Editor’s note: Jack Shinn has been an avid supporter of the Savvy College Planning program&v=reoe0zneibqj1q5ztmt33iqg for years. It helped rebuild his business and gave him fresh enthusiasm for financial advising. You can read more about Jack’s experiences here and here. In this video, he talks with Sean Bailey about how the pandemic has affected his college planning service, and what you need to be doing to get ready for the fall. You can watch the interview below, or read the transcript, which has been lightly edited.
Sean Bailey: Hi everybody, I’m Sean Bailey with Horsesmouth, and I’m here today with Jack Shinn. Jack is one of the successful advisors who have smartly over the last four or five years decided to add a late-stage college planning niche to their business. Jack presents on college planning, and uses it to meet young families that often become clients. Jack presents on other topics as well, and this is kind of a check-in.
Jack, thanks for being on. It’s great to see you again. I want to talk with you about your plans for college planning. First of all, let’s do a quick check-in on what transpired over the fall of 2019 and the spring of 2020. Just give us a quick update on how things were going, working with families on the college issues last fall—and then what you were starting to see before the pandemic hit.
Jack Shinn: Well, we were doing live workshops, like we always do. I try to do at least one a month in the fall and spring. Interestingly, the last one that we did was in February, and we had great participation. I had 40 people sitting in the room. The presentation went really well. We picked up seven or eight clients from that presentation.
We were working with the clients, working through the kids’ lists, starting to vet the colleges and stuff, and then the bottom dropped out. I’m now sending out emails and making phone calls, trying to reconnect with the families. Some of the students were seniors, so there’s not very much I can do with that. For the families that have juniors, we’re going to try to get reconnected, because obviously they’re going to be dealing with the FAFSA and everything else coming up in October. We have to make sure they’re okay filing the FAFSA and seeing if they need scholarship help. That kind of stuff.
I’ll be starting virtual workshops within the next two weeks for college, and we’ll see where that goes. My bigger concern is just all of the questions that we have with the schools right now, I mean, who’s doing what? I don’t know.
Families are still going to have to file a FAFSA regardless, and they’re still going to be interested in what kinds of scholarship opportunities are out there. So, that’s kind of where I’m working from, is that there are constants, like the FAFSA, that we can deal with. And I’m just going to basically see where it takes us.
Bailey: You can correct me on this, but it seems like more or less the posture of any family whose kid is a rising senior this year is irrespective of the fact that we’re operating in a pandemic. You’re talking about starting a process that has one really significant pain point: when they write the first tuition check, and that would still probably be a whole year away right now. And so people seem to operate as, “Let’s go through the process, do everything,” and then obviously everybody’s constantly re-evaluating what the situation is here.
I know we are hearing from families, maybe you’ve heard some of this too, that there are some kids who went to school for their first year, and are looking at going online again this fall, but they’re deciding, “Look mom and dad, it doesn’t make sense for you to pay $30,000 or $40,000 for me to have online classes this year.”
“Let’s just take a gap year, or let me go to the community college…” I know somebody who said, “Look, I’ll just take community college courses for this year, and we’ll just see how it goes, and then re-enroll when I can actually be there in person.”
Families are going to have different approaches to this sort of thing. Do you have any particular insights on those kinds of dilemmas that families are facing?
Shinn: I’ve had several instances. I have one student that I just found out yesterday is going to be staying home and doing the virtual course thing, not terribly happy about it but that’s the option that she has. I have several that have decided to go the community college route, and the only thing I told them is, “Well, if you can take generic, general math, history, English type courses, take those, because those will transfer.” Major courses generally aren’t going to transfer out of anywhere, so I give them a little bit of guidance that way.
What I found that hasn’t changed is, we do have a process for exposing them to private scholarships. If I can get a student that wants to do the work, it can significantly improve their dollars. Again, that’s if I can get a student that’s willing to put the work in.
Bailey: Tell us a little bit more about that. What do you mean by “willing to put the work in?
Shinn: When we sit down, the first thing we do is develop a profile of the student. If I have a kid that’s of German ancestry, well, there’s scholarships out there for kids of German ancestry. Or they’re Caucasian, or they’re male. We start really taking apart all of their identifiers, do a really good dive into their profile—their likes, their dislikes, the courses they’ve taken. We go back and grab their essays from high school, for instance. We can go out and we can actually look for scholarships for those kinds of things. It’s a much deeper dive into where the private dollars are. The problem with that is, I’m not going to do that. That’s a lot of work, and I expect the student to do their own work in that respect. We’ll walk them through the process, we’ll guide them.
