In this week’s episode of Retire in Texas, Darryl Lyons, CEO and Co-Founder of PAX Financial Group, breaks down one of the most overlooked but critical elements of financial planning: the discovery meeting. Whether you’re already a client or just starting to explore a relationship with an advisor, understanding how PAX approaches discovery reveals a lot about what it means to truly serve clients with clarity, care, and purpose.
Darryl shares a behind-the-scenes look at how PAX advisors engage with new clients – not with sales pitches or pressure, but with thoughtful questions and deep listening. Through personal stories, lessons from past client experiences, and insights drawn from behavioral finance, this episode offers a valuable window into how the right discovery process sets the foundation for long-term success.
Key highlights of the episode include:
- What a discovery meeting is really about – and how it differs from old-school sales tactics.
- Why the first question a good advisor asks isn’t “What do you have?” but “What do you want?”
- How behavioral finance tools like “Money Mind” and “Honest Conversations” help uncover what truly matters.
- The importance of including both spouses – and why trust, relief, and clarity are the true deliverables.
- How today’s advisors are thinking partners – not brokers, not salespeople – and why that distinction matters.
Whether you’re looking to revisit your own financial goals or want to understand how PAX serves the people you refer, this episode reframes financial planning not as a product, but as a partnership rooted in values and vision.
For more insights or to connect with a PAX Financial Group advisor, visit http://www.PAXFinancialGroup.com.
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Transcript:
Hey, this is Darryl Lyons, CEO, Co-Founder of PAX Financial Group. And you’re listening to Retire in Texas. This information is general in nature only. It’s not intended to provide specific investment, tax, or legal advice. Visit PAXFinancialGroup.com for more information. So, somebody told me this once, and I put it on a coaster. For those that are looking online.
The money I have entrusted with you represents years of hard work and sacrifices. Your actions will impact this family for generations. It not only will be long term business for you, but the opportunity for you to serve my children and their children as they live out our family legacy. Period. Don’t let us down. That’s pretty important. And that’s the approach I take.
And I think we all take at PAX. And so, I wanted to make sure that you clearly understood what it means to engage with us in the process that we take people through. And if you’re already a client, cool, if you’re not, this is a way for you to understand how we onboard a new client. And frankly, if you are a client, this will help you understand how we treat your friends when you refer them to us.
So, we initially have this, what we call a kind of a fit meeting and intro call to just make sure it’s a good fit because there’s some situations where it just doesn’t make sense. You, somebody who’s in too much debt and we just need them to resolve that debt issue first. And then after that intro call, typically we go to a discovery meeting.
And that’s what, the basics of this conversation today is for me to describe this important discovery meeting with you. And this is like the second date if you’re dating somebody and consider it like the first date being that intro call. But also you’ve been to the website, you’ve seen our reviews, which are awesome, by the way, if you haven’t seen our reviews, maybe you’ve talked to friends.
So, this is the second date. You’re like, pretty sure that you like us and we’re pretty sure we like you, but we’re not ready to get married quite yet. That’s why this discovery meeting is so, so important. And all the advisors have a slight variation to that approach and the way we think about our advisors, and how we work together is we want to give them some degree of autonomy.
That’s an important element if you think about working in general is to having some degree of autonomy. I have a model that I think about when I think about business, and one of it is, you know, creating a framework of autonomy for people and advisors have some autonomy. But generally speaking, you’re going to see that there’s several elements that are consistent amongst all of the advisors.
But what we do know is when you come to any advisor for the first time at once, a little nervous, it feels like you’re getting naked and you’re like, I know I messed up and we get it like we’re people too. And I promise you, I wish I would have saved more money at my age. Instead of, you know, I say I spent a lot starting a business, but whatever else I might have wasted money on, you know, we’ve all done it.
And so, we’ve all said some dumb things. We’ve all done some dumb things, so there’s no judgment. But it feels like when you’re coming in, you’re going to be judged, and maybe you’re pretty proud of what you’ve done. Okay, that could be you, too. But we wanted, the discovery meeting is to discover a little bit more about what you want to do.
