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In this episode of Planning & Beyond®, Ashley talks with Matt Halloran, Chief Evangelist at Zocks, about how AI is changing the way financial advisors work with clients.

Ashley and Matt talk through how advisors can use AI to reduce the time spent on notes, follow-up, and other admin tasks that often pull attention away from clients. Matt explains how the right tools can help advisors stay more present in meetings, listen more closely, and create a better client experience.

They also discuss the value of in-person events, the importance of real connection in an increasingly digital industry, and what advisors can do with the time they get back when technology takes repetitive work off their plate.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• The difference between artificial intelligence and augmented intelligence
• How AI can help advisors spend less time on admin work
• Why being fully present matters in client meetings
• How better tools can support stronger client relationships
• Why in-person connection still matters in financial services
• How advisors can use reclaimed time to grow personally and professionally
• Examples of how AI is helping advisors become more human, not less

Matt’s message is clear: financial advising is not only about numbers. It is about trust, presence, and relationships. This conversation is a strong fit for advisors who want to use technology without losing the personal side of their work.

RESOURCES AND GUEST INFORMATION

25. Shut Up and Listen: How Strategic Listening Skills Transform Client Relationships with Matt Halloran

About the Guest

Matt Halloran is a human-centered communication expert and Chief Evangelist at Zocks. He helps financial advisors build deeper relationships and create meaningful impact through better listening and authentic connection. A seasoned keynote speaker, TEDx presenter, and three-time author, Matt blends practical tools, real-world stories, and his HOPE framework to help advisors communicate more clearly, lead with intention, and stay human in an increasingly digital world.

Connect with Matt Holloran:

• Book: https://www.amazon.com/Shut-Up-Listen-Matt-Halloran/dp/B0DKVZVZDS
• Tedtalk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLh-st00UYc
• Event advisors: https://event-advisors.net/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattgpthalloran/
• Insta: https://www.instagram.com/mattgpthalloran/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MoreHumanwithZocks
• Zocks: https://www.zocks.io/mattgpt

Connect with Host Ashley Quamme:

• Podcast Website: https://www.planningandbeyond.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-quamme
• Beyond the Plan®: https://www.beyondthefp.com
• Monthly Newsletter: https://www.beyondthefp.com

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A prospect sits across from you with a decision to make. Before they share the full truth about their money, their fear, their family, or the choice they keep delaying, they are quietly asking one question: Can I trust you?

In this episode of Planning & Beyond®, Ashley sits down with Deirdre Van Nest, keynote speaker and founder of Crazy Good Talks®, to talk about strategic storytelling and why your personal brand “why I care” story matters. Deirdre explains why this story is not simply about why you got into the business. It is about helping clients understand why their lives, decisions, and outcomes matter to you.

Deirdre shares the personal experience that shaped her mission and how that awareness now fuels her work helping advisors communicate in a way that builds trust faster and moves clients toward decisions they might otherwise delay.

Ashley and Deirdre also break down three types of strategic stories advisors can use: the personal brand why I care story, the desire story, and the analogy or illustrative story. Each one has a different purpose. One builds trust. One creates desire without sounding salesy. One makes a complex idea easier to understand and remember.

The conversation also challenges a common message advisors often hear: don’t talk about yourself. Deirdre offers a more nuanced view. Tune in to learn more.

You’ll walk away with:

• How vulnerability can build trust without oversharing
• Why storytelling is a skill you can build, not a talent you either have or do not have
• How one advisor used his story to improve prospect-to-client conversion
• Why your story does not have to be tragic to be powerful
• Ways to use your story in meetings, video, referrals, and client communication

This episode is for the advisor who wants to communicate with more clarity, humanity, and confidence. Because when clients understand why you care, they are more likely to trust what you know.

RESOURCES AND GUEST INFORMATION

About the Guest

Deirdre Van Nest is a keynote speaker and founder of Crazy Good Talks®, a firm that helps revenue-producing entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and leaders turn communication into a measurable business advantage.

She and her team help clients build trust faster, convert quicker, and communicate at a level most never reach, so when they walk into a room, they do not just enter it, they own it.

