We talked with Stephanie about:

• The power of a human-first approach and how she creates a safe space for clients
• Tips for finding the right fit financial advisor to meet your specific needs
• How she provides support and education to help make financial planning less intimidating 
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About Stephanie McCullough:

Stephanie McCullough is a veteran financial advisor with 27 years of experience. Inspired by her father, a long-time financial advisor, she transitioned into the financial sector at age 30. Recognizing the value of his work, she decided to join his business. A pivotal moment in 1998, when she met a coach at a chamber of commerce event, significantly shaped her professional journey. Stephanie founded Sofia Financial in 2011 to focus on empowering women to confidently take control of their financial futures. She creates a safe space for open and vulnerable discussions about financial matters.
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Featured Resources 

• Stephanie McCullough on LinkedIn
• Stephanie McCullough on Instagram
• Sofia Financial on LinkedIn
• Sofia Financial on Facebook 
• Externship at Amplified Planning
• Financial Planning Association 
• AGC Advisors Growing As a Community
• Michigan State Financial Planning 
• The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors 
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Enjoyed this? You’ll also love: 

• Building a Family Business: How Bridget Venus Grimes Solved her RIA Capacity Problem with her Daughter Marnie Bonner
• Building a Virtual Externship for the Next Generation of Financial Planners, with Hannah Moore
• Educating Financial Advisors on Healthcare Planning with Cole Craven

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Full Audio Transcript:

Lauren (00:05):

Stephanie, welcome. Glad to have you here today.

Stephanie (00:07):

Thanks, Lauren. I'm excited for the conversation. 

Lauren (00:10):

Yes, I'm excited to hear your story and how you have landed in the financial services world as an advisor, a firm owner. You are a podcast host as well. So many things, and I'm also excited to really pull back your story with the bend of how that can help others who are interested in landing in financial services and the plethora of things folks could get involved with. So I'm going to hand it over to you, if you don't mind just sharing a little bit about your background and journey and how you got to where you are today.

Stephanie (00:43):

Sure. So I'm a 27-year financial advisor. I was a career changer, so you can start doing the math, right? I was 30 years old when I changed careers and I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I had grown up with a father who was a financial advisor, and I literally did not want to do what he did. Then I got into the real world. I'm like, oh, I kind of see how this could be beneficial to people. Maybe I can pitch to him that I could work with him. And of course, he was like, one of my kids is into the business; you had me at hello. I didn't really need to make my whole big pitch but it wasn't all sunshine and roses from there.

Lauren (01:21):

Okay, so tell me more. I think it's fascinating that your father was an advisor, so you grew up in this world and you saw what the lifestyle was like and just that day to day, okay, so how did that all go? So you gave the pitch, it was like, yes, please, and then where did it go from there?

Stephanie (01:39):

Right. Then I started in and I had to get all my licenses and everything, and there was one role model. I mean, there were some other advisors in the firm but really it was kind of silos and everyone had their own thing. So my father was my role model, and he has an MBA from a fancy school, and I do not, and he's a natural born salesperson and I am not. I was like, oh, shoot, I can't do this work. I'm not like him. Now I'm in this life sentence called family business. What the heck am I going to do? How am I going to make this work?

Lauren (02:11):

We actually just did a recent interview too, where we talked about bringing folks in on the family business side and the complexity of that. So what did that feel like? I mean, how did you navigate those waters, right? Because there's this internal pressure, external pressure, and then this optics to manage that is a little different than just joining a company as an employer.

Stephanie (02:33):

Totally. The optics were really big to me. He had long-term employees. I worked for a couple months after I graduated from college, so eight or more years before, and some of the employees are still there, so I want them to think well of me, and I really made it a practice to ask lots of questions, try to learn as much as possible. I had nothing to bring. I had no knowledge or anything but my father had a partner at the time and his son had joined and he'd come from an MBA background, and he worked at a big company, and so he had suggestions right away, and I saw how that was received versus the more curious part. So it was kind of a blessing and a curse. The good thing was I wasn't getting fired because I was the boss's daughter. Yes, that's a privilege. And it was tricky also but my father had a lot of corporate clients. He did a lot of retirement plans and non-qualified types of benefit plans, so I didn't have to be in a sales role right away. Thank goodness I could be support for the plans, do the enrollment meetings, do one-on-one meetings with participants, where thank goodness I didn't have to sell anything because I was terrified of selling.

Lauren (03:48):

Yeah, I feel like it's funny because in this space you think you get into the numbers side of it, which there's a component of that, but the more and more I talk with advisors, there's so much more, there's a psychology side. You're working with people on really personal deep issues. There's a sales side as you alluded to too. It's such a people business. So how did you create that environment for you that felt safe to be able to lean in to kind of find your way despite all these other pieces going on?

Stephanie (04:16):

Yeah, early on I met someone, so this was 1998, I met someone at a chamber of commerce event who called himself a coach. I'm like, coach, what do you mean? You coach volleyball? I don't understand. And then he said, just do a free session with me and you'll get it. And by the end of the 20 minutes I was weeping. I'm like, I need to work with you. Help me, help me. Because I felt so stuck and I didn't know how to do it my way, and I didn't know how to get out. So that was really helpful. I worked with him for a couple of years just kind of thinking through all the parameters of it while at the same time still doing the work. And it really was a gift to be able to have so many one-on-one conversations. We did the retirement plan at a hospital, and I would sit outside the cafeteria and talk with anybody who walked by or I would have one-on-one meetings with everyone from the CEO to the people who cleaned the rooms. And I felt confident in that type of environment because I understood the retirement plan and they understood their life. So I felt like I could help in that way. So it was kind of learning by doing. And if I messed up one meeting, I wasn't going to lose the whole client. There were like 3,000 employees. So it was a low stakes way for me to learn, which was really helpful.

Lauren (05:32):

So sort of getting that outside counsel to be able to have that, I don't know, it's easy to be very in the woods kind of thing, to have that bird's eye.

Stephanie (05:41):

And I had no direct colleagues. Everyone else was either an employee or an advisor who's been doing it for 40 years.

Lauren (05:49):

There's too much of a gap. I know. I like that. That's an observation, right? Because sometimes when you come into your particular role, if you don't have someone who's sort of adjacent just a little bit, a few steps ahead of you, it's hard to be able to relate. Yeah, I did that. Just come on, get it kind of thing. And that upkeep. So we always sometimes also talk about it's changing but there's still a lot of men who are in this world. I know you have a focus on specifically working with women, just sort of non-judgmental approach as well. How did you get to that just over your career and what did you observe to be able to anchor in on that focus?

Stephanie (06:35):

Yeah, that experience with the hospital really was instructive because back then below the C-suite and the doctors, you had majority women. You had maybe a couple women up in the executive ranks and women doctors but not as much as it is today. But everyone else — the nurses, the technicians, the people working in the cafeteria — it was mostly women. So I had so many conversations with women who had let some man in their life handle the big financial decisions, like the long-term stuff, the investments, they probably pay the bills, but anything bigger or future oriented a lot of them delegated and it didn't always turn out well, whether it's the husband who left for the younger girlfriend or a brother-in-law who picked the investments that were right for him but not right for the woman. It just didn't always go well. And then I heard lots of sad stories about people being poorly treated by our industry, sadly, whether they were sold a high commission annuity and then the guy never answered the phone again, just too much of that. And then the head-in-the-sand approach. I always remember meeting with this one housekeeper who was 62 years old. She had worked at the hospital for nearly 30 years and never signed up for the 403(b) because it scared her. She was terrified to come meet with me.

Lauren (07:56):

It was the educational component.

Stephanie (07:58):

It was like, I don't understand what this means and how I sign up. So she came in, we walked through the forms, I helped her figure out the decisions, and at the end she gave me the biggest hug. She's like, I was so scared to come see you today. And I thought, oh my goodness. That gave me a lot of confidence. I don't understand everything and I can't answer every question under the sun but I can help women like her get on the right track. That was a catalytic moment for me.

Lauren (08:28):

Are there things you do that you feel like are unique in the way you propose questions, the way you help to educate this group target you work with? I mean, because being able to sit down and to be able to say, here it is, here's my story. That takes a certain skill set and a nuance to be able to pull that out in a way that feels like honest truth, to really pull it out, and then that's going to impact the quality of work you do. So if you can't pull it out, you're not going to get to the right end result. And then that's going to have an impact. So how do you help to nurture and pull that out so it does feel non-judgmental, and so folks do feel comfortable having these conversations with you, or are there certain things you're even doing to educate yourself so you know how to pitch those right questions?

Stephanie (09:18):

Well, I think you said unique at the beginning, and I don't think I'm unique. All the financial planners I hang out with have a similar approach, and I have found those people over the years who really have that kind of human-first approach and the life planning. I took some George Kinder training. I was like, ooh, this is cool. That all helped me. But I think it's creating a safe space to talk about things. And I say right upfront to someone who comes in — they don't come in off the street anymore but they google me and set up a free chat. I'm like, we're going to have to talk about all the things, because money is a means to an end. It's connected to all the most delicate parts of your life, your feelings of security, your relationships, your career, all these things.

It's going to be emotional. I just try to lay that out there right upfront. And I tell them in the first couple of meetings we're not going to talk about numbers at all. I'm going to ask questions, and the reason we do it is because the money should be in service of everything. I want to get at what's important to you, what your priorities are, what your values are, what you worry about, who your people are. So we're going to talk about it all. So I don't hide it and sneak it upon them. It's just on my website. I think it's very clear this is the approach we're going to take, and people self-select then if they're willing to have those conversations; it's a very vulnerable conversation. They have to get financially naked and talk about all the stuff. So I don't even know if I've had that many people who weren't into it. It's just if they're there . . .

Lauren (10:58):

They're ready to talk.

Stephanie (10:59):

I think. So I have had people who've tried to refer people like, oh, my cousin totally needs to talk to you. She'll come when she's ready. You can't force it.

Lauren (11:09):

Yeah, there's a firm we've worked with and they have a centerpiece in their office. It's this coffee table. It's a really ornate coffee table, and they've got chairs around it, and it's very purposely set up that way because it's more of a conversation table; it's circular with people all around it. It's not this sort of big thick table between you and the advisor, what have you, to just be able to just have these honest conversations and then you can go to the conference table and go through all the numbers or what have you. So I like that there's a warm trust-building component.

Stephanie (11:43):

I used to imagine having a series of offices around the country in houses. So do you want to have this meeting on the front porch or do you want to walk around? But then of course, everything went remote, online. A lot of my clients are all over the country so I don't need a space.

Lauren (12:00):

That's right. And sometimes it's just about having those conversations wherever you are, which is also a benefit to that as well. Okay. So you shed a little bit of light on what that day-to-day is, how you built up your career. Could you share a little bit more about someone who, I don't know, maybe they're thinking about getting into this space, they're thinking about getting into the advisor community. Maybe it's not even being an advisor, it might be on an ops team or in a different capacity. Where do you even start and what kind of things were you looking for to help just learn along the way and get that fit?

Stephanie (12:37):

Yeah, I think it's so interesting because when I first came in, I saw the one model being my dad, and I thought every advisor was like him. And every advisory firm was like that. And I've spoken to women who've come into different structures of doing this work, and maybe it's felt like a good fit or maybe it hasn't. And they've been like, oh, this doesn't feel right. I guess the industry is not for me. Goodbye. And I'm like, we still want you. We still need you. Right? So that's one. I think one thing I would say is there's lots of ways people do this work, even advisors in the same company, in the same overall structure might have very different approaches. So talk to as many people as you possibly can and kind of suss out like, oh, does this feel right to me? Does this feel kind of icky? Because we all know in every industry there are those who maybe do things more the way you would like and those who don't. And they might be sitting in offices right next to each other.

And I think with anything, right, I advise my clients this. Step zero is to get clear on what's most important to you, what you want, what you are hoping to get out of this. Why would you like to work in this industry? Is it because you think you make a lot of money? Okay, that's one route. Or is it because you’re fascinated by investing? Okay, that's interesting. Or do you really like the people conversations? There's lots of different ways. I love it because there's always something new to learn, and I love talking to people and hearing their stories. That's fascinating to me. But I think we have this reputation problem that it's all about numbers and spreadsheets and math and investments, and that's not it. Like you said, it's a very human conversation, a very human business.

Lauren (14:29):

We had a dinner with a young woman, I don't know, maybe two years in her career or something like that, as entertaining, shifting offices, and we were, my husband and I were giving the advice of just, why don't you just reach out to cold out to people and just say, I'm new in this space and I'd just love to learn from you that maybe your best place is to work at a company or you did this. Do you mind just giving me 30 minutes of your time to just share a little bit more? It's that giving back component and paying it forward to be able to help others. I've often spoken to undergrad classes and you see eyes light up when even questions like, okay, what do you need to put on your resume and this and that? And I'm like, sometimes it's just about putting your neck out there. There's that piece of it too but just asking questions as you're alluding to as well.

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Stephanie (15:20):

Do you mind? Totally.

Lauren (15:22):

Yeah. There's so many industry groups too. Where would you recommend people start to even be able to learn a little bit more online resources or maybe conferences or things? Maybe people are already in their career and they're in their seat but where do they help to continue to learn and be able to build these relationships with others?

Stephanie (15:39):

Yeah, I mean, one resource I think is really fabulous, and it can be for people new in the industry or people who've been doing it a long time, is the externship that Hannah Moore and her company does, Amplified Planning. It used to be associated with FPA, and now I think it's just Amplified Planning and doing it. It's a low ticket, pretty intensive, really window inside to what the work is actually like. And they have advisors in different capacities speaking, and you learn different softwares. I think it's kind of a low stakes way to try it out, to be able to sit in the seat or simulate sitting in the seat of an advisor, of a financial planner, and see what that's like.

At the same time, that's not the only way to do it. So that's one interesting way. It goes over the summer. I think it's starting up soon this year for 2024. And then there's groups. There's all kinds of groups. There's the Financial Planning Association. I belong to a group called the AGC — Advisor Growth Community. We've done a mentorship program with students at Michigan State in the financial planning program. I think if you have one or two conversations and it doesn't feel right, don't give up. And I remember when I was doing informational interviewing back in school, always ask the person you're talking to, who else could I speak with? Who else do you think would be a good idea for me to have a chat with? And then your tree kind of builds from there.

Lauren (17:08):

Yes, there's so many conferences. Kitces has got a bazillion conference list directory.

Stephanie (17:14):

And a lot of them have free tickets for students if you're in that phase.

Lauren (17:21):

NAPFA, of course, is a great resource. Any other thoughts for folks who might be kind of going through an interview process? They always say they're just not interviewing you but you're interviewing them — things you think folks should look for to be able to feel out if it's the right fit or not.

Stephanie (17:49):

If you can ask, what does an average day look like? What are the responsibilities of this task? Who will I be interacting with on a regular basis and what's the path from here? Is there a career path? In a lot of the smaller firms that might be difficult for them to lay out for you but it's still a good question to ask. You can say something like, I value continuing to learn and develop. What opportunities might there be a couple years down the road? What can this grow into?

Lauren (18:20):

Yes, yes. So true. I know for folks, we're at a place where we're going to or we've offered them the position too. We've often offered, do you want to talk with someone else on the team just to feel what it's like? So if you're in a place where I feel like you've got multiple offers, you're trying to figure out what's the right energy, because when you commit to something, you're committing. Just like when you work with an advisor, most advisors, especially in the fee-only space, I mean, they're working with folks for a long time, so it's a long-term relationship, just like a career. You're working with them for a while, so it’s important to be able to figure that out. I think so.

Stephanie (18:57):

Right. How big is the team? I mean, my father used to say, we're a small group, everyone does a little bit of everything. Or in a bigger firm, you might be really in a small slice of the business, which could be fine but maybe even will I have an opportunity to see other parts of how this whole business works? And to me, I don't want to put judgment on it but a certain type of boss will be like, yeah, you're interested. I want you to see the whole thing and really have an understanding of this career because they want you to stick around. They're investing in you.

Lauren (19:34):

Yep, absolutely. Well, I also just really appreciate, just to sort of take a step back, I know we've been talking about getting into your career in this industry but you called out that part of your growth story was like you invested in yourself, you got to a coach early on, and then now where you are today you're paying it forward. And then to be able to continue; I'm sure that theme continues. How do you continuously invest in yourself? As I tell my team, we're always learning. I'm like, I'm learning. I don't have it perfect. I'm not over here on some pedestal. I'm like, I totally am learning all the time. We're learning together. So I really appreciate you're like, I'm also constantly learning and being able to share some of those lessons learned along the way.

Stephanie (20:20):

Yeah, I mean, I think that's exciting. And also at the beginning it gave me fear like, oh, shoot, I don't know enough yet. I can't go advise a client. I don't know all the answers. And I remember the day I was talking to a surgeon at this same hospital, and I was so terrified he was going to ask me a question I didn't know the answer to, and he asked me a question and I asked him a clarifying question back, and it turns out what he really wanted to know wasn't the initial question that I was like, I don't think I know the exact tax treatment of this exact thing.

I said, oh, that's interesting; why do you ask? It was something totally different. I was like, oh, even with my knowledge, which I feel like isn't big enough, it's still more than this surgeon knows. I can be helpful to this person.

Lauren (21:09):

And be able to help kind of guide them down that path. Sometimes I feel like folks, they'll say things but it's about the listening and the being able to, as you said before, kind of guide people down that right path because of experience.

Stephanie (21:23):

Yeah, totally. And I don't know, my approach is always like, I'm not telling the clients what they have to do. We're collaboratively coming up with a plan together.

Lauren (21:32):

Absolutely.

Stephanie (21:33):

They know their life and what they're trying to accomplish, and I know the language of the financial world and the different tools and the different tradeoffs and pitfalls, and together we come up with the action plan, so I don't have to know all things.

Lauren (21:44):

Yep. Well, Stephanie, thank you so much for sharing about your background and your journey to get to where you are today but also some tips and tricks for folks thinking about potentially getting into this industry, maybe even thinking about making a shift and where to start or what have you. Any other final thoughts you think would be helpful to share?

Stephanie (22:04):

Oh, I would just say I've talked to women before and I tell them what I do and they're like, I can't do what you do. I'm bad at math. I was like, I got calculators, I got computers. The math is not the thing. It's really diving in and asking questions and then just shutting up and listening. Money is so fraught, right? It's a neutral thing in principle but it's not neutral. We have so much baggage attached to it. So many stories we picked up from our childhood, so many kinds of valuations the world puts on it that it really makes decisions challenging for people. And if they don't have someone to talk to to help them figure it out, they can just cycle around in their own heads. So it really is a lot of that, right? Walking with someone, like you were saying, as opposed to directing them. And that's so fulfilling when you can see someone take steps forward when they’d been frozen before. It's really a very rewarding career.

Lauren (23:03):

I love that. Thank you for sharing too. And also for folks who are listening, takebackretirement.com is where your podcast is at. So to get more in-depth tips and tricks, I'm sure a little bit more technical or maybe a little bit more different topics or what have you is a great place to start to hear more. So thank you again for joining us today.

Stephanie (23:23):

Absolutely. Happy to.

We talked with Cole about:

• How Cole & Move Health provide financial advisors with expert healthcare planning guidance to help their clients make their next move in life confidently
• The resources he provides for advisors when their clients need healthcare planning 
• The power of human interaction and why it’s still preferred over AI in healthcare planning 

About Cole Craven:

Cole is the managing partner & head of growth at Move Health & he lives in Evansville, IN with his wife Meghan and their 2 year old son, Porter. Cole has a passion for creating empowered and informed healthcare consumers through effective healthcare planning. Cole cofounded Move Health after recognizing that financial advisors and their clients were under-resourced and uninformed when it came to healthcare planning despite healthcare being a top financial concern for Americans nearing retirement. As managing partner, Cole works everyday with the Move Health team to further their mission of making health coverage simple & clear. Cole is a lifelong Hoosier & loves spending time outdoors with his growing family, playing music & meeting new people.

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Featured Resources 

• Cole Craven on LinkedIn 
• Move Health Partners on LinkedIn
• Move Health Partners on Facebook
• Movehealthpartners.com

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• Tips for Effective Branding and Website Strategies for Financial Services
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Full Audio Transcript:

Lauren (00:05):

Cole, welcome.

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Cole (00:07):

Thanks for having me, Lauren. I’m excited to be here. 

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Lauren (00:10):

All right, so you guys are in retreat today. We have Cole, he is the co-founder of Move Health Partners, and this is not his first rodeo. He's sat in other ventures leading up to this but I think we'll let him get into that a little bit more. But what makes it unique too is that they specifically work with advisors. I'll let him share a little bit more of the background and the story on the educational component and making sure folks are set up for success. So I don't want to take the words out of your mouth but why don't you share a little bit about your background, about you, and we'll go from there.

