Welcome back to another episode of the IRA Cafe podcast! In this dynamic installment, Kyle Moody, Business Development Manager at American IRA, sits down with special guest Carter Wilcoxson, founder of Epic Services Company.

Carter shares his personal journey into estate and family succession planning, detailing how a family experience inspired him to launch Epic and make advanced estate planning accessible to everyday Americans, not just the ultra-wealthy. Together, Kyle and Carter discuss how Epic’s platform streamlines the process for advisors, attorneys, and clients, offering a one-stop shop approach and providing tools for professionals to simplify and modernize estate planning while strengthening their client relationships.

You’ll also learn about the integration of American IRA with Epic’s services, including how self-directed retirement accounts and charitable giving strategies can expand client options. Carter emphasizes the importance of values alongside financial legacy, encouraging clients to preserve their stories and wisdom for future generations. Whether you are an advisor looking to better serve your clients or an individual navigating your own estate planning journey, this episode delivers both insight and inspiration.

Key takeaways:

1. Family-Centered Planning: Carter Wilcoxson founded Epic based on first-hand experience with family fracturing after a loss, underscoring the importance of proper succession planning for preserving harmony and protecting loved ones.
2. Advisor Empowerment: Epic provides financial advisors with a comprehensive suite of tools—combining estate planning attorneys, onboarding specialists, and more—allowing them to act as the quarterback for clients’ legacy planning needs and look like the "hero of the story."
3. Digital Transformation: Epic began offering digital estate planning solutions before COVID, positioning the company to adapt seamlessly during the pandemic; its platform now blends online and live events to maximize education and outreach.
4. Seamless Integration with Self-Directed IRAs: The partnership between Epic and American IRA gives clients a powerful way to use qualified retirement funds for a range of investments, including private equity, real estate, and capital raises, enhancing control and flexibility.
5. Legacy Stories and Values Preservation: Beyond financial assets, Epic’s platform enables clients to document their personal histories and core values, ensuring that future generations inherit both wealth and the wisdom that created it, anchored by its innovative “Legacy Stories” onboarding process.

Tune in to this episode for a deep dive into the evolving landscape of estate and legacy planning, how education is at the heart of these services, and why your values matter as much as your valuables. Whether you’re preparing to protect your family’s legacy, interested in self-direction for your retirement accounts, or looking to empower your clients, there’s valuable information here for everyone on their journey.

Does the topic of estate planning have you nervous to even think about it? All the different schedules, the cost. What if you knew that you had a one stop shop where you could have it all taken care of in one place? Join us as we sit down with Epic Services Co. And Carter Wilcoxon who's going to explain how to streamline the entire process. Well, good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever and whenever you are listening to this podcast, another episode of the IRA Cafe powered by American ira. I'm Kyle Moody with the sales team and once again glad to be together with all of you today. Thank you so much for your time to take a few minutes to learn something new and exciting. As you know, we always like to bring great information to all of you, whether you are an advisor, whether you are an independent investor, wherever you are in your journey of your investment objectives. We like to bring these educational series and any of the information that we can share to make your outlook better and brighter.

Today's guest is definitely going to add to that and we will get to him in just a second. Always remember that for this and any of your educational experiences with American ira, you can always check us out on our website at www.american ira.com. you can also find us on YouTube, scroll through and subscribe to that channel, watch anything that you'd like and for any of your social media interest, whether that's Facebook or Instagram, look us up on there, save us like us and follow along with any and all of the educational pieces and we greatly, greatly appreciate you for that. Always want to bring you some good quality tidbits there. Well, without further delay, I want to introduce our guest for the day, Carter Wilcoxon. He's the founder and CEO of Epic Services and we're really excited to hear about this today because Carter, would I be correct in that your company really takes a one stop shop approach for and really what I've been looking at is estate planning. So that is one aspect that we're going to be looking at today for obviously our self directed clients, that is one piece that they are always concerned about when they're putting together their self directed retirement account and always looking to the future of, of their investing. So right now folks, I want to say hello to Carter.