Connect with Deirdre Van Nest:

• Website: https://crazygoodtalks.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dvannest
• Story Creation Template: https://crazygoodtalks.com/asset-creation/

Connect with Host Ashley Quamme:

• Podcast Website: https://www.planningandbeyond.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-quamme
• Beyond the Plan®: https://www.beyondthefp.com
• Monthly Newsletter: https://www.beyondthefp.com

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A client calls, and the news is big. A terminal diagnosis. A sudden death. A surprise windfall that should feel like good news but somehow doesn't. The plan you built so carefully is no longer the point, and the person in front of you is not the same person who sat in your office last quarter. So what do you actually do in that moment?

In this episode, Ashley sits down with Rose Zealand, a CFP, Certified Financial Transitionist, and end-of-life doula who works at the intersection of death and money. Rose founded Golden Thread Collaborative to support people facing life-limiting illness, and she has a rare gift for naming what happens to clients, and to advisors, when life stops following the plan.

Rose offers a working definition that reframes the whole conversation: acute crisis is transition without anticipation. It is the T-bone event, the thing nobody saw coming. She walks through why crisis can be positive or negative, and why a sudden windfall can leave a client more isolated than a loss, because the people around them assume there is nothing to grieve.

From there, Rose lays out how an advisor can show up. Think of your role as a force field around the client, buffering them from pressure and premature decisions. Notice the signs of dysregulation. Ask permission before you ground someone. Use the Now, Soon, Later tool to turn a swirl of urgency into two or three things that truly cannot wait. Become the keeper of the list so your client does not have to carry it alone.

You'll walk away with:

• A clear definition of acute crisis and how it differs from ordinary financial stress
• Why positive crises often come with less support, and how to spot that loneliness
• Simple, consent-based ways to help a dysregulated client come back to the present
• The Now, Soon, Later approach for clients who feel everything is urgent
• A practical aftercare plan, including the menu of support that beats "let me know if you need anything"
• Clear signals for when to bring in a specialist, and how to invest in your own grief and trauma literacy

You are not your client's therapist. As Rose puts it, sometimes your job is to let them be a mess without trying to fix it, and to keep holding them in high regard while they find their footing. This is a conversation for any advisor who has ever sat across from a client in crisis and quietly thought, I have no idea what to say right now.

RESOURCES AND GUEST INFORMATION

About the Guest

Rose Zealand is a CFP, a Certified Financial Transitionist, and a trained end-of-life doula. She is the founder of Golden Thread Collaborative, a Colorado-based practice that supports people in their 40s and 50s facing a life-limiting or potentially life-limiting diagnosis through the financial, logistical, emotional, and existential challenges of dying too soon. Structured more like a coaching engagement than a traditional planning relationship, her work also supports financial advisors who have younger clients moving through acute crisis.

Connect with Rose:

• Website: deathandmoney.com
• LinkedIn: Connect with Rose
• Newsletter: Threads of Insight (twice monthly, available through her website)

Connect with Host Ashley Quamme:

• Podcast Website: Planning & Beyond®
• LinkedIn: Ashley Quamme - Licensed Therapist & Financial Behavior Specialist
• Beyond the Plan®: Financial psychology integration services
• Monthly Newsletter: Subscribe at BeyondTheFP.com

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You change clothes before a client meeting and feel like you are putting on a costume. Someone asks what you do at a conference and you lead with your title and your AUM, never the parts of your life that matter most. And underneath the professionalism, there is a quiet exhaustion you cannot quite name.

In this episode, Ashley talks with Justin Castelli, a financial advisor of more than 20 years and the founder of RLS Wealth, now doing business as Santiago. Justin has built a reputation for showing up as unmistakably himself, and he argues that authenticity is not a personality perk. It is a business strategy and a buffer against burnout.

Justin starts where most advisors do not. He introduces himself as a father and a husband first, advisor second. From there, he and Ashley get into what authenticity actually means, and why it does not require blowing up your life or your firm. You can be true to yourself inside real constraints, including a dress code or a compliance department.

One insight worth sitting with: performing a version of yourself you are not is expensive. As Justin puts it, it takes energy to be someone who is not true to you, and over time that becomes the straw that breaks the camel's back. When advisors stop performing, they enjoy the work more, and clients feel that shift too.

