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If you start at the very top and say, all right, I understand that there are advantages to the structure and the independence and the true ownership that you can have of an RIA.
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So you start there and say, All right, I love all that, but with the help of DPL, you're there's no butt.
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There's not, but I'm giving away this, or but I'm gonna lose my trails on that.
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Okay.
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It takes the butt out of the equation and allows you to get your cake and eat it too.
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Hear how this firm used DPL's tools and technology to make the transition to independence.
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You're listening to Advisor Revelations.
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Welcome to Advisor Revelations Podcast.
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I'm Mike Carmody, Vice President of National Accounts at DPL Financial Partners.
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Today we will discuss leveraging DPL's technology to guide the path to independence.
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We're joined by Ray Gettins, executive partner with United Advisor Group, an independent RIA platform that unites top advisors under a single-tier partnership model.
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Thanks for taking the time to join us today.
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Thanks, Mike.
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Appreciate having me on.
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Excited to be here.
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Before we start our discussion, I want to remind our listeners to please subscribe to this podcast on your favorite streaming app for updates.
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If anything we talk about today interests you, be sure to contact a DPL consultant on our website at dplfp.com.
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Right?
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To help our listeners understand your firm, your experience, can you tell us a bit more about yourself and your role at UAG?
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Yeah, Mike, appreciate you asking.
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So United Advisor Group is a truly independent RIA.
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We are actually owned by the advisors.
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There is no broker dealer.
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There is no private equity.
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When we evaluate all types of product, we try to do it on as level a playing field as possible.
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So I think the true independent structure of our group really allows us to bring a very unbiased and, like I said, a true due diligence to everything that we do.
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Thanks, Ray.
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Let's go ahead and get into our topic for the podcast today.
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First question I have is consolidation continues to reshape the RA world today.
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Merger and acquisition activity for the first half of 2025 included close to 200 deals with 183 billion in AUM changing hands.
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This flurry of activity has some advisors beginning to evaluate their next steps, and if going independent is a good fit for that.
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From UAG's perspective, what are some of the biggest myths regarding independence advisors must deal with?
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Oh wow, that's a loaded question, my friend.
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No, in all seriously, I think it starts with a uh a belief that bigger makes you better, safer, gives you more choices.
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And obviously we're biased, but I think that's not really the case.
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I think because of where technology has come, because of how so many of the top-tier firms, not only in the investment world, but in the insurance and annuity world, are now looking at it and saying, hey, some of the advisors that we want to work with, some of the advisors that are that truly take the professional approach to the business, are migrating towards the RIA or RIA only channel.
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So number one is to be direct about it.
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Bigger isn't necessarily better.
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Number two is that everything's the same.
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And that's not true.
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While no one loves the regulators, the FINRA model is much more difficult for the average advisor to operate under, to follow, to meet the product design, the kind of solutions they're looking for for their client, as opposed to the true SEC model.
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That's the second one.
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But I think the third one is really looking at it from a uh a compliance standpoint.
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If you understand that compliance breaks into two pieces.
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One is the actual compliance structure, and the other is the compliance personnel, the experience and the expertise.
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And when I say structure, that's building out a system.
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We all understand why a CRM works really well.
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It allows us to do things on schedule, to stay on top of what needs to happen.
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Take that same kind of approach when you're thinking of compliance.
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You know there's certain things you got to do every month, every quarter, every year.
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And if you put a good system in place for that, just follow the system.
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Just like you wake up in the morning and see what's on my to-do list on my CRM.
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And then you want some experts there.
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You want somebody you can pick up the phone and call.
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And unfortunately, there's a lot of firms out there that
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get that, that are really truly independent, that work and focus with the RAA.
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So, Michael, long-winded answer to the question, but it really is.
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It's the uh bigger isn't necessarily better.
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It's the looking at the SEC regulations fit most advisors much better, and it's a much smarter system to operate under.
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And then the final one is really looking at compliance in a in a rational way, not just being terrified of the next audit.
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Absolutely.
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You're just playing off of that, Ray.
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Whenever you consider looking at DPL and how we partner with UAG and other firms in the space, you hit on FINRA, you hit on compliance.
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Great part of the partnership that DPL brings to these firms, helps satisfy some of those things.
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We still deal with the FINRA, we deal with the red tape, take that off your hands as the RIA and the advisor.
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And then secondarily, when it comes to the compliance, we have tools that are out there today through the DPLFP.com site that you can leverage to help make sure that you're getting the best fit of a product for annuities to your client.
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Focus solely on their goals.
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So if it's a good fit for the client, great, we're able to help fulfill that for you.
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And right with our partnership, it's another way that we continue to look to take care of our advisors so they don't have to deal with offenders, so they don't have to worry about the compliance standards that come with that.
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Well, Michael, and and you know, kind of tell you what you already know and share with the other listeners and so forth, is you talk about that kind of ability to compare one annuity product to another, one living benefit to another.
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You guys give us the best of both worlds.
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You need to play catch up over the weekend, you've got access to the website.
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If you want to talk to somebody about it, you've got folks that are incredibly responsive.
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I know our guys in our group have been talking to Hunter Landis quite a bit lately, and it's 180 this, I got this from Hunter, I got that from Hunter.
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So you decide how you want to get that evaluation data, how you want that.
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So you make absolutely certain you're getting the best solution for your clients.
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Moving on to the second question here.
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How does UAG leverage its partnership with DPL to attract and onboard independent-minded advisors?
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It goes back
to our structure.
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Literally, we are an RIA only.