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Cole (00:44):

Of course. Appreciate it. Grateful to be here. Excited to share a little bit today. My background: I live in Evansville, Indiana, and so you can't see out the windows of the office right now but I'm in the heartland and so it's just cornfield straight up to our front door and then our office. That's not totally true but there is a lot of agriculture here. But so I'm in Evansville, my wife, our 2-year-old son and I live here and we love it. It's a great place. It's interesting. I don't think anybody sets out for a long career in health insurance. Typically that's not what people say. Lauren, I don't know if you know this — I was an advertising major in college and so I my goal was I was going to graduate college, I was going to go work for a big ad firm. I was going to move to a big city, do that thing, and there were just different plans in place and I'm so grateful for where I'm at and I love the work I do.

And so I kind of stumbled into health insurance through a close friend who now is a business partner of mine here at Move Health. And so it's been a really cool walk into health insurance. I started in a really large agency and so we had scaled and grown an agency from 80 team members when I joined to almost 400 by the time we made our exit last summer. And so it was really big and we garnered a lot of really good information from that, which really led into what we are doing now as Move. And so Move Health is a really exciting new venture. I'm excited to talk about it but more importantly I'm excited to hopefully give a springboard to both advisors and maybe even if there's folks who are walking through the exact scenario we help with who may listen to this idea of just being able to help them demystify what health insurance and Medicare is. And that's really what our mission is: to make health coverage simple and easy to understand.

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Lauren (02:46):

So tell me a little more, because I feel like, okay, if you've done a venture before, it can be in a variety of capacities. You learn so much, you get over the learning curves of the basic entry of what entity type and how to set up teams and org structures and fundraising, and it could be fundraising, it could be going after VC capital, a variety of things. So you've had those learning curves. What was the trigger for you guys to get Move Health going and then I'm sure it just has grown that much faster because you're coming into it with that previous experience. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about why Move.

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Cole (03:23):

Yeah, exactly. For lack of a better word, pun totally intended. Yeah, no, anytime I use the word move, I have to qualify it. I'm a dad. The pun is absolutely intended every time we say move but it's a great question. So as we were growing our previous agency, we had had a smattering of financial advisors and wealth managers who had come to us with like, hey, I've got a client who needs help with their health insurance. Can you walk through it with them? Yeah, that's fine. No worries. And we also market it in different ways as well and source clients differently. But one of the things we noted about financial advisors and their clients is there's this huge grouping of people who are under-resourced and really uninformed and not on purpose but they're uninformed when it comes to health insurance and Medicare and it's really sometimes preventing them from making moves in life, whether that's the jump from W2 to entrepreneur or the move from working to retiring before 65 or if it's a confident transition to Medicare they're trying to make.

And so we saw that in what we were doing but we didn't really have the capacity or the resources to build that within our previous organization. So we launched Move to specifically serve financial advisors and their clients with health insurance and Medicare guidance that helps them to unlock their next move in life. And so like I mentioned, that could be someone who wants to be a small business owner but they need to figure out how to cover their young family. It could be most of the time it's the 55 to 64 window. Hey, I'm 61 years old and I want to retire. I don't know what to do for health insurance outside of my job. Hey, my client is 64 and a half and they're getting all kinds of mailers and junk and phone calls from people talking about Medicare and there's a quarterback on TV telling them to go with this plan and what direction do I go.

And so just being able to take all that white noise and just remove it and be able to give people really clear, concise, and good truthful information about what their options are so they feel educated and empowered. And then beyond that, making certain they have a game plan in place they feel really confident in that fits within their financial plan. So that's our unique bend — we only serve financial advisors. So we can talk the talk, walk the walk, and we know what's important to an advisor to get feedback from on their client's health insurance and healthcare needs.

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Lauren (05:47):

So you're actually working with the advisors business as an entity and then you're working educating the advisors to know I guess what to listen for when they're talking with clients. Did I summarize that correctly? 

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Cole (05:57):

Yeah. Spot on. So we know through some pretty intense market research that financial advisors don't want to be in the weeds on health insurance. It's not something they were trained on. They may carry it, they may go, hey, I'm health and life licensed but it's like, that's great, but you're not in it every single day, just like I'm not in a financial plan every single day. And so we let the aces be in their places. And so that's what we act as. We kind of treat ourselves as an extension of the team and all we ask for the financial advisors is, hey, you can now proactively talk about healthcare planning, knowing you've got someone in your corner who can help to demystify that for your client or make it clear or that you can bounce questions off of, hey, my client's thinking about doing Roth conversions this year; how's that going to impact their health insurance costs?

Some advisors don't even know that those two are correlated or how that ties into Medicare Part B premiums, etc. And so there's a lot of things that coincide between health and wealth, if you will. And so it's really important to understand what that correlation is. And that's the unique piece about working with us and our team as a financial advisor. You don't have to be an expert. We really tell advisors every day like, hey, you want to be able to bring it up, identify the opportunity for healthcare planning, and then raise the white flag and go, hey, I'm not an expert in this but I know someone who is and I want to help you. And so we've seen really cool results from that, whether it be from firm growth because they've introduced healthcare planning and maybe even the bigger piece is client retention. So an advisor is always seeking to add non-investment value. How do we do that? How do we not sit in a meeting and just talk about investment performance? Let's talk about things you feel every single day. And one of those things they feel and are concerned about is what does health insurance look like for me beyond my job?

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Lauren (07:49):

Okay. So I just want to back up the truck here. So you were talking about how an advisor could bring it up to a client or maybe, I don't know, maybe it comes organically through a conversation. If I was an advisor, what would you tell me about how to bring it up with a client or what are the key triggers to listen for to make sure that this is, like you said, health and wealth, they're really intertwined. It's a really important component. What advice would you give to advisors who might be listening?

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Cole (08:17):

Yeah, we would consider this internally, we call it client segmentation. How do you understand who's a good fit to talk with about healthcare planning? It comes down to a variety. I firmly believe everybody can benefit from a further understanding of what health insurance is. Even if you're in a job and you have to select between a couple of different employer plan options or whatever it might be or understand how health insurance works, I believe everybody could benefit from that. And statistics and surveys would show Americans don't understand health insurance but as we're thinking exactly, it's complicated and it's not getting any simpler.

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Lauren (08:53):

It's a lot of things that continue to change.

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Cole (09:01):

It changes, yes. And then your own situation changes like everything you got it figured out, then it changes again. There are multiple axes that are working against each other in trying to make it clear. And so being able to cut through that noise is important and having an education. But as I think from an advisor's perspective, the people who are really primed for this conversation would be the individuals who are nearing retirement. That's a good conversation point to bring up. Hey, before you bring it to me as a concern, I want to bring up to you health insurance and retirement. This is something I know retirees are concerned about. I want to make certain you have a clear understanding of what health insurance costs are going to be. Because I think the other piece is advisors need to understand that as good as some financial planning softwares are out there, health insurance is still kind of like the wild west as far as estimating those costs within those platforms.

So many variables can go into what costs are. And so people who are nearing that retirement conversation, people who are already in a distribution phase of retirement, touch base with them. If you haven't talked about health insurance, this is a really quick and easy way to say, hey, I care about you. Obviously I'm watching investment performance. Obviously we're talking about tax planning. Obviously we're doing some of all the key things. Here's another way we can go deeper on your financial plan that allows us to not only forge a deeper relationship client to advisor but also for the advisor to add value in a really meaningful way. The other thing would be, hey, I've got 15 clients this year who are turning 65 — being that first person who reaches out before those mailers and all that stuff starts up, saying, hey, I care about you. I know you're going to get blown up in the next six months.

Talk to a resource I know and trust at least for an initial conversation. And you can make your own decisions after that point. But a lot of times that results in the client saying, oh wow, they're thinking about more than just my money. They truly are doing comprehensive planning and they're acting as that kind of center of influence. And so those would be some of the things we would look for, that early retiree space, folks who may be already in their distribution phase of retirement, folks who are getting ready to transition to Medicare. The other one we see all the time is people who are already on Medicare and they might be 73 years old and they haven't reviewed their coverage since they turned 65. And there's real opportunities for optimization, whether it be via prescription drug coverage or whatever plan or choice they went with initially. Medicare is not set it or forget it either. And so we always like to say, hey, we need to do an annual review. And so the wrap up of this segment is like anybody could benefit from healthcare education, anybody could. But I think kind of that early retiree, that distribution phase, that transition to Medicare are the really low hanging fruit that's a quick and easy way to add a lot of clients in a pretty low lift manner.

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Lauren (11:55):

Yeah, I mean just as you're talking, it makes me think about CRM systems and when to put in triggers based off of, like you said, client segmentation. Those things are not forgotten about along the way to have the conversations or unique clients, business owners or they're part of the military or other sort of unique conditions that might be good prompts to bring up these kinds of conversations. So if someone is having these dialogs with a client, are there things they need to know at a baseline to be able to come to your team to sort of vet it out? Or is it more just like, hey Cole, we have a conversation, or can I introduce you to these folks? What does that actually look like?

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Cole (12:34):

Yeah, really good question. So it can happen a variety of ways. And so it happens to the best of the advisors who do proactive healthcare planning that they get caught in a reactive state. But we always encourage like, hey, we encourage proactive action. And most financial planners are really good about that. But there is the occasion that a client comes to them and says, hey, I need help with my health insurance. And there's that Talladega Nights scene where Ricky Bobby holds up his hands and goes, I don't know what to do with my hands. And the advisor's like, I need to find a resource. What can I do? And then somehow they stumble upon us, whether it's via a webinar or a podcast or something where they've caught us and they go, I need help. And so usually what happens is the clients introduced to us at Move have either done that in that proactive or that reactive fashion.

And the first thing we do is always start with education. And a lot of times we actually encourage the advisor as long as the client's okay with it, we encourage the advisor to be on the call as well, at least initially. And a lot of times the advisor will leave that conversation and say, I really learned something, so thank you. That happens every single day. And so being able to walk through a thorough education, because most of the time the clients we are working with who are coming to us through an advisor, it's the first time they've ever had to buy health insurance outside of a job. And so they're struggling with that. And I've had people say, this was the biggest pain in my rear trying to figure this out, and I did all this research. And then you just turned it on its head and made it easy to understand.

So education first, needs analysis second. Hey, tell me about what your needs are. Tell me about the doctors you see, the prescription drugs you take. We do a really deep dive on the needs. And then what I always say is our team's superpower is being able to take 100+ available options in a particular zip code even and narrow it down to one or two and say like, hey, here are the options we suggest, and being able to give them that information. So hopefully that kind of answers the question of it doesn't matter if the initial conversation starts proactively or reactively; it's going to walk through the same client process. And the other piece being we think a really important part of what we do is closing the feedback loop for the advisor as well as being able to say, hey, there's a lot of times where an advisor will say, I've got an insurance guy.

It's great. It's kind of a black hole. I don't ever hear anything back. I think it's fine. And my challenge to that is always it’s fine what you aim to give to your clients with your service. Like no, you don't. And you want someone who's going to work in consultation with you because there are a lot of correlations between health and wealth. And so being able to have someone who closes that feedback loop, gives you, hey, we chose an HSA eligible plan, they thought that was an important part of their tax strategy you had mentioned. So we went that direction. They're taken care of. Here's their annual cost via premium, here's their fixed annual cost, here's their annual exposure. Being able to loop all those things back. And this is not an infomercial for Move Health. I don't want it to come off that way but I think if someone's health insurance partner that a financial advisor is working with is not doing those things, they should maybe consider finding one that does and does it really well because it’s an important piece.

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Lauren (15:42):

Yeah. What I appreciate too is you can speak the language, the advisor's language and what they're looking at from an analysis side of things. So it's not just sort of a transaction as a partner but it's more of an actual partner. So yeah, you're playing the same game together, which is important to be able to help the end client. Super interesting. So just as we're wrapping up things here too, as you look ahead in the insurance world and the advisor world, are there any sort of trends you're seeing as it relates to your work? Obviously AI is a big deal. I don't know if it does or does not impact your day-to-day work, just any sort of direction it's going, maybe even politically, I'm not sure. I'd love to hear a little bit more on that.

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Cole (16:25):

Yeah, really good questions. I think there's a couple high-level things we see as trends in the space. And I'll touch on just some statistics initially. So there's 40 million Americans between the ages of 55 and 64, and there's a ton of them who are ready to retire early and they're saying, I'm ready to retire. Their financial advisor says, you're good to go. We just have to figure out health insurance, kind of that last puzzle piece to put in place. So 40 million Americans are in that space. To add on top of that, the rate of people turning 65 every single year, right? Now it’s 12,000 people a day.

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Lauren (17:02):

Holy smokes!

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Cole (17:03):

Who are turning 65 in America. And so you go, the opportunity there for proactive healthcare planning for advisors is there. We know there's 40 million Americans between 55 and 64. The average age of a financial advisor client is 59 and a half and 12,000 people a day are turning 65. And so as we think about trends, proactive healthcare planning is going to become an expectation of advisors, not something you get to dabble in or touch on reactively. It's going to be something clients expect. And there have been some surveys and things I could go on in super in-depth on that have correlated that. And so that's one piece. I think another thing is though the 55 to 64 generation is becoming increasingly tech savvy, they also still very, very much value human interaction.

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Lauren (17:55):

That's true.

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Cole (17:56):

And it's one of those pieces you really can't replace. And so I think it's one of those things where it's like, of course the person who gives health insurance and Medicare advice says AI can't do it. AI can't do it yet. It may be able to do it at some point but I would strongly caution against using an AI type of system to arrive at a healthcare plan because there are so many intangibles that come up with health insurance and Medicare that are unique to each person's situation. Who knows, AI is going to transcript this podcast. I'm certain Lauren, it's going to read it and go, it's true. It's going to gray ball me or something and say like, hey, he can't use AI or slow him down or whatever it is. But all that to be said, we feel very confident the size of the market for proactive healthcare planning is really important.

Financial advisors should be talking about as we think about trends but then beyond just that clients are beginning to expect it. And then beyond just that, clients still want someone to really walk through this process with them. They don't want to do it on their own, and they want someone who’s sitting there going, hey, you've done the research, you've followed your financial advisor's plan. You've done a really good job in all these parts and pieces. Let's help demystify this last piece so you can make your next move. And so those would be the trends I would see sticking out. From a legislation standpoint, there are a couple changes that are coming potentially at the end of 2025 via the American Rescue Plan Act. Essentially, in 2021 they enhanced the tax credits that were available on the ACA marketplace, and that was open until the end of 2025.

And so I think the entire industry has its ear to the ground on what's going to happen next with those enhanced subsidies. Anything I'd say at this point would be me guessing and like a financial advisor would say, I can't beat the market and I'm not going to try to. And so from our perspective, I don't know what the inner workings of CMS are and beyond just that we don't know what's going to happen with the next presidential election. And that will have potentially an impact on these things. Anytime you're weaving the government and health insurance and financials and all those things together, you just have to roll with it and figure out what comes next and figure out how to optimize. And so there are changes that could potentially be coming but we are staying close to those to make certain we're not surprised by them and making certain the people we serve aren't surprised by them either.

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Lauren (20:31):

Yeah. I also appreciate what you said earlier in the conversation about how there's so much noise out there and that, just to give an example, you talked earlier about just that human side of interaction. How many times have you been to a website and you're like, I just had this problem. I don't want to read through a million FAQs. I'm Google searching. I think the world's going to end but what I appreciate what you're talking about is it's that human to human. It's okay, we can help shine a light. We've been here before and this is the course and let's figure out your particular situation. And I think that's a lot of the value add, especially when you're working with something as complex and potentially that could be as fragile. It really interlocks with someone's personal situation in the short and long term.

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Cole (21:16):

It's one of those things where we have said it time and time again, our mission is to make health coverage simple and clear. But beyond just that, when it comes to health insurance, when it comes to Medicare, the most perfect and accurate information you can get is a really big deal. And so being certain, one, as a financial advisor, your client's not being sold something they don't need, that's one piece in the insurance space that candidly we're up against in making certain that, hey, listen, we're not going to try and sell you something. We want to make certain the feedback you are getting is truly objective. And then beyond just that, having a clear understanding of how their health coverage is going to work and what the financial impact of that is, hey, here's what it will do, here's what it won't do. Here's what happens in your worst year possible with this option, best-case scenario, here's what happens as well. But being able to take that noise level and just bringing it down and saying, there's a lot of things you can ignore. There are some things you can't but there's many things you can't ignore and if you're getting blanketed, yeah, if you're getting blanket advice from someone, it's probably not right or not unique to your situation.

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Lauren (22:24):

Yep. Yep. A hundred percent. Well, Cole, thank you so much. We'll make sure to link to your website, movehealthpartners.com, and I appreciate your time and just insights about this whole world, the complexities and what you all are doing to help shape it and provide clarity. So thank you. 

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Cole (22:41):

Of course. Grateful to be on, and thanks for having us, Lauren.

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Lauren (22:44):

Absolutely.

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We talked with Ian about:

• How unique military circumstances and challenges can complicate traditional financial planning
• Why military members need advisors who understand military-specific needs and broader financial literacy to support tailored strategies and avoid common pitfalls
• Why maintaining good financial health is essential for sustaining a successful military career

About Ian J. Gates

Ian J. Gates, former ESL teacher turned Army intel officer turned aspiring fee-only financial planner, brings a wealth of experience and unique insights into the financial challenges service members face. His military service and background in teaching refugees as well as affluent families have given him a rich and diverse perspective on financial literacy and planning. As host of the #BLUFFbooks podcast, Ian reviews new and classic books on personal finance to help the military community “build, lead, and understand financial freedom.” Focusing on the intersection of military service and financial planning, he advocates for tailored advice and specialized advisors to help military members and their families achieve financial stability and freedom.

Featured Resources 

• The #BLUFFbooks Podcast on Apple and Spotify
• #BLUFFbooks on LinkedIn
• Military Financial Advisors Association
• XY Planning Network (XYPN)
• MilMoneyCon
• GoVA Article: “Your Money or Your Life:” How to Avoid Military Family Overspending
• Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin

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Full Audio Transcript:

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Lauren (00:05):

Hi, Ian. Thanks for being here with us today.

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Ian (00:08):

It's my pleasure, Lauren. It's always nice to meet another military spouse.

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Lauren (00:11):

Yes, I know Ian. We both have the ESL component, so we were just chatting about that before this. I did a Fulbright actually in South Korea and got to teach over there for a year, so stayed a little bit longer than that. But remind me, where were you teaching English as a second language? Was it domestic or outside the U.S.?

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Ian (00:32):

So it was all domestic; it was for Catholic Charities in Newport News, Virginia. My wife was stationed out of Portsmouth and again in Philadelphia while I was going to grad school there at Villanova.

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Lauren (00:47):

Oh my goodness. Okay. Well that is actually a perfect segue into a little bit about your background and between the ESL component and the military component. So I'm just going to hand it over to you. Tell me a little bit more before we do a deep dive and chat more specifically. Gosh, we've got a lot to cover today but we're going to get into some book reviews and a little bit more on the financial side for military folks. Let’s start by having you share a little bit about your background, if you don't mind.

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Ian (01:14):

So when people ask where I'm from, I have to say the Mid-Atlantic because until moving to Texas and with a few sojourns thanks to my own Army service and my studies abroad, I've lived in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and New York, and I was born in Jersey.

When I was at Fort Huachuca for my basic officer leadership course when I was a second lieutenant in the Army. So I had a friend approach me who said, let me get this straight: You live in Philadelphia? Yes. You're from New York? Yes. Your car is registered in Virginia? Yes. And you're part of the Maryland National Guard? Yes. So yeah, that was a snapshot of my life at that time. And now that I'm living in Texas, having moved here 10 months ago, I'm very much realizing that I am a Mid-Atlantic creature but I'm having a lot of fun here nonetheless.

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Lauren (02:20):

Yeah, there's something really beautiful and kind of crazy about living in a lot of different places. You've got friends and what have you who end up kind of everywhere but you see so many different cultures, ways of life; it definitely puts you outside of your comfort zone. So tell us a little bit more about that. So you taught English, you're the National Guard. What brought you to Texas?

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Ian (02:44):

So my wife is a Coast Guard officer and that was her dream ever since she was eight. And I know that in part because I met her at that age. So we grew up together. She was always excited about the military, thanks to two of her uncles, one in the Coast Guard, one in the Navy. And for me, I come from a family of civilian academics on one side and engineers on the other, and one grandfather who spent a couple of years in the Air Force Reserve when everybody and their brother was in the reserves at least. He actually has funny stories about the Cuban Missile Crisis and working the swing shift at that time in the motor pool.