Ashley and Justin also explore authenticity as a series of low-risk experiments rather than one permanent decision, the difference between leading with your heart and overriding it with your head, and the story behind the Santiago rebrand and Justin's move toward life planning.

You will walk away with:

• A reframe that treats authenticity as something you practice within constraints, not an all-or-nothing leap
• Why surface-level performing drives advisor burnout, and what changes when it stops
• Places to experiment: how you dress, who you serve, how you serve, your fees, and your brand
• A gentler way to think about niche, starting with the clients who energize you
• Language for the moment a client faces a values-versus-logic decision

Justin also names something many advisors quietly feel. Sometimes the honest question is not how do I serve clients better, but how did I get here. This is a conversation for any advisor who has wondered whether the practice they built still fits the person they have become.

RESOURCES AND GUEST INFORMATION

About the Guest

Justin Castelli is a financial advisor with more than 20 years in the profession and the founder of RLS Wealth, which he has run since 2015 and recently rebranded as Santiago. A prolific creator, Justin writes a daily note and a blog, hosts a podcast, and produces video, all built around what he calls "the business of the authentic life." Through Santiago he is moving toward life planning and a more collaborative, coaching-informed way of working with clients.

Connect with Justin:

• Website (everything in one place): justincastelli.io
• Firm: RLS Wealth, doing business as Santiago (santiago.life)
• LinkedIn: Connect with Justin Castelli

Connect with Host Ashley Quamme:

• Podcast Website: PlanningAndBeyond.com
• LinkedIn: Connect with Ashley
• Beyond the Plan®: BeyondTheFP.com
• Monthly Newsletter: Subscribe at BeyondTheFP.com

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You've heard the phrase. It shows up in keynotes, LinkedIn posts, firm marketing, and increasingly, your own conversations with prospects. But if someone put you on the spot and asked what "the human side of money" actually means, could you articulate it? And more importantly, could you tell them what to do about it on Monday morning?

For the 50th episode of Planning & Beyond, Ashley zooms way out with Brendan Frazier, Chief Behavioral Officer at RFG Advisory and host of The Human Side of Money podcast. Brendan has been sitting with this exact question since 2017, when reading The Undoing Project cracked open his interest in behavioral finance and set him on a path that quickly outgrew that label.

Together, Ashley and Brendan unpack why "behavioral finance" was only ever the gateway, not the destination. They walk through the many dimensions that make up being human (individual, relational, cultural, societal) and how money layers on top of all of them. They draw a distinction that most advisors have never had named for them: the difference between the human side of money (what's happening inside your client) and the human side of advice (how you actually do this work).

You'll hear Brendan's honest take on where advisors should start (hint: it's not a four-step framework), Ashley's Five Human Domains as a reframe of traditional planning categories, and the research-backed reason why helping clients vividly picture their future changes behavior in the present.

A few ideas you'll walk away with:

• Why money is a tool to fund the life someone wants to live, and what that means for how you structure conversations
• The "just-in-time learning" approach to building behavioral skills without getting overwhelmed
• How to think about security, freedom, connection, legacy, health, and growth as the real planning categories
• Why communication skills offer the highest ROI of anything you could develop as an advisor

This one is less tool and technique, more map and compass. If you've been doing this work for a while and feel like you're ready to think about it at a different altitude, press play.

And thank you, seriously, for being part of 50 episodes.

RESOURCES AND GUEST INFORMATION

About Brendan Frazier

Brendan Frazier is the Chief Behavioral Officer at RFG Advisory and the host of The Human Side of Money podcast, where he has spent hundreds of conversations translating behavioral science, psychology, and communication research into practical tools for financial advisors. His work sits at the intersection of behavior change, client communication, and advisor practice management.

Connect with Brendan:

• The Human Side of Money Podcast: Available on all major podcast platforms
• LinkedIn: Brendan Frazier (most active, daily content)
• RFG Advisory: Monthly blog and newsletter on applying the human side of advice
• Website: rfgadvisory.com

Connect with Host Ashley Quamme:

• Podcast Website: Planning & Beyond®
• LinkedIn: Ashley Quamme - Licensed Therapist & Financial Behavior Specialist
• Beyond the Plan®: Financial psychology integration services
• Monthly Newsletter: Subscribe at BeyondTheFP.com
• Advisor Foundations Community: Learn more about the 7 Core Relational Skills by joining our community! 