And so, if you think about the definition of discover, what is the definition of discover? I know there’s something we think about all the time, but discover by definition is define something, pretty simple. I guess you could also like use the phrase explore meeting. That’s more like I’m going to travel through an unfamiliar area so discovers a little bit better, but that even then discover is like, well, discover is kind of so, I guess kind of tactical.
It’s like, okay, I’m going to discover, I’m going to find something, I’m gonna find my keys, I’m going to find my card. I would like to think of it as a little bit more than that. Here’s how I think about discover, a discovery meeting is, it is the initial conversation between a financial advisor and a prospective client, and it’s designed to uncover the client’s financial goals, the current financial situation, personal values, concerns, and priorities.
Okay, that’s a little bit better definition of discovery and if you’re a client now, maybe you still need to discover some things. Here’s the real definition of discovery that I think is really captures what the very beginning of this relationship should look like. And maybe even if you’re a client, you’re like, hey, I want to reset the relationship and do another discovery meeting and let’s do it together.
But here’s really what is a discovery meeting, and it should look like when you’re working with an advisor. Here it is. Discover to uncover a vision for your financial future that has always lived just beyond clarity, a vision shaped by your values. Like the love for your family and the desire to leave the world better than you found it.
Often that vision feels murky. It’s clouded by less than stellar habits, the busyness of life, and, of course, fear. But it begins to reveal itself when we slow down, when we reflect, and when we choose to ask the questions. We don’t yet know what we should be asking. That is discovery. And that happens best when somebody’s sitting across from you kneecap to kneecap and walking away from you.
Now, please keep in mind that years ago, this engagement with an advisor was different, and some of us still anchor to these previous generation of ways of doing things. A financial advisor years ago did have very much a sales mentality. A lot of the compensation was commission driven. I was introduced to this industry under that pretext in 1999.
I have all the sales skills. You know, they have this one called feel, felt, found. I understand how you feel. Others have felt the same way. What I found is after you buy this product. Right. Overcoming objections, all those things I’ve been called canned before because I just, I didn’t know how to do financial services.
So I was taught sales, and I adopted it so much that I could just regurgitate it all. Today, it’s much more personalized, and I don’t, we don’t have to sell because this is a relationship. In fact, if we sell somebody to become a client and they change their mind because of cognitive dissonance or buyer’s remorse, that’s a lot of work for everyone.
So, nobody wants to sell. Nobody wants to be sold in a financial advisory relationship. And the compensation isn’t even driven that way anymore. The other way that people used to engage with a financial advisor is like a broker. And we still have some of these people that come in and say, hey, and I want you to beat the market or make these awesome returns.
I had one person said, I want you to be the Warren Buffett for me. I had one guy come in once. He goes, honey, I look, I like this guy. Give me $100,000. And I’m honored that, you know, you may think of me that way. And I even sometimes think that I have that gift, which I don’t, of seeing where the market’s going because nobody really does.
We just don’t, statistically we don’t, but we’re not we’re not the financial advisor. That’s old school. We’re not generally speaking they’re still out there. Generally speaking, we’re fiduciaries, not salespeople. And we’re not helping people. Plan for things, not predict things. So, we’re not the old school brokers. So those things are gone.
Well, now, today we’re thinking partners. And what does that mean? That means a degree of wisdom, which is really nebulous. But, like seeing things that otherwise might not be seen based on experience. What you’re looking for is oftentimes somebody who has values that are aligned. You also want somebody who’s generally intelligent.
Like somebody who can solve problems. They don’t have to have a degree from Harvard or anything like that, but somebody who can solve problems and maybe navigate through this financial jungle, good communication skills is something a lot of people are looking for. I’ve had, man, I’ve had to work on that a lot over the years. In fact, when I was first doing discovery meetings as an advisor, I would do like six.