Bailey: So Jack, let me ask you this. Later this summer we’re going to be doing what used to be a two-day workshop with Lynn O’Shaughnessy. Now it’s going to be a four-day, three-hour-a-day online workshop.&v=reoe0zneibqj1q5ztmt33iqg And to me it seems like we’ve been talking about the late stage college planning niche as an ideal niche for advisors to get into. It has so many benefits. But a lot of people are still unfamiliar with those benefits, so why don’t you give me a sort of thumbnail overview of how you decided to get into this niche, and why it’s been successful for you, and why you remain committed to it?
Shinn: I don’t really remember why I got into it. I was on the Horsesmouth website and I saw the college planning part and started looking into it, and started doing some research on my own. And I started talking to parents of students and realized how they know nothing about the process.
The area that I live in is a very jam-packed area, very highly concentrated for people, and very highly concentrated for assets. So, there’s a lot going on that makes this an interesting area to do business in, number one; and number two, what I found is that the more resources a family has, the more involved in the process they want to be. People, in my view, became well-off by not wasting money. They’re interested in what kinds of things they can do to try to decrease that nut a little bit.
The one thing that I’m noticing, and I assume you are too, is that the need-based aid is just getting to be non-existent. You’ve got to have an EFC of $20,000 or less before you can even start thinking about need-based aid. So the whole aid thing is now switching to a conversation of merit dollars and private scholarships, and that’s interesting to people that have the time, have the assets to put the time in.
And one of the other reasons that I got into it was because when you’re doing the FAFSA, you do have to do a deep dive into their assets. And in some cases, that may present an opportunity. It shouldn’t be a driving force, but it’s there.
Bailey: It’s a picture into it, yeah. I like to talk about how for many advisors who I’ve discussed late-stage college planning with, who have succeeded, they make the observation that there are quite a lot of families out there that are affluent but haven’t had a financial advisor.
They’ve been socking away money in their 401(k), they’ve worked on paying off the house, and they’ve got a decent amount of money and they’re ready to send the kids to college. But they don’t have a financial advisor yet, that’s kind of maybe the next thing once the kids are out of the house.
I’m seeing that many advisors are finding that the late-stage college planning niche puts them in the perfect spot, at the perfect time. Is there anything you can say about that observation? Yea or nay?
Shinn: I would say “Yea.” Just by virtue of the fact that we’re looking at their complete profile because we have to, it gives you the opportunity to look. I always ask, “Do you have a life insurance policy?” for instance, and the answer is, “Yes, I have three quarters remaining in term.”
So I’ll say “OK, well, maybe we should take a look at the policy to see when that’s going to end, and see what benefits you have then, and look at cost.” Together you look at all of the different ideas that just looking at an insurance policy can give you. A lot of times they’re surprised by what the insurance policy tells them.
I’ll sit down and go through it with them and say, “Did you realize that A, B, C and D?” And they’re like, “Well no, I didn’t realize that when I bought it.” So then you have to have that other discussion, plus remember, a lot of the parents that we’re dealing with are 50, 55 and they’re at a perfect place to have that conversation about what’s coming next.
Bailey: Good. So, can you describe for us what, pre-pandemic, was your most successful approach for meeting families, some of whom ultimately become clients? How did that occur?
Shinn: It happens from the workshops. I’ve had very good responses to the workshops, and I’ll take just a small amount of credit for that. But, the point is, there’s very few families I don’t meet with after a workshop. Like I said, the one that we did in February, there were 40 people sitting there, and for three weeks I ran around like a crazy person meeting with just about every family that was in the room. And from that came obviously some other opportunities.
Bailey: Right, right. And just so people understand, you put on one of the Savvy College Planning presentations&v=reoe0zneibqj1q5ztmt33iqg that are FINRA reviewed. I’m speaking to somebody who may be watching us today, and we know so much about college planning, they’re interested. I want to kind of give them the lay of the land.