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A young couple, dressed up for their first real financial planning meeting, sat across from an advisor who asked about retirement, income, and savings. He never asked why they were spending money on travel. He never asked about their immigration status, their mixed marriage, or the fact that two people had just built a life in a country that wasn't theirs by birth. Two weeks later, they came back for their plan and were told they were going to fail. They walked out feeling like failures in a country they had worked incredibly hard to call home. It would be five to six years before they approached another advisor.

That couple was Jane Mepham and her husband. And that experience shaped the firm she now runs.

In this conversation, Jane shares what advisors need to understand about serving foreign-born clients, mixed-marriage couples, and anyone whose cultural context shapes their relationship with money. She's a CFP®, founder of Elgon Financial Advisors, and co-host of the International Money Cafe podcast. She also has a specific answer for the advisor who wants to be curious but worries about saying the wrong thing.

You'll hear why "tell me how you grew up" opens doors that "where are you from" closes. Why a color-coded spreadsheet of "Visit Family Back Home" belongs in the plan before anyone gets scolded for it. How to build a spending plan that assumes remittance, a retirement plan that respects education-first cultures, and an exit plan for clients whose visa status could change overnight. And why the clients Jane serves often say working with her feels like therapy. (Good news for advisors. You don't have to become a therapist to do this well. You just have to get curious.)

You'll also hear how Jane helps clients who want to pull everything from the market when the world feels unstable, and why giving them numbers isn't the answer.

Whether you serve one foreign-born client or one hundred, this conversation will change how you open your next discovery meeting.

RESOURCES AND GUEST INFORMATION

About Jane Mepham, CFP®

Jane Mepham is the founder of Elgon Financial Advisors, a firm registered in Texas and California that specializes in serving foreign-born nationals with holistic wealth management. Based in Austin, Jane brings a unique perspective shaped by her own immigrant journey and years of working with clients navigating visas, mixed marriages, cross-border financial questions, and cultural transitions. She is also co-host of the International Money Cafe podcast.

Connect with Jane Mepham

• Website: Elgon Financial Advisors (AlgonFA.com)
• LinkedIn: Jane Mepham, CFP®
• Podcast: International Money Cafe (with co-host Manasa Nadig)

Connect with Host Ashley Quamme

• Podcast Website: Planning & Beyond®
• LinkedIn: Ashley Quamme 
• Beyond the Plan®: BeyondTheFP.com - Financial psychology integration services
• Monthly Newsletter: Subscribe at BeyondTheFP.com
• YouTube: Beyond the Plan Solutions

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You've shown your client the numbers. Multiple times. The plan works, they can afford the house, they have enough to retire, the math is on their side. And yet they keep circling back to the same question, the same hesitation, the same "I just don't know." Sound familiar?

In this episode, Ashley sits down with Dr. Kristy Archuleta, Professor at the University of Georgia and one of the leading researchers on financial anxiety, to unpack what's actually happening with clients who can't seem to move forward, even when the plan says they can.

Kristy walks through the critical (and often missed) distinction between financial stress and financial anxiety, and why it matters for how advisors show up. Stress is a reaction to a specific stressor that resolves when the situation does. Financial anxiety is persistent worry that lingers after the decision is made, shapes how clients engage with every recommendation, and begins to impact their relationships and daily functioning.

Ashley and Kristy also explore one of the most overlooked dynamics in retirement planning: the "Do I have enough?" question that may not actually be about the money. Sometimes it's grief. Sometimes it's identity loss. Sometimes it's both. Understanding that difference changes everything about how you respond.

You'll walk away with:

• A clear framework for distinguishing financial stress from financial anxiety in client meetings
• Why financially anxious clients often look the most "put together" (and why that makes them harder to help)
• The tiny-steps-and-experiments approach for clients stuck in decision paralysis
• Collaborative question examples you can use in your very next meeting
• Ashley's Vision-Reality-Plan framework for walking clients through stuck points
• Clear guidance on when and how to bring in a financial therapist or mental health professional

This is a conversation for any advisor who has ever sat across from a client and thought: The numbers work. So why aren't they moving?

