Kristin Ramlal ON: Insights from a 20-Year Wealth Management Expert on Maximizing Your Wealth. (#115) — Transcript
Updated: Oct 26
THE PICTURE OF WEALTH · EPISODE 115
Kristin Ramlal joins Dustin Serviss to discuss diversification, alternative investments, portfolio planning and working with financial professionals. This transcript preserves their original conversation.
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This transcript was generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability. It may contain transcription or speaker-attribution errors. Refer to the recording for exact wording.
Chapters
[00:00:00] Investing in themes
[00:02:20] Focus on what you can control
[00:05:02] What diversification means
[00:07:16] Value, growth and investment styles
[00:09:52] Values and portfolio allocation
[00:12:10] Better investing habits
[00:14:17] Time horizons and financial buckets
[00:16:19] A coordinated financial team
[00:18:20] Collaboration in practice
Guest & resources
Related episodes
Transcript
[00:00:00] Kristin Ramlal: We have a lot of people that are big believers in, electric vehicles and the trend towards that that clean, you know, or renewable energy. And you can actually invest specifically in baskets of those types of themes. And it's sometimes through a mutual fund, sometimes through a stake fund or an ETF exchange traded fund. And really, you're looking at playing that general theme. And so you're gonna get a diversified basket of... If we use EV as that example, maybe it's the Teslas of the world, but it's also gonna include some of the chip technology in there as well. And so you get, you know, a a well rounded investment
[00:00:43] Dustin Serviss: picture of wealth, or TPOW as we call it. I am your host, Dustin Service. I'm excited to have Kristen on the podcast today. Now this is, is extremely exciting for me nerding out, in the wealth management space. Kristen, Ramlal is also in the business with over twenty years of experience helping advisors with various things that we're gonna talk about wealth management. And, again, she has been, a major contributor to the, Canada Life women and leadership employee resource group as the chair of the society of real wealth managers, which, again, we're gonna be talking, what do the big boys do when they do investing?
[00:01:26] Dustin Serviss: We're gonna be talking about what is real wealth management and, and what is the designation and what things could we help listener when you're meeting your own financial professional. So thanks a lot for coming on the show today, Kristen.
[00:01:39] Kristin Ramlal: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:41] Dustin Serviss: Awesome. Well, let's, let's dive into... This is... Again, we're gonna do kind of a rapid, pod today where it's... Let's get right to the meet. I know that you're busy and, listener, you're also busy. So in the world of investing, there's lots of stuff people can research. It's overwhelming at times. But, really, there is there is a a a a game... Not a game being played, but in in the investment world, there's big players, we'll call it. And so you work, you know, with Canada Life and and various other, you know, funds. But what do big investment firms look for when trying to get growth out of their investments?
[00:02:16] Dustin Serviss: Big question out of the start, but, I know you can handle it.
[00:02:20] Kristin Ramlal: Shit. Thank you for that. Well, I... I'm a big believer in you can't worry about what you can't control, and you can only focus and worry about what you can control. And when it comes to markets and knowing where is gonna be the best winner, I mean, it's, it's a shot in the dark for anybody, even, you know, the most astute investors. And so that's where I believe diversification is key. And we talk about diversification, we talk about diversification across portfolio managers, asset classes, geographic locations, market capitalization, and even investment management styles like value, growth, or blend.
[00:02:56] Kristin Ramlal: And so I think it's key first and foremost that large investors and even small investors are very, aware of diversification and the benefits of that across the portfolio. One of the other more up and coming, items and what we're seeing a lot with our institutional investors and actually even large scale retail investors because of what's become more available out there as far far as product solutions is now adding an allocation to a newer asset class as they call alternative investments. And so it's it's really interesting. Public pension plans on average have about thirty percent of their assets in alternatives,
[00:03:37] Kristin Ramlal: and family wealth offices are also using a lot more of these alternatives. We've seen on average, maybe about fifteen percent of portfolios in private equity, ten percent in real estate, and about a five percent weighting on average in hedge funds. So once again, real estate, hedge funds, private equity, private debt, and just real property like energy, agriculture, timber, metal, materials. These are now becoming, another asset class that a lot of investors, large and small are wanting to get access to for growth. And the last one. Yeah. Okay.
