How Warren Duthie Grew AUM From $27M to $170M and Stopped Being Embarrassed by His Software

Warren Duthie: It hits clients, and they have a cool new perspective coming away from the conversation. That confidence chart showing, hey, if you retire on this income — and let's say it's an understated amount of income — and they're a net accumulator through retirement, their assets are still growing like gangbusters, and let's say they have $10 million when they're 85.

And I'm like, hey, Steve, here's what you're going to say when you're 85. You're going to say, I never thought I was going to have $10 million when I was 85, but now I'm too old, with my old wooden hips, I can't even go out and spend this money. So you're going to have regrets. Some people are like, gosh, I wish I'd saved more. But the other side of that is, I wish I had done some cooler things. I wish I had sponsored the cruise with the family and got all the grandkids together, because I didn't know that I was going to be 85 with $10 million and I can't even enjoy it.

So it's cool to bring in those vacations every year. People love that. And to see that it has a negligible impact on your trajectory, on your success for retirement — but go big on these vacations. I'm giving people the green light to spend money, and they never thought that was coming, and it really enriches the relationship. Because you're giving this non-financial — it's less about your financial capital and more about your relational capital with your family. You're able to help them reprioritize their capital. To be able to reprioritize that and show them, you're going to be okay. If you had 6 million bucks when you're 85, guess what? You're still not going to spend it. So go nuts with your family right now.

And they're like, oh, okay, okay. And I'm prodding them. No, seriously, book the cruise. To be able to give them that peace of mind with that trajectory, that's been huge.

Warren Duthie: Also, the visualization on the tax side, on distributions with Roth conversions, that was a real hot topic, and it still is. But to be able to visualize those brackets getting filled up looks really simple. It is simple, but it's not an easy thing that you've done. It helps clients get there.

Like a picture says a thousand words, there are so many words that I don't have to say because of the way it's laid out. It's helping clients understand a concept faster, so we can keep moving forward instead of burning all their mental capacity on the concept of a Roth conversion. They can see it, they get it, and you start to take it for granted. This used to be way harder to explain, and now, because I have this tool, it's easier.

The confidence chart shows people what their future financial trajectory looks like, and then I can talk to them about what that implies for their current financial capacity. I spend so much time just on that chart. You can do so much with that. So those two things, initially, were mind-blowing — wow, I now have such a good tool in the quiver.

I just never had that kind of engagement with software, and before, I was kind of embarrassed of my software. It just looked so dated that it was not impressive.

Also, with reviews, there's always something new to talk about on RightCapital. You're always giving the client something new to engage you in. It could be you didn't show them the Blueprint before, or you didn't go through the cash flows. Even though the cash flows isn't a graphic, if you asked, what's your favorite graphic, it's the cash flows. Clients love to spend time, when they're actually thinking about retiring, the cash flows give them the confidence that we didn't miss anything. These aren't bogus numbers. This is very well thought out.

When you go to real estate and you can keep clicking the links and go deeper and deeper and then pop back out, clients get such a sense of security through seeing that these numbers are really thought out. And the fact that it's so easy to get there, and then you can pop back out to a cool visual — the 1040, that's crazy. To see the 1040 properly filled out, the client's like, okay, they got this, I'm in good hands. I can just look at the big pretty chart, but I know that we can drill down and we've got granular detail too. And I think, in order to get some trust, you need that.

Warren Duthie: The speed was incredible. If we had a client meeting to refresh the old software or change scenarios, it took forever. I picture a client's attention span as a fuse, a timer of sand, and that precious sand is the thing refreshing, refreshing. And I know that once we refresh and show them this, the next question is going to be, well, what if we did this? And there's so much precious sand going away. There's only so much attention span and capacity to absorb new information. So the speed at which changes happen is incredible. I don't know why more people didn't do that earlier, but I was blown away by the speed of the software.

Warren Duthie: I just love that if I have a question, I can call and get the answer to it, and I'm constantly adding to my RightCapital IQ. These little things pay off in the moment in a client meeting, where I don't have to go back and say, let me get back to you on our next call about that. If I was able to address it beforehand, or after a meeting I'll call and get the answer: how do I do this? Is there a better way to show this? Help me think it through. Maybe it's a recommendation to update something, and they'll say, that's a good idea, we'll take that down. So I love the support staff.

At my old place, if you did have a question, you could call, probably wait on hold for 10 minutes and forget the question you were going to ask, or 10 other things happened during that time, or you got to a person who didn't know and they had to go ask their manager. It was a nightmare. Everybody that you're calling at RightCapital has expert-level understanding of the software. They don't put them on the phone without expert level of the software. So you know you're going to get your answer, and they can pull up the plan that you're looking at and walk you through step by step. Now you see how this works? Oh, okay, yeah.

It's hard to tell someone with your words over the phone, but if you have the thing up in front of you and you're actually doing it, you're getting the understanding. You have that knowledge forever going forward. The fact that you're always available, everyone's an expert, and the way that I actually have to learn it — it's perfect. I'm set up for success, and everybody there has been so helpful.

So I love it. If you were going to ask me what's my favorite part about RightCapital, it's that. The visuals and everything are super cool, but it's the support system and the partnership that I love. Can they support you through your career and help you get expert-level understanding like they have? I know RightCapital can.

I love the fact that it's such a stark contrast from where I was before, because there was no, hey, how are we doing? They knew they were getting ones, so they weren't even asking. I was on hold for 15 minutes before I even got the wrong answer. So the fact that they're right there on the phone, you're talking to an expert, they can see your plan — they knocked it out of the park. Five. All day I'm giving fives, and I'm even going to write a cool little something in the deal, because it's so different from what it used to be.

Transcript: Warren Duthie: We have a total of 170 million bucks under management, which is crazy. Here's a fun fact: when I left my previous firm in June of 2020, we had 27 million in assets under management. So this little arrow thing here with RightCapital is definitely true for our business. And I've been leveraging RightCapital hard this whole time. I don't know if I could have done it without you guys.