Financial Advisor Success Podcast - Full Episode Archives

#FASuccess Ep 186: Cost-Effective Seminar Marketing By Leveraging Facebook Digital Ads To Fill Local Events, with Samantha Bezar

July 21, 2020 07:05 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 186th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Samantha Bezar. Samantha is the director of digital marketing for Thrive Financial Services, a hybrid RIA and insurance agency near Philadelphia generating more than $6 million of annual revenue while serving nearly 500 clients. What's unique about Samantha, though, is the way she's built a scalable marketing solution for the firm, with a combination of digital marketing and in-person events that have lifted the revenue of the firm from a few hundred thousand dollars to more than $6 million of revenue in under 3 years.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about Thrive's seminar marketing approach, why they've chosen to do education-only events and not dinner seminars, the way they initially drew participants by relying on buying third-party mailing lists but dropped their cost of client acquisition by more than half by doing their own Facebook digital marketing to fill in-person seminar events, the exact process that Thrive goes through to target their ideal prospects on Facebook, engage them to register for the seminar and confirm they actually attend, and the metrics of how a $3,000 marketing spend can turn into tens of thousands of dollars of new revenue, which just gives Thrive more money to reinvest into their marketing process to further accelerate their growth.

We also talk about how Thrive transitioned to webinar events in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, why the company still chooses to do its webinars as an in-person live stream and not just a recorded webinar or voice-over PowerPoint approach, the tools and technology that Thrive uses to deliver its webinars and handle its online registration process, and how Samantha determined that text messaging can actually be a highly effective marketing tool to ensure prospects follow through.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Samantha shares her own journey of learning digital marketing in the advisory world without a background as a financial advisor, the importance of viewing all marketing as experiments where it's okay to try something out and fail because that's the only way you find out a new approach that works, and why Samantha sees marketing automation software tools as the key to executing scalable marketing for an advisory firm in the future.

#FASuccess Ep 185: Becoming A Financial Coach As An Alternative To The Traditional Financial Advisor Business Model, with Christine Teh

July 14, 2020 07:06 am 2 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 185th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Christine Teh. Christine is the founder of Teh Financial Coaching, which provides tax consulting and financial coaching services to high-income individuals and couples still struggling with money in the San Francisco Bay Area. What's unique about Christine, though, is the way that she is building a successful financial coaching practice by not only systematizing her coaching packages for clients but also systematizing her marketing process via LinkedIn to scale her reach to be able to get a high enough volume of clients to make the coaching business work.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Christine structures her financial coaching services for clients, why the focus of her work is on short-term cash-flow tracking for clients and not necessarily their long-term retirement plans, the reason she insists that clients track their spending manually in a spreadsheet and not use online tools like mint.com, the four- and eight-week financial coaching packages that Christine created for clients to be more scalable than hourly coaching and that also helps her find better-fit clients, why Christine's philosophy is to teach her clients to fish, and how she tries to graduate them to become self-sustaining and not to remain her long-term clients.

We also talk about how Christine markets her services given the reality that she may need to find 1,000 to 2,000 clients to work with in the coming decades to achieve her own business goals, why she chose LinkedIn as her social media platform of choice to build her personal brand and market herself, the daily LinkedIn routine that Christine goes through to maintain her marketing presence, and the tools that Christine is now using to add live streaming to her weekly LinkedIn marketing routine.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Christine shares how she made the transition and took the leap from quitting her stable corporate job for the entrepreneurial path of becoming a financial coach, why she chose financial coaching and not the traditional RIA business model as her approach to working with clients, and the mindset shift that she had to go through in order to start building a successful financial coaching business.

#FASuccess Ep 184: Building A Premium Financial Planning Experience To Sustain A Premium Advisory Fee, with Reese Harper

July 7, 2020 07:10 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 184th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Reese Harper. Reese is the founder and CEO of Dentist Advisors, an independent RIA based in Salt Lake City, Utah, that oversees nearly $250 million of assets under management for more than 350 clients. What’s unique about Reese, though, is that his advisory firm doesn’t just have a deep niche in serving dentists, as the name of the firm implies, but that Reese has developed his own unique monthly financial planning process for serving clients and raised capital from outside investors to develop his own technology tools to implement it.