So yes, we grew up in New York a stone’s throw from West Point, not that either of us had anything to do with West Point and the U.S. Military Academy but we grew up in that area. We were friends at church, friends through homeschooling, and eventually I got up the nerve to ask her out when I was 17 and she was 18. And despite the skepticism, we kept a long distance relationship going through college and she inspired me to join the National Guard during that time. And I did that for a little over 10 years. And about 18 months ago, I decided to separate at the 10-year mark as a captain because having two deployable parents really wasn't what we wanted for our two young kids.

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Lauren (04:38):

Yeah, I get that. Can you share a little bit more about your time in the service and how that's connected you to what you're gearing up to do today and in the financial advisory space? I'd love to hear a little bit more about what inspired you to go that direction, the why. What you saw is literally like boots on ground talking with others that directed you along this path today.

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Ian (05:07):

Yes. So as an ESL teacher, even as an intern in Virginia while I was attending Old Dominion, they had me doing ESL classes for very recent refugees. And these refugees get a couple hundred dollars, they get plugged into some resources, they have a rather short runway before they're expected to be at least semi-independent. And so this was crash course ESL. And simultaneously I was also in ROTC at Old Dominion. And about a year later, my wife, who's a prevention officer in the Coast Guard, she transferred from her little 270 cutter out of Portsmouth to work at Sector Delaware Bay in Philadelphia. And so I was teaching ESL at a handful of schools around town as an adjunct, which is kind of the Uber driver of college professors. You pick up whatever courses are left over by the tenured people and if that means you drive from one end of town to the other to teach your two, three classes in a day to make it work, you do it.

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Lauren (06:38):

Right.

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Ian (06:40):

But the ESL students I would see, again, some of them were refugees but most of them just wanted to get an American college education. And so their families were rather well off. So you would see young Saudi guys with more money than they knew what to do with and more freedom. And now they're all 19. Just talking to them, I was like, just because you have money doesn't mean you should use it this way and the casinos are not your friend.

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Lauren (07:22):

So do you mind sharing a little bit more, you talked a little bit earlier about I think some of these challenges of being able to explain language barriers as it relates to finances. I know you've seen it on the ground just working in the military, having to help people. I mean, you think about as someone who's in the military, you are being deployed usually in a pretty frequent cadence and there's a lot of things to be able to get your house in order. So from a very young age, you're literally thinking about these sorts of things. What kind of things did you hear about? I mean, I'm sure there's people listening who have family who are military, loved ones in the military. And from a financial perspective or even advisors who maybe have clients with military connections, what things should they be thinking about or even resources that would be helpful for them if they are talking with clients for them to learn a little bit more about maybe tools to be able to share with their clients or even for their loved ones as well?

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Ian (08:26):

Yes. So the first thing is I want to give a shoutout to the Military Financial Advisors Association, which is a coalition of fiduciary fee-only financial advisors, many of whom are also part of XYPN.

And there's also the MilMoneyCon. I had a great time attending the event this past April in Denver. And yeah, the association and the convention are great resourcing because for military members, the lifestyle is different enough that it really helps to have people who target your niche and speak your language as it were. And there are a lot of benefits to being in the military but that also can throw a wrench in the planning by somebody who hasn't been accustomed to that environment. For example, the Secure Act 2.0 took away the ability to write off on your taxes a required move. So if you work for Microsoft and they tell you to move to Texas, sorry, you can't do that anymore.

But if Uncle Sam tells you to move to Texas, well, you can still write that off but you could wind up not enjoying that advantage because your advisor just doesn't know. It’s that niche. And there's also things as well, like having an advisor who can remind you to apply for your veterans benefits on time while you're processing out from the military. Or you may have an advisor who thinks their investment products are the bee's knees. And they may be but they don't know about TSP, which is a great benefit federal employees have in terms of being able to invest and have that come straight out of their paychecks.

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Lauren (10:34):

Yep. I feel like in the advisory space, there's just so much jargon that can come along with it. And it's the same thing in the military. There's so much jargon. So if you can meet both those worlds and know as they often say in the advisory space there's these triggers, there's these life triggers but a lot of those life triggers are unique. For the military in particular. I mean even think about retiring or transitioning from active duty to the reserve; these sorts of things really can impact your portfolio and long-term projections. And even things like your health insurance. I'm sure these are conversations you were having, or at least to a certain degree or they would come up with others you'd be working with in the National Guard. Is that fair?

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Ian (11:17):

Yes. So while I was teaching ESL in Philadelphia, I would get off of work on Friday and then I would put on my uniform and shave. And then on Saturday I was a part of a cavalry squadron in the Maryland National Guard that was being turned into a military intelligence battalion. And that of course meant the security clearance requirements for the positions in that new organization were higher than the ones in the old organization. Plus there were a few disgruntled souls who weren't exactly happy about it. I would compare it to a football team being told you're going to be a chess club.

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Lauren (12:09):

It's shaken up a little.

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Ian (12:12):

Yeah. So as an assistant S2 in the battalion staff, I was given the responsibility for the short end of the stick as they saw it, to help lots of soldiers apply for security clearances. And that includes financial background checks and educating people on how your financial background will impact your clearance. And then as the security clearance guy, that followed me for the rest of my time in the National Guard. And so helping people with those things was always very rewarding when they wanted to be helped. I learned from that that I very much enjoy helping people. And in 2017, 2018, something came out called continuous evaluation and it was a big game changer for security clearances throughout the government. So continuous evaluation, which was rolled out between 2018 and 2021, was all about we're not going to just do a top to bottom reevaluation of your fitness to safeguard secrets every say six years for top secret clearance or 10 years for a regular secret clearance. We are going to be scraping the internet and databases for potentially derogatory information 24/7. And if you pop hot, a human at the Consolidated Adjudication Service at Fort Meade in Maryland will review it and you may get a letter handed to you by your friendly neighborhood S2 — me — saying, what's up?

We're going to pull your clearance —we either have or we will if we don't get an answer to this concerning information. And once upon a time it was that your commander, somebody who you actually make eye contact with, would have to put in for your clearance to be revoked or could say, he's okay, we dealt with it. Now the onus is on the commander to say, please don't take my guy's clearance. Here's what we're doing to fix it. So a steady drumbeat of people who needed help turned into a river. And I was the SSO of an infantry division at the time, special security officer. So in the midst of COVID, wall-to- -wall people are needed to deploy and they have to get investigations or they've got issues. And that was stressful but I learned a lot through it. And in another part of my work experience, I served a couple years at U.S. Africa Command and there was a Navy Reserve intelligence officer who told me about this thing called CFP®. And so after COVID died down, I was sitting down with my wife like, we can't keep doing this. I want to do something new and I need a job that will travel well with yours. And CFP® made sense.

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Lauren (16:21):

So that's the route as you've been involved with it, right? There's so many resources. Just asking if there's resources, like you mentioned XYPN. What kind of things have you gotten involved with to date just to learn more or even prior to going this route to learn more that this was the right path for you? I know I think in some notes prior, you mentioned Dave Ramsey, and following some of the other conversations are related to that. Where did you start to go like, hey, is this the right career for me? What does this mean? What's the time investment? What's this community? What has that process been like for you and what have been the valuable resources that have come out of it?

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Ian (17:03):

So my dad has been an English professor at a small Christian college since the 1980s, and my mom has worked in administration. I'm the eldest of six kids.

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Lauren (17:16):

Goodness, you've got a big family.

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Ian (17:19):

Whether she was an administrator for the college or she was just administering, we had six kids, five boys and a girl. In the end, there was always the effort to make ends meet because the small Christian college was in a very expensive part of the country, just outside of New York City. And for a large part of my childhood, a single-income household, we got really good at stretching a dollar. And not a day would go by when we're thrifty Scotsmen wasn't thrown around — we make due, we don't waste. And even as my dad got a few pay raises, my mom started working, and some of those things changed, it was deeply ingrained from the get-go in our family life. And when I got married to my wife, one of our friends gave us the Financial Peace University gift box set.

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Lauren (18:39):

I'm not familiar with this. Tell me more.

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Ian (18:41):

So Dave Ramsey has this Financial Peace University, which is a series of DVDs. It's some books and it's study guides and you can do it like a Bible study group.

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Lauren (18:54):

Got it.

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Ian (18:57):

It is a very good resource as a starting point but as I've said in one of my podcast episodes, Dave Ramsey is good for people who are bad with money and bad for people who are good with money. Dave Ramsey is extremely anti-debt and kind of like you will have people, if you go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, everyone's going to be extremely against alcohol probably because they've all been burned by misuse of the substance. But I have to push back on Dave and say no, debt has a useful purpose. Debt is not the devil. It's just a tool or a chainsaw. You might say you cannot play fast and loose with the chainsaw or you will get hurt but please don't try to chop down a redwood with a little hatchet.

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Lauren (19:58):

Yeah. Okay. So it sounds like Dave Ramsey was an initial starting point hearing a little bit more about that. Your upbringing was a starting point and XYPN mentioned earlier. Are there any other resources you've leaned into as you've been exploring this profession?

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Ian (20:22):

Yes. So I started the #BLUFFbooks podcast as a series of posts on LinkedIn to keep myself accountable for really reading books. And through those posts I've exposed myself to as broad a variety of personal finance literature as I can. And I'm on my 47th book for doing posts. My 19th episode dropped last week, and I figure if I can talk intelligently with somebody for 30 minutes about a book, I've probably read it.

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Lauren (21:05):

Yeah, absolutely. So, okay, 47 books in what time period?

‍

Ian (21:10):

So about two and a half years.

‍

Lauren (21:12):

Okay. That's pretty decent. So then, okay, of those books, are there any ones you would recommend that just really stood out to you? I want to read this book again, or maybe two or three times again.

‍

Ian (21:28):

So I have an article coming out this month on the GoVA website called “Operation Contentment Military Families Versus Overwork and Overspending,” and it's an essay that applies ideas from my favorite financial literacy book to the unique military family situation.

‍

Lauren (21:52):

Oh, interesting.

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Ian (21:54):

So the book is “Your Money or Your Life” by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, which is on its fourth edition as of 2018.

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Lauren (22:04):

Oh yeah.

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Ian (22:05):

And “Your Money or Your Life” is all about getting the maximum value for your life energy, not just your money but your time, your health, your sanity, all of those resources you have, and investing it in such a way that you will actually have a life not getting caught up in consumer spending, not getting caught up in personal ambition. Not to say that spending or ambition are inherently bad but when they're not thought through, you will find yourself with an atrocious commute for a job. You don't really like to keep up with the payments on a house that's way too big for your family's needs.

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Lauren (23:06):

Yeah, that balance. That's great. Well, thank you for sharing that too. And it's also good to hear, I mean, it's quite a few books, and then also being able to take the time to be able to review them takes time as well. So appreciate you sharing that. I also, just to kind of close up things here, really appreciate you sharing more about your personal background, your journey to the financial services world, even though it sounds like it's been kind of baked in you from day one to some degree or another. And then also I want to make sure that we link to, I think you said it's a LinkedIn page for #BLUFFbooks as well as a podcast on Spotify and Apple, is that right?

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Ian (23:43):

Yes. So it's the #BLUFFbooks brand. So building, leading, understanding financial freedom, and when you are in the military, there's something called the BLUF, bottom line up front. I am the self-appointed “Reading Rainbow” of financial literacy books.

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Lauren (24:05):

Love it. That's so great.

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Ian (24:07):

But you don't have to take my word for it.

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Lauren (24:10):

Love it. Awesome. We'll include that link below. I'm sure it's full with resources and then continuously being added to. So thanks for getting that shoutout. And then if that article comes out, we'll also make sure to link to it as well. But Ian, thank you. This is fun to just hear a little bit of the spread of background and specifically money management and a little bit about your background for military folks and for those who work closely with the military. So thank you again for your time.

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Ian (24:39):

It was my pleasure.

We talked with Melissa about:

• Her journey through the financial services industry that led her to founding Pearl Planning and how she came up with the meaningful name
• The power of creating a brand that sets itself apart in a memorable way
• The importance of staying true to yourself to connect with clients on a personal level to build trust and lasting success 

‍

About Melissa Joy:

Melissa Joy is a seasoned financial planner with over 25 years of experience in the financial services industry. Her career began with a strong focus on investment research and due diligence, eventually leading her to become a partner at a larger firm where she also played a pivotal role in shaping marketing strategies and branding efforts. In 2018, Melissa embarked on a new journey by founding Pearl Planning. She sought to connect with clients who valued thoughtful, personal conversations over the scale of a large firm. By sharing her own story and emphasizing Pearl Planning’s unique value proposition, Melissa successfully established a niche in the market, attracting clients who appreciate the tailored approach offered by her boutique firm. Today, Melissa leads Pearl Planning with a commitment to providing personalized financial advice and building meaningful client relationships, reflecting her belief that the size of the firm should never overshadow the quality of service and attention to individual client needs.

Featured Resources: 

• Melissa Joy on LinkedIn
• Pearl Planning on LinkedIn
• Melissa Joy on Twitter
• Pearl Planning on Facebook
• Pearl Planning on Instagram
• Pearl Planning on YouTube
• PearlPlan.com 

‍

Enjoyed This? You’ll Also Love: 

• Financial Services Branding: When and How Should You Redesign Your Company Logo? 
• Is Online Community Building Your Next Step? How This Financial Services Marketing Option Could Accelerate Your Goals Through Data, CRMs, and Social Listening
• Email Marketing Insider Tips for Financial Advisors  

‍

Full Audio Transcript:

‍

Lauren (00:05):

Well Melissa, thank you for joining us today.

‍

Melissa (00:08):

I'm so glad to be here. Let's have a conversation.

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Lauren (00:11):

Yeah, let's do this. And we're going to have a conversation about authentic branding. Looking forward to hearing about how you got there, what that means. The marketing in me is going to try not to nerd out too much, so really excited to hear your journey to how you got to that place. But before we do that, can you just share for folks who are listening a little bit about your background, who you are and about your business, Pearl Planning?

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Melissa (00:37):

Sure. So I am a financial planner. I have been working in financial services for — gosh — more than 25 years. Kind of worked my way up in other organizations and did a lot of my early career focusing on investment research and due diligence and was a partner at a larger firm where I also love marketing just like you Lauren. So I had some say in how we worked on messaging and branding at my former firm. And then about almost six years ago I left that company, founded Pearl Planning, so that was 2018. I had a couple challenges. First of all, I was able to continue to work with a small cohort of the clients I'd worked with in the past. So I was limited there and I was not looking to kind of fish in those seas so to speak. So I have a brand new need to find clients and where the company itself was also going to be located — this was pre-COVID, so location mattered a little bit more — but I still really embraced a digital focus. But I was relocating from the metro Detroit area where I had previously worked to the Ann Arbor, Michigan area. My town is Dexter, Michigan, just outside of Ann Arbor, which if you looked on a map you'd be like, those are the same places but culturally and professionally they're very distinct.

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So I started the company with a new market basically and a new message. I had often relied on conversations emphasizing that size and larger were better. And so I obviously believed in the mission of this new company but it was a company of myself and one employee. So I needed a new kind of book in terms of how I found clients and I found telling my story, talking about starting the business and really talking about why the business was tied to more thoughtful and personal conversations was an opportunity for us to find those clients looking to work with someone that maybe wasn't quite as big.

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Lauren (03:07):

Yeah. So first of all, I appreciate that you've been in those conversations about the marketing and branding component because sometimes it's like you could have sales folks who are just like they're in that world but not seeing how it can fit all together with how marketing goes across departments. So you already were speaking that language, you could see the value of how you're pitching, how you're positioning yourself. How did you get that kind of aha confidence to be able to say, this is what sort of has been fed into me as far as big companies to then have that confidence to switch to say, no, this is who I am and this is why I'm going this route. And what was that kind of switch like for you?

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Melissa (03:48):

I think the switch happened first in terms of my decision of where I was going to work. I knew I was leaving my former company without a lot of work. I entertained several offers like, hey, it would be great for you to join my company. And I knew probably since I hadn't done a lot of legwork to find those, there were probably other opportunities out there. But I really felt like one of the challenges of my former position was that a lot of vision that would be appropriate for a company I was associated with didn't necessarily fit in my former life. And so I basically defaulted to I know I can get a job if I need to but I really have a passion to start a company, have a brand, really, that has more of that vision.

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And I think the easiest or the most appropriate route for me personally as well as for that vision was to start the company, a new company I called Pearl Planning, which has kind of a double meaning. It is my grandmother's middle name as well as my daughter’s. So it speaks to the legacy and future thinking of our profession of wealth management but also a pearl is an irritation of a piece of sand that turns into something beautiful and so many times, whether with me starting the business or people who we reach out to us, there's something going on they need help with — that's the problem. And so I thought it really dovetailed well with common reasons people start the wealth management and financial planning process.

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Lauren (05:30):

I love that. I appreciate that you thought about the name in a way that's on the personal side but it also is very practical, so there's a narrative behind it and I feel like it's more out of the box. You can have those different analogies about guiding clients or what have you but it feels like it's an authentic out-of-the-box name, and naming is so hard by the way. So hats off where you landed with that.

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Melissa (05:59):

If I could just interrupt for one moment, it would've been really easy because I picked up my last name when I got married, and I have a really great last name I think for a financial planning company — Joy — but I really didn't want the company identity to be completely tied to me. I wanted to build something other people could come to and it wasn't just kind of my show.

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Lauren (06:23):

Right. It's hard with naming because it could be like you said tied to you. It can also be tied to a specific geographic location depending on where you are or what have you. So that forward-looking approach with picking the name itself, can you share a little bit more about how that process of transitioning, being with this new demographic, feeling comfortable with where you are and identifying the name. So how did that evolve from how you presented yourself in the world, if it was with a prospect, how you showed up personally, your website, all these other kinds of assets that tie back to the brand. I'd love just to hear a little bit more about the evolution of those components.

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Melissa (07:04):

So it's interesting because I love marketing, I love branding, and I also learned some lessons with past marketing activity that I really think pays off in our business to look, not silly, but different than the standard company. I think everybody defaults to putting on the suits, navy's a good color for the website, gray, black. And so on.

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It sounds crazy that use of color would be kind of a start but you see our brand colors are purple, yellow, and a light blue. There was an episode of a Bravo TV show about real estate, a real estate coaching show where the office had those colors in this reality TV episode. I was like, oh, that feels different, fresh, not too feminine but I want people to obviously be comfortable working with me. And I hadn't seen those colors kind of pulled together in many wealth and financial services brands. These things were happening before process and things like that were happening.

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Lauren (08:33):

It's important because you want to be different but not too different. There's sort of that balance to be able to stand out in the crowd and that helps to set the tone and energy. So tell me a little bit more about the evolution of that. How did that impact your logo identity, your website, maybe even the way you show up? I don’t know. Dress codes with clients, things like this.

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Melissa (08:57):

When we started, before we started recording, I was like, do I need to put on my jacket since I’m wearing a tank top today? It’s summer in Michigan. You got to make the most of those bleeding days.

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Lauren (09:06):

I know.

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Melissa (09:08):

So I didn't want anybody who hired us — because I was moving away from that. You've got to be bigger. And I've always been trying to push back against the need to look bulletproof and not be vulnerable with clients in order for them to be comfortable.

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Lauren (09:26):

That's so true. That trust is so key. 

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Melissa (09:29):

It's true. And if they can see you as a person who also cares, that really goes such a long way to credibility, especially if you pair that with professional experience. And we had this beautiful story; we had the name really before we almost had anything. I actually did a video that was the launch video for the company. It's still on our About page on the website. It was filmed three months before the actual launch of the company. So this was a very early piece in place but then it set a tone with the marketing companies we work with as well as with our team. In the beginning it was just a couple of us, like I said, but we're going to work with people who are really going to value that. I have a couple decades of experience but also aren't going to be intimidated that we're really kind of a startup in terms of what we're doing. I think on our website today it says we're serious about results but everything else is casual. We're comfortable being newer age and things like that in terms of expectations; we don't need that suit to prove we're going to be really great at the services we provide.

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Lauren (10:46):

No, that sets a whole energy and it also sets a culture and environment when folks are coming in to be able to build those relationships. And then we talked a lot about the brand aesthetic, like the look and feel. Yeah.

‍

Are there any exercises you went through as a team maybe with your website copy that helped to nail in the voice and tone or maybe even the way you talk with clients and that kind of style of communications? I don't know if it's been systematized or if there's been rules around or training or even if you kind of went through that exercise with your website but I'd love to hear a little bit more of the voice and tone component of how you all show up and you sound. Some firms are more jargon heavy, more technical, others are not; it's just different styles.

