Who gave our advisors a buzzer?
October 19, 2026
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Show Notes
Eddie and Betty's Conversation
Welcome to The American Retirement Advisor podcast. I'm Betty, and Eddie is here with me in the studio today, and we are doing something a little different this episode.
How so? You're making me nervous.
The good kind, I promise. We're talking about a piece by Ian Schaeffer, the company's COO, and it is not about a financial strategy or a tax rule. It's about a person. Specifically, the person behind the scenes of Fiscal Fridays, which is the company's live show.
Which I found more interesting than I expected, honestly.
Right? Me too. So the article introduces this guy named Hayes Clement, who is the executive producer of Fiscal Fridays. And Ian Schaeffer describes him as the person you never see on stage, like the producer standing just off stage on a late-night show deciding when a bit has landed and when it is time to move on.
Which is a great way to put it. You think about that kind of television and the host gets all the credit, but there is always somebody offstage deciding the shape of the whole thing.
And Hayes is that person for Fiscal Fridays. They brought him in this summer to revamp the company's online presence, and according to Ian, it did not take long for the show to basically become his.
That phrase jumped out at me too. It did not take long for the show to be his. That says something about what he actually did when he walked in the door.
So what did he change? Because I think listeners might be wondering, okay, it's a financial show, what does a producer really do there?
Ian Schaeffer addresses that directly, and I thought his answer was sharp. He says good information is not enough. The advisors know their material cold. What they didn't have was someone deciding how long a story should run, which question goes first, and when the room needs to laugh before it can listen.
I read that line three times.
It's true though. Think about every seminar you've ever sat through where the presenter was technically excellent and you were technically asleep.
I have been in those rooms. We have both been in those rooms.
Ian draws that line explicitly. He says the difference between a show people come back to and a seminar people sit through is a producer. Someone calling the shots on pace, on feel, on when to move.
Okay, so what does the actual show look like? Because Hayes didn't just show up and say 'feel better.' He built a structure.
He did. A few specific pieces. A cold open so the thing starts fast, no slow warmup. A sit-down with a guest. A ten-second closing question for everyone on stage. And then the thing that made me laugh out loud reading this.
The lightning round.
It's where David reads a real family's situation off a card and an advisor gets thirty seconds on David's 1878 pocket watch, and there is a buzzer, and there is a red spray bottle for anyone who runs long.
Like for a cat.
Like for a cat. A financial advisor goes thirty seconds over on their answer and they get spritzed.
I need to see this.
So apparently when Hayes edited the September show for YouTube, he opened it on the spray bottle. Before David had said a single word. Just, here is a spray bottle, welcome to the show.
That is a statement of intent right there.
Ian says that tells you most of what you need to know about his instincts. And I think he's onto something real.
There's a kind of genius to it, though. Because the pressure of thirty seconds on a watch, with a buzzer, forces the advisor to actually get to the point. You cannot be vague in thirty seconds.
That's the whole trick, isn't it. The format creates the discipline. You don't have to tell someone to be concise, you just put a clock on them.
And a spray bottle.
Consequences help.
Okay so the 1878 pocket watch. That detail is very specific. Is that just for atmosphere or is there a reason David has an antique watch?
It connects to something else in Ian's piece. He mentions that Hayes has been making short videos about David's collection of American railroad watches, and also about the difference between what Ian calls a Bic answer and a Montblanc answer.
Okay, explain that one.
Both write. One is a throwaway and one is something you keep. Ian doesn't spell it out further than that in the article, but the implication is clear: there is a difference in quality, in care, in how a thing is made. And that applies to how you answer a question too.
So it's not just about watches. It's about the craft of it.
That seems to be the thread Hayes is pulling on. All of it, the lightning round, the buzzer, the spray bottle, is about raising the standard of what happens in that room.
And making it fun enough that people want to be there.
Which is the only way any of it works.
So who has been watching these shows so far? Because I had the impression Fiscal Fridays was something the team did internally.
That changes on October 23rd. Ian's article makes a point of this. The October show is the first one open to the public. Twenty seats.
That's it?