In this podcast, we talk in-depth about the Elements financial planning process that Reese has created; how he boils down the client’s financial planning situation into 12 key metrics to track, including their savings rate, their insurance coverage rate, and their personal burn rate; the systematized series of 12 monthly deliverables that Dentist Advisors produces for all of its clients each month, 1 for each of the 12 financial planning elements; the combination of Salesforce and Conga that Reese’s firm has implemented to increasingly automate the production of their client deliverables; and why Reese thinks the future of financial planning is all about working with clients through an ongoing series of micro-interactions around their financial planning needs.

We also talk about the business of Dentist Advisors itself, how Reese has been able to power the growth of the business with a successful podcast focused into his niche, the combination of AUM fees starting at 1.5% plus monthly subscription fees running from $200 to $700 a month that he charges for his comprehensive service, the ways the firm justifies its fees beyond the portfolio and even traditional financial planning with a focus on helping dentists lift their personal income and the value of their dental practices, and why Reese sees his firm’s approach of charging a premium price for a premium service as sustainable in this modern era of robo-advisors and fee compression.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Reese shares why he ultimately decided to raise capital by selling a portion of his advisory firm to outside investors, even though they were already growing successfully, the valuation and terms they were able to get by showing a strong business plan with a high growth rate, the challenges in growing an advisory firm quickly where clients are long-term profitable but short-term expensive to find and onboard, and why Reese isn’t concerned about the fact that with the second recent round of investor capital to accelerate their growth further, he has diluted his own founder ownership below controlling 50% majority.

#FASuccess Ep 183: Structuring Your Advisory Business To Manage Your Time And Fit Your Natural Strengths, with Hannah Moore

June 30, 2020 07:05 am 4 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 183rd episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Hannah Moore. Hannah is the Founder of Guiding Wealth, an independent RIA in the Dallas, Texas area, that oversees nearly $25 million of assets under management for 25 affluent clients. What's unique about Hannah though, is the way she has deliberately crafted her advisory firm to support her personal goals, from giving back to the profession through her involvement with the FPA, to building her Everyday Money consumer brand and the unique attitude that she brings to her decisions about where and how she focuses her time to achieve her goals.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about Hannah's philosophy and how she manages her time and focuses her efforts, the way she limits her working time regardless of the length of her to-do list and uses what remains undone as a way to reevaluate her own priorities and what she's delegating, how Hannah hired a virtual integrator to help her manage the implementational aspects of the business so she could focus on the visionary work that she does best, and the systems that Hannah uses to manage tasks and workflows to ensure that her vision is implemented appropriately.

We also talk about Hannah's advisory firm itself and the way she started out by buying into an experienced broker's book of business, how she transitioned from serving nearly 300 clients to going independent with fewer than 30 of them while still managing to keep her income even with about 90% less work, and the budgeting block tool that she has created for her clients to have more meaningful financial planning experiences with them.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Hannah shares the mindset shift that helped her separate the visionary work she loves from the management she doesn't enjoy as much, the way she structures her week to be productive and stay focused, and why the number one piece of advice to financial advisors, and especially those in the early years of their career, is to join and get involved with a membership association in the FPA.

#FASuccess Ep 182: How Private Wealth Management In A Multi-Family Office Differs From Traditional Financial Planning, with Richard Joyner

June 23, 2020 07:02 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 182nd episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Richard Joyner. Richard is a wealth manager and the president of Tolleson Wealth Management, a multi-family office based in Dallas, Texas, that oversees nearly $6.5 billion of assets under management for just 180 affluent families. What's unique about Richard, though, is the way he's developed Tolleson to serve ultra-high-net-worth clientele with a breadth of private wealth management services that truly goes beyond the traditional financial planning approach.