Carter, thank you for joining us and just like for you to introduce yourself, give us a little bit of history on you and what has led you to epic.

Yeah, Kyle, thank you so much for, for having me today and I, I really do appreciate it as we're, you know, time stamping This a little bit. We're coming into the Thanksgiving season, holiday season, you know, which is kind of apropos for the, the journey that, you know, estate planning really ties into that normal family time. And as you know, some of your listeners are, are thinking about, you know, their own family members. That's what, that's what really got me started down this path in the first place. It was a, it was an experience that happened during Christmas. I had met my wife's family, we, she lives in Southern California. And I found out that there was some family fracturing that had occurred whenever her grandmother and grandfather passed away. You know, the matriarch and the patriarch.

And it ended up causing infighting between siblings. And the reasons why is, you know, it's, it's not to go too deep into that, but it was really a call to action for me early on, before I was even in this space. This is 23 years ago, before I was ever even in the financial services world. But I saw how it affects families, how it affects family members, how it affects cousins and nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles and someone that's very much a family oriented individual as I am. You know, I've got two amazing children, 23 and 19, Caitlin and Carter, Samuel. And you know, the last thing I want to have happen is infighting between family members. So I thought to myself, man, there's got to be a better way. And that's what led me to down this path originally on helping predominantly the mass affluent demographic.

And I can categorize that as somewhere between 500,000 to 5 million. A very underserved demographic around that big matter, what we call in the industry estate and legacy planning. But it really comes down to what we have reframed it as family succession planning. And if you don't have the proper things in place to have a successful estate plan, then it will fail and that will cause irreparable damage and tear ultimately at the fabric of America. As far as I'm concerned, whenever families have these types of fractures that happen. So, so that was sort of my infancy in the beginning of what led me to start and found Epic Services company some six years ago now to help financial advisors predominantly help their clients in this subject matter to make them look like the hero of the story. Because of the procrastination that inevitably has been happening. Because the one thing that we've learned over the years of doing this, working through the Advisor Network, is that people aren't doing this because they don't know they need to do it.

They just need a resource that they can trust to get this type of work done. So that's where we come in and we fill those gaps and become basically a partner in the client journey with the advisors that we work at throughout the country.

Fantastic. No, and that's great. And that's kind of leading me into one of the things as I was researching and looking at things in a course after youth and Earl and I have talked on different, you know, from time to time. So folks, when you heard me say earlier, allude to this, that this was a one stop shop, look, we're just, we're just getting into this and so a lot of these things, we probably won't even be able to cover everything today. And we're already. I can go ahead and let you know we're excited about having Carter who's going to be doing a full blown presentation of EPIC and what the whole program looks like. So I don't want to speed through this and look towards the presentation that we're going to get from him on our webinar that will be coming up. But to talk about the different advisors, how this is put together for advisors, attorneys, investment advisors and those professionals and then funding specialists, it seems that it's like the Swiss army knife of the trust in future space for folks as they are planning their estate.

One of the things that I appreciated hearing you talk about is that you were giving the accessibility, connectivity and really the personal touch. And to your point, maybe folks that think if they are not in the most affluent sectors out there is that they may not receive that personal touch. And at American ira that's what we strive to give our clientele. So if you can a little bit tell us a little bit about how you started putting EPIC together from everything, you know, your thought process that you saw that there was a need. But we're only talking, as you said, about six years. Tell us a little bit about how that formulated and how you started bringing together all the different professions to make this one great product.

Yeah, so that's such a great question and thank you for asking it. So my backstory about how I really started going down this path prior to that personal experience that had happened to me and in my, my wife's family, obviously my family now is I had started working with a, as an, as a wholesaler of an organization that recruited financial advisors to a platform around risk tax mitigation solutions, what we call, you know, Iuls and index annuities. And I had partnered with or I had recruited a Very successful estate planning attorney in Covented, Louisiana. And during her doing some business with me as a wholesaler, she recognized my expertise in that lane and her expertise in the estate planning world. So she asked me to go into business with her effectively. Now I live in Phoenix, Arizona. She this is 12 years ago, she lives in Covington, Louisiana, just outside of New Orleans. A very successful estate planning practice.