When families are coming in after the presentation to meet with you, what is the primary thing that has drawn them? What was your call to action at your meeting that caused them to come in to meet with you, one-on-one?
Shinn: We do a pretty deep dive into the EFC, the estimated family contribution, and we offer that. We will calculate their EFC to give them an idea of what their FAFSA number is going to be, As you know, Sean, the FAFSA is used to calculate the EFC. It’s the first thing on the report, on the SAR [Student Aid Report] when it comes back.
And we can give them an advance look at what that‘s going to be, based on their family’s resources, and we can start talking about planning. “OK, this is what your EFC is going to be. You can basically tank. There’s not going to be any need-based aid. So now, let’s start looking for schools, or let’s start looking for opportunities for merit dollars, and other private scholarship dollars.”
I talk about three buckets, and they knock one of them out, and that’s the need-based bucket. It’s a good way to discuss exactly why they’re filing the FAFSA, and that they don’t have to wait to file to find out what the number’s going to be once the FAFSA results come back.
Bailey: Now did some families think, ”Oh well, we’re well-off enough, we probably don’t need to fill out the FAFSA”? Do people think that, and is that correct?
Shinn: I’ve heard it, but I haven’t heard it a lot. You can’t get merit dollars, in most cases, unless you file a FAFSA. So if you’re interested in any help at all, you have to file a FAFSA.
Bailey: Can you give us some examples of merit dollars? Because I think that maybe somebody new doesn’t yet grasp the full concept that affluent families with smart kids actually can get a lot of money knocked off the cost of tuition, because of the abilities that they’ve demonstrated up to that point in time. Can you explain a little bit about what that means and give us an example?
Shinn: Sure. What I usually tell the families is that merit dollars are the things that are based on the student’s academic performance—it’s GPA, it’s class rank, it’s a little bit SATs. It’s all of the resume stuff that goes along with the Common App. Essentially what the schools are doing is giving the student dollars for accomplishments during high school—civic projects, whatever.
They’re not loans, they’re basically dollars that are given by the school, that aren’t going to have to be paid back. They’re grants and scholarships, and it really has, in many cases, very little to do with their finances. There’s a lot of non-FAFSA stuff I think that goes into these, because it’s based on accomplishments.
We had one kid, as an example, where the family had a fairly low EFC number, but she had a 4.2 GPA; she was a perfect student. When I first looked at all of her accomplishments, I just looked at the family, and laughed and said, “Don’t worry about it, she’ll be fine.” In the end, she went to University of Maine, and her family ended up paying $1,700 a year, based on her merit dollars, based on her scholarships, based on all the stuff they put together. They ended up with a bill for 1,700 bucks a year, which of course the father just about gave me a kiss on the lips for that one. But I mean, I didn’t do anything, all we did was point them in the right direction.
Bailey: Let’s talk about what you do actually, because I know in this field, there are a variety of approaches that advisors take after they’ve made a presentation. So when you invite a family in and you step them through the FAFSA and figuring out their EFC, is that something you’re doing as a complimentary meeting, or is there a charge? And then, if there isn’t a charge, tell us when there is…how do people pay you? Give us the business model aspect of things.
Shinn: I offer the EFC stuff as a second part of the workshop: “Tonight is my turn to talk to you, and then the next meeting it’s going to be you talking to me, as we fill out your EFC stuff, we determine what your EFC is.” That’s all part of the workshop. There’s no charge for any of that.
When you get into the charged stuff is when it’s, &dlquo;OK, I want you to vet colleges, my child wants to put their list together. How should they do it?” It’s when we start getting into real work, that’s when we’ll start talking about what kind of key stuff we’re going to do and how much it’s going to be.
Bailey: So let’s pretend that we’re at the end of that second part of the workshop, which is coming in and having that meeting with you. You’ve stepped them through the FAFSA and the EFC, and people are very attentive, and very appreciative, and you’ve had a look at the family’s finances. They seem interesting to you as well. Talk to us about, “Jack, how do we continue to work together? And do you do this all for free? How does that work?”
Shinn: It’s a discussion…I always tell them that everything up until the EFC determination is part of the workshop. After that, because of the FAFSA, I feel like I have a license to look at a lot of their assets. And if things stick out to me, that I think might be a little out of whack, it gives me an opportunity to ask questions about “Why this?” and “Why that?”