In this podcast, we talk in-depth about what Tolleson actually does for clients who have an average family net worth of tens of millions of dollars, from a deeper level of client financial management and support, including bill-paying services and family spending reports, to advanced tax and estate planning services that delve into techniques that can produce seven-figure estate tax savings, private banking services to help clients obtain loans and receive corporate trustee services, and why arguably the biggest value Tolleson provides to their clients is supporting their family learning and helping affluent parents conduct family meetings to develop their children and grandchildren to become responsible stewards of the wealth legacy they will someday inherit.

We also talk about the business of multi-family office private wealth management itself, the composition of 180 staff members that Tolleson employs to support its 180 client families, the combination of flat fees and AUM fees that Tolleson charges its ultra-high-net-worth clients, how the firm justifies what can amount to $150,000 a year or more in advisory fees, and why despite having a heavy component of AUM fees for clients with tens of millions of dollars, that Tolleson has chosen to outsource most of its investment management and serve as a manager of managers instead.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Richard shares the policies that he's had to put in place to train and develop next-generation talent in the firm to be able to manage such ultra-high-net-worth clients, the combination of structured learning through designations like CPWA and internal mentoring the firm uses to balance technical and interpersonal skills development, and how Richard managed to balance his own workload and commitments to serve as the president of a multi-family office with 180 employees and still maintain a client-facing role for himself as well.

#FASuccess Ep 181: Pivoting To A New And Better Marketing Approach After Your First Niche Misses, with Benjamin Brandt

June 16, 2020 07:03 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 181st episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Benjamin Brandt. Benjamin is the founder of Capital City Wealth Management, an independent RIA based in Bismarck, North Dakota that oversees $60 million of assets under management for nearly 80 households. What's unique about Benjamin, though, is the way he initially developed a focused niche after going out on his own as an independent, and then had to pivot when he discovered that there weren't enough people in that original niche in his small Midwest town to fill his desired client base.

In this podcast, we talk in-depth about how Benjamin initially selected and established his local niche, the way he optimized his website to maximize local search engine optimization opportunities, how he pivoted to launching a podcast to broaden his reach beyond his local market, the way he adapted his website SEO to draw attention to his new retirement podcast, and the marketing funnel that Benjamin has developed to turn his podcast listeners into email subscribers, into webinar watchers, and eventually into an introductory meeting as a prospective client.

We also talk about how Benjamin is building his advisory firm to fit his own lifestyle goals, the way he runs meeting surges with all of his clients twice a year to maximize his focus and also his time off, the ongoing financial plan update and monitoring process he uses with clients to stay efficient, and why he intends to cap his practice once he achieves his goal of 100 clients and $100 million in assets under management by age 40.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Benjamin shares the 5-10-15 rule he developed to figure out for himself what topics to cover on his podcast, the importance of creating forcing mechanisms for yourself to ensure that you stay focused on really following through to achieve your goals, and why Benjamin believes that the key to long-term success as an advisor is giving yourself permission and the financial foundation to be able to grow slowly so you don't feel the pressure to take on clients who aren't a good fit but can be hard to let go of later.

#FASuccess Ep 180: Getting A Year’s Worth Of Growth Every Month By Going All-In On A Clear Target Market, with Ryan Inman

June 9, 2020 07:03 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 180th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Ryan Inman. Ryan is the founder of Physician Wealth Services, an independent RIA based in San Diego that serves over 140 physician clients. What's unique about Ryan, though, is the way he's gone all in on the niche of serving physicians to the point of renaming his advisory firm, launching a "Financial Residency" podcast, and restructuring his entire financial planning process into ‘inpatient’ and ‘outpatient’ services, to the point that now in his fifth year of business, he's adding more clients every month than he added in his entire first year as a generalist.

In this podcast, we talk in-depth about how Ryan chose the niche of working with physicians, the mindset shift he had to go through to get comfortable narrowing the focus of his practice, how going to the FinCon Financial Bloggers Conference gave him the inspiration to actually market to and reach his niche, and how he has ultimately found that having a focused niche is making it easier to market because you don't actually need to reach a lot of people to get new clients when your niche marketing is focused.