And what happened was I would fly out to her office once a month and for an entire week she would put her clientele in front of me in two hour windows for five straight days and I would incorporate life insurance and annuity solutions, that is tax in mitigation solutions. And I thought to myself at the time, man, what a great business model. If you could somehow find a way to replicate this. Now this was way before podcasts were really a thing or virtual meetings or pre Covid, obviously way before that. So, so I would have to fly out there and meet with her. But I thought if I could leverage that, if I could be able to bring in an estate planning attorney, a financial advisor, a, you know, a solution on the back end, and insurance carriers that provided those types of solutions, I thought, man, that would be an incredible business model. Well, that's what culminated in Epic Services company being started pre Covid and right into Covid, we were delivering, you know, on an estate planning digital platform for advisors around the subject matter and then tying in the marketing and branding that they need to deliver what we call the three E's, where they educate, enlighten and empower a room full of people that we get into an educational venue, be it a library or some sort of a community center at some, some sort of educational venue. We fill the room for them where they are trained on how to deliver this, these holes in this family succession planning mystique, right, this mysterious part of getting your affairs in order, as we call it.

And when they deliver those threes, they're under these favorable circumstances to then take them through our estate planning service on a digital platform without them having to feel overwhelmed with needing to know everything. They still meet virtually with one of our estate planning attorneys and they become the relationship manager or quarterback. That then gives them the ability to look like the hero of the story of the clients who have ultimately been procrastinated for way too many years or in some instances, something years ago. And now they need to make some sort of updates or changes or whatever. So it's a very comprehensive estate plan that we put together where we put the advisor right in the center of a team of specialists in our multi disciplinary team approach that that then facilitates on the back end. And that's really how we got to where we're at today, some six years later. Very well received by the marketplace today. And no matter where Advisor is or their client, we can assist them.

Did you know, and this may be a little redundant, but did you know that it was going to be as digital as it was or like you said, leading up to Covid. Covid, I didn't even know the word zoom except maybe to run faster. That's what my toddler did. Right. So, so did you know that really it was going to be this virtual based before COVID kind of took over and made everything go this way anyway?

Yeah, it's, it's, it was so interesting because that was actually a huge benefit for us. We were already doing this, right? We were already doing an electronical digital platform pre Covid, right? Because we wanted to help clients meet them where they're at, right? And then local communities that advisors were trying to win what I call the relationship war. We wanted to give them the amount of tools that they needed to win those clients over using this subject matter. And then Covid hit and it accelerated everything that we did. So the acceptance of doing things online, you know, Post Covid, right. FaceTime and Google Meets and Zoom meetings and everything. Now that, that actually just made our job even easier than it was before.

That's one of these things where you always say, I wish I had or I wish I could do. And then God shows his sense of humor and says, well, how about this Covid thing? And then I mean, you just never know where the answers or the blessings of those are going to pop up. And I guess that's one of those things to always be ready and always be able to adapt where not only have you done that with the company, but also it allows your clientele, being those professionals, to now be ready, adapt and know that this is just, just a piece, a tool in their professional toolbox that they can use Pre Covid.

Every one of these educational workshops, these live events that that advisors were putting on, like following our process.

I had.

To make a pivot, right? I had to adapt. I had to adjust. Because when we were having triple digits and continue to get triple digits registrations of people wanting to come and learn and get those three Es delivered by our EPIC advisors, educate, enlighten and empower them to stop procrastinating, essentially, right? We were very successful. Then Covid hit and it forced me to have to start thinking, well, what if we are never able to go to live workshops again? So then we developed an online educational platform that, that now still coexists with doing live workshops. But we always wanted land and deliver education through the advisor network. So that's part of one of the things that the EPIC advisors that have fully adopted our platform and have literally bought into what it is that we have for deliverables for them. That is another component that was born from the COVID issue that happened simply because I was like, well, if we can't do live events, we can't meet people, you know, one on one and press the flesh, as they say, in person. I needed to make a pivot.