Because, as Kristy says, numbers don't show up on paper because they just showed up. They show up because of how someone thinks, feels, does, and relates. When you understand that, you stop trying to solve with more data, and start helping clients actually move.

RESOURCES AND GUEST INFORMATION

About the Guest

Dr. Kristy Archuleta is a Professor of Financial Planning at the University of Georgia, a licensed marriage and family therapist, and one of the pioneering researchers in the field of financial therapy. She co-developed one of the most widely used financial anxiety measures and has spent her career helping advisors, therapists, and researchers understand the psychological dimensions of money. Kristy also speaks and consults through the Behavioral Keynote Group.

Connect with Kristy:

• University of Georgia (Financial Planning Program): fcs.uga.edu
• LinkedIn: Dr. Kristy Archuleta
• Behavioral Keynote Group: For speaking engagements and keynote bookings
• UGA Graduate Program: Behavioral Financial Planning and Financial Therapy graduate certificate (fully online) and master's track with experiential pro bono component

Connect with Host Ashley Quamme:

• Podcast Website: Planning & Beyond®
• LinkedIn: Ashley Quamme - Licensed Therapist & Financial Behavior Specialist
• Beyond the Plan®: Financial psychology integration services
• Monthly Newsletter: Subscribe at BeyondTheFP.com
• Advisor Foundations Community: Learn more about th

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You've run the numbers. The client can absolutely afford to take time off. And yet they won't. Or they want to, but they're terrified. Or they've mentioned burnout in every meeting for the last two years and still can't pull the trigger.

Sabbaticals are showing up more and more in client conversations, and most advisors don't have a roadmap for navigating them. Not just the financial piece, but the human piece — the identity questions, the resistance, the fear of what comes next, and the return to work on the other side.

In this episode, I'm joined by Cady North, financial advisor and author of The Art of the Sabbatical, who has built an entire area of her practice around helping clients plan for and navigate intentional work breaks. Cady brings both the planning expertise and a deeply personal experience with sabbatical, which makes her perspective incredibly grounded and real.

We cover what a sabbatical actually is (it's not just for academics or people eating, praying, and loving their way around the world), why identity is often the biggest obstacle — not money — and what advisors can do to create space for clients to explore this without projecting their own fears onto the conversation.

One insight that really stuck with me: most sabbaticals are completely unplanned. They start with burnout or a layoff, not a spreadsheet. That means your clients may already be in one without having prepared for it, and knowing how to support them in that moment is where advisors can offer something truly unique.

You'll also hear about the "runway" framework Cady uses with clients actively in a sabbatical, how to recognize the signs that it might be time to bring this up, and what planning for return to work actually looks like — including how advisors can help clients negotiate their way back in stronger than before.

RESOURCES AND GUEST INFORMATION

About Cady North

Cady North is a financial advisor, solo practice owner of North Financial Advisors, and the author of The Art of the Sabbatical. With over a decade of experience in financial planning, Cady has developed a specialty in helping clients navigate intentional work breaks — from the financial logistics to the mindset shifts that make them possible.

Connect with Cady North:

• Website: cadynorth.com (Note: spelled C-A-D-Y N-O-R-T-H)
• LinkedIn: Cady North
• Book: The Art of the Sabbatical — available on Amazon and everywhere books are sold (print, ebook, and audiobook)

Connect with Host Ashley Quamme:

• Podcast Website: PlanningAndBeyond.com
• LinkedIn: Ashley Quamme — Licensed Therapist & Financial Behavior Specialist
• Beyond the Plan®: BeyondTheFP.com
• Monthly Newsletter: Subscribe at BeyondTheFP.com

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You have clients who love you. You know it. They know it. And yet your referral pipeline is quieter than it should be.

Here's the thing — it's probably not about satisfaction at all. According to Phil Bray, founder of the UK-based financial services marketing agency Yardstick, around 96% of clients say they would recommend their advisor in principle. But only about 50% have actually done it in the past year. That gap between "would refer" and "has referred" isn't a loyalty problem. It's an education problem.