We also talk about Ryan's financial planning services themselves. His unique fee structure of charging clients either $500 a month or $833 a month (those are his only two options), the unique expertise in student loan planning he had to develop to really serve his niche effectively, what he does for his clients upfront and on an ongoing basis to earn those monthly fees, and why Ryan ultimately had to go outside of traditional financial planning software and to use tools like YNAB to actually help his clients in the areas that they needed advice most.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Ryan talks about the importance of having your own financial foundation set before you launch your own firm and why he waited almost two extra years before going out on his own. Why even though Ryan is glad he waited to launch his firm, he regrets not focusing into a niche earlier on, and how if he could do it over again, the only thing he'd really change is finding a business partner sooner rather than later, because, in the end, it can be pretty lonely launching an independent advisory firm from scratch.

#FASuccess Ep 179: Investment Banking For Wealth Management And The Evolution Of Advisor Enterprise Value, with Elizabeth Nesvold

June 2, 2020 07:06 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 179th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast Elizabeth Nesvold. Elizabeth is the managing director and head of asset and wealth management investment banking for Raymond James, which provides investment banking services for some of the largest independent advisory firms engaging in capital transactions. What's unique about Liz though, is that she has covered wealth management as an investment banker for more than 25 years now, and has seen firsthand how the valuation of wealth management firms has evolved over the decades to become what it is today.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how an investment banker looks at the valuation of an advisory firm. The way that, early on, RIAs were valued primarily by their assets under management and how evolving advisory fee models, away from the traditional 1% AUM fee, caused a shift for RIAs to be valued by their gross revenues instead. The way further shifts in what advisory firms do (and don't do) to provide value for their fees, and the associated cost for those services, have caused advisory firm valuations to shift again to focus on multiples of free cash flow instead, and how obtaining a valuation of an advisory firm can be a powerful tool for the firm owner to understand whether the business is really getting a good business ROI on the resources it expends to service its clients.

We also talk in-depth about what investment bankers actually do for wealth management firms, the dynamics of raising capital when starting an advisory firm and who actually can raise capital to start a firm, how it works when an investment banker is engaged to help an advisory firm recapitalize and buy out an existing partner or founder, why advisory firms engage investment bankers to facilitate mergers and acquisitions when buying or selling a firm, and the typical success fee that investment bankers receive to help make sure a deal actually goes through.

And be certain to listen to the end where Liz shares her own journey as someone who sat down at her kitchen table and started her own firm, Silver Lane, that grew into a practice, and then into a business, and then ultimately was sold to Raymond James. How she navigated the challenges in crossing the deserts of profitability that emerged as the business reinvested for growth, and what she learned as a founder that sold her own firm that she now brings to the table in counseling other advisory firm founders that are getting ready to sell their businesses as well.

#FASuccess Ep 178: Blogging Your Way Into A Successful Niche By Simply Pursuing Your Own Curiosity, with Daniel Zajac

May 26, 2020 07:05 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 178th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Daniel Zajac. Daniel is a financial advisor and partner with Simone Zajac, a hybrid advisory firm on the Lincoln Investment platform that oversees nearly $250 million of assets under management for nearly 300 clients. What's unique about Daniel, though, is the way he's driven an evolution of how the advisory firm markets itself, from the traditional approach of networking with local centers of influence and relying on existing client referrals, to developing a blog for those earning significant equity compensation from their employers that has turned into one to three new digital prospects for the firm every week, many of whom are bringing seven-figure accounts to the firm, even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Daniel built and developed a niche in working with those who receive significant equity compensation, including the years it took early on for Daniel to gain any traction with his blogging efforts, how pivoting to focus more narrowly on equity compensation accelerated his positive results, how Daniel selected equity compensation as his emerging niche in the first place, what Daniel focused on in the early years to figure out if he was on track when there were not a lot of new clients coming through yet, and how even today, Daniel has found that when blogging and marketing is focused on a niche, website traffic of just a few hundred visitors a day or a few thousand per month is sufficient to drive material new business results.