And then so I built out an entire digital process, even through the educational aspect of it as well, for advisors that now coexist, like I said, alongside the live presentations that our advisors are trained to be able to give as well.

So let me ask you this, that I'm kind of a detailed person and I like going down the rabbit hole sometimes. So because I've always been an in person player, whether I'm going to a conference and someone invites me to come talk to a group, whether I'm showing up at a, you know, our regional meetings, lunch and learns, I mean it's, you know, it is, I mean I'm, I'm, I'm face to face with some one on ones, two on ones, and then groups of, of all sizes. So when you had to make that pivot, did, did you have that, did you have that person or people already in your stable, so to speak, that became your, your, your how you built out this digital platform? Or was that something where you said, okay, we need to go find this person now who's, who's going to, to build this out? Or you had the idea somebody else carried it out. Tell us about, you know, did you, did you have to hire an entire sector to that or was it really you that put it all together?

Well, I mean, I'm not trying to break my arm, put myself on the back here, but you know, whenever you're in survival mode, which a lot of us were, it's in a, in a business. This is pretty epic even starting, right? We were, we were doing this with another organization that I ended up divesting from and then it transitioned into, into EPIC Services company. But yeah, I had to go out, I had to find the technologies, I had to find the tools, I had to, I had to piece it all together. But I have a phenomenal team that's been behind me every step along the way as well to complement what it is that I was able to go out and find. So, no, it didn't exist. I knew it surely existed somewhere. And, and I got to tell you, the, the amount of legwork that I've done, which is why I probably still to this day get up around 3 o' clock every single morning because I'm, I'm a constant builder. I'm a, I'm a golfer at trade by trade.

And if anybody that's listening is a golfer, you're always tinkering on trying to make your game better one way or the other. Well, I do the same thing with my business. I'm trying to make it better for my advisors to make it easier for them to, you know, acquire, retain the ideal clients that they want to work with. So yeah, I had to go out and find the different technologies and then try to figure out a way to have this tech stack and piece them all together.

Where Epic is a place for everyone to come together, let's say, for the ultimate betterment of the, of the individuals. Are, are these contracted Epic Advisor employees or are they professionals in their space that are searching out this kind of platform? Do, do they look for you? Do you look for them? How do, how do these advisors and these professionals become part of your network? Is that, is that really the right way to ask it?

Yeah, it's, it's the perfect way to ask it. So it's a, it's a combination of all of those things. You know, if you're, if you're seeing right now on the screen, we have our chief counsel, Sierra Lister, who heads up, you know, all of the customization of the, of the drafting of the documents. She meets with every single advisor's client or her, or her law firm does. So she's a specialist in this field. She's a member of the Nevada Bar, which is where we citus every single one of our, you know, utilizing jurisdictional shopping to have each one of these trusts that are established. And then we have also members of the team that are either 1099 or, you know, you know, contracted out or actual employees of the company. So it is just coalescing and it's been coalescing throughout the years.

But Sierra has been with us for almost since the very beginning, probably eight years now. And that's why she's our chief counsel and why she heads up the legal component of it. Every single one of our advisors, clients has a dedicated onboarding specialist on that same page that, that we, that you may See, for our outsourced estate planning team is a dedicated onboarding specialist who is an employee or contracted individual that works for our company. But that's the beauty of what we put together. We help advisors without having to go out and hire staff, just tap into our ecosystem that becomes effectively their staff. And we have everyone on our team has a vested interest in the success of those advisors around this subject matter. And that's what makes our, our platform completely unique and different in the industry. Yeah, and, and you're, you're just seeing some of these specialists here that you know, we've got pulled up on the, on the screen here.

All of them are all part of our, of our network and, and part of our team in one way or another, whether educators.

And they're, they're located all around the country, is that correct?

All country, yeah. From sea to shining sea.

Gotcha.

Literally from Florida, California.