[00:04:12] Dustin Serviss: No. Fill it in. Fill it in. Fill me in. You got another one.
[00:04:15] Kristin Ramlal: Yeah. I would say the last one is just there. We're finding a lot more people wanting to be more, invested, according to their values and what they believe in and, you know, pulling on that, that heart string, the, the EQ. And so we're seeing a lot more socially responsible investing and investment management strategies with ESG tilts. And so, historically, a lot of people thought that, those types of mandates may have out, not outperformed, sorry, underperformed the general markets. But because of the higher utilization of these solutions and the demand for these, you're having so many more options out there in this space.
[00:04:55] Kristin Ramlal: And so that is another area where we're seeing a lot of institutional investors tilt their portfolios towards.
[00:05:02] Dustin Serviss: You talk about, diversification again. I'm gonna make you back up a bit because, you you know, when I think of diversification or, you know, when listener... If you're thinking about what I thought diversification was, like, don't buy the same stocks, or buy some stocks and some bonds, you rattled off, a few terms, like, you know, geographical or asset allocation. Like, help us understand, you know, what it... What is that? And and why should we care about not just buying a couple different stocks?
[00:05:35] Kristin Ramlal: No. That's that's a great point. Essentially, when you're aiming to achieve diversification of portfolio, you're trying to find other investments that may act differently or perform differently in certain market conditions. So you're looking for uncorrelated potential asset classes. And so the traditional asset...
[00:05:54] Dustin Serviss: What does uncorrelated mean?
[00:05:56] Kristin Ramlal: They don't trend to, in the same direction at the same time.
[00:05:59] Dustin Serviss: Thank you.
[00:06:01] Kristin Ramlal: Yeah. So traditional asset classes would be like your cash, fixed income and equities. And of course, fixed income can be broken down into corporate bonds, municipal government issued bonds, and emerging market bonds or international bonds. And then you go into equities. Well, equities can be broken down into various different, segs... Subsegments like Canadian equities, US equities, international, global, emerging markets, EFI, you know, the list goes on. And then you take a look at now you add alternative investments in there and you add different types of portfolio management styles.
[00:06:37] Kristin Ramlal: So you can have a manager that's fully passive, which really their intent is to just mimic the market, follow it an index that's already been put out there as a benchmark. Or you get an active portfolio manager that may be making calls with their intent to beat the benchmark. And maybe it's an active portfolio management a quant based, meaning they have certain quant, measures that they're using to be able to, narrow down the subsets of investments that they're utilizing within their portfolio. You also can get fulfill managers that have a value tilt. They're going out there looking for value based investments, buying them at a discount.
[00:07:16] Kristin Ramlal: So I'll use an example. You know, energy had its crisis over the past, you know, five to let's say ten years and it has now definitely rebounded, but you go back and energy within the past couple years was considered a value investment. Or you go to the other side of the spectrum, which is growth, and that's where you're seeing a lot of those tech names. And they're very growth orientated and, some portfolio managers strictly focus on growth orientated names versus a blend manager will put the two together. So that's just, you know, probably scratching the surface, but as you can see, so many ways you can diversify your portfolio.
[00:07:52] Dustin Serviss: Well, I think it's, it's... It is important. And, you know, one of the things you talked about was alternative investing. And one of the things that... That's extremely important to us is value based decisions and how to, you know, invest or focus on things that you value, like truly value. And I do have a big question because, you know, if if somebody, you know, during, you know, pandemic times really valued, you know, not being centralized banking and they loved crypto and thought that was gonna be... You know, that's to their values and got on the wrong side of that trade, they lost a lot of money.
[00:08:29] Dustin Serviss: So is there a connection, or is there a way for people to... Again, ESG, it's a big thing right now. It's... You know, everyone wants to be part of that or lots of people do. So, is that... You know, at the end of the day, people are investing to make money. And is there a connection or is there some help you could give us on how to wade through things that are new, alternative, fit with their values, but then, you know, you could buy, you know, some other fund that's been proven over and over all the time to make money versus... You know, do you do you see clients making that decision of, like, oh,
[00:09:06] Dustin Serviss: I don't mind making less money, but I'm gonna be invested with my values. You see where I'm going with that?
