously, and what does that look like?

Josh Richardson  17:04 
Because the reports that we can create at the end, we always get the question, Can I have this? Can I get this? I said, ma'am, or sir, I'll send you a detailed report at the end of this meeting. So when they understand, when that happens, I'll download that report in front of them. It's a 13 page report, 15 page report. There's different things that I show. And it's professional with a table of contents, cover sheet. It's very professional. So when we send that to them, they see us being very professional. And the referral process or introductions--that's what we call it here at Sterling--it comes very easy because of the representation that that TRAK does and the reports and the information they get out of it, but also how we tell them the information so they understand what their retirement is looking like.

Ed Dressel  17:56  
Probably the biggest complaint I get as the company owner out there, selling out there, telling people about TRAK is, oh, it's not sophisticated enough. You need to make it more complicated. You need to add more sophistication, more details. What would your comment be to people that aren't using TRAK and say, boy, I wish it had all this more. You know, it's not E money. What would your thoughts be on somebody saying something like that?

Josh Richardson  18:20 
I don't know what more information, when it comes to a pension, I don't know what more information that you need. You cover every aspect of it. You do Pension Max. You cover the paycheck. How you know, are they putting enough away in a traditional 403(b) using the paycheck option and your the features when you have. I think people who say that, they don't understand all the options that TRAK has available to them, because you cover every basis, and then some. You truly do. Not only do you cover the pensions of an educator, you cover federal employees too. I think the people who say that, my personal opinion, they never gave TRAK a chance to really sit down and go through all the trainings of every aspect, every option that you offer, because they wouldn't be saying statements like that.

Ed Dressel  19:08 
This has been fun.

Josh Richardson  19:09  
It's been great. I appreciate the opportunity. You know, personally, TRAK has changed the path of where I am in this company. Like I said, I'm only two years in it. When I first started, I was low man on the totem pole, and I was new. And the success that I'm having in Sterling, it's 100% tied to TRAK since I've been using it. My family has been noticing. My career has taken off. I have more responsibilities now in Sterling, the clients are happier. That's most important. And we're not losing clients because of what we're showing them. They have a complete understanding of where they're currently at. And most importantly, what do they need to do to keep that lifestyle they're accustomed to in retirement? That's the major thing. These educators, these clients, didn't work this hard and learn and be accustomed to a lifestyle just to give it up because they didn't understand or they haven't been properly educated to "hey, your pension is not enough." You got to do more, especially today, because today the world is so much more expensive, and all what you need to do is make a phone call and we can help you understand that and help you show you ways that could possibly get you back to the lifestyle that you want. So in all, in all, Ed, I appreciate TRAK. I'm one of the biggest advocates that's out there. I'm sure you see all the new people that are coming, signing up. They're asking you questions all the time. I push TRAK as if it was my own. So I'm grateful for it. I wouldn't be out being I wouldn't be today without it. It's a big success, reason why I am today. So I appreciate you.

Ed Dressel  20:49 
Well, Josh it has been great having you. This has been a fun interview. I still remember that conversation, "What's TRAK and how do I get it?" And then being down with Sterling, that was just a delight, a lot of fun. So I wish you all the success, and hope Sterling and you guys continue to grow. And look forward to hearing about how you're helping a lot of people get comfortable with retirement. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for your time today.

Josh Richardson  21:12 
You're welcome Same here. Thank you.