Well, I remember when Earl reached out to me, he had done some research, found out about us and it was a great conversation because as we shift into when you start talking about the complete package of trusts and winding down and really those tough conversations, money is a big background to that. It may have been the thing that, that started it all with a lot of families. It may be a backbone of companies investments, what have you. And then really looking at all the different pieces and the brochures that you have, talk about legacy and everything else. Obviously as we get into self directed retirement accounts, specifically, the one thing that your company does that I have seen along with whether it's the advisors or just straight with you and everybody else tied to the company is that it, it allows the folks that interface to have more control, which is what we like to be able to explain to our clientele is that the difference in what they may think they have is self direction with more of the traditional investment houses compared to being able to use their true self directed account is that they have more control over the investments that they're making instead of stocks, bonds and mutual funds. And somebody who might understand why one stock is $10 a share one day and the next week it's 12. But they don't know why. Well, there's a lot of folks that are our clients that buy definitely understand the why and have the know how in investing in real estate or being private money lenders with their retirement accounts or they want to invest in private equities, which is actually something we can talk about here in just a second.

But it's that control that they have that make them feel that they have really a better direction of how they can use their funds. Tell us a little bit about why EPIC reached out to American IRA and how you see our individual clients or how they can benefit. What is the interface like with an American IRA client and Epic? Or is it going to be more of if folks, your advisors, your financial advisors, they now know that they have another tool, another piece that they can say hey look, if you're doing this, did you know that you can also do this? And by the way, here's the company. It seems like you have your cre, you're creating such a cool network that is, it is almost spider webbing that brings everybody back to the hub of hey, it's that one stop shop. So if you can just talk a little bit about the interface of what that would look like about somebody considering a self directed account and being able to have it connected to Epic.

Yeah, yeah, so that's, I mean that's a, that's a, a great segue and I'm glad we're getting into this part of it. But you know, we reached out to American IRA originally because we were already raising capital for you know, this incredible business model that we have. You know, it's, I mean obviously six years so that, that tells you startup, but you know the SAS model and the, the startups that are happening out there right now and in my space, in the estate planning space, they're, they're, you know, they're, they're, there's no shortage of them. I mean I can, I'll give a shout out if you will or one of my competitors who I still to this day amazed that they've somehow been able to raise $73 million for trust and will. But especially with, when you compare to our entire comprehensive one stop shopping arena. But you know, we reached out to you originally because you know, we were taking investment money but we were only taking investment money with those non qualified accounts. And we know the trillion dollars of IRAs and, and 401ks and things that are out there of, of clients who could invest. But we needed to have that tool, we needed to have that conduit of which American IRA allows for us for our convertible note that allows people to invest in something that is, you know, an alternative if you will.

You know, year over year we're up over 500% in revenue which has been obviously phenomenal for us. And then the attraction that's happening for advisors that are tapping into our infrastructure has unbelievable their clients that they're going out and sharing with Their our estate planning solution is being adopted and being purchased. So that's generating revenue. But we wanted to be able to have access to those qualified dollars. And without having a true conduit like American IRA gives us, we couldn't facilitate and bring on more, more qualified dollars through our convertible note otherwise without, you know, partnering up, if you will, and making that available through our network and then ultimately through American ira. So that's why we, we sought you in the first place. We did a lot of research, a lot of solutions, a lot of, you know, options that are out there. But bumper to bumper from all the research we did, you know, Kyle, you there and you know, American IRA and just your entire infrastructure was an ideal fit for us.

You know, that's, that's very humbling. And where I'm just the one person on the screen right now, I will tell you that I will make sure that everyone from the CEO all the way to all of our admin staff knows that I'm just the mouthpiece here. But I speak for our entire company when I say we really appreciate that there's a lot that goes into that. And the one thing at American IRA that I can really talk. Well, there's a lot of things, I've been here a long time and that I can talk about our company really quickly. Is that where you are offering that One Stop Shop through your company? We offer that Hometown bank feel that there are so many things that folks can really have that One Stop Shop with American ira. Whether that is going to be referred over from Carter and his team, you and Earl and anybody else, or any of those advisors where they can refer someone over knowing that they're going to turn right back around and they want to make an investment into this capital raise that Carter's talking about. Oh, and by the way, is it just that.

