Who is Qualified to Help You? | Zach Miller, Erik Averill | NFL Players' Podcast #5

Erik Averill (00:24):

Hey everyone, welcome back to another week of the NFL Players Podcast, we are Zach and Erik. And today we're going to jump into the conversation of explaining the alphabet soup of designations that we made the comment on the last episode, that there's over 300,000 people that call themselves Financial Advisors. Who do you actually know as a professional? Who's just playing semi-pro football on the weekends or who's playing on Sundays is really the answer. And then Zach's going to jump into what is one of the biggest assets that you have as an NFL player that we also see as the most neglected asset out there. And so Zach bring us up to speed a little bit on like, who's actually a professional?

Zach Miller (01:16):

It's a big problem with the industry and it's something as I was evaluating companies to work at, I had to really educate myself because even going through the Certified Financial Planner education and then passing the exam, the amount of different insurance companies, brokerage houses that aren't doing the kind of financial planning that I think that athletes need, there's just so many of them out there and so I really had to educate myself. So I know that guys like myself when I was 21, 23, 24, 25, it's just a lot to know. So, I mean, I think the gold standard for financial planning is a Certified Financial Planner and it's an education program, you have to go through depending on where you take it at, these modules that really cover everything from insurance to taxes, to investments, to just-

Erik Averill (02:14):

Estate planning.

Zach Miller (02:15):

Yeah, estate planning. So there's just so much that you have to know and so it makes the exam really tough. Now it's a seven hour exam, but I actually just took this last March and passed it and it's grueling. It's something where you don't just memorize stuff, you have to apply that knowledge and so I think that's the bare minimum of anyone that is really managing an athlete's money is they should at least be a Certified Financial Planner and then if you're going to have a true investments team, they need to be a Chartered Financial Analyst. I've looked at possibly getting this, but it's really, it's three exams separated by one year and so it's testing everything there is to know about investments, whether it's private, public, the amount of accounting you have to know.

It's very tough and it's like something you have to dedicate a large part of your life to and so I think when you're looking at these firms and then on the accounting side, I mean CPA, you just want to, I mean, there's no reason you shouldn't require a CPA to be handling the tax side and then you need to evaluate lawyers when it comes to, good Attorneys for estate planning. So really those areas and those professionals are kind of the minimum and then it's about the right kind of experience they have since they've gotten those. It's not just, I got the rubber stamp of approval. It's what have I done with that? How am I progressing? It's just like any athlete, am I getting better at my profession? Am I seeking, continuing education? Am I updating myself on constantly changing Tax Laws that change every year it seems like at this point and every investments that... As more data is known, you have to constantly update your investment strategy and be knowing what's going on.

So it's not just to have those designations, you need to also become the best at your craft in those areas and then the team of them together makes them better than just as they would be separately.

Erik Averill (04:24):

Yeah. And I think a way, way back on a few episodes ago, we talked about what true trust is and a big component, it's not only just the integrity side and the intent, it's the competency in the track record and so this is really where you don't have to guess on competency. If you are trusting people that are not Certified Financial Planners that are not CFA's, CPAs or what we'll talk about in a second, a CPWA, you are choosing to work with less than the best and a CFP, these are not difficult to find, there are 82,000 of us working around the United States. Now, how many of them have experienced working with a professional athlete that comes into the track record standpoint, right?

So what I would say is, regardless if you're an athlete or you are parent listening, or an agent, you should first and foremost, work with an independent company that is doing what's in your best interest. They're not actually trying to sell their products and their services at you of trying to extract value. So an independent company and at a minimum, a Certified Financial Planner, because they have proven that they have the skillset to manage everything that money touches. It's not being reduced only down to your investment portfolio and so that independent pace and why the CFA is so important, we're about to talk about their investments outside of your publicly traded portfolio.

So if you're at a Wall Street Firm and you're asking your team to a potential private real estate deal, a venture capital deal, your NFL benefits team, they cannot touch any of that because that's off of their platform and so making sure you have an independent team that has the open architecture and to your point of, we have to be so curious, we have to get better because when we're open architecture, we're charged with, hey, you go out and find what are the best investments available, not... If I'm at Merrill Lynch or Morgan Stanley, here's our box of products and I'm going to sell these to my clients. It's actually pretty easy, no wonder you don't need continuing education, you get sales training.

I'll never forget this total sidebar, our advisor from Texas, we're sitting at an investment conference and he leans over and he goes, this is the first non-sales training I've ever had from a financial company for four years at Merrill, everything was around: How do you sell, sell, sell? And so Zach, let's talk about the NFL benefits package, this is a huge asset yet most players have no idea about it.

Zach Miller (07:05):

Yeah, it was a problem for me, just because I have a guy with Merrill Lynch, it's illegal for them to give advice on anything like your benefits package, or 401k. So it's something that kind of gets neglected, but it's a huge part of your net worth and if you can play long enough and retired guys will recognize this is, so much of your benefits are deferred in the NFL and it's a great thing because the longer you play, not only is there a NFL 401k that you you're already opted in to max that out, so you don't even need to do anything for that one but you do need to allocate it with the rest of your investments in the most effective way. But then you also have the pension, the pension is huge.

The years you play, it's almost up to $900 per season now that you can get at 55 and it goes up on a per month basis, almost $900 per season, you play per month and so if you can just stack those benefits, there's also an Annuity Plan and a Cap Plan, that are additional deferred compensation, but the heart of those benefits and not to mention the insurance and in post-career, whether it's line of duty, which I've actually been able to qualified for, if you have enough surgeries, you're basically going to get the line of duty benefit. These are extra benefits that the average advisor just has no chance understanding and they don't want to, it's not worth it for them, but it matters to me and it matters to helping guys get the benefits that they earned while they were playing. Because you sacrifice, your body, you sacrificed so much when you're playing the game, you could have either been taking care of your body, or doing a different career that now, when you transitioned from football, you've already have that time dedicated to something that you need to max those benefits.

So I'm going to do a special quick run through of all the NFL benefits that there are, so I'll do that video next and it's going to just run through on, how to maximize and optimize and be most efficient with your NFL player benefits and maximize those benefits that you earn.

Erik Averill (09:25):

You've left me literally scratching my head over here. It still blows me away to think about this, what I just heard you tell me was that sometimes your Financial Advisor can't give advice on all of your finances, right? Like this is just mind boggling that literally you have one of the greatest assets based off of what your union has negotiated for you, right? You have all of these that should be optimized. It's an actual investment account that your real dollars is in. That should be managed yet, wait a second, my financial advisor can't give advice. So what's the solution? Did your advisor just say, "Hey, Zach, I can't touch that, that's on you". And so now all of a sudden you're left back at square one. I'm still trying to win a Superbowl yet, this guy only handles some of my investments. So I still got to coordinate everything else things are absolutely falling through the cracks.

And so I'm excited for you guys to be able to head over to the NFLplayerspodcast.com and you drop in that subscription. You will unlock the free video that Zach's going to do, breaking down, everything that you need to know on your NFL benefits package. Once again, he may be retired, he's still the union rep for you, he knows this thing inside and out so that when everybody else was sleeping during those meetings, Zach was being held accountable by Pete Carroll on what's going on, on OTAs and everything else, that's an inside thing for NFL players. But until next time, stay humble, stay hungry and always be a pro.

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