John Chandler MethodPlan Podcast Transcript

[Royce Hall]

Hey, this is Royce Hall, your host of Coffee Dreamin. I'm a Salesforce Consultant by day and Podcaster by night. And today I'm joined by John Chandler. John is the co-founder of MethodPlan and it's great to have you here today.

[John Chandler]

Oh, thanks for having me.

[Royce Hall]

So give us a quick elevator pitch, 30, 60 seconds. What is MethodPlan? What's that about?

[John Chandler]

Yeah. MethodPlan is a retirement plan advisory overlay or ISV for Salesforce. And we help RIA's and broker dealers and investment advisors run a more efficient retirement plan business.

[Royce Hall]

Right on. So let me ask you the million dollar question. We can't already do that in Salesforce? We can't already do that with Financial Services Cloud?

[John Chandler]

Oh, this is my favorite question. Thank you. Financial Services Cloud is a great product and there are so many different lines of business and financial services.

Retirement plans is white space in financial services right now. They have wealth management, they have a brokerage product, an insurance product, but no one's ever built retirement plans before. And we're the first data model in Salesforce for managing retirement plans.

[Royce Hall]

Right on.

[John Chandler]

That's in the market. Yeah, that's cool.

[Royce Hall]

So does that connect? We'll just get all the data out here real quick. We'll just blast that out first thing.

So is that something that you connect to FSC? Is that something you connect to Sales Cloud? Is that something you connect to, I don't know, Education Cloud?

Where does it go? Yeah, great question.

[John Chandler]

That is we're compatible with Sales Cloud or if you choose to use Financial Services Cloud. We're not Financial Services Cloud dependent though. So you could use it on Sales Cloud, but we are Sales Cloud dependent.

[Royce Hall]

Right on.

[John Chandler]

Yeah.

[Royce Hall]

Well, very good. Not education. We don't touch education.

Oh, yeah. I got to throw it out there, right? So maybe somebody will ask, hey, I work for a university that doesn't work with that.

Right. Right on. So that's great.

So you're working with retirement in a way that nobody else on Salesforce has done. Can you tell me a little bit about how, what that journey looked like? Did you just like wake up one day like, you know what, I've worked with financial advisors and you know what Salesforce really needs?

Like how did that come about?

[John Chandler]

Yeah, my origin story is I spent the last, I spent 15 years running a retirement plan only advisory business. Yes. And as part of running that business, we kept asking ourselves, why is it so hard?

You know, why, why is the work so hard? Why does it take us so much time to do things? And we five, six years ago, went out and looked for a solution and there's nothing in the market.

And then we started to try and build and it was hard at first to figure out how to build out a Salesforce org for ourselves. And we documented every process in managing a retirement plan advisory business. And it cut our overhead by about 30%.

Wow. There's a significant amount of M&A in wealth management and retirement right now. And we saw the opportunity to sell the advisory business.

And then I took all of the IP related to the CRM solution and created MethodPlan.

[Royce Hall]

Yeah. So, so why Salesforce? Was that just like something that you're using or like, why not, you know, you think of HubSpot or Zoho or any of those other solutions that are out there.

[John Chandler]

Yeah. Salesforce is really the, the dominant CRM in the space. You know, there are wealth specific solutions out there, which are, which are perfectly fine for businesses that are wealth only and typically smaller.

But if you, if you think about these larger aggregators and larger businesses that are doing wealth management, employee benefits, retirement plans, life insurance, PNC, Salesforce has the majority of the market share and we wanted to build where our customers are. And so that's where we chose Salesforce. Salesforce is where the data is.

And in the retirement plan space specifically, people are using siloed solutions that are, you know, hard to integrate. And so we chose Salesforce. And part of that was also being on Salesforce for years and having familiarity with it, but there was no question of like, do we build on Salesforce or do we don't stand alone?

It was, it was clear to us that we were going to build on Salesforce.