No. If somebody also wants to realize that they can invest in real estate or if they want to invest their funds into other private lending, get into syndication deals or even precious metals, they can absolutely do that. And then if they thought, well, hey, I kind of heard that I can invest more my funds through the use of an IRA owned llc. It's known on the street as I call it as the checkbook ira. Well, our sister company Turnkey IRA offers that as well. So I think what's great is that we have that Hometown bank feel. We know where we all started from, but we offer so much and do it in the way of the education that is what's really big. It's the education that it does empower folks to be able to move forward.

And the more and more that I think we research each other's companies, it's like, wow, it's like we've seen this, we do this. It's in different arenas, but I think for the overall goal, which is for the client and what can be offered to them. So that's really great and I'm glad that we can really be a go to for your clientele and ultimately for you as well. One thing I wanted to look at is that let's say somebody does want to maybe they come to American IRA from one of your advisors. And so their IRA is now a piece to the estate planning that an advisor is helping them with.

How.

Tell me a little bit about. And if we can, you know, with, with IRAs, with the self directed IRAs they have their beneficiaries that are listed, how would EPIC or an advisor be able to interface with say the security that we have with, with American ira? Because right now I will tell you, I think that really no matter any age anymore, people are all about the security and who can talk about things and how folks can interface with their accounts. And then I also think about my parents who are in their 80s who don't do anything online. They're scared, you know, and there's so many people like them that are just scared of not doing any online banking or anything else is that, you know, tell us a little bit about your cloud security and what folks can expect if they knew that their future based on all of their past is now going to be funneling through epic.

Yeah, so that, you know that that's the one thing that I continually am pleasantly surprised with because a lot of our clientele are the, the boomer age and you know, they're 65, 75, 85. Our oldest client on our digital platform is 91 years old. Right. And it all started with well, I need to get my affairs in order. That's how it starts. And then part of our revocable of interest that we create also internally and this is just part of every one of the plans that we do, it includes an IRA beneficiary trust. Right. Because you got those secure Act 2.0 that that happened, you know, a few years ago.

And you've got, you know, certain conditions that have to be met. You've got to be able to have a see through trust to be able to do those distribution and all that different distribution language. And of course that could change also that's the uniqueness of our platform is that when, not if, when changes occur once you become one of our clients, it's a, you're forever one of our clients and you can, you have the ability to make unlimited changes inside of the client portal that you'll have access to. And I think one of the things that attracted me also right, wrong or indifferent is that our colors are similar. Right. That like red, white and blue. Well that they're not going to change much when they get into their client portal. It's all red, white and blue.

Epic colors are red, white and blue. Right. So but they're going to be able to have access to that. We're going to be able to know exactly, you know, where they're at in their, in their life and their, their asset base and how much they're worth. But, but it's what happens post deceased that we pride ourselves in. Right. Being able to make sure that we're doing those distribution, you know, properly. And, and there's a, there's a specialization to distribution and most clients need to know what those options are.

We provide that education for them for the inevitable of the beneficiaries that are going to receive those self directed funds or IRA funds or not qualified, whatever the case may be. Right. We, we pride ourselves in educating those grantors on the options that they have for why sometimes they want to keep assets in trusts. Right. And that's why we utilize Nevada because we can keep those assets in trust for up to 365 years. Most people don't know this and I, I, this may be a mind blow for those that are listening. Whether you live in, you know, Florida or whether you live in, you know, California, you can cite us or have that body of law wherever you determine much in the same way that 64% of all Fortune 500 companies are domiciled in Delaware and it's because they have the most business friendly environment. Well Nevada, not only have they codified everything that we do on this digital platform, Nevada Revised Statutes, but, but it's also afforded to you as, as an American to be able to have whatever jurisdiction you want.