We also talk about how Daniel's advisory firm prices and delivers its planning services to clients, the digital meet-and-greet session they start with every prospect to determine if they're the right fit, the way the firm uses Dropbox in the data-gathering process to make it easy for prospective clients to share information, why the firm also offers tax preparation to clients as a part of its services, and how forming a niche has opened up new opportunities for lucrative hourly planning in addition to their traditional AUM business.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Daniel shares his perspective on why it's so important to focus sooner rather than later, having struggled himself to find his own traction after his first five years as an advisor, how the path to specialization is really more about iterating incrementally deeper and deeper and not just trying to pick the perfect future niche, and the importance of recognizing that even if you commit to an initial direction, you can always pivot to another niche focus if you're not happy with the results.

#FASuccess Ep 177: Career-Changing To Become A Financial Advisor In The Midst Of A (Financial Crisis And) Bear Market, with Sara Stanich

May 19, 2020 07:25 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 177th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Sara Stanich. Sara is the founder of Cultivating Wealth, an independent RIA based in the New York City area that oversees nearly $50 million of assets under management for 95 ongoing client households. What's unique about Sara, though, is the way she transitioned into the world of financial advice as a career changer in the midst of the financial crisis and the last bear market, which ultimately forced her into the independent channel with less support but more flexibility to build the business at her own pace, which in the end made it easier for Sara to craft the advisory firm she ultimately wanted to.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about Sara's journey through the advisory industry. Why she initially started out in a major wirehouse for their training program, what led her to initially skip out on the independent RIA channel and make a switch to the independent broker-dealer channel instead but still choosing one that had more independence, even if it meant a little less salary base and training, why she ultimately made the decision to switch to the RIA channel six years later anyway, though, because of how much the support structures for independent RIAs had changed and developed during the decade of the 2010s.

We also talk about how Sara built her business and gets clients. The way, in the early days, she obtained both her CFP certification and the CDFA designation to go deeper into the divorce niche, how she tried to take advantage of opportunities to buy out what were ‘C’ clients for other advisors in her branch but ‘A’ clients for her early practice, the way, today, she uses DataPoints, a software service, to provide prospects with a wealth-building assessment to understand themselves better and to identify who may be a good fit for the firm, and the three simple things that Sara includes in her monthly newsletter to prospects to stay in front of them for future business opportunities.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Sara shares how the business has evolved in recent years as she has begun to add more CFP professionals to her team, how she kept her confidence through the early years by focusing on the progress she was making, even if the dollars took years to add up to what she had been making in the past before pulling ahead, and her key advice to career changers and other advisors early in their careers who may be struggling in the firm or platform where they're currently at.

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#FASuccess Ep 186: Cost-Effective Seminar Marketing By Leveraging Facebook Digital Ads To Fill Local Events, with Samantha Bezar

#FASuccess Ep 185: Becoming A Financial Coach As An Alternative To The Traditional Financial Advisor Business Model, with Christine Teh

#FASuccess Ep 184: Building A Premium Financial Planning Experience To Sustain A Premium Advisory Fee, with Reese Harper

#FASuccess Ep 183: Structuring Your Advisory Business To Manage Your Time And Fit Your Natural Strengths, with Hannah Moore

#FASuccess Ep 182: How Private Wealth Management In A Multi-Family Office Differs From Traditional Financial Planning, with Richard Joyner

#FASuccess Ep 181: Pivoting To A New And Better Marketing Approach After Your First Niche Misses, with Benjamin Brandt

#FASuccess Ep 180: Getting A Year’s Worth Of Growth Every Month By Going All-In On A Clear Target Market, with Ryan Inman

#FASuccess Ep 179: Investment Banking For Wealth Management And The Evolution Of Advisor Enterprise Value, with Elizabeth Nesvold

#FASuccess Ep 178: Blogging Your Way Into A Successful Niche By Simply Pursuing Your Own Curiosity, with Daniel Zajac

#FASuccess Ep 177: Career-Changing To Become A Financial Advisor In The Midst Of A (Financial Crisis And) Bear Market, with Sara Stanich

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