[Royce Hall]

Yeah. Well, one of the things that's fascinating to me about MethodPlan, you know, it's, it's obviously kind of one of one at the moment, but, you know, can be beyond that leveraging a kind of state of the art technology. So like in the Salesforce world, you know, there's this big push for agents.

And I think that's something that like was very interesting to me about MethodPlan was you have built in that agentic action. I'd love to hear more about that. You know, what's, what's unique about that versus like, you know, there's so much out there right now.

Like we were just talking a little bit ago about like, okay, here's an agent, you know, that summarizes a meeting. It's like, okay, like, you know, that agent does that, but weren't we, wasn't Gong able to do that like five years ago? Like, you know, what's, what's new and fresh?

Like what's the, you know, special sauce there?

[John Chandler]

Yeah, the special sauce is really high quality structured data. You know, a meeting summary tool, which is very valuable and adds efficiency to a, to an advisor's day is relying on the data from that meeting. Right.

The reason we're not seeing more productivity focused solutions on agent force is low quality data, right? Like can the agents interact with the data that's in Salesforce in a meaningful way to help them have a, you know, easier, make their work easier. And that's the, that's the benefit of MethodPlan is that we are structuring data or versioning data so that you have the ability to use AI, you know, right now our first agent is summarizing what it is that has gone on with a plan.

So you can just, you can ask agent force questions about the clients that you have that are in Salesforce, you know, a big thing that plan advisors want to do in our, in our meetings with clients is say, what have we done for you? You know, to show our value. And if you're using MethodPlan and you're using our MethodPlan, agent, agent force agent, you can ask Salesforce agent force paint, what have we done for this client this year?

And that's, that's the first, that's the first of many AI opportunities that I see for MethodPlan. But the high quality structured data is the foundation. And that's what most people are missing.

[Royce Hall]

Yeah. So, so what are you doing to help? I see that like, you know, across Salesforce as a whole is like in, in every industry, it's like, you know, is our data even ready for AI?

And I think in some ways like the AI can help you structure that data and, and, and get to it a little bit faster. But like, yeah, like we have to have good data to begin with, or we're just going to get trash results, right? So how are you helping structure that data?

[John Chandler]

You know, we, we help structure that data because we've established a process for running a book of book of retirement plan business. And that really starts at, you know, at the opportunity phase of how do we onboard a client? How do we define who a client is?

And then once they become a client, how do we manage them within Salesforce? So what needs to be related to our custom plan object and how do you version it? So everything in our system is time-paced.

So you can have a retirement plan that is passed without erasing data current. And then you can start to do work on a future plan. And by versioning that, which is surprisingly not something that's commonly done because it's complicated, that gives us that ability to start to use agents and also connect outside data.

[Royce Hall]

Yeah.

[John Chandler]

So we version things like plan design agreements, fees associated to agreements when the reviews happen, when an RFP needs to be done, things like that, and also what investments are associated to that retirement plan. And that's the, that's the, that's the shirky part. People are overriding and most people are overriding in their CRMs right now.

[Royce Hall]

Oh yeah, definitely. Well, and that's, that's really interesting. Like that, that just makes that, I think that agent play that much more powerful because you have historical information.

So not just, you know, what have we done this year, but like how has the client changed over the past five years? Like you can really do some really deep analysis. And that's, I mean, that's huge time saving.

Like, I think I told you earlier that my sister, she's a paralegal and it's like, okay, like we've got these years of records to pull through. And as a human, like that takes a long time just to read it all and, you know, get the mental model and to be able to, to automate that is super powerful. That's, that's really cool.

Yeah. Thank you.

[John Chandler]

Yeah. A lot of hard work, but also fun.

[Royce Hall]

Yeah. Well, maybe you could tell me a little bit about that, that hard work part. Like what are a few things that you've kind of picked up a, along the way kind of as a, you know, a founder, like what is help, help make you successful here?