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Melissa (11:34):

We've had three major website launches and relaunches and the reason I've invested so much in that is not because any one of them was broken but the website to me has been a critical driver of our growth because it's easy to schedule a meeting when you go on there. It's not intimidating. You do see a lot of women on the front page because we're an all-female team but men and women choose to click through and schedule meetings. They're scheduling during their breaks from work, nights and weekends, for us to meet with them Monday through Friday in the future. And so that website has been so important. I think we really wanted to have a communication that was speaking to the client, so you are going to get this — keep it simple and not fill people with so much copy they're not reading a text.

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And we really wanted to take our cue in terms of marketing from anywhere but financial services. I think we have a lot to learn from the rest of the world. We wanted to feel like you would be marketed to by a regular company or retail or something like that. So those are some of the high-level bullet points. The only jargon I love having — and I'm surprised by this — but people do kind of google what should I ask a financial advisor? And often I'm asked, are you a fiduciary? So we did include that on our most recent kind of website but otherwise we're trying to keep it kind of to a fifth-grade level in terms of reading and more visuals.

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Lauren (13:08):

Smart and simple. People scan oftentimes more than read and it's great to be able to tease folks to be able to have that initial conversation. So I love what you said about just more headline heavy, keeping it simple, easy to read, all of those pieces of it. I feel like in the post-COVID era especially it’s more of almost like your office, what your office maybe used to be with so many people being online, it's like, I'm going to check these folks out before I want to have a real conversation. 

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Melissa (13:41):

Well, it’s very intentional too of the people we want to work with. So whereas I had worked with and have experience working with people who are retired and older, where the first day they bring all their money over from their old 401(k)s because they retired that week. We really are trying to work with people who are peers of our team, Gen X and millennials. And so kind of talking the way I would want to be talked to has created those results and we've really seen it's been a great strategy and really love the work we're doing and the people we're doing it for.

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Lauren (14:18):

You're using their language, the way they would talk versus the way you would talk or what have you. So really hearing them out and where they are.

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Melissa (14:27):

We wanted a lot of also emotion and less technical and more like we can relate to you and we understand there's things that are either like a pain in the butt that you don't have time for or a pain point and we can help you to slice through that and get things done because regardless of success, I find people have pain points or insecurities when it comes to money.

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Lauren (14:51):

Money, yeah, a hundred percent. And I feel like just hearing this conversation, part of the superpower is that you took the time to actually have that introspective look about the firm and where you wanted to take it from a visionary perspective, how you wanted to show up in the market, who you wanted to talk with. And answering those tough questions takes leadership and it takes, I mean you got to peel back the onion and then being able to anchor down and say, this is what north is for us and this is what we're going to get behind. Sometimes that's a hard call to make. So I appreciate hearing your story and then also how not just being able to make that decision, but then how it's impacted where you are today. Any other food for thoughts you would want to share about how your brand came about? Does it impact your hiring? Has it impacted, I don’t know, internal processes, anything you want to call out there from where you all are to date?

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Melissa (15:53):

Well first of all, I had to laugh when you were talking about how the brand and that thoughtfulness in building the brand shows because I was more confident in the beginning in the brand than that. Perhaps for example that target audience because you are starting a new business and I always laugh and say the first six or 12 months I call any business owner, not just a financial advisor. You're just pretending you've got something that's real and hopefully people don't see behind the curtain. But the beautiful thing is the brand was so real and when we're talking about authenticity, it really fit with me and who I am and how I best serve people in being, for example, we have a company value that's courageous, authenticity, comfortable in being both vulnerable but saying how things really are and things like that.

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The brand has attracted the niche before I even knew what the niche was, if that makes sense. I wasn't smart enough to say, oh, we're really looking to work with accumulators who are at least 10 years away from retirement and are double income families with busy lives and a lot of stuff going on and less time to do it. But the brand built that in where it helped to find us. It was such a great fit and we were building something that spoke to the right people. So that's kind of a gift. And then I have a funny story because yes, I do think it's very much resonated with the team and it's something the team is proud of. Our most recent hire was relocating to Michigan, looking to move back, and had been interviewing at other firms in our area and didn't know about us.

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We also didn't have a job posted and two separate people who are professionals who were looking to hire either had interviewed her and or knew her, were like, I really think she may be a fit for you and your company. And I have to think that the brand was speaking when they felt like she would be, they didn't know the way our day-to-day processes work necessarily. So it really was helping and it was a really great fit. And so the brand is helping to attract the right people because it is so specific and different but it doesn't feel like it’s different to be silly if that makes sense.

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Lauren (18:28):

A hundred percent. We've had a similar thing. We've put together an exercise we call a brand personality where it's like, okay, how does the brand show up just like a person would and our whole team's been trained on it and it impacts the aesthetic, how we write and also how we hire and just all the energy even walking to a client meeting. And when we're doing hiring, the line in the sand is literally you can have neck and neck and it's literally the pushover is the brand personality, is it the right energy and does that feel like it's cohesive with our company values? And we see the same thing. Even when people are submitting their cover letters, they feel it right in the words as they're communicating or in the initial interviews it's a hiring tool and you don't often think of it like that too. But it also, it can repel too if it's not the right fit for a prospect, a prospective employee, even a prospective client or what have you. So fun.

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Melissa (19:26):

The machine too. I've had some clients repeat back either words from copy on the website or words in our very old and I feel dated video now, but they will repeat back, oh, I love a pearl, it's an irritation that turns into something beautiful. And I'm like, well that's pre-preparing them to be really happy or excited to be a client of the company or an advocate for the company even if they're not a client.

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Lauren (19:52):

Yeah, you're creating that experience before they've even had that conversation. I like your tagline too. No grit, no pearl. Can you actually speak a little bit more to that too?

‍

Melissa (20:01):

Well a couple of just really business-like functions there. First of all, a friend of mine, a friend of my husband's actually, when we were launching the company, I was just shocked. The brand helped me to tell more of my story and it was very well received even though I felt like I was so much smaller. People were really interested in working with me who may not have known if they could work with me in my former life who were very well qualified for either place. But a friend of my husband's bought in basically a farmer's market and a vendor stand and was like, hey, no grit, no pearl — I think I still have the sign. And then when we were working on our trademark, there is another asset manager but not financial planner, that's Pearl. And so we've trademarked our intellectual property protection to include no grit, no pearl. So that tagline is included in terms of our trademark. But it really, it resonates with people. It's a nice hashtag and people really get what we're about — that the stuff we do takes resilience and rolling up your sleeves on the hard work but it really pays off.

‍

Lauren (21:18):

Yeah, well I applaud you and that you've really leaned into that authenticity and it's helped to guide you in what you're doing and then yeah, it helps you to show up in the market. It is so much easier said than done because often we talk with folks where they might've inherited a business, they're worried about too much makeup, they're potentially worried about making their current clients upset or they just are sort of trying to market to everyone. And I think, like you said, you do learn along the way, but you lean into the authentic. That piece of authenticity is really, there's something about that you can't take away. 

‍

Melissa (21:59):

It's so hard. So I have been in a former life that second generation, where the first generation was much less digital and it was like, oh, we change, we need to honor the paths and things like that. And it does take work to be willing to have enough. The challenge is, if you aren't willing to have a point of view when it comes to your marketing, then you really don't have any impact on anyone. 

‍

Lauren (22:25):

Yeah, it just washes out.

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Melissa (22:28):

And so somebody, yes, if you show some personality, it may or may not be for everyone. The likelihood that the person who doesn't love it is so ticked off they don't work with you is very, very low. We just changed our website and we moved a place for a common function for our existing clients and actually did push back with the marketer and say, oh, I don't know, because we want to make it convenient for our existing clients first. But we did end up moving it. We did get a call like, well, I really liked it somewhere else but she's not looking to fire us. It's just appreciated feedback for us and we'll take it under consideration. And I mean that means that there's a point of view.

‍

Lauren (23:09):

Yep, that's totally right. And you can take all those in and what have you. So well thank you so much for sharing a little bit about your journey.

‍

Melissa (23:17):

Thank you, Lauren.

‍

Lauren (23:17):

Just being able to hear that story end to end. I think it's inspirational for folks who are thinking about undergoing a change. It could be a brand overhaul or redesign or just seeing the value in that, right, and how it kind of spreads across departments. So I really enjoyed hearing your story. But for your website, pearl planning.com is where?

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Melissa (23:40):

Pearlplan.com.

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Lauren (23:41):

Pearlplan, that's right. Pearlplan.com. We'll make sure to include it in the show notes below as well. So thank you again and I am going to get that pearl analogy stuck in my head, so no grit, no pearl — it's a good one. So we will look forward to keeping the conversation going and link below. Thanks.

‍

We talked with Spencer about:

• How to manage the implementation of Salesforce sustainably over time
• Compliance and other issues around using Salesforce in financial services
• How to know if you need Salesforce and particular products, tiers, and integrations

‍

‍

About Spencer Lowe:

Spencer Lowe, CEO of SOLVD.cloud, was interested in entrepreneurship from a young age, starting with mowing lawns and door-to-door sales. Inspired by his father's late-career business venture, Spencer pursued his ambition to start his own business, earning a master's degree in information systems management. He began his career at a firm, where he honed his skills as a Salesforce consultant. Recognizing the rapid growth in the Salesforce market, Spencer founded SOLVD.cloud in 2019 to tackle its inefficiencies and the high costs faced by companies. Initially serving a broad client base, SOLVD.cloud refocused during the COVID-19 pandemic on high-tech SaaS and financial services, sectors that saw increased spending during this time. Today, SOLVD.cloud is renowned for its expertise in these areas, empowering businesses to revolutionize their CRM systems by optimizing tools and products to enhance workflows and drive growth. Emphasizing project management and technical expertise, SOLVD.cloud cultivates top Salesforce consultants and is thriving under Spencer’s leadership. 

Featured Resources 

• Spencer Lowe on LinkedIn
• SOLVD.cloud on LinkedIn
• SOLVD.cloud on Twitter
• SOLVD.cloud website
• SOLVD.cloud on YouTube

‍

Enjoyed this? You’ll also love:  

• Unlocking Growth: How to Optimize CRMs and Operating Procedures with Kate Guillen of Simplicity Ops 
• The Role of Marketing and the CMO in Today’s Financial Services Industries with Nick Richtsmeier 
• Website Redesigns: The Process Behind Building Websites for Financial Services Companies 

‍

Full Audio Transcript:

‍

Lauren (00:02):

Spencer, thanks for joining us.

‍

Spencer (00:04):

Yeah, my pleasure.

‍

Lauren (00:05):

Yeah, so we just did a podcast. I had the opportunity to be on your podcast, Lessons and Leverage, which was super fun, getting into the nuances of really being able to identify mindset or different components that help entrepreneurs and other individuals really do their best work and propel forward. So we can link back to that but today we're going to get a little bit more into what you guys do over at SOLVD.cloud. So looking forward to hearing more about Salesforce and specifically what you do with the Salesforce component for financial services companies. So before we get into all that and the nitty gritty there, I'm going to hand it over to you. Tell me a little bit about your background. How did you get into the space, all of that?

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Spencer (00:51):

Sure. Yeah. Well, I started being an entrepreneur when I was a kid and was mowing lawns and doing door-to-door sales and had a lot of interesting experiences that got me kind of thinking about wanting to build a business and I watched my dad spend a lot of years in really safe, safe career moves. And then toward the end of his career started a business and I saw how that impacted our life. And so I knew at some point I wanted to create a business. And so as I was going through college and getting a master's in information systems management, I was looking for a role where I could really acquire a lot of skills, build high-value relationships. I found myself at a firm called Chiasma, which is German for intersection. It was kind of the intersection of business and technology; it was their thing. And we did a ton of Salesforce consulting. That was the primary focus of the business at the time, and so was developing those skills. I realized this is something I'm sure I can build on my own. And so about six years ago I started SOLVD and we were able to build the company from there. Now we have about 62 consultants worldwide and quite a bit of work.

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Lauren (01:58):

Amazing. Okay, so you basically came from this previous experience and then you got this company going. What was the gap in the market you saw to be able to get this business running?

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Spencer (02:10):

Well, there's a couple of things with that. I mean, the first was just that the market was growing so fast. So part of it was just a demand issue where even an average partner in our space when I started this company was growing at like 23% a year. 

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Lauren (02:21):

Oh my. Gosh. Significant.

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Spencer (02:22):

Knowing that's the average for that market, that was a market I really thought would be smart to start a business in because I thought I could be above average. And so we grew triple figures every year for the first three, four years, way outpacing that average. But that was the first element — just seeing such a good market opportunity. The second component was the firm I was working at got acquired by an accounting firm, and we went from this fast-paced, high-tech, results-oriented entrepreneurship culture to a very bureaucratic, slow, heavy, expensive type process. So that shift wasn't super comfortable for me and I wanted to go back to doing what we were doing before for clients. And so I saw an opportunity to take everything I learned from operating these multimillion dollar projects and bring that expertise down to a much faster pace and affordable offering for the small and mid-sized customers I wanted to go back to working with.

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Lauren (03:16):

Okay. So tell me about that. Are you guys exclusively in financial services or not exclusively?

‍

Spencer (03:20):

So when we first started, I would take anyone who had Salesforce — just trying to get traction. But a couple years in COVID happened. I looked at our pipeline and realized all of our pipeline dried up and many of our projects went on hold, at least during the initial fear of COVID, except for my clients that were either SaaS, like high-tech, SaaS businesses, and my clients that were financial services companies. Both those businesses were actually increasing their spend with us. And I was like, well, that's interesting. And so I told my team, we're going to focus explicitly on these two areas to try to get through COVID. So originally it was kind of a specialization out of necessity to try to profit from and succeed during COVID. And actually what happened was as stimulus money and all the different things happened, tech firms started spending a ton with us and their growth really skyrocketed. So that was good. And financial services also saw a really big increase in revenues and things. You could say it was due to inflation and other market economics but both ended up being really strong markets to ride. And so as we did that, we developed this deep expertise in those two industries.

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Lauren (04:28):

Okay. And can you tell us, so I heard SaaS and the financial services realm. Are you working with wealth management firms? Is it payroll? Is there a specific deeper target there?

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Spencer (04:41):

Yeah, so in the financial services space, we do touch on a lot of different areas, but probably about 50, 60% of our financial services customers are RIAs and wealth management firms. So we do a lot with wealth management but then the rest is a mix of things. Everything from community credit unions to private equity, venture capital. We've done all sorts of other REITs, different things on the fringe but really we do a lot in that wealth management space.

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Lauren (05:11):

Yes, so we're definitely speaking the same world. We do a lot in that world as well. So tell me a little bit more. When folks are coming to you guys, what kind of needs do they have? Is it just a hot mess in Salesforce? Have they even started Salesforce? Are they shopping around? Do they usually have an ops person? What's the state? Is there a status quo these companies are coming to you with?

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Spencer (05:37):

There's a pretty wide range of circumstances people come to us with. The most common way we get introduced to a customer is actually when they're talking to Salesforce. So a lot of the companies we work with, the start of our relationship, we've built up such a strong reputation with Salesforce that their reps, they have these different wealth management firms, they'll bring them to us and say, hey, here's a firm that specializes and can help you with your evaluations. Often they're sort of mid-CRM evaluation. And so that's the most common link between all of these customers that come into our realm. Some of them come to us because they had trouble, their information implementation didn't go the way they wanted. They have frustrations with their CRM, so they'll come to us from that. But most common is that they're evaluating either changing from something like Redtail or the other big players out there.

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They might be coming from just nothing like spreadsheets or even we have had some that are from paper processes and they're just now digitizing their business. So one of those backgrounds leads to this evaluation of a CRM. They get in conversation with Salesforce, Salesforce loops us in. And so then we're trying to help them understand what's the cost of implementation, what is the complexity, what do we do in the first phase versus not, how are they going to manage it long term? What value does it offer to their business? And so there's a wide range of things but some of the common themes are they need a way obviously to track their customers. They usually want some form of custodial integration. There's a lot of other possible integrations they're considering that they got to price out and see if there's really a high ROI on that or not. And then there's obviously the desire is around more efficiency, generally speaking, they want to be able to better manage these relationships with the customer, have it not be so paper heavy or manual process heavy but still provide a really exceptional experience to their customers, stay on top of their annual reviews, get all the documents out. So there's often a lot of DocGen type requirements or different forms requirements. So those are the common themes we see.

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Lauren (07:36):

Okay. So with that, I want to go into this customer experience component a little bit more. It’s so critical to this demographic, being able to really have those well-nurtured relationships, staying top of mind in an authentic way. And I had several conversations recently with folks about how CRMs can do just that. So what kind of things are you seeing that are working well from checks and balances or things you're implementing on your side that would help to nurture those relationships? Are you wireframing workflows? Are they handing them off to you? What kind of things, if you could say to a wealth management firm, are the top three things to consider when you're building out your CRM that are going to impact your actual customer service? What would you say?

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Spencer (08:21):

That's a good question. A few that come to mind. The number one thing that came to my mind as you were asking that question is just the tool will not change your business. 

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Lauren (08:32):

Yes. Totally.

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Spencer (08:33):

Tools are tools. Let's say you have a dirt digging business and you've been using a shovel for years and you're really great with shovels. If I just give you a backhoe, you're probably going to kill somebody. So a backhoe moves dirt way better than a shovel does but that's a big change for your business. Knowing especially if you're coming from paper processes, but the more antiquated your current processes are, you need to be realistic about the fact this is a very significant impact to your business, meaning change management, training, actually making sure your processes make sense before you try to automate things. Sometimes customers really try to make the jump from manual to highly automated, and there's a lot of risks fraught around that we could talk through. So there's some big pitfalls there where people will look at the tool and go, oh, good, this is world-class. It's the top tool in CRM across all our issues. So for sure it's just going to work out of the box. It's going to be great and it's going to save us, it's going to solve our problems. It's not. Salesforce's job is to sell you on ways that could solve your problems. Our job is to support you in actually helping it get to the point that it's solving the problems.

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But it can't replace strong vision and leadership internal to the company. You can't do it without strong change management. And you've got to really be processed first and make sure to your point, that you start with a clear understanding of the current business processes, the future state of what those business processes are going to look like as you incorporate the new tools. And then you bridge that gap. And that's something we do on all our projects is we start with the current state analysis and map out what the future state's going to look like. And some people will ask us like, oh, but why are we wasting time on this? We just want to go to the way we're going to do it in the future. And the problem is, if we don't know how you're doing it today, then things get missed. If you just jump into this great future, all of a sudden you're like, wait, Sally used to manually send a birthday card to these people or a happy anniversary card.

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That was nowhere in the diagram and now it's not happening and now our customers don't feel valued. So that's the first element: the tool is not your savior. It is a tool and it comes with all of the challenges, complexity, difficulty, and change management we just talked about but it can be a massive lever in terms of creating leverage for your business, accelerating outcomes, and being more efficient. But you need a clear vision on that. I think some firms, especially if you haven't been tech forward in the past — and the reality of financial services, it tends to be more of a laggard market in terms of tech — I think that's the first expectation I would really set around this.

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Lauren (10:55):

So it's not necessarily like, okay, here are three things you should consider. It's more like there needs to be a whole needs analysis to be able to say where are you at and what are the key things that are critical to your business? And then we build around that. So we basically prioritize, make a timeline, so on and so forth. 

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Spencer (11:10):

Certainly. Yeah. And then as we look at the transition from whatever your current processes are into your new CRM sort of the second piece of advice I would give around this is don't try to do it all at once because of such a significant change. Our goal and our philosophy is to really simplify down to the smallest possible project that has an ROI. So if you get too small, there's no ROI on it but the second we can get the project up to a level of complexity that provides the ROI we need, that's what we want to try to limit our scope. People can get so carried away with, well, if this is possible and all these other things are possible, let's go. Especially entrepreneurs, these guys who have built their own business, who built these firms and have strong visions and are excited to move into the digital age, we want you to slow down and say, look, let's just get a base hit. Let's do something that's a really good transition because there's already enough chaos around transitioning systems. And then once that's stable, then let's add on. Yes, there's a long-term roadmap here of ways you can drive additional efficiency, more integrations, more customer value. But the second piece of advice is be really disciplined about keeping that scope as small as possible — to start with a clear idea of what the return is you're looking for, get to that return and then layer on the additional levels.

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Lauren (12:25):

So moving slowly, don't expect this to be a change overnight.

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Spencer (12:30):

Yes, a hundred percent. 