I would say six a day, maybe two a day of discovery meetings, which are like an hour to an hour and a half long meetings. And I would do them so often I would practice different things. Okay, let me change the tone in my voice. Let me sit up straight. Let me, I had all these things because I was doing so many.
I wanted to like, master communication methodology. And I know I fumbled along the way. I’m sorry. If you’re a client. I just acted goofy or sounded goofy. I was learning, I have come to a place today that I’m just, I’m enjoying where I’m at today. But, all of our advisors, I think, are much more mature than a 25-year-old trying to trying to be an advisor.
And I think their communication skills are very, very mature. And what is a good communicator to begin with? When you’re a financial advisor, what is it? What do you think of? It’s a good listener, somebody who’s listening. So, we work on listening, knowledge, good knowledge of the industry and the markets. Generally speaking, it’s hard to be an expert in all things markets.
And then here’s one that I think is important. And if you’re doing a discovery meeting with an advisor that you really, really, you haven’t thought about what you want, you’re like going in that meeting saying, I think I want a good guy. I think I want to like him, but you want somebody that’s reliable. Ultimately, you want to, like, leave the meeting with the advisor after an hour, an hour and a half, go to the car with your spouse.
If you’re married, shut the door and say, I like him. I can trust him. I feel comfortable, like that’s kind of what you want. And the advisor wants you to have that experience, too. In that discovery meeting, very, very important. We’ve got to figure out what you have and what you want and where that gap is.
And we also have to make sure you and your spouse are on the same page. That’s so critical. So, there’s a couple things I want to cover, that always happen in these meetings. And then a couple things that could vary based on the advisor’s discretion. So, two things that will always happen. They’re going to build a rapport with you as you would imagine.
And they do this in totally different ways. It’s all personal to them. They’re very, what I love about the advisors that we have today is they’re just genuine and authentic people. So they’re going to ask almost 100% of the time, but I can’t say 100%, but nearly 100%. Is there anything specific you want to cover?
Because that’s obviously, we want to make sure that we don’t miss that. They also ask, are there any key events coming up? Like, are you about to retire, win the lottery? I think a good question that’s not always asked is have you worked with an advisor in the past and what was your experience like? Because we don’t want to fumble again.
We want to share this idea of building rapport. We want to share our story at PAX. We want to share it. Every advisor here has a story how money influences their lives. And of course we have to find a way to engage this, what we call non-CFO spouse, somebody who’s not used to doing financial stuff.
And we have a specific process for doing that. It’s rooted in behavioral finance. But I used to think like when a water softener salesperson came to my house and, it was years ago and I think it was water softener might have been something else, might have been tile or something, but they demanded that the spouse was there.
And I remember finding that to be peculiar because I was like, well, she doesn’t really care in the situation at the time if she was like, no, whatever you want. But I realized that they wanted the spouse there because there was a closing strategy. Okay, that’s fine, but at PAX, I’m telling you, in most fiduciaries, the idea of closing is a lot of headaches if it’s not a good relationship long term.
So, when an advisor asked for a spouse to be there, it’s because the spouse matters and their voice matters. And fidelity has done incredible studies on this, and I’m sure others have that women are actually and I’m using women in this example, women are actually better investors, because of the degree of humility. So having both spouses there and then wrestling with what’s important to y’all and then thinking all things money has to be perfectly aligned with what’s really important to y’all.
And so that’s why spouses should be engaged. And in that discovery meeting, I think about the second thing that always happens in these discovery meetings is data gathering, as you would imagine. So yeah, there’ll be a degree of preparation that’s associated with discovery meetings, one of which sometimes you’ll get this primer tool called Money Mine. It’s just kind of a cool little exercise that helps stimulate the brain and help you think about money and how you think about money.
It also helps us understand if you’re, if you have more inclination of, you know, protecting your money or if you’re a big spender just helps us understand you a little bit more. It’s a real simple tool. But in the discovery meeting, we are, at a certain point, sometimes advisors do it beforehand or during or after.