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And I think a lot of folks, when they hear RIA only, they think I'm giving up all of the stuff I used to do on the broker dealer side.
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What am I gonna do with my 529 plans?
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What am I gonna do with all my old variable annuities?
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What am I gonna do with the trail commissions that I used to have and so forth?
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And what we've done with the advisors that have come over is literally kind of laid out to the guys, all right, there's a plan A and a plan B.
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So plan A is this you're gonna sit down and give DPL in a very secure way two pieces of information or plug it into the website, two pieces of information.
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What's the age of the client?
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Why are they focused on death benefit?
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Are they focused on living benefit?
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In other words, what solution are we trying to find?
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And a lot of times that may be the exact same solution it was when they opened that variable annuity five years ago, seven years ago, whatever, three years ago, doesn't matter.
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So you look at it and say, all right, is now a good time for us to find something that's better, okay?
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More income, better death benefit, more income in five years, whatever the case might be, and to be able to leverage your guys' work on that, the monitoring that you guys do on that piece.
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So that's plan A.
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And what we've seen is we're going to see anywhere from 60 to 80 percent of the existing book of business simply we can do better for the client with what's available today.
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Then you look at, so what are we doing with the rest of it?
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Well, we're not leaving the cash on the table, guys.
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What we're doing with the rest of it then is then we look at it and say, all right, how do we work with DPL to continue to provide the that same annuity for our clients and integrate it into the same financial plan that it was integrated into before?
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Both of those solutions work very well.
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And at the end of the day, the clients are significantly better off either because they have a better annuity solution for that piece of their retirement picture or their their piece of the investment solution, or we're able to continue doing what we were doing before and integrate it into the new resources that we now have available as an independent RIA.
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Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head with that statement, right?
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Is the fact that we're able to a lot of advisors think that they don't have a way to bring these assets over and have a way to continue to get paid advisory fees on it, which is simply not true.
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It's something that we've been able to open up here at DPL and working with RA firms such as yourself at UAG to be able to essentially give these advisors that continuous revenue that they were used to in the world when they were living in the underneath the FENRO realm.
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Uh, with what we're able to do today and partnering with you all, it gives them that that safety and making sure that they can continue to put food on on their tables for their families, but also look from it from a standpoint hey, is there ways that we can actually improve the client situations with the information and technology we have today?
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There you go.
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You got it.
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Absolutely.
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Firms often tout the simplicity of using DPL's platform to help boost client satisfaction, retention, and fee-based revenue.
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To what extent has UAG affiliated advisors experienced this?
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What have those advisors said about the process?
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Yeah, two things on it.
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One is, like I said, it's hey, let's call it what it is.
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It's a heck of a lot easier to provide you guys with the age of the client and what we need as far as a living benefit goes or a death benefit goes, and have you do the homework on it.
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Okay?
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It just is.
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It's a great resource.
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Take advantage of it, guys.
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You don't need to be the expert.
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You don't need to call 15 different annuity companies, talk to 10 different wholesalers to figure out what I could have found out by simply plugging it into a website at 10 a.m.
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on a Saturday morning.
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Okay.
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That's number one.
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That's a given.
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When I say it's a given, I think it's terribly overlooked because it's an incredible time saver.
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So that's number one.
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Number two is then we look at it and we utilize Black Diamond for a reason.
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Not to get too deep into United Advisor Group, but each one of the firms that comprise this RAA are branded to their own firm.
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Okay, so they have their own logo, they have their own colors, they have how they want to structure their statements when they go to their clients.
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And working with DPL
allows them, them being the advisors, to integrate that fully with the client statements that go out.
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So now you don't have the situation of where you're like, well, this is all your brokerage stuff, and this is your feed-based stuff, and this is your insurance stuff.
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And then the client says, Well, can you put it on one piece of paper?
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Not really.
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Here, just well, Mr.
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Client, I got to be compliant.
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So you could add this all up if you wanted to.
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It is all fully integrated.
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And then once again, this goes back to that original point.
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The technology has moved so far that that whole integration works in the financial planning software.
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It works literally where you can drive those statements down to the an app on your phone so that the client always sees the entire full picture.
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And that's one of the biggest advantages of working with DPL is the resources they've dedicated to make sure that everything plugs cleanly and thoroughly into Black Diamond.
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Yeah, but yeah, we've done a lot of technology and a lot of work with Black Diamond to make sure that we can have that information flowing to advise to make sure that they have what they need at the touch of their hand, whether digitally through their apps or being online through their desktops.
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So a lot of work we've been trying to put out there to make your lives easier as well with the integrations we've been providing.
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Well, thank you, Ray.
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Any closing thoughts or comments on anything you'd like to mention?
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To go back and just kind of you know put the proverbial bow on the whole thing is what you're looking at is if you start at the very top and say, all right, I understand that there are advantages to the structure and the independence and the true ownership that you can have of an RIA.
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So you start there and say, All right, I love all that, but with the help of DPL, there's no but.
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There's not, but I'm giving away this, or but I'm gonna lose my trails on that.
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Okay.
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It takes the butt out of the equation and allows you to get your cake and eat it too.
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It really does.
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And it makes a heck of a lot of sense to be able to, like I said, operate under the SEC umbrella where it fits so much better to the way that we want to provide advice and a true financial plan to our clients.
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Thanks everyone for being with us today.
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And again, let's connect at dplfp.com and subscribe for more episodes anywhere you listen to podcasts.
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Thanks, Mike.
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Thank you.
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Thanks for listening.
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To hear more advisor revelations, go to dplfp.com and subscribe on your favorite podcast streaming app.