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Lauren (12:32):

Okay. Can you talk a little bit more about just the nuances of Salesforce and specifically as it relates to the financial services space, is there a specific Salesforce version? Are there things to be aware of for compliance? Are there things a firm should be asking or individuals should be asking if they're thinking about using this platform or maybe they're like, I don't know, to be aware of? 

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Spencer (12:58):

Yeah, there's a lot to be aware of on this front. So a couple of things I would point out right off the bat. Salesforce is both a software, or actually I should say they sell many softwares, cloud software, and it is a platform on which you can build, and not only can you build but other companies can build. Now, here's why that's really important to understand. You can buy Salesforce not from Salesforce, so you can buy what is the platform of Salesforce. It has a custom-built solution on it from a bunch of different companies, including in some cases, for example, Fidelity used to have a version of Salesforce they would sell you that came with their setup of integrating,

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Lauren (13:40):

Oh, interesting. I had no idea.

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Spencer (13:42):

So they don't do that anymore and how they just focus on providing the connector but there are several examples of that. So you might hear a firm advertise like, oh, we're built on Salesforce, and so you're getting our proprietary solution with all the flexibility of Salesforce. It's not exactly true. So when someone builds on top of Salesforce, you get proprietary software with only the accounts, contacts, and very base-level platform functionality of Salesforce underneath it. And if in the future you want to get additional functionality that Salesforce has out of the box, you'd have to migrate entirely to core Salesforce, to base Salesforce. So that's a painful realization for people later that if you start on one of these specialized tools and it's not your long-term solution, you can't just flip a switch and say, well, now I'm just going to do vanilla Salesforce without that.

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The first thing is you have to know if you're looking at Salesforce or you're looking at providers that build on Salesforce; there's lots of different options and the one most firms need to look at is the most powerful version. I'll talk more about why in a second, but it's Financial Services Cloud from Salesforce. So it means you're buying direct from Salesforce and you're buying from their Financial Services Cloud team. You might initially, depending on how you put your information into a web form or you reach out to them, end up talking to a core team that's just trying to sell you Sales Cloud or Service Cloud and they say, oh, this is a great fit for your company. They say that because they get commissioned on that cloud. So if you're not talking to a Financial Services Cloud rep, you have to make sure you first and foremost get to a Financial Services Cloud rep who is going to actually look at selling you Financial Services Cloud because that's what's going to give you the most power downstream long term. 

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Lauren (15:26):

What makes it financial services? I just want to understand what's the difference? What are the bells and whistles this particular version offers versus the other tools?

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Spencer (15:36):

There's many; I'm just going to call out a few that are really important. So first and foremost, they have what's called the Household Account model, which means instead of just having account records and contacts that maps to B2B sales where you have a company and then you have different people that work at that company. And then they also have a model that's called Person Accounts, where you can have just a person as a customer that maps to a B2C motion. In Financial Services Cloud there's sort of this custom hybrid version of that called the House model where you have individuals but they're grouped into households, and so if I'm trying to work with a family and manage their different investments and their future, I'm sort of B2C but I'm also sort of selling to a group or an entity or a group of entities, and in some cases I might need to keep track of the collection of entities this person is related to.

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I might have their family grouping, their household, but I might also need to keep track of their estate being like a trust or the business they own. And as I look at these different things, Financial Services Cloud gives a much more robust relationships model to be able to track all that in a way that's very powerful for financial services firms. So that's the first difference you really want to be aware of. The second one is they give you a set of automations called OmniStudio, and without going down a rabbit hole, it's a very powerful tool that allows you to customize your system and integrate your system faster than normal Salesforce and at a lower cost. And so it's a really valuable tool that's added onto that license. The other thing about this is as more and more traction has been made with Financial Services Cloud, most of the integrations that get prebuilt for a firm that is in the financial services space, if they build an integration, your integration has to be compatible with the version of Salesforce you're on.

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So most of them are going to make it compatible with Financial Services Cloud, not necessarily Sales Cloud. Sometimes it'll do both. Sometimes it'll only be Sales Cloud. We can't control the third-party vendors but increasingly what we're seeing in the market is that all the new and latest integrations are being mapped specifically to Financial Services Cloud. So this advice gets back to a core element that people have to understand about why would you even go to Salesforce in the first place, which is it's going to be more complex, it's going to be more costly to set up and more costly to maintain than a Redtail or Wealthbox or these other tools. In fact, if you were to just go one to the other with a very lightweight implementation, you might have even less functionality than those tools at the start. And that's because Salesforce is a platform, so there's so much power and it's very robust.

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The reporting is way more powerful, the integrations are way more powerful. That all has to be set up. And so you're buying the higher complexity tool. And so if there's not an ROI in that, if you just need something simple, I would say their base functionality is improving over time as they continue, they're constantly releasing new features and making it better. So I think the base financial services are getting much more competitive head-to-head with a Redtail or something but you're probably a little bit feature light head-to-head compared to those tools and the cost will certainly be higher. So it's harder to justify the ROI head-to-head at the very entry level but as soon as you're looking at some of these other third-party integrations and some of the additional functionality you can extend or add on, that's where Salesforce starts to sail and really become high value for companies long term.

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And so if you know that's not where you're going, Salesforce might not be the fit off the bat. But that's where if I'm going to buy a purpose-built tool and I look at something that's packaged up and repurposed like mortgage — I forget off the top of my head the name of it but there's a really popular mortgage offering that is built on top of Salesforce, but again, it's one of those OEM resold tools. That's a really good tool but it's the equivalent of a resell or anything else, even though it's built on the Salesforce platform and you can customize it more. Because of that, you'll never be able to flip a switch if you ever go to full Financial Services Cloud; that's a whole migration. So knowing that is really important. Okay, one more thing I want to share on this. 

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Spencer (19:50):

I know it’s a lot but another thing is there are different tiers. So you have different products, which we just talked about, things like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, etc. But then Salesforce also has something called additions, which are tiers of their offering. And so they have on the Financial Services Cloud — I'd have to go back and check — I don't think they offer a Professional Edition tier, they might, but if they do, it's more than likely not something most firms are going to want just because their Professional Edition tends to be pretty lightweight. Again, maybe if you're comparing head to head with a Redtail, but by the time you're making the right choice, which is buying Salesforce for the power and for the automation, for the integration, all these other things, you're going to need the tools to get unlocked at the next tier. Enterprise is the tier you're going to start to look at, and then they have an unlimited edition above it that unlocks a bunch more functionality, including a lot of their latest AI functionality. 

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The most important thing to understand about tiers is what tier you're on is going to impact all of your licenses. There's a lot of different licenses you can buy on each of these tiers. So again, this is a very complex purchase. This is why companies work with us to make sure they're buying the right thing upfront. But when you then look at all your licenses, every license costs more on that higher tier. So it's a significant shift in investment, and you cannot move down a tier in the future. So if you start at Enterprise and you want to go to Professional, that's an org migration, you're doing a full data migration into a different system to get down into a smaller thing. And the reason for that is not just because Salesforce are dirtbags and they're trying to take all your money. It's because once you unlock certain features, you can't unbuild.

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So once you start building past that, the only way to move back is to do a migration. And that's expensive. Every migration is expensive. It's a huge change management cost. There's data issues in every migration. So knowing that, I would like to reduce the risk of someone coming in and going, oh, you know what? We need to cut costs. Could we just move down a level? You can't. So just know that's the thing. And with that, that's why it's so important to get the right licenses upfront and maximize your discounts upfront and then negotiate for discounts at every renewal. So there's a whole process around that as well that's important to understand. But the short of it is you want to make sure you get a good discount right from the outset. Financial Services Cloud as a team, they price it so high.

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So if you look online at the different pricing, you can just ignore that. You need to talk to a rep because generally speaking, at a starting point, I don't see any deal on Financial Services Cloud that's not at least 30% off list and sometimes as high as 50 just on a month end. So there's a pretty big spread there because it's what's called a super skew to give you all this functionality we talked about. They combine a bunch of other tools. So if a company like mine was to buy it and use all of its tools, it would be worth its list price of like $300 or $500 a user. It's way up there, depending on what tier you're at. For enterprise users, most people are not paying that. Most people are paying $150, $170 a user, which can scare you off from Salesforce. If you don't realize how heavy they discount the financial services space, look at their list prices like, oh, this isn't even feasible. So just understand upfront, you're probably starting on Enterprise edition for most companies. You want to start on Financial Services Cloud. Again, this is generic, your situation might be different, so talk to a firm like ours and get some advice. But if you're starting on those two, the list is about $300 a user. You can actually usually get that to $150 to $190, somewhere in there, depending on your use case, the size of your company, how many licenses you buy, all that.

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Lauren (23:18):

Right, right. Oh my goodness; this is so helpful. And so yeah, don't just look at the sticker price. This is so great. I feel like this is just an overview of Salesforce, all the different platforms, the ins and outs of what you guys see. Are there any other final thoughts or takeaways you feel would be helpful for someone if they're entertaining working with you guys or even just getting Salesforce to start off with?

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Spencer (23:41):

Yeah, I think some other just helpful tips is one, get a professional. And what I mean by that is there's a few ways you can do that. First and foremost, you can work with a consulting firm like us that does these implementations all the time. That's a smart move. You can hire someone that does this. We can talk a little bit about how you would evaluate whether or not there's a strong ROI, etc. But I would encourage most firms to understand that when you move to Salesforce specifically, this is true really of all systems, but it's just so especially true of Salesforce that I try to put a lot of attention on it, which is there's a long-term maintenance cost to every system. No system, even the simplest system, has no overhead; there's a certain amount of administrative overhead that needs to be accounted for. And the more complex and robust your system, the bigger that need is. And so if you're going to do a really complex or a really powerful implementation of Salesforce and you're going to get all this value out of it, you're probably going to need either an admin on staff, long term. Firms like us have long-term support subscription agreements where you can do it that way but you need to know this is not a set it and forget it type thing. 

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Lauren (24:45):

I was just thinking the exact same thing. 

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Spencer (24:47):

Yep. There's an initial implementation fee and then beyond that, you will need help if you want to either optimize the system or just keep it running well; it takes effort. So be realistic about what those costs are. One of the hard things for us is when we're in the sales cycle with Salesforce, they brought us into the deal and the pressure from them is for us to keep our costs as manageable as possible and not scare the customer away. So by the time we get involved in the deal, they don't want us coming and selling like a year-long support agreement next to the initial cost because it's going to inflate the view of the cost of the customer. They may not pull the trigger, and that's not to speak bad about Salesforce. They're just trying to be as effective as possible and sell their software.

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So with that being understood, we are going to do our best to do that. We also feel like it's in the interest of the customer to do that, to help them make the choice, get them over the hump and do the high ROI thing, whatever that minimum scope is, it’s ROI. But they need to be aware as a customer that there is, and we say this during the sales process, you need to know that there's a long-term cost. So it's not like we hide it during the sales process but usually there's a certain amount of incentive for us to not be scoping that all out. And so as the customer already knows that's something they need to be thinking about, they can either ask us for it upfront or they can ask us on the side and just figure out, hey, what is this going to cost?

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But as a customer, it's something you have to be aware of. What is the long-term, actual maintenance cost? What does it look like to do? Don't just assume that downstream the X, Y, Z add-ons are just going to be easy. They may or they may not; you'd be surprised sometimes. One of the most valuable things we do for our customers, we go in and flip a switch and it turns something on and it's ready. Sometimes this little incremental improvement takes $30,000. So depending on what's prebuilt, what's not, what your unique circumstances are, you need to get a quote and understand what is the complexity level to do this? Because that dramatically changes the rationale of whether or not you should. And that's one of the things we train our consultants on, is to push back on understanding the business value the customer wants, so we can actually advise them on whether or not they even should be doing that.

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Because if they think, oh, this is going to save us 20 hours a week and it's going to be worth $50,000, a $100,000 this year, then great. Even if it costs $10, $20, $50,000, it's a no brainer for your business. But if it's something you're only going to get an hour's benefit out of and you don't tell that to us, and we think it's really valuable, like, oh, it's going to cost this. If you don't realize that upfront, you might start on a project that just has no ROI from the outset. And if you do understand it, but you're inflating your view of how it's going to help your business, we try to push back on that as well. Like, look, this is maybe not what you think it is. So we try to always get to what is the real business value behind what the customer's doing? And usually that boils down to some combination of they want to accelerate growth, they want to operate more efficiently, they want more visibility into their data and their customers. So when you understand which of those are trying to get to and how they think that's going to happen, then it's easier to be consultative and help them make the best decisions along the way.

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Lauren (27:43):

So kind of in a nutshell with that whole takeaway is make sure you have a line item that's going to long-term project ongoing support. You're going to need it so you can do the high ROI initiative to be able to get you running but it's likely going to be a long-term investment. So it's almost like hiring a fractional employee, if you will, to be able to just constantly dial and make process improvements.

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Spencer (28:07):

Certainly. And so Salesforce, in the past, they're moving a little bit away from this, but in the past they've done three major releases a year. So every time that happens, you need to be going in and looking if there's any critical updates, things like that. But then there's your vendors. Let's say you set up an integration with a third-party vendor, they're going to update their integration. Sometimes you have to go set that up.

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And then if you really want to get the most out of the system, someone needs to be talking to your users on some sort of regularity and understanding what their friction points are, what they could be doing, where there could be more value. So there's just a lot of ways that plays out but there is some amount that should be accounted for ongoing.

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Lauren (28:41):

Oh my goodness. Well, Spencer, thanks so much for sharing more than just your background. I feel like I got totally a download on Salesforce specifically for the financial services space. It was really good to hear those insights. If folks want to learn more, you can head over to SOLVD.cloud to check out Spencer's company. And thank you again. Appreciate it.

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Spencer (29:03):

My pleasure.

We talked with Barbara about:

• The story that brought her into gerontology and how she serves financial professionals
• The growing aging population and the issues they face that financial professionals can help with
• Some of the ways financial professionals can identify problems with aging clients before they arise 

About Barbara Micheletti:

Barbara Micheletti is the founder and CEO of Interrupting Aging. Using her gerontology (the study of aging) expertise and financial services background, she transforms how financial professionals engage with their aging clients. Starting as an insurance agent in 2006, she built a successful business but faced significant challenges two years later when Brooke Corporation went bankrupt while she was also experiencing personal financial hardship. Emerging stronger, Barbara learned resilience, crisis management, and the importance of transparency. Today, she emphasizes the importance of holistic financial planning for all life stages. Through Interrupting Aging, Barbara inspires a positive approach to aging, guiding financial professionals to better support their aging clients both financially and emotionally.

Featured Resources 

• Barbara Micheletti on LinkedIn
• Interrupting Aging on LinkedIn

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Full Audio Transcript:

‍

Lauren (00:05):

All right, well, we have Barbara Micheletti who's joining us today, and you all are in for a treat. I'm excited to pass over the mic here and for her to share a little bit more about her background but she is the founder and CEO of Interrupting Aging. I'm going to pass it on over before I try to take the wind out of her sails and let her share a little bit more about what she does and her background for an aging population. Over to you.

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Barbara (00:35):

Well, thank you, Lauren. I really appreciate the offer and the opportunity to be here, so I want to thank you for that.

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Lauren (00:41):

Yeah.

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Barbara (00:42):

I don't know if you want to start off with why, my why story or where you want to go from here.

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Lauren (00:47):

Yeah, let's go ahead and just start there. I feel like hearing a little bit more about your background, how you got into the space, why you founded this company, tell me a little bit more.

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Barbara (00:58):

Well, it started off back in 1998 when I became a gerontologist. Now I often explain what a gerontologist is after 26 years of being one. It simply means we studied the aging body from midlife to the whole lifespan but we focus on older and elderly people and what they go through and experience — their life experiences. So I like to say I love to help people love growing older is what I like to say that I do. But also it also started off a little bit tumultuousness when I started my insurance career. So let me give you a little history on that. Back in 2006, I started off as an insurance agent where I opened my insurance agency.

I literally went from being a stay-at-home mom one day to the next day becoming this insurance agency owner and a franchise owner for a company called Brooke Corporation. Now, this journey was very challenging in that right after I started my insurance company with zero clients — zero clients back in the day — I built that up from 2006 to 2008 and even got use of a company car in 2008. I experienced extremely challenging circumstances where not only I was a franchise owner of Brooke Corporation where Brooke Corporation committed investor fraud and was sentenced and went bankrupt in 2008 and subsequently went to court and all that through the Securities and Exchange Commission. But I also experienced personal financial betrayal from my ex-spouse while we were going through a divorce. And it took me a long time to understand and grasp the depth and severity of that financial devastation.

Now I tell you this because what I gained from that, and you like to think about it as how Nietzsche said, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, but also how a diamond is forged from intense pressure. Well, I like to think that's where I came from and that's why I do what I do today and why I'm such a big advocate, especially for women in this space. What that taught me and what I bring to my clients today is it taught me resilience, how to be resilient in the face of absolutely adverse circumstances where you have no choice but to commit to a path and to follow that path. So it taught me resilience, it taught me crisis management because literally that year as the corporation went bankrupt, they literally dropped every single franchise owner and there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of us.

But as I went through my own personal financial betrayal in my own family dynamic, I had to take that whole crisis management onto a new level and learn how to navigate not only personally but professionally. So what did I do? I was able to contact every single client I had and let them know this is what happened. So I was very transparent and very honest with them, letting them know this is what happened. I'm regrouping at another company called B&B Insurance Agency and I'm going to bring you over to this new company. Then I contacted, back then it was 1,111 insurance carriers, and I reached out to them. They knew exactly what was going on because a lot of them lost money too because premiums were kept by this corporation. So they lost a lot of money. So they were happy I was able to have that resilience and go through this crisis management and commit to the strategic problem-solving by taking all these clients and bringing them over and putting them right back into their policies. So every single client followed me. Every single insurance carrier took me back. So that taught me how to quickly adapt and it taught me the value of transparency and being a fiduciary to your clients, and that's what brought me to where I'm at today, talking with my clients, helping my financial professionals, the insurance professionals, to be that fiduciary, to demonstrate the transparency and the integrity with their clients so they in turn will trust them to know and do the right thing for them.

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Lauren (05:26):

I think so much you talked about is so much in the heart of entrepreneurship, like grit, tenacity, being able to work under extreme pressure, keep that smile, right? It's that perseverance that sometimes it's always like people see the surface, they see the top, but they don't see everything else that's going on underneath. So you sharing that it brings to light. Some of these real challenges we go through but they kind of thicken our skin, especially if you go to start your own venture or it's going to thicken your skin somewhere along the way to be able to have that stamina. So tell us a little bit more. You talked a lot about you working in the financial services space. How about a little bit of how you got here and you're working currently with an aging population. You talked about fiduciary. I know there's a component to listening to your clients. Tell us a little bit more about why this demographic and what you're doing to help others. I think it mostly is in the wealth management and insurance space — support for this audience? Can you share a little bit more about that and what this audience looks like when we say aging demographics. I know that's a lot of questions there but I'd love to unpack that a little bit more.

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Barbara (06:42):

That's okay. We can dive right into that. So the reason I chose the aging population is because of that gerontology background, and again, gerontology simply means aging —we're all aging, and here's the thing, we are living in this rapidly aging population. We're living to age 100 really is this new normal. When you do a Monte Carlo, they often advise financial professionals use age 100 as that benchmark. And I can say as an aging expert, as a gerontologist, we are living in an aging population. So the aging population, and you and I, Lauren talked about this offline here for a few minutes and I'll talk about what that means quickly. So an aging population is to be clear, we are aging the minute we're born. We don't start aging at 40 or at 65. We don't become old. We're aging throughout our entire life. We just don't think about it until we start developing physical pains or maybe a mental cognitive pain or our employer tells us now we're a federally protected workplace employee. I have that insurance background, business insurance background, to know we're a federally protected employee at the age of 40.

So our society has a bit of a challenging time when it comes to what our age is and an aging population. But from a financial planning perspective, we do want to focus on our financial professionals helping people of all ages financially plan. So what brought me in was the gerontology, and then the other story I'll share with you, another one of my why stories is when I was that insurance agent, I had regrouped my company B&B Insurance, and then I sold it to a national brokerage and I became a top producing salesperson, a commercial salesperson for that organization. It was during my tenure as a business insurance advisor that I can't tell you, Lauren, how many clients I helped, not only with their commercial insurance portfolio but with their personal aging issues as well. And some of the most devastating ones were the cognitive impairments I was able to step up as a gerontologist to help my clients with. That in part helped me transition over. I made the decision, I couldn't help them as just an insurance agent. It ultimately led me to where I'm at today.‍

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Lauren (09:06):

Okay. So just to take a step back and sorry for this is maybe a little bit of the marketer in me like, okay, I want to narrow it a little bit more and I can understand the definition too of right, we're aging all throughout our lives, but is there a particular demographic that you're primarily focused on — ages 40 to 60 or to 80 — that you really kind of zero in on when you're working with these professionals? Do you mind sharing a little bit more on that side?