We’re going to have you upload documents to a secure link, and make sure that we get those, some of those statements, because you can tell us a list of the investments. And sometimes the statements give us other clues like dividends or cost basis, the tax consideration. So oftentimes we like those statements. We may want your tax return sometimes to be able to do some analysis there or any of these estate planning documents.
So the advisors are pretty on point on knowing which documents they want to upload. Getting those to the advisor timely is really important. And so, they’ll give you kind of what the urgency is there. And if there is something urgent, we’ll move in that direction like, hey, I’m gonna retire. Then we might say, okay, let’s punt the estate planning conversation and get this retirement thing done.
Everything is low pressure. Like I mentioned, there’s no reason to sell. It’s just a headache for all of us. But we want to be direct, like, you understand? We don’t want to mince words. We want to make sure that we’re giving you as a consumer direction on what to do next. And so, I think we’ve learned how to be confident and kind.
And sometimes we may fumble there, but it’s really part of our culture of being direct. So, after that discovery meeting is just kind of like figuring things out and kind of still a dating thing. We then will move to a presentation meeting that’ll be scheduled after that. And where the advisor will present some solutions, often investment solutions, a couple other things that don’t always happen 100% but are worth mentioning.
In that discovery meeting, one is a presentation might happen, and we call that one best financial life. And as you would imagine, its kind of any initial dialog or relationship with a new entity, there’s like some basic points to cover. And that one best life financial slide presentation is good because it kind of sets the expectation of how the relationship looks.
So, you might get that in the first one. The advisor may do it down the road. They have the discretion to do that. The second thing that may or may not happen in that meeting, it’s certainly subject to the advisor’s discretion. I personally think it should happen in the discovery meeting. But time like what I’ve learned is advisors have, everyone has a different clock.
And so, but I love it if they can do, it’s called honest conversations. It’s a behavioral finance exercise. If they can do it in that meeting, that exercise is really healthy and it really gets everyone on the same page. There’s no miscommunication on what’s important. I mean, we clarify that. And that’s rooted in, like I said, behavioral finance in some very academic research.
I won’t tell you the university that did all the research because they’re out of California. Then you might get mad at me, but I’ll just say it’s credible research. We may do risk tolerance questionnaires in that meeting. We always do that, cover our bases, make sure that we don’t over risk you or under risk you. But that’s that those are important tools that we may use in that meeting.
You know, another thing that is, I kind of tie a bow on this, I think a lot of people want, as I think about like, what do you want from a financial advisor? And you correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s three things I thought about that there’s probably many things, but these are the three things that came to mind.
Like, what do I want out of a financial advisor? What is clarity? I just want to make sense of all this. There’s a lot of stuff going on I don’t have time to research at all. And by the time you do research, it changes. So that’s one. Two is relief. I just don’t want to be stressed about this stuff.
And three, a degree of trust, and that, you know, can often be expressed, I hope this person is willing to listen to me and not just after commission. And so those three things are things that we think about and try to emulate, but also integrate. And what I mean by that is that’s part of our investment process is whenever we make trades, there’s no commission.
So, we try to live by that fiduciary standard that is important to really you and all of us. Again, that discovery meeting I think is worth revisiting in terms of the definition. So let me close this out with that definition again. And you tell me if it makes sense. And you tell me if you’re a client, if you want another discovery meeting or if you’re a new client or prospect or somebody that wants to know us better, see if this makes sense to you.
And then you can go on the website and click a button and say, contact us. But here it is. Discover – to uncover a vision for your financial future that has always lived just beyond clarity. A vision shaped by your values, like love for your family and the desire to leave the world better than you found it. Often the vision feels murky, clouded by less than stellar habits in the busyness of life and fear.
But it begins to reveal itself when we slow down, reflect, and choose to ask the questions we don’t know yet what we should be asking. Thank you again for listening. And remember, you think different when you think long term. Have a great day.
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