[John Chandler]

One of the things that has helped us along the way is, is asking, why do we do things a certain way? Having worked in that advisory business gave me the perspective and, you know, along with my co-founder that we needed to be able to build this. And really pick apart the process to say, you're why, why are we, why are we doing this and what are the downstream implications of putting data into the system here versus here and, and just going into great detail, mapping every step of the process and every data point along the way, it's, we, we were meticulous in, in going through and going through our build and this is not the first, you know, our current version is not the first version after many, many challenging false starts in the beginning.

So it's, you know, it's being, it was being meticulous and being persistent and, you know, and how, and how we approached it. And then, you know, also understanding the market. We, as we were building, we talked to our peers.

We spent a lot of time seeing what they were doing, making sure that we were solving the problems that they have. We weren't just solving problems that we thought existed. We were solving problems that we knew existed because we experienced them.

And then we validated that by talking to the folks in our industry that are also doing the work. And that's, that's been, that was probably one of the most important things we could have done along the way.

[Royce Hall]

Yeah. Well, and that's a, that's an interesting motion as well. You know, you're talking to your peers who are also like, I guess that's on the level of your competitor, but you're also making a product that's going to help them.

So that's, that's an interesting, I don't know, road to walk there. Like, okay, we're, we're competitors in some way, but tell me what, you know, tell me your secret sauce so we can make it ours too.

[John Chandler]

You know, I, I never, I never really thought about it as being competitors in that, you know, when I was still an advisor, I had studied groups with my peers in, in my market, and I'm still friends with them today. The plant businesses is unique in that there's some of us that specialized in it, and then people that have just a few, and there was never that sense of there's not enough business that we needed to not have a good collaborative relationship and work together. So, and people, people were comfortable sharing and so, and so was I.

And I think we all, we all got better for it.

[Royce Hall]

So yeah, that's great. That's yeah, I think of, you know, I'm, I'm in the Salesforce ecosystem. We're both in the Salesforce ecosystem.

Yeah. Yeah. I just think of like the Salesforce Ohana and like it's a similar sort of thing where it's like, we work at different companies, but like, I've got a question.

Like, I don't know how to make, you know, this edit to, uh, whatever, uh, can somebody educate me on that? And, you know, it's the same sort of thing. It was like, look, there's a whole bunch of people out there that need help on the Salesforce platform.

And I don't know, reason why we can't help one another. Right. Yeah.

So you, you mentioned like, there was a number of, uh, you know, hurdles, you know, kind of failures that you had to work through. Like what are, uh, I guess some key things that you, you learned from those failures. I think, you know, often our failures that teaches more than our successes, right?

[John Chandler]

Yes. You know, one of the, one of the challenges or, you know, one of the, one of the ways that you can find failure is thinking too much about the end state and not about how you get there and rushing, rushing to try and get to the end without focusing on like what, what is needed to really go through that. And so an example of this is we, our first, first attempt at agreement creation said, well, wouldn't it be cool if we could just populate forms, right?

And those forms would save time. So we, we found one step of a process that, oh yeah, this is, this is, this is great, but what we didn't think about was versioning, right? We didn't, we didn't have a foundational data set to say.

Well, who is an active customer that this needs to be assigned to? And as we started to figure out why that first attempt didn't work, we realized the complexity and the depth that was needed. So it's, I think starting from the beginning of a process and understanding your business and the process associated associated to the business is the key to success in building on Salesforce and having that deep understanding of what, what work do you do?

And then building around that as opposed to thinking, I want this flashy report at the end, just make it without a plan. It's like a lot of that. Yeah.

That was that in the very beginning, but quickly learned that that was not going to lead to success.

[Royce Hall]

Yeah. Well, that's a good point as well. Like I think, uh, you know, there's this, you know, this idea in the Salesforce world, like, uh, it is very user friendly, like the no code, you know, platform, like, you know, your business user can, you know, make things happen and, uh, you know, here's the report.