[00:09:13] Kristin Ramlal: Yeah. So it's it's quite quite the load of questions. Thank you. I think really what it boils down to is once again, people need to be aware that there's a bucket for it all. And the rate allocation is probably what's most important. And what we'd suggest is no more than usually five to ten percent of one's total investable assets to be, allocated to these maybe special situations or value based investing decisions or thematic tilts as we may call it. And then that way, once again, diversification is key because if you go all into crypto, yeah, you probably wouldn't be pretty happy today, although
[00:09:52] Kristin Ramlal: we're starting to see a rebound off the bottom. But if you only had a five to ten percent allocation, the majority of your portfolio, the other ninety, ninety five percent would've still been trending with the general markets. So, I think it's very important that people, are aware that it's okay to have that desire to follow your heart, follow your values, but having a reasonable allocation to anything and whether it's ESG, whether it's crypto, whether it's, you know, well known stock like a Berkshire Hathaway, you know, you still need to be aware of the importance of having a proper position size.
[00:10:31] Kristin Ramlal: And once again, that rule of thumb, no more than five to ten percent in one individual thematic tilt or individual stock position, is usually a really good rule of thumb to to work with.
[00:10:43] Dustin Serviss: What's the thematic tilt?
[00:10:45] Kristin Ramlal: Yeah. No. That's another great question. So for example, we have a lot of people that are big believers in, electric vehicles and the trend towards that that clean, you know, or renewable energy. And you can actually invest specifically in baskets of those types of themes. And it's sometimes through a mutual fund, sometimes through a sig fund or an ETF exchange traded fund. And really, you're looking at playing that general theme. And so you're gonna get a diversified basket of... If we use EV as that example, maybe it's the Teslas of the world, but it's also gonna include some of the chip technology in there as well.
[00:11:24] Kristin Ramlal: And so you get, you know, a a well rounded investment towards the growth of that theme.
[00:11:31] Dustin Serviss: Awesome. And just a a caveat, this is, any of the stocks we talk about are not buy or sell recommendations, seek financial help. Along the same lines of, you know, decision making, I think, is a huge thing in the world we live in today where decision... You know, making decisions daily has maybe become a little tougher after sort of coming through some interesting times, and we all have have gotten quite good at googling things. And we've maybe lost some of that that old intuition on how to make decisions. So if we can, you know, make habits, make new sort of process in our life to make decision making easier, then that makes
[00:12:10] Dustin Serviss: our our life, what I would call, more wealthy. So my question right now would be, do you have any ideas or things or comments on what individual investor, you know, could use in their investing habits to make better decisions? Like, any hacks or processes that you see as being successful on your client block?
[00:12:31] Kristin Ramlal: Yeah. No. I I would say I really do think it's important that you understand the value of advice. And all of this that we see in the media, the headlines, through social media, a lot of it can be noise. Once again, you can't worry about all of these pieces of noise. It can definitely bog you down. And as a financial professional, I'm sure you can agree that, there's ample amount of information out there and nobody's ever going to be one hundred percent right one hundred percent of the time. And so by seeking advice, you're able to help weed through the noise and through diversification and establishing a properly diverse,
[00:13:08] Kristin Ramlal: portfolio across multiple asset classes. You don't have to worry about all of that and you can actually sleep well at night. I am a big believer as well in what's called the bucket planning concept, where if you have a short term, cash outflow from your portfolio, or you're projecting out your retirement income needs, well, you should definitely make sure that there's usually, you know, maybe, upwards of three to five years worth of your future cash flow needs set aside in a short term bucket. And that's not gonna be invested in equities, and it's probably gonna not make you a heck of a lot of money except for nowadays, you can get
[00:13:44] Kristin Ramlal: a pretty decent rate with a high interest savings account or a GIC. But the concept is you don't risk that money that you're gonna need to live that lifestyle that you wanna pursue in that next three to five years. And then you look at the next five to, let's call it seven, eight to ten years. Well, that's your medium term bucket and that's one where you can probably take on a little bit more growth. You're in retirement, maybe you want growth of income and you set that aside and you can let that fluctuate and not worry that you will not be able to live your retirement dreams because we are gonna be tapping
[00:14:17] Kristin Ramlal: into that bucket five to seven years down the road. And then of course, you've got your longest term bucket and that's gonna be maybe your estate plan, what you're leaving behind for gifting strategies, for philanthropy, for your heirs, or maybe just what you don't need in ten to fifteen plus years. Well, that's where you can decide whether you're willing to risk it or not in the equity market. And of course, there's other tools out there like insurance that can be utilized. So, I do believe that having an advisor that can help coach you and walk you through these types of, strategies will give you the peace of
[00:14:50] Kristin Ramlal: mind that you won't have to worry about what's going on in the markets and all the noise.