So we utilize Nevada for many, many different benefits and many many different reasons that, that you can learn about on our, on our website here. So that is a, a differentiator for us. It's a differentiator for our advisors whether they're working with their clients, you know, locally or have expanded out post Covid they now can go out and start working with clients all over the country. Right. Where they can work with a client that they want to invest their money in California even though they may be actually domiciled or, or locally in Florida or North Carolina, whatever the case may be. Well we can meet them where they're at. We can meet the advisors and the advisors clients wherever they're at and get their affairs in order and have this very secure cloud environment for all of their, their financial and their estate planning needs.

No, that's awesome. You know one of the things that I always get people say hey listen are you, are you down here in Biloxi or you know, are you over here or up here in Pocatello or hey, do you have clients in California? And it's because either how they've seen us online but you know, they may be thinking I've never seen this, you know, on the street corner or whatever. That's like I tell folks, hey, self direction, unlike banks that you might see in town with different kiosks or different locations. That's not, that's not how self directed companies work. However, I like folks to know but you are able to have your self directed retirement account investing in and wherever you live, do business and so on and so forth. And that's one thing we like folks to know because I think that they think sometimes why I'm landlocked, I can't do this here when in all actuality, you know, we have clients in all 50 states and some expats out there. I was going to ask you about some education things that you may see in the individuals of things that they might not know and you already tapped into that. So let me just ask you this really quick.

I know that we're running down on some time and we're definitely going to have to make sure we do this again in the next year. And already like I said, I'm excited about the webinar presentation that we're going to be getting from you. But if you could tell us as we are you mentioned about as we're heading into this season, Thanksgiving time with family and then also leading up to the end of the year and obviously people aren't going to see this today, it is going to whenever they see it and want to pull it back up. So whether it's, you know, year end here or even next year that they want to pull this up and watch it again. What are some things out there, you know, one or two or three points that you might have that you would point out to folks of what they need to know going into year end before the turn of the year?

Well, I mean before the, before the turn of the year. You know, the main thing is, you know, what we really again pride ourselves in and you talked about at, at the top of the show, it's really about accessibility, right? It's bringing to the marketplace access to education that primarily has been reserved for, you know, the old, the uber wealthy, if you will.

Right.

We wanted to make an impact on again, what we call the mass affluent demographic, you know, educating them on different type of charitable deductions. If they're looking for some tax and risk mitigation strategies, our team can help facilitate that. And again, we lead with education. That's the most important part of everything that we do. We want to give as much education as necessary. And I mean the financial industry in the financial world is very complex, right? There's a lot of complexity to it. And people, regular, everyday people, right, working men and women of America or retirees, they don't have time to figure out all this stuff. So by being able to coalesce and bring together this entire ecosystem of specialists around risk and tax mitigation, you know, strategies, those are the types of things that we proactively do primarily again through our advisor network who taps in.

So again, you know, it's impossible to be a specialist in everything, right? You have CPAs, you have, you know, tax attorneys that are even different. You have estate planning attorneys, you have financial advisors, you have insurance agents, right? You have all these different, you know, siloed out solutions. And what we really wanted to do was bring all these those things together. So whether it be looking for like a QCD qualified terrible deduction that you're trying to get before the end of the year, you know, look into, you know, something like that, whether you're looking to start a donor advised fund, you know, whatever it is, there's so many different options. But the one thing holds true for every one of our clients if they have any amount of assets and they care what happens to those assets when they're no longer here. Tapping into our education on the front end, education heavy, that's the things that we really, truly want to bring accessible to those demographics. Now that doesn't mean that we don't work with clients that are uber wealthy that are adopting this cloud environment, you know, estate planning solution, but we want to make this available to the everyday man and woman as well. And that's what we do.

And it's, and it's again, it's this one stop shop environment around what we call a multidisciplinary team approach because it's Impossible to be, you know, a specialist in every single area. You have to surround yourself with people that pride themselves in specific lanes that they are just living in day in and day out.