Phil spent over a decade as a financial advisor before building Yardstick into a 55-person agency focused entirely on marketing for financial planning firms. He's thought deeply about why referrals stall — and what advisors can actually do about it that doesn't feel pushy, desperate, or just plain awkward.

In this episode, we talk through why asking for referrals might be the wrong approach entirely and what to do instead. Phil introduces a strategy built around three pillars — client education, communication, and appreciation — and walks through a six-step process advisors can weave into their annual review meetings. It's structured, but it feels natural. Genuinely natural.

We also spend time on something that's changing fast: what happens between the moment someone gets a referral and the moment they actually reach out. Increasingly, that gap is being shaped by AI. Phil shares what his agency is seeing — including a 118% rise in AI-driven traffic to financial planner websites over the last six months — and what advisors need to be doing right now to show up when someone asks an AI to help them find the right fit.

If you've ever felt uncomfortable asking clients to send people your way, this episode gives you a reframe and a roadmap.

RESOURCES AND GUEST INFORMATION

About Phil Bray: Phil Bray is the founder of Yardstick, a UK-based marketing agency dedicated exclusively to financial planning firms. A former financial advisor of 13 years, Phil brings both practitioner insight and marketing expertise to helping advisors grow through referrals, client communication, and digital visibility. Since launching in 2017, Yardstick has grown to a team of 55.

Connect with Phil Bray:

• Website: theyardstickagency.co.uk
• LinkedIn: Phil Bray

Connect with Host Ashley Quamme:

• Podcast Website: PlanningAndBeyond.com
• LinkedIn: Ashley Quamme 
• Beyond the Plan®: BeyondTheFP.com
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

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Have you ever gone over a financial plan with a client, checked every box, and then watched them walk out and implement almost none of it? It's one of the most frustrating experiences in this work — and it's more common than anyone likes to admit.

Here's what might actually be happening: your client's nervous system is running the show.

In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Alex Melkumian, licensed marriage and family therapist, financial psychologist, and founder of the Financial Psychology Center in Los Angeles. Alex has spent nearly two decades working at the intersection of mental health and money, and his latest book, Calm Money, makes a compelling case for why financial self-care isn't a luxury — it's often the prerequisite to any financial plan actually working.

We talk about what financial self-care really means (hint: it's not just bubble baths and budgeting apps), why money continues to be the number one stressor for most Americans, and what it looks like when a client is in freeze mode right in front of you — even when they're nodding along.

One of the most powerful moments in our conversation is when Alex shares this: "A triggered mind is a controlled mind." When clients are in fight, flight, or freeze, the best financial strategy in the world gets filtered through a nervous system that's in threat mode. That's why the plan doesn't stick. That's why nothing gets implemented.

Alex also walks us through the structure of the Calm Money journal — daily check-ins, weekly pattern work, and monthly reflection — and why that kind of compassionate, consistent engagement with money can literally reshape how a client's brain responds to financial conversations over time.

If you've been puzzling over clients who seem to understand your plan but won't follow through, this episode offers a framework for understanding what's actually going on — and a resource you can point them toward.

RESOURCES AND GUEST INFORMATION

Guest Bio: Dr. Alex Melkumian is a licensed marriage and family therapist, financial psychologist, and founder of the Financial Psychology Center in Los Angeles. He is the author of Financial Psychology: Restoring Financial Wellness in the Post-COVID Economy and the newly released Calm Money, a financial self-care book and companion workbook. Dr. Melkumian has spent nearly two decades helping individuals, couples, and organizations navigate the emotional and psychological dimensions of money.

Connect with Dr. Alex Melkumian:

• LinkedIn: Dr. Alex Melkumian
• Instagram: @FinancialPsychologyCenter
• Website: financialpsychologycenter.com
• Calm Money — Available now on Amazon
• Financial Psychology: Restoring Financial Wellness in the Post-COVID Economy — Available on Amazon

Connect with Host Ashley Quamme:

• Podcast Website: PlanningAndBeyond.com
• LinkedIn: Ashley Quamme — Licensed Therapist & Financial Behavior Specialist
• Beyond the Plan®: BeyondTheFP.com
• Monthly Newsletter: Subscribe at BeyondTheFP.com