[00:14:54] Dustin Serviss: Great segue. So this is a big, you know, big... Hiring a financial professional is a big deal. It could be stressful for some people. It could be, you know, it could be, you know, your adviser retires. It could be they pass away. It could be you've just come into money. So listener, if you've inherited money, sold a property, sold a business, and now all of a sudden you've got money. Or the situation we see a lot is, hey. I've got this client. Usually, it's an accountant or a lawyer introducing us to somebody. They've got a holding company that they've just been building up money for years and saying, well, I'll do something with it.
[00:15:29] Dustin Serviss: I'll do something with it. And now it's three, four, five, a million two of cash. So that can be very daunting, the decision to hire an adviser. You are are, you know, connected to something called the real, wealth manager or real real wealth... You'd say it for me.
[00:15:47] Kristin Ramlal: The society of real wealth managers.
[00:15:49] Dustin Serviss: Thank you. So this is a designation that sets apart, real wealth managers, and I I think that's a very cool term. So help listener, if they're interviewing an adviser or if they're going in for a review meeting with their existing adviser, what are a couple questions, your top three questions that could help listener have a more constructive meeting with their existing adviser or make it easier for them to interview multiple advisers when they're trying to hire one?
[00:16:19] Kristin Ramlal: Yeah. Well, the key with the Real Wealth Manager and what's... What differentiates them is that they've gone through a program exclusively authored through the knowledge bureau to be able to help work collaboratively and lead a team of financial professionals under one unique financial plan. And that's what's key is because sometimes we've seen where you may have an accountant, a lawyer, a portfolio manager, financial professional, all as part of your team working for you, but they're not talking and they're not driving one plan. They're all driving their own unique siloed plans.
[00:16:52] Kristin Ramlal: And so to answer your question there, I would say the best questions to be positioning your advisor when you're meeting with them is A, are they willing to work collaboratively with your existing financial professionals? B, are they willing to refer you to other collaborative financial professionals? And are you willing to help lead one financial plan for me? Because that's what's... What we're seeing is a big major difference out there over time is you may have seen certain financial professionals being maybe more traditionally transactional. You come to me for a will, you come to me for that insurance
[00:17:28] Kristin Ramlal: policy, but you need to have a financial professional that's driving that plan today and in the future for you and making sure that all of those key financial decision makers are involved in the decision making for you because that's how you're gonna get true real wealth after taxes, fees and inflation, and having a more sustainable and efficient intergenerational wealth traps for the next generation as well. That's what we define as real wealth. It's being mindful of all of these other influences that come into play and knowing that your money is important, not only today, but also for future
[00:18:04] Kristin Ramlal: generations to come after that biggest tax or biggest expense we'll ever have, which is tax, because tax does, does eat away and erode as we call it our wealth over time. So, those are the key questions to ask.