And again, the discussion at that point is, how much of my services do you want to use? Do you want to use just the college search process? Do you want us to vet colleges? How deeply do you want to go into that? Do you want us to do a full financial work up for you? That means checking all of your accounts, your brokerage accounts, your life insurance. We kind of start applying the three-legged stool to their particular situation.
What I’m finding is that after you’ve determined the EFC, that sort of establishes your credibility. That’s the point they start to trust you a little bit more. The introductions are over at that point, and the other discussions should be a little bit easier to start. Because they’ve already vetted you and said, “Yeah, this guy’s OK. He knows what he’s doing.”
Bailey: So is there a fee-for-service structure for moving on to beyond the EFC? Shinn: I’m pretty much a flat rate kind of person. If you want me to do all the college stuff, there’s a rate, and if you want to go into further financial planning, of course then we have to discuss other fees. But it’s a sort of, “What do you want me to do?” then, “Here’s what the fee is for that particular issue.”
Bailey: So what would be a typical family that goes on to phase two college planning with you? How much are they talking about putting out?
Shinn: I’m rather inexpensive, by design I guess. For someone that’s not going to have 140 colleges, and it’s just a basic work up, we’ll do it for $495. When they have a lot of colleges, or other extraneous situations, we’ll go to $795. It honestly depends on how much work we’re going to have to do.
I created a whole bunch of tools that I use to support my analysis. You should see one of my grids where I break down the students and the colleges they go with. It’s archaic, but it works.
Bailey: Let’s talk about what your plan is for later this fall. I think for somebody who’s watching this for the first time and thinking about getting into college planning, it’s like, how are we going to do this? You and I were talking before we started recording that you are planning on doing some webinars, actually very soon, right? So tell us about your webinar plans for this summer.
Shinn: Yeah, I’m thinking of doing two to three webinars a month, and at least one of those is going to be college, possibly two, going forward.
Just something that I’d like to offer, Sean. When I first got into this I got the book from Horsesmouth that Lynn puts out, you know the big one The Financial Advisor’s Guide to Savvy College Planning? I went through that page by page.
I’ve had a number of advisors that have called me and wanted to know about getting into college planning, and the first thing I tell them is, “Go on to Horsesmouth. You’ve got to get that manual, and you’ve got to learn it. There’s a lot to know, and you can’t bootstrap it, you’ve just got to get into the books and learn it.” It’s one of those things that you got to do your time studying first, and then after that, it’s all pretty easy.
Bailey: With a lot of these niches we’ve learned that they can seem daunting at the beginning, and then once you get in there you realize, “Oh, well there’s 10, 12, 14, 15 permutations or whatever.”
It’s kind of like Medicare. People think Medicare is really complex, and it is at some level, but if you talk to somebody who’s committed themselves to pursuing that and helping their clients with it, once you get over the hump and you get it all figured out it’s easy.
Shinn: I found that Social Security was pretty much the same way. Social Security is getting less and less complex with the lack of flexibility for folks that were born after 1954. I’m also thinking that I’m going to be taking a look at Savvy Medicare stuff,&v=reoe0zneibqj1q5ztmt33iqg because it’s public knowledge. I mean, we’re trying to help the public learn about these things. Medicare follows right along with Social Security, then you’ve got the college. I mean, it’s just putting out the information.
Bailey: Right. So let’s stay on your webinar plans, though, for a second. Who will you be inviting to your college planning webinars, and what will be the source of your marketing names? Are they coming from your own existing email list? Are you going to be hooking up with a vendor who’s providing some service? What’s happening there?
Shinn: Basically I’ve got an email list that I use. I also do a lot with Facebook and LinkedIn. I put the event on Facebook, and then I’ll boost it for my audiences. Matter of fact, the last workshop that we did in February with the 40 participants, I did that through Facebook.
Bailey: Good for you. And was that just a boosted post, or was it the deeper level of actual Facebook ads?
Shinn: I’m real unhappy with Facebook ads at the moment. Me and it are not getting along. So, I basically just put it up as an event on my Facebook business page, and then boost the stuffings out of it, in different markets depending on where the workshop is. I was surprised that we got 40 people. I really was pleasantly surprised.
Bailey: By the way, you were holding that event where?