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Barbara (09:33):

I do, and that's a very good question because I do focus on those age 40 and above. We'd like to see financial planning happen in people's 20s and 30s for sure. But when we hit age 40, that's when we start developing chronic diseases. Oftentimes we could hit 'em in our 30s — women, we develop a thyroid impairment in our 30s, which is very typical for us, which now that's considered a chronic disease. So we start developing as a whole men and women chronic diseases in our 40s, financially preparing for this aging issue and our financial planning. We want to focus on those age 40 and above and thinking about not only our financial planning and that retirement goal we have but also thinking about what are these current and future aging issues we have.

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Lauren (10:26):

So then in kind of furthering that definition, 40 and above, you had alluded to health issues and you had also talked about earlier folks who have these mental stopgaps. Is there aging? So how do I say, what kind of challenges are you pulling apart, just maybe some examples like you had the health issues, what other conversations are you having to help individuals or really maybe to help advisors or insurance agents work with these individuals through these aging issues?

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Barbara (11:06):

So one of the aging issues you brought up is the cognitive issue. One of the most devastating diseases any of us could face is dementia. So there's the dementias as an umbrella. If you think of dementia as an umbrella term, and under the umbrella term you can have Alzheimer's, you can have Lewy body dementia, you can have frontotemporal dementia. So those are some of the more, I say, popular ones. Alzheimer's by far is the most widespread and unfortunately it could be close to 7 million people now who live in the United States with Alzheimer's. Two-thirds are women. So it's a future aging issue we want to think about from a financial perspective. So for the financial professional to have their conversation with a single woman or a single man or a couple, that conversation absolutely wants to come up, have you financially prepared for the chance it's abnormal aging. It's not normal. We all don't develop that. But have you thought about if this happens to you, will your spouse be your caregiver and be the husband as well? Just more women develop this. So to have a financial plan, have the conversation in advance, not when you start seeing signs. And even if you do start seeing those red flags of a cognitive impairment, of which financial decision-making is one of the first to go, then have that conversation as soon as possible. 

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Lauren (12:48):

So then are you coaching advisors and folks in the insurance space on how to have these conversations and then also how to listen for these things so they can best support their clients? Is that really the engagement?

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Barbara (13:04):

Exactly. Listen and look. So I like to tell my clients, financial and insurance professionals, asset managers, bankers, you name it, that you are an ideal set of eyes and ears for your clients because they see them on somewhat of a regular basis, whether it's annual, whether it's every six months, but you can see physically how they are acting, how their body is holding up. I mean, we're just breaking down over decades, right? As we age, if we're lucky to get into old age, our body just simply breaks down; this is just our natural aging process. Some people's bodies break down even more. So sometimes when our bodies break down, it can also trigger a cognitive issue, a brain issue. So that's something financial professionals could look with their eyes and with their ears. So getting to know their clients, really understanding their clients, very similar to how a coach understands his or her players, very similar to that for financial professionals to really understand their clients, and that way you can better predict their future behavior.

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Lauren (14:18):

Helping them and helping them get better. Coach. That makes sense. Exactly. Yeah. So then, okay, so this is probably also the marketer hat in me. So once you start to be able to really know what to pick up on those nuances or the things like you said, you look and you listen, a lot of times you think about creating an experience that really helps to optimize it for that particular demographic. Do you also work with advisors, insurance agents on updating maybe their onboarding process for that audience or meeting frequencies or maybe even a gifting strategy or outreach approach? What is your involvement in that part of it to make sure people are heard how they want to be heard?

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Barbara (15:05):

I think that's such a great question because as with any relationship, we want to be as authentic as we can be. We want to be as transparent as we can be as we get to trust that other person. So as the financial, the insurance professionals, the asset managers, the bankers, any money expert, they want to have this type of candid conversation with their client to say, look, we're playing on the same team. My job here is to understand as much as I can to help you to have this long-term relationship with you and to understand your family dynamic, to understand what you are looking for as you age with your money. What are your values, what do you value? And understanding these can change with time because we humans, we change with time, we evolve, we meet new people, we form new opinions, we digest more information, and it changes how we integrate this new information with what our existing information is.

And we come to different conclusions. Family dynamics can break down, relationships can break down, bodies can break down. So it's such an ideal spot for this money professional to be able to start the conversation with their client, having that transparency, saying to the client, let's be candid. I want to help you and I'm here to help you. And when you're letting me know what's going on in your life, I can better help you plan not only for now, but for your future from a holistic financial planning approach, not just a traditional one. And that's not to say we need to throw out the baby in the bathwater, traditional financial planning, asset protection investment, because I did take my Series 65 and the securities industry exam; I was going to become that financial advisor until I became this consultant. But having the traditional financial planning process in place along with holistic financial planning, look at people as a whole human as they age and encompassing their aging process, their health, their mental health, physical health, their family dynamic, their legacy, what you talked about, what kind of legacy do they want to leave, what inheritance, the estate planning, all those things.

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Lauren (17:28):

Yeah, so helpful. There's a lot to cover. And I also really appreciate what you talked about earlier too, of there not being a formulated process. You have to be able to be nimble and adjust as individuals are moving but being able to have that thinking and to be able to know how to listen and to look and listen, as you said earlier, I think it's a real tool, right? There's an art in all of that.

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Barbara (17:52):

Absolutely. Absolutely. But to your point, you can, so we talk about having a system, we talk about having a repeatable process, and especially if we're in the RIA space or a broker-dealer, but I know your audience is more of an RIA space, you can create a repeatable, easily repeatable process with this because while we humans are unique and it's very personal, and that's why it's called personal financial planning, we can create a repeatable process when we're talking to every single client, no matter they're a solo aging woman or a man or a couple or a suddenly single person where women live longer. So they're often more on the single side than men. We can create an easily repeatable process for this.

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Lauren (18:46):

It's so true. If you have that repeatable process it takes out some of the thinking that's been done, right? But then it is paired with that human side and that touch.

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Barbara (18:58):

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 

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Lauren (19:00)

Okay. So I just want to be mindful of time. This is helpful to be able to appreciate you unpacking some of this, sharing a little bit more about your background because you have had so many conversations with different folks, you've really helped them to listen and learn. Are there any key things you feel like, gosh, if just the general population knew more about, I don’t know —maybe fraud-related issues or caring for their loved ones — what to expect and thinking forward about that? Are there themes you often see that come up? And I'm just asking because these might be conversations that could turn into webinar topics for advisors or for insurance agents, or they could be partnership opportunities or what have you, and things that would be helpful for an aging population to know about.

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Barbara (19:53):

Well, you touched on one of my, I say favorite topics, but because of what I experienced earlier in my career, well at the beginning of my insurance career back in 2006 forward was financial fraud. I saw the investor fraud. I saw the personal fraud. So because of that, and here's another thing I didn't tell you until right now, back when I was in graduate school and I had no idea I was predetermining my future, back in graduate school when I was in my early 30s, I was an older student at my gerontology graduate school, and I took marketing as a minor because I always loved business. I chose senior financial fraud as my thesis. So I talked about and I wrote about all those years ago, telemarketing, fraud, mail fraud, senior fraud. 

And it still goes on. And the numbers were horrible back then, and I had it when I worked in a bank back then with a client, and it just struck me so much. So I resurrected that research I did back in 1998, believe it or not, and I updated it with current numbers back in 2021 when I really was getting this business going and the numbers were frightening. So I created a national presentation I call The Wolf Who Ate Grandma, and it's on senior financial fraud. And I am part of a senior financial fraud mastermind group where we are presenting to government entities. We've presented already to others at Elder Justice and the Department of Justice. So I'm very honored to be with that group of colleagues. But fraud is something that's very near and dear to my heart. It happens all the time. It's everywhere all the time. And it's something financial professionals really want to deeply learn more about along with the aging issues of older people, because there are certain things we go through in our aging process that sometimes increases the likelihood of being financially frauded.

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Lauren (21:53):

Yep, it's so true and it's such a scary thing. And I feel like it's one of those things where you've got to learn about it before it happens, not after the fact. 

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Barbara (22:01):

Exactly. And the caregiving you spoke of, the caregiving, that's such an intimate component with that as well, because if you're a couple, you've got that financial fraud, that is a possibility. But when you're a couple or when you're by yourself, you could be caring for an adult child or something. But the caregiving is another untold story. There's so many caregivers, the numbers are staggering. The number of people I meet, I meet a lot of men, believe it or not, who are caregivers, and we don't talk about them as much, and I wish we did. Forty, 40% of US men are caregivers but we don't talk about that. So caregiving is a huge financial piece financial professionals can talk to their clients about. Are you a caregiver now? Will you be a future caregiver to your spouse, your mom, your dad, your grandma, your grandpa?

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Lauren (22:54):

Yes. Oh my goodness. There's so much to unpack just as you're talking about this. I feel like I can see there's a lot to learn, and I think as we kind of talked about in the beginning, sort of that definition of aging, it's important to learn this I think even before it becomes an issue. So that education is really key. And I feel like financial advisors in particular are in such a place to be able to have a stage to be able to share that. And so it's really a place they can help to further empower individuals. So I appreciate you sharing a little bit more about your insights and working with this demographic. So Barb, thank you again. We'll make sure to include a link to your website with more details.

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Barbara (23:37):

Thank you so much, Lauren.

We talked with Kate about:

• How to sustainably implement CRM changes 
• How to loop in the whole team
• Tips and tools she loves with Redtail and Wealthbox

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About Kate Guillen:

Kate Guillen is a seasoned operations professional with over a decade of experience in the investment management industry. Her journey began as a client service associate for a broker-dealer and she later became the operations manager at a registered investment advisor. There, she was given the freedom to solve operational issues with technology and discovered her passion for AdvisorTech. In 2020, she founded Simplicity Ops to help financial advisors and their teams simplify systems and standardize operations. Today, Simplicity Ops has partnered with over 50 firms, dedicated to maximizing their technology and ensuring robust operating procedures to support growth and excellent client service.

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Featured Resources 

• Kate Guillen on LinkedIn
• Simplicity Ops on LinkedIn
• Redtail
• Wealthbox

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Enjoyed this? You’ll also love:  

• The Role of Marketing and the CMO in Today’s Financial Services Industries with Nick Richtsmeier 
• Building a Family Business: How Bridget Venus Grimes Solved her RIA Capacity Problem with her Daughter Marnie Bonner 
• How to Navigate Financial Services Compliance in 2024

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Full Audio Transcript:

‍Lauren (00:04):

Kate, thanks for being with us here today.

‍

‍Kate (00:07):

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to the conversation.

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Lauren (00:10):

Yeah, me too. And kind of nerding out on this whole CRM. I know that's your specialty. So I'm going to pass it over to you to just share a little bit about your background but high level, you are the founder of Simplicity Ops. And is your specialty working with just, is it just RIAs exclusively?

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Kate (00:30):

Yep, RIAs and hybrids that use Redtail or Wealthbox.

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Lauren (00:33):

Okay, awesome. So, okay, that will be fun to get into those specific platforms as well. So before we do that, do you mind just sharing how you got into this industry, these spaces, and what have you? And then sharing a little bit more just for context, going into the conversation about what you all do.

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Kate (00:49):

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, good question. So it's kind of funny how I got into the industry. I was actually part of a workout group and my workout partner was an older gal, and I was expressing to her my discontent in my current job. And she's like, you know what? My husband's looking for an assistant; he's the vice president of an investment company. You should meet with him. And so I went and met with him. I didn't know the difference between a stock and a bond. I had absolutely no business being there but we hit it off. He and his partner took a risk on a 24-year-old kid who literally didn't know the difference between a stock and a bond. And they taught me the ropes. And I worked at that broker-dealer for three and a half years, learned the language, the regulatory stuff, everything. It was a great introduction to the industry.

They were really patient and wonderful with me. But ultimately I left and joined an RIA, which was my first introduction to a CRM. And at the time we were really only using the CRM as a glorified Rolodex. We had contact records but that was about it. And we were going through a major transition. We were leaving our TAMP, consolidating assets at custodians, bringing in a portfolio manager, and growing our team. And anyway, there were way too many balls in the air. Every morning was a fire drill. I had to bring some calm and consistency to the office and tried to figure out how to do that. And the brief little research that I did, I figured out the CRM was a hell of a lot more than a Rolodex if someone took the time to build it out.

And so I spent years learning the ins and outs of how to optimize it for contacts, tasks, your sales pipeline, your client calendar, your client service experience, and then workflows to help deliver those services at scale. And as I was going through the process, I realized I was a geek about it. I loved it. I found it very fun, and then I was watching it yield amazing results. I was watching my team now be able to operate independently and have the confidence to execute our client service experience. The business was growing and we just now all had that level of calm and consistency in the office. And luckily I was friends with the advisor I was working for and I was like, hey man, I think I got a cool business idea. What if I was able to do this for other advisors and not just this single office? And he was like, ah, sad to see you go but I think this is a really good idea. And so with his support, I kind of started to put together this idea of Simplicity Ops. At the end of 2019, beginning of 2020, I landed my first couple of clients and the writing was on the wall. It was time for me to go off and do my own thing. And that was in March 2020. The world ended.

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Lauren (03:33):

Yes, your timeline was down.

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Kate (03:35):

The world ended like March 15, and I'm like, oh God, I've made a terrible mistake here. But honestly, it was kind of the right place at the right time. There was never a more apparent time that advisors needed an online system to run their practice than in 2020 when we all got sent home.

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Lauren (03:53):

Okay. So just to kind of fill in the blanks here, so when you were setting this up at this firm prior to starting Simplicity Ops, what CRM platform were you using?

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Kate (04:03):

We were using Redtail.

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Lauren (04:05):

Okay, so Redtail was kind of your key CRM that you got super familiar with. Okay. And then I love what you said too about this idea of creating the calm. I feel like when ops are done really well, that's so much of what it does; it just creates systems and trust and consistency and all these other kinds of things.

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Kate (04:25):

And confidence.

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Lauren (04:26):

Yes, it's so true. So tell me, when you enter into a situation where we're like, all right, we're going to get the house in order, what kind of situation are you normally entering in? What's normally some of the bigger challenges you're seeing firms have and how do you go about, I'll call it wireframing, their CRM? I’d love to hear a little bit more about that.

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Kate (04:52):

Yeah, that's a great question. So I can explain how to go about optimizing your CRM as the operational hub of your practice. That's really our core belief. We believe your CRM should be the one-stop-shop for managing your business. And every system we are building is optimizing for an amazing client service experience. That's what my background is. And our best clients, their core value, their mission is to exceed the expectations of their clients by delivering a wonderful experience. And so we very much take that approach and most of our clients come to us and say, all right, I get it. Our CRM should be our one-stop-shop or our centralized database but the data's disorganized, the team is using it inconsistently. Some of us are using the calendar, some of us are still using Outlook. We've never touched a workflow. We don't really trust the system, so we don't really use it. A couple years ago that was what I heard the most and now what I feel like I'm hearing, and I mentioned this earlier, is like, all right, we've started to build out systems but we're having a really hard time getting adoption. We're having a really hard time getting people to buy into the value.

And so it's shifted a little bit, and honestly in my experience, the easiest way to get adoption is by meeting your people where they are at, okay, figuring out what do they value and helping them understand how the implementation of these systems is going to get them there faster. It needs to be articulated in a way they understand and find valuable. They need to also deeply believe your CRM is the key to exceeding the expectations of your clients by delivering excellent client service. The systems that get implemented need to be really simple and easy to adopt.

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Lauren (07:03):

That makes sense.

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Kate (07:05):

And nobody likes change. If you just totally flip everything upside down, people get resistant, and that's when you don't get buy-in. The key to successful CRM implementation is mutual adoption by everybody. So it needs to be done slowly. It needs to be done with intention, it needs to be done methodically, it needs to be done at a manageable pace that people feel comfortable taking off these bite-sized chunks, implementing, feeling really comfortable with the shift or the change before we move on to whatever the next component is.

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Lauren (07:39):

So just to paraphrase what you were seeing when you kicked off this business — this was COVID timeline wise — it was more of we don't have a system. We need to put a system in place of some sort and maybe just hypothesizing here that more folks maybe have systems because we were forced to be in this digital world. So then therefore, what you're hearing right now is it's really how do we adopt our culture to actually use the system? And that's really the key issue you're walking into right now with teams. Is that fair?

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Kate (08:14):

And even the people that do have systems, there’s still the opportunity to make it perfect. They've kind of scratched the surface but the hardest part I've been finding right now is just getting everybody on their team to adopt the system and use it consistently. It doesn't work if there's outliers who are unwilling to adopt

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Lauren (08:35):

Because the adoption of the system and the consistency helps with scalability. So that just means you nailed it, the data. Okay, so what kind of tools are you using? You were talking about it's got to be in their language and it's got to be done at a pace that works for the firm. Are you doing trainings? Are you having internal champions or leaders? What kind of advice would you give for someone who's really struggling — they see it but they're not sure how to shift that culture?

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Kate (09:06):

I love this question. So when we partner with firms, we nominate a project champion, the person who is the CRM guru. And so we work with both Redtail and Wealthbox users, and we have found the most successful teams have a champion in their office who owns their CRM. They're a wealth of knowledge and the person we partner with and collaborate with most closely to dump our knowledge into them so they have somebody in their office with that level of capability, and then we guide them through a four-phase process. That starts with, and I always joke, I think about building a house. I know everybody is really excited about workflows and integration but none of that works if we don't lay the foundation and build the frame. The entire structure collapses if you throw the roof on first, right?

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Lauren (09:55):

Yes, yes, yes. Makes sense. It'd be backwards.

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Kate (09:57):

It would be backwards. And I know the foundation is pretty boring and lame but we have to start there. And in its simplest form, your CRM is a database. So we start with structuring the data. How should it be organized? Who are these contacts in your database and what is the best way to organize them? And then we'll take them through here's who these people are and how should they be structured? Here's what your categories should be. Here's your keywords and your tags and your custom fields. We get really clear on that and we document that, right?

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Lauren (10:24):

You made it sound so simple. It's so not simple but okay, keep going. 

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Kate (10:31):

Yes, we’ve done this a lot of times. So to me, now I can get into a database and be like, yeah, no, this is how this should work. And then we remap everything, clean it up and we're golden. I get it. Then after we know how the database is organized, we got to get the team on board. And so this is the educational component where we teach and train them. The best practice for using the CRM is the hub. And what I mean by the hub is it becomes the place for managing contacts, your tasks, your sales pipeline, your calendar, your accounts, running reports, any sort of audits. It becomes the source of truth for managing your client relationships.

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Lauren (11:10):

Okay. Client relationships, I guess, which is also related to data.

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Kate (11:15):

Yeah, exactly.

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Lauren (11:16):

Okay, so kind of shifting topics here a little bit but related, you've got your adaptation that's going on, right? You're getting people involved. That takes time and it may not be up to speed. How are you managing expectations of the C-suite, where they're going, we should have these reports. It should be so simple. Shouldn't all that information be in there when in reality, what I was referred to earlier, as you make it sound easy, that component of being able to tag and create workflows and these sorts of things, that takes time and it takes training to be able to build all that out. So what is your kind of communication and expectation setting for folks who are like, don't we just have this? Can't you just flip a switch? And what is that timeline expectation setting that maybe for someone who thinks it doesn't have the context for the complexity of it? What are you telling that audience?

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Kate (12:15):

Yeah, that is a fantastic question because that is a real struggle because unless you are on the front lines of managing a CRM and managing client relationships, you have absolutely no idea how long this stuff takes.

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Lauren (12:29):

Okay, so true. 

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Kate (12:30):

I always joke, I'm like, listen, it took me three and a half years to jigsaw puzzle all of this together and build out a framework for running a practice. The benefit of collaborating with someone like us is we can knock it out a lot faster; we’ve already gotten it figured out. And so our engagements last anywhere from six months to a year and a half depending on the complexity of the business, the disaster that's their database, how many team members they have, getting it all in order. And so to set expectations, we build out a timeline. We're like, listen, here's what we're going to accomplish week over week. Here's some key milestones you are going to feel like major efficiency pickups.

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Lauren (13:07):

These wins.

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Kate (13:10):

Those wins. And then we get together at those milestones and celebrate those wins together. We'll do a deep dive training with the team and be like, all right guys, we've gotten this far, we've rolled this out. Everybody has a task management system. No more Post-It notes, no more legal pads, no more DMing.