[00:18:20] Dustin Serviss: If you have a story where, and again, you would be sitting in your position. You know, you were going in assisting advisers, meeting their clients. Do you have a story where an adviser and yourself maybe, you know, you presented a plan to them. The client liked it. They took it to a different adviser on their team or, you know, accountant lawyer, trusted friend, and the other person didn't like it. And then you were able to collaborate and get it across the finish line for the good of the client. Do you have a story? And and more specifically, what was it that that other third party needed to see, hear,
[00:19:02] Dustin Serviss: understand to make it to them feel like a plan, it made sense.
[00:19:07] Kristin Ramlal: Yeah. Well, I've I've got ample stories for you, but I think the one that's gonna hit home, especially kind of pulling it back to investment management is, we were working with, pretty high net worth or ultra high net worth, professional had been entrenched in his business every day, all day, and really didn't have the time, needed to oversee his investments. And when we looked at the portfolio and the way that it was managed, this was a pretty wealthy individual that should have been mindful and aware of the potential of US sustained taxes given his net worth and either US side as property ownership.
[00:19:42] Kristin Ramlal: And when we look at his portfolio, he was holding individual US stocks as an example, in an open non registered environment. Well, that actually also magnified his potential for US estate taxes when we know very well that you can have US exposure, US stock exposure through a Canadian solution to avoid that problem entirely. And so this is, a situation where the other financial professional didn't do the due diligence, didn't engage with the tax professional, didn't engage with the estate planning professional, didn't even ask the client what was their desires to have US stock ownership versus not and was
[00:20:24] Kristin Ramlal: that a driving factor in how the portfolio was positioned? But because we came in and we were able to ask the right questions and identify truly what was important to this client, we were able to bring in all of those financial stakeholders to give us, a well rounded, plan for the client to say, Hey, we can still get you this exposure, but we can do it differently. And we can avoid potentially tens to hundred thousands of dollars in US estate taxes down the road, which would've been an issue for your heirs. Needless to say, we won the case.
[00:20:59] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. Right. That's, that was... That's perfect. And I I think that there's... There is some... You know, that's for a whole another podcast, US estate tax. Some of the numbers have changed. So thanks, thanks, Kristen, for for giving us that insight. Is there anything that you're most excited about in in working right now with advisers that they're, you know, are are having breakthroughs with... You know, for listener or for their clients? Is there any major things or any parting notes that you want to, share that you're most excited about?
[00:21:28] Kristin Ramlal: I'm definitely most excited about this advisor of the future concept, real wealth manager and real wealth management. It's long overdue, and we have ample cases of where it works and why it works. And so, although it is still a new and upcoming, you know, segment of the advisor population, there are a lot of advisors and financial professionals out there that are doing this, but how do you find them? And that's why there's this real wealth management designation that's been launched. So it becomes a little bit easier for you to find these professionals that are willing to work collaboratively and lead your financial plan for
[00:22:01] Kristin Ramlal: wealth sustainability. So I'm excited to see where this goes over the next couple years, and I'm happy to engage in further conversation on this when the time's right.
[00:22:10] Dustin Serviss: Awesome. When... Where can people find more information about, what you've been talking about today?
[00:22:15] Kristin Ramlal: Yeah. So this can all be found online. We have a website, the Society of Real Wealth Managers. We're also on LinkedIn. And, of course, once again, that is a program exclusively authored through the knowledge bureau. So if you search the knowledge bureau, that's for all the financial professionals who may be interested in learning more about that program and that designation.
[00:22:34] Dustin Serviss: Thanks a lot, Kristen.
[00:22:36] Kristin Ramlal: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
[00:22:39] Dustin Serviss: Thank you for tuning into this episode. If you enjoyed the show, please like and rate the show, share with a friend, or use your new knowledge in your next conversation. If during the show, something gave you a pang of inspiration, motivation or sense of uncertainty, act on it now. Get the clarity you're looking for. Find the permission you seek. Go to servicewealth dot com to discover how others are learning how to take Fridays off or buying a recreation property or spending more money. If you're an organizer of an event where you believe my philosophy on finance lifestyle design would be applicable, go to servicewealth dot com and book me
[00:23:11] Dustin Serviss: as a speaker at your next event. If you want a copy of our new book coming out out soon, send me a message on Instagram or Facebook and we will be sure to get you a first copy.