Shinn: Clifton, New Jersey.
Bailey: At the library in Clifton, and you had 40 show up. Roughly how much was your Facebook advertising budget? Just curious to know.
Shinn: I think that one might have been a couple of hundred bucks to get that out.
Bailey: Wow, that is fantastic results, Jack.
Shinn: Well, like I said, the area that I live in is one of the most highly concentrated areas in the United States as far as people. People living on top of people.
Bailey: Although sometimes densely populated areas on Facebook also means there’s a lot more competition, too, but it seemed to have worked for you.
Shinn: I’m not finding that. I don’t know. I’m not seeing a lot of competitive people. I’m starting to see a few people that offer, “Oh, I’ll help your kid with the Common App,” or “I’ll help with the essays,” or “I’ll help with this or that.” But I‘m still not seeing very many people that are doing the actual EFC, FAFSA, college stuff. Maybe it’s just daunting. It looks like a lot of work. I don’t know. But I’m not seeing a lot of competition.
Bailey: So, as you’re thinking ahead that you’re going to be doing this as a webinar, have you thought about what new tactics you’re going to use? Because these people won’t be face-to-face with you in the library, they’re going to be online. Do you have any sense yet as to what your challenges may be in terms of follow up, or getting people to actually sign on for the event after they had registered?
Shinn: No, I’m going to be going through all that starting today. I’m going to be starting the first registrations and the word will be going out. It could fall flat on its face, but I tend to doubt that.
Bailey: I have talked with a number of advisors&v=reoe0zneibqj1q5ztmt33iqg who have been struggling with this over the last couple months, and there’s a range of success—some people doing great, some people doing OK, some people not doing good at all.
One thing that somebody I was talking to the other day suggested is that to whatever degree possible, try and see if there is something you can mail to the people who have registered for the event. So, if I came to your event in person, I don’t know how you organize your events, but a lot of advisors would have a kit, where we’d get some information about college planning, the evaluation form, some other literature.
And so, as we’ve been talking to advisors trying to understand how to succeed in this new virtual meeting space, some people are thinking, “Alright, maybe we should experiment with getting a little packet through the snail mail to the families in advance, to make it seem that much more concrete.”
Because whenever you sign up for anything online it’s so easy to sign up, then forget about it, or blow it off, or whatever. But if people were to receive a concrete info packet at their snail mail address, it might drive better attendance or attention. I’m just putting it out there.
Shinn: Yes, absolutely. It’s something to think about. Like I said, we’re just entering the process now, so there’s going to be adjustments that we have to make. But you’re right, we have a participant packet that we give to everyone that comes to a workshop. And to be honest, that’s one of those things that I haven’t spent an awful lot of time thinking about. What I was thinking about doing is to start calling participants that were at the event immediately after the event.
Have the event at say, one in the afternoon and then let everybody know, “We’re going to be calling you when this is over.” Just start reaching out with a connection that way. It certainly would be another add-on to put together a packet and be able to mail it to them, so they’ve got something in their hands, or maybe provide it as a landing page to the workshop.
Bailey: Yeah, right. They could download it as a PDF, I mean there could be a variety of ways. I’m always in favor of people having something physical. Physical and something that comes through the mail I think has a lot of value.
But you’re absolutely right, the other thing is following up with people immediately. I think that this is a best practice that we’re seeing. For some of these workshops, some people are scheduling a 15-minute call, just to answer their questions, and suss out the relative level of seriousness, before then going on and scheduling a more typical sort of discovery meeting, whatever the case may be.
Shinn: Yeah, I think that makes sense. The one thing I will say is that with the college stuff especially, I find that if they make arrangements or they want to talk to you further, they’re pretty much already going to be with you. With the college stuff, they’re already in half-panic mode. So I don’t find a lot of empty chases with that stuff.
Bailey: That’s so true, and I’m glad you brought that up. Again, for those listening who are just starting to think about this space, this is one of the things that’s very different compared to, say some of the more typical retirement presentations—although those are time crunched as well.
The college planning thing has this huge time pressure on it, a weight that Social Security, Medicare don’t have. Medicare does actually have a time pressure, but most people have no concept of it whereas people do understand that the kid is halfway through his senior year and we’re going to have to be paying for this thing in just a few months, or whatever the case may be. That really drives the follow up for sure.