Twenty seats. And Hayes wrote in his own invitation for the event something I thought was a genuinely bold thing to say. He called it 'a culture movement' and told people they could say they were there at the beginning.
That is a bold thing to say.
It is. And October 23rd is where it starts.
What did he call the vibe he was going for? Because I remember reading this and doing a double take.
Johnny Carson meets Dave Ramsey.
Those are not two people I would have put in the same sentence.
It's an odd combination on the surface. But think about it for a second. Carson was a talk show, special guests, banter, the host as the through-line, the room felt like an event. Ramsey is financial education with real urgency behind it. Put them together and you get a show about money that is fun to be in.
Which is, again, what the spray bottle is doing. You feel like something might happen at any moment.
It's carrying a lot of heavy lifting in this article.
Ha. Okay, the logistics. What does someone need to know if they want to be in one of those twenty seats?
October 23rd, 10:30 in the morning Arizona time. The studio is in Scottsdale. Doors open at ten o'clock for coffee. And there is a secret guest this month.
That's a fun detail.
Not entirely secret. Ian reveals that it is a Medicare health plan executive. Which is a pretty specific guest for a show trying to be useful to people thinking about retirement.
That's a really relevant conversation to have in that room. Medicare questions come up constantly for people in or near retirement.
And the sit-down is where David gets him talking about how health plans really work. The lightning round is for the advisors.
And spray bottle.
That one is for the advisors too. Do not run long.
So if someone wants to grab one of those seats, how do they do it?
Ian gives two options in the article. There's a link to save your seat, or you can call them directly at 602-281-3898 and they'll hold a seat for you.
Twenty seats goes fast.
It does. And given that this is the first public show, if the culture movement thing is going to be real, the people who show up October 23rd are the founding class.
I want to go back to something for a second, because I think it matters beyond just the show itself. Ian makes a point that Hayes has been working outside the studio too, turning pieces of David's world into short videos. So this is not just about one live event.
Right. The watch clips on Facebook, the pens. Hayes is building something that lives online between events, not just on the day.
Which is what a media operation looks like, not just a seminar.
That distinction is the whole point Ian is making. They're not trying to build something people endure and forget. They're trying to build something listeners want to return to, month after month. Hayes is the person making that distinction real.
And he's doing it with a spray bottle and an 1878 pocket watch.
Look, if it works, it works.
After reading this article, I want to know what happens when an advisor gets spritzed. Do they laugh? Do they get flustered? Do they pull it together in the next sentence?
That is the question, and I think that tension is exactly what Hayes is banking on. The room doesn't know either, and that uncertainty is what makes it feel live.
There's something in this article that I keep thinking about in terms of what it means for people listening to us right now. Because we talk a lot about the substance of retirement planning, the numbers, the strategy, the decisions. And Ian is writing about something different, which is the question of how you get information you can use.
Say more about that.
And that idea really sticks with me, because it's true way beyond a TV show. If the information is buried in a long explanation you stop listening to, it doesn't matter how good it is.
The format is part of the product. And that's what Hayes understands. A thirty-second answer with a real consequence for going over is designed to give you the clearest version of the answer, not the most complete version.
Which might be more useful.
Often is. The most complete answer is the one you get when you sit down with an advisor one on one and they know your whole situation. The thirty-second version is the thing that helps you figure out what question to ask.
Oh, that's a good way to put it.
And that is the job the show is doing. Not replacing the advisor conversation, pointing you toward it.
So the show, the videos, all of it, it's really about getting people comfortable enough to have the actual conversation.
Which requires the room to want to be there. Which requires Hayes.
We've come full circle.
We have. The spray bottle matters.
If you are in or around Scottsdale and you want to be in that room on October 23rd, twenty seats, 10:30 Arizona time, doors at ten for coffee, and a Medicare health plan executive in the guest chair. You can save your seat through the link in the article, or call 602-281-3898 and they will hold one for you. And if you've got retirement questions that you want answered outside of a live show, the team at American Retirement Advisors is the right place to start that conversation. Sit down with one of their advisors, tell them where you are, and let them help you figure out what you need to know. That conversation, the one that's specific to your life, is where the real work gets done.