And I think we can often shortcut the difficulty there of like, Oh no, like Salesforce is like, it's just easy to go make an automation, make a flow, make a report, and it's like, there's, I think doing it once is like, okay, like we have one, like that's not too hard, but once you start having like, you know, five, 10, they're like, okay, like they're overlapping each other and I don't have the data points that I need.

Like it becomes a lot more, or you have to get your ducks in a row. And that's, you know, that's how I often get called in is like, we tried to build and now we have spaghetti. Like, can you help me, uh, you know, sort this out.

So I understand that, but at the same time, um, like I, I've got my little, uh, robotic stuff. This is like a prop from my kids robot Lego robotics league. I love it.

And, uh, I often tell them, like, they get frustrated where it's like, I built this thing and it didn't work. And it's like, no, that's fine. That's great.

Like, make it better. Like that's just, that's just how it goes. Right?

Like you try that you have a little bit of success. You didn't get the success that you wanted, but you have to stick with it and keep iterating, keep, um, giving yourself, you know, mercy, I think, like, okay, like I messed up, but I learned. And now I'm better.

And like, I would not be strong if I didn't start out, we can make iterative improvements along the way. So I feel like that's, we all have to learn that same lesson of like, yeah, you, you, you try and because you tried, you can learn a lesson of what not to do and, and, uh, iterate to become better and stronger.

[John Chandler]

Yeah. So ducks in a row is the origin of our logo. Oh, really?

That's how the rows got in there. It's, uh, let me think about getting your data, data ducks in a row. Oh, that's cool.

That's how we, uh, we went off of that as it, as the logo evolved.

[Royce Hall]

So that's nice. Well, hold up, hold up that coffee mug to the screen so everybody can see that. There you go.

Oh man. There we go. I think that's good right there.

We can see it really well.

[John Chandler]

What MethodPlan does though, you know, is saves our customers the time and the risk associated with trying to self-build and go through that process. You know, the approach that we've taken to development has been that we identified the standard process that every RA, a broker dealer, anyone managing a corporate retirement plan uses in their business. And we stopped when it, we stopped when it stopped being what we all do as advisors, because every, every business is different, but there's that core process that we all do as advisors.

And that's what we've, we've built. And so at implementation and configuration, you have the ability to put your own unique business process on top of that solid foundation. So you don't have to go through years worth of trying to get it right.

And for a, for a large RA, you know, you think of with a thousand users, there's a significant cost, you know, but a self-build is north of a million dollars. I mean, it's multiple, likely to be multiple seven figures. So, you know, we're saving, we're saving people the time and risk of trying to self-build just to get to that foundational data set for their business.

[Royce Hall]

Yeah. Well, that's, that's a great pitch. I have like all of my, my, uh, business books back here, uh, gap selling.

I love that. That's like the classic gap. So like you could, it's sure I'm asking for this much money for the licenses, but you could pay, you know, multiple seven figures and do it yourself.

[John Chandler]

Yeah. There's plenty of, there are plenty of examples and I've also read stats on like how most CRM implementations fail. It's easier if you use a proven solution.

[Royce Hall]

Yeah. Absolutely. And especially, you know, you know, with you all being kind of the first of your kind, like there's not a framework for other people to follow, you know, so, you know, it really is like, okay, you know, you're going to go through the same struggles and iterations that, uh, you know, you've been through for 15 years.

And, uh, yeah, so that's a great tool, you know, mature tool to put out there. That's really awesome. So, uh, John, yeah, somebody's listening to this and said, man, that's the exact product that I'm looking for.

How did they find you? at methodplan.com or in the Salesforce app exchange. Very good.

Well, John, it's been great talking to, to you today. I really appreciate you joining the show and, uh, hopefully somebody's listening to this and reaches out to you and, uh, you can help them get their, their org structured and, uh, ready, uh, ready for doing their investment business. Thank you very much.

I enjoyed the conversation.