No. And, and for those of you that are out there and are interested in knowing more, I know that you saw their website scroll by earlier. Always go out and check because one of Carter's latest blogs out there talks about, I think it was like four things that you can do to get ready. Whether it's either opening a Roth or converting to a Roth. Another one was out there was talking about, oh yeah, there you go. The planning ahead. The four key financial moves before year end and one of those was the hsa. Always remember, a little plug for my team at American IRA here is that believe it or not, you can do every single bit of that with a self directed ira.

So if you're looking to diversify current portfolios that you have and you want to be able to either beef up your Roth to invest in the non traditional asset, or you want to have an HSA that can also partner with say your self directed Roth or a self directed traditional, then guess what? You're able to take an hsa, a Coverdell for the kids, the Roth, the traditional solo 401k. If that applies to you. Any business owner with no full time employees, whatever the retirement vehicle is out there, we have the self directed version of it that you're able to diversify your portfolio into and then turn around and invest in that capital raise with Carter and his team. Well, Carter, listen, I can't thank you again enough. I'm so glad that we finally got to see each other face to face with the technology. I mean, you know, let's talk about it, right? I mean, I remember a couple months ago, about three months ago, I was at a convention and when I ran into one of my colleagues that actually I first met him on this show and I saw him face to face for the first time. It, it took us a second to realize, oh wait a minute, we're finally now seeing each other face to face after flying across the country. And that's where we first got together.

So you know what, hopefully that's going to happen with you and I and our teams one day in the future. But until then we, we appreciate the new relationship. We appreciate the fact that we're going to be able to take care of your clients and, and ultimately your team as a whole. So any parting words as we head out for Thanksgiving and the, and the end of the year for everybody?

Quarter now, you know, the, the only thing that I, that I will share with you, you know, we are without exception, the most comprehensive plan on the planet. And, and I, I don't say that lightly because one of the things as I'll leave with you and you can check this out on our website, we talk about legacy stories. And this was a company that was formed in the early 2000s that I purchased, that I wanted to have part of every one of our estate plans. Because how you pass on your valuables, right? How you pass on your valuables is with estate planning and financial plan, right? But how you pass on your values was not enough afterthought for us, right? This was intentional. So we wanted to be able to take all those things in someone's head and in their heart, the things that made them who they are, right? All that history. We wanted to give them a place to be able to document all those things. Because here's the sad truth. This is the reality when you pack all those things that are in your, in your head, in your heart, the things you care about, the values that you hold dearly, that you want to teach and inspire to other generations that follow you, right? That is the, that is the thing that we never wanted to lose sight of, and that is the thing that it dies with you when you no longer have that.

So we give you the ability to document your entire life without you feeling overwhelmed. There are small little legacy story prompts that we go through. It's basically a 100 day onboarding procedure, and then after that it's a weekly, you know, we give you these little prompts that go into your own legacy stories portal that will live forever. Because as I've said many times, wealth divorced from the wisdom that created it is all too often wasted by those who inherit it. And legacy stories is. That is that bridge that helps those legacies and those assets live longer.

Whenever you are folks, you know, if it's, if this is you and if it's not you, it's going to affect someone that you know. And they're not always the easiest conversations to have, but they will become very prudent. And you never know the situation that you're going to be put in to have those. And so I challenge all of you to start just thinking about what those conversations might be like when you're with family and, you know, share it with your friends as well. But whatever it might, whatever journey you're on and however that might lead you to, take a look at Carter's website on that, that you just saw scrolling there and learn more about it and reach out to him for more of the now if you are looking to diversify your portfolio and you have some questions about self direction, please don't hesitate to reach out to me directly. You are more than welcome to do that. You can visit our website again at www.american ira.com. spend some time in there, get some education, read some articles again.

You can find us on YouTube and any of your favorite social media platforms. Well Carter, listen again. It was a pleasure. I hope you and your family have a great Thanksgiving. For some folks that are going to be seeing this Thanksgiving will be passed, but then we will be on to Christmas. So for all of the holidays we wish you and your family and everybody at your company the absolute best. And for everyone at American ira, I'm Kyle Moody and once again we love being able to bring these presentations to you of the IRA Cafe powered by American ira. So from all of us to all of you, thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.

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