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Lauren (13:24):

Yes. Throw it away. Yeah.

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Kate (13:27):

And it's like set in stone. It's like here, it's going forward. And then this is why you have to take a slow, intentional, methodical approach. Once you've met that milestone, then we move on to the next set of curriculum, and then we get into building out your service experience, and then we get into building out workflows. So it's done very incrementally so nobody feels fire-hosed.

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Lauren (13:50):

Yes, that's fair. So it's essentially stepping stones but celebrating those stepping stones along the way, which also is managing the optics of the volume you're trying to push or change or what have you. But also not saying like, oh, we can do this overnight. Yeah, you're right. No problem. It can happen. Right? Because it is very nuanced. So related to the nuanced part of it, right? When you get into the CRM, you start to unpack, let's say all the things that make a client experience exceptional. Do you find your projects just spin off like, oh yeah, we needed that and oh yeah, we needed that and we need to actually have more emails here. How do you set those expectations in the beginning to make sure the timeline doesn't shift every, what is it, every 30 days or 60 days or what have you? Because I'm sure you're discovering more as you're going through the process.

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Kate (14:44):

Yeah. Well, we set very clear expectations in the beginning. We're going to do an audit to figure out what the pace of this should look like, set a timeline to just keep everybody on track and set those expectations. And if we get in there and we realize, oh shoot, you need this, this, this, and this, we will tack those on at the end or wherever they make sense, not even at the end sometimes, oh, we don't have an online calendar tool, or we're still using Calendly. Well, you should be using GReminders. It has a native integration, blah, whatever. We'll introduce those things as we get to them.

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Lauren (15:19):

Got it. Okay. So it's part of just unpacking it essentially.

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Kate (15:23):

Yeah. Absolutely.

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Lauren (15:24):

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So are there any other trends you're seeing or maybe new things related to integrations with Wealthbox or with Redtail that folks should have on the horizon as they're thinking about these platforms?

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Kate (15:42):

Yeah, totally. And so I believe your CRM should be the operational hub but it's not all the things, right? It's not your note-taking app. It's not your online calendar tool. Okay? There's some other things that play very nicely with those systems that help deliver an amazing client experience. I love FinMate. It is a note-taking bot that joins your call, takes your notes, puts together the transcription, and pushes the meeting summary into Wealthbox and Redtail. You can select tasks from that meeting summary to task to your team, the action items that need to be done. And it comprises a follow-up email to the client. I'm like, oh man, that's a frequent weight changer. Yeah, so I’m a huge fan of anything that makes the client experience better and makes your administrative team’s lives easier. GReminders is another one I love just from a client servicing and just creating efficiency around managing calendars and schedulers for both the client side and the administrative side. That's  huge, I mean, that's going to save you tens of hours a week implementing a tool like that. I like Bento Engine for client advice and timely milestone educational pieces. I think it is awesome. I'm really excited about this whole AI thing. I know it's a really hot topic. I have no idea where this is going to go but I'm excited to figure it out. I heard somebody talking the other day about a virtual AI assistant, like literally a VA but that's a bot.

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Lauren (17:27):

Yes, I know what you're talking about. It is really cool and it actually feels like it's a human the way it's set up and you can create all this conditional logic in the background. Totally. I know what you're talking about.

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Kate (17:38):

And I'm into it. I think it's really exciting. I don't know if the regulatory bodies are going to love that. I don't know if I really want them in my CRM with everybody's personal information. That's still a little gray to me. But again, I come from an admin and ops background. Anything that makes those people's lives easier so they can be spending more time serving clients, I'm all game for.

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Lauren (18:04):

I totally hear you. We feel the same too. We've actually gone through and have cleaned up a lot of our systems and workflows with the whole objective of trying to be able to cut out the manpower, the manual manpower, so time, energy, and resources can be really spent on making sure you have exceptional customer service as you were alluding to earlier. And I appreciate you sharing those tools too, because they get leverage. So then you can go, okay, now we can spend more of our time on X. Having a really clean kickoff or building those relationships or good conversations or what have you. So fun. Kate, any other final thoughts you want to share or things you think would be helpful for folks to know?

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Kate (18:45):

Oh gosh, I love this conversation. I think one of the things I get pushed back on a lot is like, oh man, this sounds like so much work. Oh, this sounds like so much time and it does take time but it's short-term pain for long-term gain. Your future self is going to thank you so much for taking the extra couple minutes to document the process so you're not reinventing the wheel every single time you go to do something. As you start to document those processes, if you are not using your CRM as the place for maintaining processes, you should.

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Lauren (19:21):

It's so true. And I think it also just takes off that mental checklist you have. Oh, I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do this. But it's set it and forget it. It's there for you. So you don't miss those steps along the way. And then you can also remember, oh, that was a brilliant move. I should be reaching out to this person at this time. I should be doing X, Y, and Z. But that automation helps again for you to be able to put your best foot forward. You nailed it. So fun. All right, Kate, well thank you again for your time. It was really fun to learn not only about your business but about this world of CRMs, right? And the importance of really making sure they are set up for scalability and also give you data so you can better make decisions. So thanks again. 

‍

Kate (19:59):

Love It. Thanks for having me.

‍

Lauren (20:01):

Absolutely.

We talked with Nick about:

• How to set up your marketing leaders for success
• How to know when to hire an integrated agency and when to hire a CMO
• How to align your marketing efforts to your overall goals 
• Niche marketing, integrated operations, and business strategy

About Nick Richtsmeier:

Nick Richtsmeier is the principal at CultureCraft, an innovative firm dedicated to providing tools that unlock critical questions for wealth management professionals and firms. With a career deeply rooted in the wealth management industry, Nick spent nearly a decade as an advisor before transitioning into executive roles. His experience includes serving as CMO and COO for small to mid-sized registered investment advisor (RIA) firms, where he identified recurring issues that kept RIA businesses stuck in unproductive cycles — a key factor fueling the current era of consolidation. Passionate about addressing these challenges, Nick founded CultureCraft to equip wealth managers with the insights and strategies needed to break free from these cycles and achieve sustainable success.

Featured Resources 

• Nick Richtsmeier on LinkedIn 
• CultureCraft on LinkedIn
• CultureCraft Blog 
• Why CMOs Never Last article on Harvard Business Review

Enjoyed This? You’ll Also Love:  

• Website Redesigns: The Process Behind Building Websites for Financial Services Companies
• Email Marketing Insider Tips for Financial Advisors
• Enhancing Advisor Success: How to Add Value Beyond the Numbers Through Human Connection

‍

Full Audio Transcript:

‍

Lauren (00:05):

Nick, welcome. We're glad to have you here today.

‍

Nick (00:07):

Oh, thank you. I'm excited to be here.

‍

Lauren (00:09):

Yeah, so I have just enjoyed all of our conversations today. I think one of the things I super appreciate about you is you have not only been in the weeds, you've been on boots on ground, with so many experiences. I know you've worked with TD Ameritrade, you've worked with a variety of financial services businesses, I should say, but that's not like your 100% sweet spot. I know you work with other companies as well, but you've seen the nitty gritty in the weeds of all kinds of production to the very, very high-level strategy of really being able to go in and really unpack some of the really difficult questions and be able to change and shape culture and adjust course. So I'm excited to get into that today. And more specifically, we're going to get really into what is the role of the CMO or how do we unpack that today. So before we do that, do you mind just sharing with folks a little bit about your background, go into that a little bit more, and your experiences?

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Nick (01:10):

Yeah. I've been in or near wealth management for the bulk of my career. I was an advisor for almost 10 years, sold my book of business, ended up moving into more enterprise executive roles, and part of that was a CMO/COO role for a small to midsize RIA, and really found I was falling in love with these repeated themes that were keeping RIA businesses sort of locked in a cycle that wasn't working right. And it's part of what fed the consolidation era we're in now. This was in the mid-2010s that there were just questions people were having a really hard time answering. And consolidation increasingly became an answer in the M&A environment. So I created CultureCraft to start to give people tools to unlock these questions. A lot of them apply to wealth managers and wealth management firms. It's really any entity that has to leverage trust to grow the business. Everybody says, well, trust is the engine of growth for every business. It is, but it's different in these long-term high-dollar relationships like investment management and the RIA world than it is if you are a bakery. I mean, the bakery has to be trustworthy. They're not going to poison the cookies, right?

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Lauren (02:34):

Right. Yes.

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Nick (02:35):

There’s a difference in the kind of trust-based organizations we work with, those in the RIA wealth management space.

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Lauren (02:42):

Yes, it's so true. And it's a long sales cycle, right? Trust can be built in so many ways. I mean, we can unpack the marketing component. You can look at it even from operations, right? Operations impacts just are you going to get the same product? Is it going to be at a certain quality? And you could go a variety of angles. And in particular, let's get to the CMO level, right? It's trust within the numbers and being able to talk to the C-suite. It could go a variety of directions. So let's kind of go into the CMO world. You see that, you see the high level. How do you see the role of the CMO today?

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Nick (03:21):

Yeah, I mean, I've been either in a full-time or in a fractional capacity, a CMO at a wealth management firm multiple times. And I would say the CMO role is as in trouble as it's ever been. I mean, it is really a tough job. It is. And if you're watching the trades, a high-level CMO cycles out about every 18 to 24 months of the big brand name firms. And there's a reason for that. It's because the role is not well designed for the current environment. It's because the majority of people hiring for it have never seen a great one. So they don't know what they're hiring for. And they also don't know how to do division of labor among the C-suite that validates the CMO’s expertise. I mean, I've talked to multiple large RIA founders who are trying to figure this out. Do we need a CMO? If we do, what do they do? How is that different from these other things other people are doing because they've defaulted to a more heavily tactical director-style role or an outsourced partner. Either one can work but they have big strategy questions no one in the building can answer.

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Lauren (04:43):

Yep. It's so true. Harvard Business School put together a great article on this, and it goes through these different roles of the definition of the CMO. To your point earlier about you've got to have strong input to have strong output. Can you talk a little bit more about that, different types of input for what the role of the CMO can look like today, either through title or job description or that sort of thing is a big question to be able to unpack.

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Nick (05:10):

For sure. So what you want I think is if we take the title off it and then we'll put the title back on at the end. In a wealth management or kind of trust style business, you want someone who says growing the brand and growing the business is an equal equation to me, and I am going to take ownership of both. Now, on the growing the business side, they have to do collaboration with other business development people who might be head of sales, might be a head of advisory, could have different roles in different firms but you want that CMO who’s very comfortable saying, I'm not here to just give you marketing metrics. I am here to comfortably sit and say, we will grow the firm organically, tactically in collaboration with the advisors and the other business development folks in the building. If you're going to pay top dollar for a head of marketing, 250, 300 plus, that's what you need. That's what you need. And if you don't have that, somebody else has to take that spot. And in many firms, there's a gap there because your business development people came out of usually advisory. They've been advisors but they don't have a concept of the entire toolkit or the entire growth toolkit, all the things they can do. Or you have people who have come out of classic marketing channels and they're just embedded in 2017 marketing.

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Lauren (06:52):

Or just hyper-tactical.

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Nick (06:53):

Yes, hyper-tactical. What we will call the tactical hamster wheel is we're going to go from SEO to blogs to events.

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Lauren (07:01):

Taking it all and trying to just do it, trying to use everybody.

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Nick (07:06):

And it's what irritates the hell out of people about marketers because they're like, well, I don't really care how many clicks or views or whatever. What did this actually do for the business? Your CMO needs to be able to easily answer that question. They have to have a business acumen to be able to do that. I would say that's really, really rare in the wealth space, both from a talent perspective because the industry hasn't produced that kind of talent and from an organizational design perspective because executives don't know how to build the org with that in mind, and it creates these gaps. There's a direct correlation between the failure of the CMO role in wealth management and the just absolute halt in organic growth. These two things are correlated and they're caused by similar issues.

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Lauren (08:01):

Yep. I hear you. And even if you were to get back to the root of the cause, just the clarification of the role to begin with, just that clarity, like you said, trying to answer those tough questions at the top. And then I also think you kind of alluded to the fact that there's folks who are pushing all the activities but one thing you said earlier that I think is really critical is this idea of collaboration. And I think that's so much a part of the role of the CMO. It's being able to literally go around, have those one-on-ones, and really be able to influence and persuade and also drive the agenda against the bigger picture strategy, which is something that is much easier said than done.

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Nick (08:48):

Yeah. I want to just pause there for just a second. I wrote about this morning on LinkedIn thinking about this meeting. The CMO is the most collaborative role in the C-suite. The CMO, when functioning correctly, is hand in glove with org dev. It's hand in glove with advisory business development. It's hand in glove with the CEO owning the brand. So that is part of the challenge from even a leadership capacity standpoint is as a CMO, you have to make the case for your value all day long, every day. And you have to be a grownup about it. And you can't go on LinkedIn whining about how mean people are to marketers. You just have to get to that cycle. But you also have to have the humility to say, I don't really get to take credit for anything by myself because everything I'm doing succeeds in collaboration. That's the ABCs of a marketing leader.‍

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Lauren (09:43):

So true. So well said. And I think that's almost hard to be able to communicate upfront because it is so intertwined with everything. I mean operations, the way things flow, they're communicated from onboarding to offboarding and the tone that's set there, the sales team making sure they're really heard and they have their needs. And it's not about a shotgun. Everybody across all departments wants this but it's about really setting the big picture strategy and then being able to get everybody behind that. It is reducing the shiny object syndrome, which is again, easier said than done.

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Nick (10:23):

Absolutely.

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Lauren (10:25):

What do you see, because you go into these kinds of conversations and you're unpacking them with teams and leadership, and what is that big picture strategy process like to be able to unpack it? What does the timeline look like and what advice would you give maybe to a CMO, or maybe I should even say to a business leader who's thinking about unpacking that strategy? What would they need to do to be able to go in or be prepared before they go into that actual conversation so they're set up for success so they've got the big picture, they can reduce the shiny object syndrome and everyone's set up for success?

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Nick (11:02):

I mean, that's like a masterclass in and of itself, but we'll try and do it in a way. So one of the things I tell leaders is the reason why mirrors exist is because none of us know what our face looks like. And the big challenge for even very smart — and I've just talked to so many of them in the RIA space — very smart, very successful leaders who've grown into that nine-figure revenue size and below, but just really healthy firms, and they can't tell you why their firm works. And that's the first challenge is somebody has to be able to go, this is why this place works, and these are the things that if we invested in them more, it would work better. That level of just clarity.

And it's not anybody's fault, it's just the RIA wave was just that. It was a wave and everybody rode it in fairly similar ways. Even though every firm is unique, there was sort of this continuity to the wave, and now we're on the back end of that wave in a different era, and now it's like, well, I have to figure this out, not for the whole industry anymore, but for me.

There are unique identities. So some people will call that branding, some people call it positioning. All of those things come into play but there is just that sense of this is who we are and this is how we're going to progress into the future. I think that takes some form of third-party analysis, etc. Some firms, we come to have some of that already. They've done that work. Obviously, that accelerates the process. So let's say you've done that work. If you've done that work, now the question is, okay, we know we want to grow in these markets, or we want to do this mix of acquisition and this mix of organic, whatever it might be. Now it's what are the actual strategies? What are we going to do in the next six months, 12 months, etc., to make that happen? And that's when marketing starts to come into the conversation. And almost always, the firm has a level of, maybe not as far as distrust but distaste for marketing. There's been some disappointments. There's been leadership churn. Marketing has been put in a fulfillment role, it makes shiny objects for us. Marketing doesn't like it, the firm doesn't like it. So the next question we work with the business leader on is, are you willing to fix that?

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Lauren (13:34):

And by fixing that means a shift in culture, a shift of expectations, all of these things.

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Nick (13:40):

Yeah. It is really across what I call the trust dynamics. So it's across cultural, it's across org design, it's across budgeting, it's across all these factors. Sometimes a business leader will hear that and go, oh, you're just telling me I got to spend a bunch of money. No, absolutely not. I have to test for willingness first. Are we open to this going to be a journey? Now, we're going to do lots of great tactical stuff along the way, and I know you and I have tactical stuff we want to talk about today. We're doing tactical stuff along the way but we've got to see that tactical stuff as a journey to a more holistic growth engine, a growth engine that is multifaceted and not dependent on any one magical thing, because all those magical things are incredibly fragile today, which is again, why organic growth is failing. So we try to get you in a place where we're making tactical progress while also strategic shift within eight to 12 weeks.

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Lauren (14:39):

Oh, that's relatively short.

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Nick (14:43):

Because the big thing that needs to happen is you need to have wins. Everybody's got to have a win. Even if that means working with a great agency to create a great deck or an event tool we can repurpose or something like that. We need your growth mindset to shift. And part of shifting, it's just having different experiences. So what I always tell people is it isn't this: we're going to disappear into a conference room for a year and then come out.

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Lauren (15:15):

Write all this fine print, make everything perfect. It's going to sit on the wall, a book that's going to sit on the wall or shelf or whatever. 

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Nick (15:25):

Yeah. This is going to be sleeves rolled up. Scratched up arms in the garden and put dirt on the fingernails. But we're on our way to a strategic shift.

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Lauren (15:36):

So for CMOs who have lost the trust of the C-suite. Is that where you see, you basically need a bolt to be able to come in, somebody has a different voice like yourself or team, or it sounds like it is really a pause, readjust, but readjust has to be a willingness to be able to say, yes, we are willing to shake this up for this to be successful. Longer term.

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Nick (16:07):

Sometimes the marketing leader and the CEO will just use those as sort of a stand in for what we're talking about. Sometimes the marketing leader and the CEO just need a third party to translate and to say, this is what he's been trying to say to you. This is what she's been trying to say to you. And all of a sudden, we make a little bit of progress. Now, there has to be, again, everything's willingness. There has to be a leaning in from both parties. If either the CEO or the CMO are like that bridge is burnt, then we just have to move on. And I hate that.

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Lauren (16:46):

It just is what it is.

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Nick (16:47):

It is when we have to move on. That's not the case in most situations. Everybody's got sunk costs, right? We've invested in each other. We're here, we want this to work. So when there's an existing marketing leader, we want to translate first and help that translation and oftentimes reflect back to the CMO and say, hey, what you're saying makes a ton of sense. I know what you're saying. Your founder doesn't know what you're saying or you are not hearing him or a lot of communication because executive-speak and marketing-speak are just completely different vernaculars.

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Lauren (17:30):

Yeah. Yeah. It is different jargon. It's different worlds. And the only sometimes similarities are things that are at the very end of the road. It's ROI but there's a whole path to be able to get there.

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Nick (17:46):

Even ROI is such a Rorschach test. Everybody means a different thing by it.

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Lauren (17:52):

Yes, it's so true.

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Nick (17:53):

Usually we bring up ROI. One of the first things I say is, great, how are you going to measure it? Before you ask me, is this going to produce ROI? How are you going to measure it? Because attribution is the hardest game in growth right now. There's nothing harder right now than attribution. How do you actually say this thing produced this revenue? And so usually we're talking ROI in a very theoretical sense. I was talking to a senior executive or a COO at a larger firm not that long ago, probably five or six months ago, and he's like, well, we're just organizing things more. So what produces ROI and blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, I listed four or five things I knew he was in favor of us doing that had happened in the previous months. I said, what about these four or five things? There's no way to prove ROI of those things.

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Lauren (18:44):

But they're still important.

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Nick (18:46):

But his immediate response was, well, we intuitively know those are valuable, so we had to get underneath these cohorts.

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Lauren (18:54):

Yeah. There's so much power in that definition too, and really being able to unpack that as well. Oh my goodness. You're right. There's so many master classes that could spin out of this, because I do want to ask, before we get into some of the other tactical pieces, you had talked about the situation when you come in, we'd gotten into this idea of there's an existing, we'll just say the title CMO, and maybe they've lost trust with the C-suite or what have you. Are those situations you're seeing a lot? Are you more seeing situations where the CMO, there just needs to be a resetting? What are you seeing with these firms when you're coming in to partner with them?

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Nick (19:42):

I would say the thing that's most prevalent is that the firm has — because of just a lack of understanding of what a CMO marketing leader should do — has set these expectations for the role that are impossible and even haven't even necessarily communicated those expectations and have hired a person who has just no career experience to be able to fulfill those.

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Lauren (20:16):

They're just already walking in day one and not set up for success.

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Nick (20:20):

I mean, there's just a lot, and I don't want to be disparaging anybody who's listening to this. All of you, I believe in you. You're doing great work. There's a lot of CMOs, VPs of marketing, etc. around the business that the title's too big for them.