OK, well, that’s good for discussions about college, but while I have you on the line, you did mention that you were going to be pursuing some other topics. And the reason I mention this is because we have been interviewing advisors during the spring and now into the summer about how well things are going as you make this pivot to virtual meetings, and then the virtual follow up.
And again, there are people who had been having great results in real life, then having good but not fantastic results in the virtual space. They’re trying to figure out, what’s going on? Why aren’t more people taking us up on our offer for the more in-depth, one-on-one analysis?
The notion is that because you’re not face-to-face, it is harder to build that credibility and make that connection. One approach some people are taking to overcome that is to schedule a series of events. So maybe there’s something on college planning, but maybe there’s something on Social Security, or IRA planning, or taxes.
And if you offer a series of webinars, people will come, and maybe after the second or third event they feel like, “All right, this guy’s for real. I like what he has to say, and now I’m willing to do more than a 15-minute phone call.” So, that’s just another thing. What topics are you considering presenting later this year?
Shinn: What I’m thinking is to put together some little YouTube vignettes—minute, minute-and-a-half videos on everything. I mean, I could probably do 100 videos just based on the workshops that we do. I’ll have them sit out there. I even think that there may be a way to hook the YouTube one-minute video into say a Social Security presentation. If you come in and check out a one-minute video, you may want to go see a full seminar, a full video workshop.
I think there are ways to do that. I need to figure out how that happens, but I believe that you can do that effectively. Somebody comes in and looks at Social Security claiming, and it drags them in to look at a workshop, then they go to the workshop and say, “Hey, this guy, he’s OK.” And then you’ll have some sort of a vetting process.
Bailey: That particular tactic that you’re describing is known as a YouTube channel, that you would be creating your own YouTube channel. And I believe the way that people succeed from that is that they do a lot of videos, that Google picks up on the fact that you’re creating fresh content, and at the end of each video you’re referring them to another short video, and another short video. And then, boom, then you offer them the full presentation. That’s definitely an approach that seems to have worked for people, so hats off to you for thinking about that for sure.
How has your business been overall? We just finished two quarters, so the year is half over. It’s been just an unbelievable roller coaster with the markets. Just wanted to check in with you in general. How were the first six months of this year compared to your first six months of last year? Any idea on that?
Shinn: They’re rough. It’s hard to get people to make commitments because we don’t know what their situation is initially. A lot of people are going through some really turbulent times, and first you’ve got to talk them back off the ledge and then get them into the right mindset for what you’re trying to get done with them. And it’s hard to get people’s minds on it, plus who’s available when, what are the new best times to call? Now people are going back to work, that schedule’s changing again.
We’re trying to become good at the virtual space for both workshops and individual meetings, or to have somebody come into a Covid-19 safe office space. We want to give them the option and say, “You can come to the office or we can do this virtually. It’s your call.”
Bailey: Our two counties were, I believe, the hardest hit in the state or among the top three. Of course new infections have trended down, and the infection rate has now been hovering below 1%. It’s popped up a little bit, but nothing like what’s going on elsewhere. What are your thoughts about getting back into the office and giving people that opportunity? Are you interested in trying that?
Shinn: Sure. I’d rather leave it up to them and just give them the option. We can do this virtually, online. We can do it in the office. I mean, you remember with the Social Security and Medicare market, you’re dealing with people that are in that threat range.
So, you have to give them the ability. A lot of them are not terribly comfortable doing virtual meetings. You need a plan B, and that is either we can come to the office where we’re Covid-19 compliant, or if you want to go that far, I’ll wear a mask and show up at your house. I mean, whatever you want me to do, basically I’ll do that. But I have to be prepared to do everything.
We just opened up the office a week-and-a-half ago, and so far I haven’t had any meetings here. It’s a multi-use building that has a number of businesses in it, and we have a space in there. There’s always somebody there, and if that’s where you’re comfortable, that’s where we’ll go.
Bailey: All right, Jack Shinn, thanks so much for being on today. It’s always great to catch up with you, and thanks so much.
Want to learn more about college planning?
Don’t miss Lynn O’Shuaghnessy’s upcoming Virtual Workshop: Build a College Planning Niche That Attracts Wealthy Clients on August 3–6.