Testimonials

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Every testimonial is independently verified by Eric Stverack, a Certified Public Accountant based in Leawood, KS.

This verification process ensures every story is accurate, authentic, and true.

Eric confirms the validity of each email and randomly contacts participants for a personal review of their experience.

Proven by Our Clients. verified by an expert.

This is a testimonial from Eddie Lonergan who has know Chris and been best friends their entire lives.

I’ve known Chris since kindergarten, and it’s no surprise he built a business around helping people. His genuine interest in educating others. Whether he benefits or not is rare. I once referred a friend who’s very particular about his money, and after just one call with Chris, he understood the value right away. But in the end, he stayed with his advisor, exactly what Chris explained so many people do. Denial and long-standing relationships often keep people from facing the truth about costs. That’s why Chris’s approach is so powerful: he makes the hidden costs simple, clear, and impossible to ignore.

Ed Lonergan

This is a testimonial from another long time friend who has referred Chris multiple times and every time Chris tries to show them their Cost & Cost of Cost they disengage.

I’ve now referred 3 friends to Chris who were all paying advisor costs. Every time they meet with Chris and he offers to do a statement analysis they decline and quit talking with him. I was shocked they didn’t want to understand The Big 3….their cost….their cost of cost & their Quality. Chris said this is normal. Most investors paying costs don’t want to know what they pay and what that staggering cost looks like over time, even though it’s often their #1 monthly expense.

David O'Keefe

Sue M. This is the first email I ever had an investor send to their cost based advisor asking “Who’s getting paid what?” on their IRA. It was my cousin Sue M. Below is the email from Sue to her advisor and then the advisor’s reply. For this study I will always title “Dear Financial Advisor” and end with “Thanks, Client”.

Please notice in the reply email the advisor drops her cost by 20%. Go to understandinvestmentcosts.com and run that savings over 30yrs at 8% and it’s STAGGERING how much money Sue saves. Sue ended up saving 80% on her advisor fees.

EMAIL TO FEE BASED ADVISOR:

Dear Financial Advisor,

With my mom recently passing away I’m doing some simple Financial House Keeping and I had a question for you. Can you please tell me exactly who is getting paid what in regard to my overall investment costs? My cousin recently asked me if I knew and I had NO idea. This seems like something I should probably understand going forward.

Thanks, Client

REPLY FROM FEE BASED ADVISOR:

Hi Sue,

So we (WASI) currently are charging you 1.25% based on your asset value, annually. This is divided into 4 and billed each quarter. TD Ameritrade basically doesn’t have any fee’s, as they don’t charge transaction costs any longer, as of a few years ago. (before that ETF’s for example were $6.95, but very minimal as we weren’t trading a lot) We buy all no-load funds, so no commissions. The only other thing that could be considered a fee, is the expense ratio of each fund. All funds have this internal expense ratio to run the fund, etc. However, that is something we look at closely and if you look at all of your funds, they are super low cost. In other words, I think average mutual fund’s expense ratio in general is over 1%, whereas your funds are less than half that and some less than 10 times.

I hope that wasn’t too long of an explanation, just want to make sure I include everything. (really it’s only our fee) The other thing I want to say, is you have been a great long term client, and as I take over the business I have been looking to reduce fee’s when possible. Therefore, I am going to make a note in your account today, to reduce our fee to 1% per year. Please let me know if you have any questions, it’s always good to look at.

Thanks, Financial Advisor.

Sue M.

I was referred to a couple who were paying advisor costs.

We met and I suggested my costs would be 25 basis points. The clients told their advisor they were going to transfer out and the cost based advisor said if you stay I will reduce your cost from 125 basis points to 35 basis points. They decided to stay with their advisor.

I was happy to help this older couple on a fixed budget save a lot of money every month. It was done with very little effort by me and the time I put helping them was fun for me.

Chris C.

5 minutes of Thinking will be helpful to get the full benefit of this one.

This was a guy I read about in the KC Business Journal. He looked to be mid 40s and was the CEO of an asphalt – construction company that had recently become an ESOP….Employee Stock Ownership Plan. I love ESOP’s and decided to Cold Write this guy. My hand written letter + his email to his cost based advisor + his cost based advisor’s reply are all below.

There’s a lot here but it’s worth paying attention because it ended up being so good for Dexter and it could be for you as well. Notice in the cost based advisor’s reply he drops his cost 20% as a reply to the email. Zero effort by the client and a 20% cost reduction. Run that savings over 40yrs (‘til Dexter is 85) at 8% and the amount is STAGGERING!! Dexter ended up reducing his cost from 100 basis points to 17 basis points. Dexter talked with Eric who verifies all emails and confirmed he felt his investment quality went up significantly.

FIRST IS MY HAND WRITTEN COLD NOTE TO DEXTER:

Hi Dexter P…..I could logically argue I’m as different as any financial advisor you’ll ever talk to. My name is Chris C and I’ve been doing this almost 19 years. My initial offer is 3-fold..

I build a fact-based case against Wall St with Warren Buffett and Albert Einstein as my teachers and witnesses.
I teach what high quality investing looks like. Fidelity analyzed over 4,000 advisor portfolios in 2020 and found that 93% of advisors are ill equipped to allocate Capital. I always guessed it was higher.
I show investors paying fees how a 4 sentence email could realistically allow them (over time!!) to win the lottery without buying a ticket…regardless of working with me.

I run a Simple, Logical, Win/Win business (and life) and I’m only looking for the right clients but happy to show ANYONE what I know. I Love ESOPs and giving back which I why I started a fully volunteer 501c(3) Water Charity.
If you’d ever be interested in a coffee or 15 minutes in your office, please LMK.

Thanks, Chris
816.444.7777

DEXTER EMAIL TO HIS COST BASED FINANCIAL ADVISOR:

Dear Financial Advisor,

With all the craziness going on in the stock markets (and the world) I’ve been doing some financial housekeeping. I’m realizing that I have NO idea who exactly is getting paid what with regards to expenses on my investment accounts. Can you please email me back a breakdown of my costs and please be as specific as possible.

Thanks, Dexter

REPLY FROM COST BASED ADVISOR TO DEXTER:

Hi Dexter,

Good to hear from you, I hope things are well with you, M&H and your boys. Thanks for reaching out with your questions.

Regarding expenses, there are two pieces:

1. The underlying cost of the investments in your portfolio is 18 basis points (.18%) on an annualized basis. This cost covers the managers we’ve hired in each asset class, their trading costs, etc and is taken out of the returns you earn from the position.
2. The management cost for Enterprise to serve as investment advisor is 100 basis points (1%) on an annualized basis. This costs covers the cost of our service, investment selection, trading, etc and is debited to your account on a monthly basis.

I do have some good news though in that leadership has decided to provide a benefit to those wealth clients who take their time to provide direction and insight on one of our advisory boards, which you do for the KC Commercial bank. Beginning next month you’ll receive a 20% cost reduction on our management cost moving forward. Additionally, we have a standard fee break on assets over $1MM of another 20%.

Lastly, I’m including an updated performance report for your account. As you mentioned in your email, markets are certainly very difficult at the moment and we are trying to juggle risk mitigation with positioning the portfolio for what’s on the horizon. Please let me know if you have any questions or if I can provide any additional information for your review. As a note, I have a reminder on my calendar to reach out in early November to get a call scheduled with Scott B at MarksNelson to talk about taxes. Trying to do all we can to make lemonade of the lemons the market has dealt us this year.

Thanks, Financial Advisor

Dexter P.

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