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Lauren (20:36):

Yeah. And it's not okay. It's nice to have a flashy title but with certain expectations it's not going to get you to really accomplish what they want.

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Nick (20:49):

And everybody's going to be frustrated. So it feels good initially to have the big title but with the big title comes big expectations, and particularly in marketing, it's expectations no one knows how to verbalize. So you’ve got to know you're ready for the big dance. You have to have thought about strategy. You have to have thought about growing the business. I mean, talk to marketing leaders who are like, I'm ready. I want the big chair. I'm like, great. What should we do in this situation? And then they spin up things like, we should do a cool holiday gift strategy. Like, whoa.

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Lauren (21:25):

Or sales is over here and we need these five things and this is going to help us and blah, blah, blah. And they're like, okay, let's execute. And you're like, yeah, it might be a people pleaser component now but longer term, that's a habit and a pattern you're creating in your communicating that's not getting back to actually what does north look like and does that actually map to the business strategy. We worked with a company and one of the awesome things to be able to watch, it wasn't a CMO role, it was a COO role. It was a leader coming in and just hearing everybody and really working closely across departments, working with leadership, getting buy-in, setting really a high-level strategy that really took them beyond three years. You could see all the gaps, and then there was so much more beyond that, but it was just, what it did is it really helped to put energy into the team. And then you can put goals behind that. And I think that model is something that a CMO, again, for lack of better words, can also take that same approach and like you said earlier, pack in or fit with those across departments to make sure there's alignment.

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Nick (22:43):

Yeah. I think of one firm we worked with where we just had to spend the first three or four months working with the team to figure out fulfillment. How are you going to get decks out the door? How are you going to get one pagers out the door? And we knew that literally none of that was going to sell anything but the needs and expectations of everybody were so broken down that you just have to start somewhere.

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Lauren (23:11):

Yes, totally. Right.

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Nick (23:13):

And so that's the magic of a really skilled marketing leader is they can go fast and go slow at the same time.

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Lauren (23:20):

So true. Yes. I know. We use that internal go fast go slow analogy as well. A good one. I feel like it's a powerful one. It's the art of strategy, being able to manage that. So you alluded to earlier the wins. So I just want to be mindful of time. I want to get some more of the tactical questions. I think each one of these actually could probably go its own class as well. We'll kind of hit you with a few questions here. So thank you. I know you got some questions from others prior to this. So one of the questions folks ask is, if someone is entertaining outsourcing versus remaining in-house, how do you determine if you need to outsource someone or if you need to actually bring things in?

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Nick (24:14):

Yeah. So I'll give you the best-case scenario answer, which 80% of people won't be able to answer. So we'll have to do a few other answers. So the best-case scenario answer is exactly how you want to grow the business, and you know how quickly you want to do it and how long you're going to invest in it. If you know, that probably answers it for you, because if you are like, hey, we don't actually really know how we want to grow the business but we need to support our advisors and we just need fulfillment, and we need to just get the wheels moving and need ideas. Integrated agencies, you guys, is a great place for that. We have a general sense of where we're headed and we need quick wins with people who are good collaborators. That often is about partnering with the right agency.

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Lauren (25:11):

Fair.

Nick (25:15):

The case for hiring is really about, we are going to build a long-term growth engine, and we want to empower leadership to do it. So what we tell people who are in that kind of mode is like, okay, if you're going to hire a person, CMO or whatever, just realize there's 10 hires after that or maybe five. 

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Lauren (25:44):

That’s so true, and that's such a good expectation setting upfront.

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Nick (25:48):

Yeah. But don't hire one person to manage a bunch of agencies. That's chaos. Don't hire one person and think they're going to make all your decks, do your social media, give you strategy for how to grow the business, collaborate with all your advisors with all their different ideas; that person will implode or lie to you, or both.

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Lauren (26:16):

Yep. Agree. So much good stuff. Okay. I've got another one for you. This one is really big, we could talk for a while. The question is, what's the best way to identify your ideal prospect? What tools do you use and what filters? I feel like this is where I feel like we need to call in Kristen Luke or someone who's really focused on the whole target market deep dive, just high-level thoughts on that. 

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Nick (26:47):

I'll give you the one thing we give people. We have a whole program for this but I'll give you the one thing that tends to shift the dynamic for people the fastest is building your ideal client profile needs to first and primarily be about psychographics. It should be about how they think, how they feel, how they make decisions, what biases they come to the hiring a financial advisor decision with. It should not be about how much money they have, whether they're dentists, all your niche marketing demographic stuff flows out of your segmentation. And segmentation is a subset of ICP. So ICP is the person you want to walk into every iteration of you, your office, your website, your social media, and go, people like me do stuff like this. And the shortcut is, oh, if it says dentists, do you have a financial advisor? We think we've solved that for people but we've all lived on the internet too long, we all read through that. So what actually works is, do I feel like I belong here? And that's because you've really thought through the psychographic of your ICP.

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Lauren (28:10):

Yeah. And that's a deep level of thinking. That's where you go down, I feel like the black holes of the internet and trying to understand what are people actually searching for and really listening in different way and questions, and it might sound silly, but little things, do they like Nespresso or are they more of a, I don't know, a Starbucks drinker? These nuances are little insights into the bigger psychographic of the individual. 

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Nick (28:39):

I would say the other side, all that's true. The other side of it's just to put teeth on this, so I haven't been specific enough, is usually a place to extract it is who works well, your business. So if you're a firm that does a lot of team-based stuff, then your ideal client likes that. If you're a firm that's very technical and delivers a lot of technical information and gives big investment reports, then your ideal client profile likes that; they're a technical person.

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Lauren (29:13):

Yep. That's so fair. 

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Nick (29:15):

You need to match your ICP. So sometimes the best way to extract an ICP is what we do all the time — let's go find more people who like our favorite clients. Otherwise, you develop that imaginary ICP who you have to rebuild your whole organization around and that's going to fail.

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Lauren (29:38):

Yeah. Or something where you're trying to force it and it just doesn't. Yeah. And I think that same kind of framework can apply to hiring as well. Absolutely. And then you can lean into those little, like the Nespresso example, right? It's like there's an energy here that just whatever it is, it matches our firm.

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Nick (29:57):

Yeah. I mean, one more quick example on that. We worked with a firm to do this kind of work, and one of the things in what we call the client profile is they want to feel exclusive. The client wants to feel like they went through the metaphoric glass door that tells you what kind of coffee to serve. Once you've decided your ideal client has an exclusivity bias, what they realized is their million-dollar client and their 50-million client both had an exclusivity bias. They wanted to feel like they were special. Then that tells you a lot of things: how to operate the office, what kind of coffee to serve, how to do a client intake. There's so many things that answers for you.

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Lauren (30:46):

And then there’s this example where it directly connects back to how marketing and operations and just across departments all work together. You're doing a client intake form that impacts marketing, how it's put together, the experience that's put together, so on and so forth. So just to try to connect the dots there too. Absolutely. Okay. So I got just a few more, we'll wrap it up. 

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Nick (31:10):

We'll go rapid fire. I'll be fast.

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Lauren (31:11):

Okay. Best practices if you're integrating outside agencies. So what should folks be asking themselves? What should they be preparing for? Are there any best practices to make sure the relationship yields results?

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Nick (31:27):

I think the first thing you want to know is what's normal for the agency you just hired. Because if you make them play left-handed and they’re right-handed, it's going to be bad. So some of this gets handled in the hiring of the agency. You want their normal engagement to feel good to you. If they normally sit in on internal meetings and you want them in internal meetings, then that's great. If you're like, hey, we need you to sit in our internal media. Maybe they're EOS, right? We want you to sit in our level 10 and they've never sat in a level 10 before.

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Lauren (32:00):

It's going to be like, whew.

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Nick (32:02):

It's going to be a mess. So some of that is in the hiring process in terms of just your own rule set. You want to make sure they have visibility to all the prerequisites to their success. So that's part of the agency conversation: What do you need to know? What do you need to see? What information do you need to have access to succeed?

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Lauren (32:29):

Yep.

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Nick (32:30):

Because the bulk of tactical marketing has a ton of prerequisites. So it's really getting agreement on how those prerequisites are going to happen and how they're going to have access to them.

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Lauren (32:42):

And being comfortable sharing all that. There's got to be a press from the beginning. If you're going, I don't want to hand over the keys to the castle, then that should also be a red flag, I think.

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Nick (32:51):

Yeah. Then you're going to get what you're going to get. 

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Lauren (32:53):

Information is knowledge and it's going to be able to help everybody win but it requires trust for that to be able to happen. Totally. Okay. Well, I want to wrap things up. Any final thoughts you want to share about just the role of the CMO? Just thoughts and for either folks in leadership, C-suite positions, or even for CMOs themselves?

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Nick (33:17):

Yeah, I would say if you're in a CMO/head of marketing role, you have to get really, really skilled in business strategy now, marketing strategy, business strategy.

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Lauren (33:29):

100%.

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Nick (33:31):

If you aren't on an aggressive growth curve with that, and I had the luxury, I came from an operation leadership role where I was overseeing tech operations, asset management, and marketing and seeing all those together. And I was doing a bunch of training too, so I could see how everything affected everything else. So I got a free education. If you're a CMO, you’ve got to be on an upward slope, find a way, and we have some tools that can help you with that that are free, that if you want, we can help you with that. If you're a business leader, 90% of the time the marketing questions you think you have are not about marketing, they're about growth. And you've got to make the growth decisions first and then make the marketing decisions. Unless you want to spend a bunch of money on tactics.

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Lauren (34:22):

Activities that can be like hamsters in the wheel. 

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Nick (34:28):

As a business leader, you have to be able to differentiate between your growth decisions and your marketing decisions. They are not the same.

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Lauren (34:34):

Yep. So well said. And that's also such great input too for folks who are thinking about hiring and what they would want to be able to define as success before they actually even put together a job description. Okay. Well, Nick, thank you so much for your time. I feel like we could talk here for hours, so I'll spare everyone, but this is so fun. So I just want to do a shoutout to you as I know you do tons of writing on LinkedIn. If you also go to additions.culture craft.com and there's a signup for your e-newsletter or what have you, and then you've got a growth checklist as well. Do you want to talk to that briefly? 

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Nick (35:11):

Yeah, you and I have talked about the Growth Check as well, that it's just this tool we can use. This is a paid service but it's a tool that we use. If you want that eight-week unlock. What Growth Check is for is it takes all the factors that are impacting growth in your organization. It peels them apart. We do some surveying, we do a bunch of other stuff, and then we give you a prioritization that says you can act on these things next and you can walk away from CultureCraft at that point and take your own journey. We can continue to support you but we really wanted to build this tool that allows people a very quick, very actionable, here's how we move forward next. So that's Growth Check; if that's useful to people, we have it available.

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Lauren (35:58):

Great. Thank you so much, Nick. We'll make sure to link to all that below and thank you for your time, for sharing your insights, and also just your deep expertise in this space across so many levels of seeing what the CMO role is or isn't, but then also just how it impacts so many other bigger picture questions. So thank you again.

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Nick (36:15):

Yeah, I enjoyed it. Thanks, Lauren.

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We talked with Bridget about:

• The importance of identifying and serving a niche demographic 
• The strategic move she made to expand her capacity to continue meeting the needs of her growing clientele
• How she paved the way for a seamless transition to bring her daughter Marnie on board as her future successor

About Bridget Venus Grimes

Bridget Venus Grimes is president and founder of WealthChoice. She launched her family firm in 2016 in response to the financial challenges faced by breadwinner women across the nation. Recognizing the need to expand her capacity to serve her growing clientele of over 65 families, she made the decision to bring her daughter Marnie on board. Through this strategic move, Bridget aims to ensure continuity and quality service for her clients while fostering a legacy of financial empowerment for future generations. With assets under management reaching $90 million, Bridget's dedication to providing comprehensive financial guidance while nurturing a successor reflects her passion for empowering women to make informed financial decisions. In her book, Corner Office Choices, Bridget compassionately guides women through the four financial derailers she has observed over time. With keen insight and unwavering dedication, she continues to support this dynamic group of women, addressing their unique challenges and empowering them to navigate their financial journey with confidence and clarity.

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Featured Resources 

• Bridget Venus Grimes on LinkedIn
• Bridget Venus Grimes on Facebook
• Bridget Venus Grimes on Instagram
• Get Bridget’s Book: Corner Office Choices
• Bridget’s Rethinking65 article: How I’m Solving My Practice’s Capacity Issue
• Bridget on the Kitces podcast: Finding Personal Scale By Leveraging Yourself Through Outsourced Delegation
• Marnie Bonner on LinkedIn

Enjoyed This? You’ll love:  

• How to Stand Out Through the Power of Niche Marketing with Kristen Luke
• Scale Your Financial Services Team By Hiring Military Spouses With Instant Teams with Erica McMannes
• Building a Community Around Your Story and Lessons You’ve Learned with Jully-Alma Taveras

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Full Audio Transcript:

Lauren (00:05):

Well, you all are in for a treat today. We have Bridget Venus Grimes joining us, the founder of WealthChoice among a number of other different roles, including she's on the CFP® Board. And well, I'll let her get into all of it but what is going to be really fun for us to be able to dive into today is how she has actually brought her daughter into the firm and what that process has been like to be able to train her and really bring her into the fold. So I'm going to hand it over to you to share a little bit more about your background and then we'll get into the details of bringing on the next gen into your firm.

Bridget (00:42):

Sure. And Lauren, thank you so much for having me. I am really excited to be here. So just a little bit about me. I launched the firm almost eight years ago, September 2016. And really just in response to a whole bunch of issues I'm sure we can get into in a few minutes. So run WealthChoice; our clients are what I call breadwinner women. So they're women who have a ton of stuff on their plates and their career. Their income is really what we need to leverage to drive everything they want to do in life. So those are my people. Basically it's a virtual practice. I'm sitting here in an office in Coronado, California, where I do have a physical office but nobody comes to since my clients are all over the country. I have not met most of them in person and probably never will. Totally.

Lauren (01:36):

Oh my goodness.

Bridget (01:37):

Yeah, that's a unique component.

Lauren (01:39):

Yes. Okay.

Bridget (01:41):

We were ready for COVID because we were already remote.

Lauren (01:43):

Yeah, you were already there.

Bridget (01:46):

So that is how we run. We're super deep financial planning. I also co-run a co-founded firm called Equita Financial Network, which provides the platform for my firm and we'll talk more about that too but we also make it available to other fee-only women-led firms around the country. So I started WealthChoice really because of my experience in financial planning. And I'll tell you, it was either launch a firm or leave the industry. That's kind of where I was. This can be a very difficult industry for women. So I had started in 1986 trading at a hedge fund in Manhattan. And so my entry to the financial industry was I was on the buy side trading for many years and actually wound up absolutely hating it.

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It's trading, it's not investing to me and didn't resonate with me but it was kind of an interesting way to get into the industry. Anyway, I left the industry and came back when I got divorced and I really wanted to serve women who looked just like me. So I got into the industry, started at a wirehouse, which is a super easy way to do this. Build your own practice definitely wasn't the model I wanted for myself and my clients. And so I transitioned to a fee-only RIA in San Diego, where I was for a number of years. And I was serving women like me, a lot of women attorneys, but really wound up being very frustrated. I was told I was too ambitious. I had asked our owner, hey, what's it going to take to get into management? And was pretty much shut down. Like, hey, it's not an option. And that was pretty disappointing. I worked really hard and I figured the harder I worked, it would all work out and that's not how it works. Also found out I was paid 50% of my male peers, and that is a truth, just a bunch of frustrations.

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I really looked for another role out there and I realized I pretty much wasn't going to find anything different with the lateral move. And one of my mentors, JD Bruce, an awesome guy who was running Abacus at the time, said, Bridget, you're only going to be happy if you launch your own company. And so hence comes WealthChoice.

Lauren (04:14):

That was eight years ago.

Bridget (04:16):

That was eight years ago, and it's been an amazing ride.

Lauren (04:19):

Oh my goodness. Okay. So tell me more about how you got that firm going where you are, and then I'd love to hear about this component of bringing your daughter aboard to the firm.

Bridget (04:29):

Sure. So when I had left that RIA, it was a broker protocol firm, which means you're allowed to take certain information with you, which is great. But I was also only allowed to take the clients I had brought with me from my wirehouse. For some bizarre reason I had put that in my contract even though I never planned on ever leaving. So that was really a good thing and I would say ended up working out.

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Do that, do that; you just don't know the future. But when I left, I had zero revenue and I had a very big mortgage and two children in college and I said this had better work out. So no pressure. Good news is my father runs a company, he's an entrepreneur. And he had said to me, okay, you need a business plan. You need to figure out how many clients do I need to get in when, how much revenue do I need to have when? So I was just super heavy in clients who found me, and had a really good strategy my attorney helped me with. And then just a ton of business development. I love to write, I love to speak. So I was really focused on that. And then a year and a half later I wrote a book. So I thought that would super help with credibility and that was really helpful. But really just boots on the ground, I'm going to bring in clients. And I had built this amazing website and I thought it really spoke to my client base, and that's how we started. And it's just been really a lot of work but really rewarding.

Lauren (06:04):

So you really went in with clarity around who you were going to serve. Not dependent on a particular geography but just really that audience. And then it sounds like you were able to leverage, it sounds like centers of influence through an attorney you said you were working with or what have you.

Bridget (06:21):

Yeah, so I think the niche is critical, and I know Kitces speaks on this nonstop and he's right. So I have always had a specific niche. Like I said, when I got into this industry, it was to help women like me. So breadwinner women who have a ton of things on their plate, aging parents, kids, husbands, partners, you name it. And so I have just continued to serve those women and there are very specific needs and challenges this demographic has. So our firm focuses on, hey, here are these challenges and we know the solutions and we look like you because we are you. The niche is really important.

Lauren (07:00):

So it sounds like you built your processes, procedures, your messaging, and it sounds like also where you're spending your time really reaching out and talking to this demographic. Is that all fair to say? And I'm assuming your book is also aligned to this audience as well?

Bridget (07:14):

Absolutely. In fact, the book's called Corner Office Choices, and it speaks to the four, what I say, the four derailers are for these women, financial derailers I've just seen over time. If they only knew to do these four things they would all be in better shape financially. So it's kind of like a how-to book but it also was a book for my peers because I thought we were doing a lousy job of guiding this group of women because they really do have very specific challenges and needs that are unique.

Lauren (07:43):

It's so true. I know you can't kind of talk to everyone or it all kind of washes out. So yes, and I feel like we could go a whole deep dive on that component. Now you're starting to talk my language again into the marketing world, target market and what have you. Also, Kristen Luke's another one who has a great whole process on that and really building out that audience as well. So critical to go deep in and know who you're talking with. Let's shift a little bit to talk about really the shift in your business to be able to bring on your daughter. What was the trigger for that? Why her? Were you at a place where you were looking for talent? I'd love to hear a little bit more about that and then where you are in the process.

Bridget (08:24):

So this is years in the making. My firm has $90 million of assets under management. And so I had heard years ago from some industry resource that when you got to $35 million of AUM, you're going to need to add some help. Well, $85 million came and went, and like I said earlier, I delegate a lot of the work in my practice. So I have an outsourced CI, I have a trading team, I have a bookkeeper, you name it. I have really good people in those seats through that other company that provides this suite of business resources. But I never outsource the planning. I love financial planning. I love the relationship part. I love doing deep dives. I want to be here when a client's like, hey, I want to buy a house. What should I do? Should I lease a car? Should I rent a car? I want to be available to my clients for that because I feel like those financial decisions can really make a difference. 

Lauren (09:32):

They're personal. They're big. So you need a trusted resource when you're going to make those big decisions.

Bridget (09:37):

You so do. And I want to be there for my clients. So I have 65 families I work for, it's like almost 100 people. And I found I was not able to do the deep work I love doing. I was now fully at capacity. Like I said, I never brought anyone on to help me with the planning part. I didn't want to give it up. And I realized I just couldn't do the quality of work I really was proud of. And I mean, I love the work I do but I had moved away from special projects for clients throughout the year, and I wanted to get back to that. So the only way to do that was of course to bring in help. And I talked to my daughter, she's almost 27, and so out of college a few years, and I had talked to her a few years ago about, hey, would you ever be interested in financial planning? And we talked a little bit and we thought maybe, yeah, who knows? Planted the seed. But she was a business major from college, and she worked in a finance role in tech, so she's made great money.

Lauren (10:46):

Oh yeah, she'd already been there.

Bridget (10:49):

The only thing was she was working with numbers. She's super smart, really driven, but there was no people component. It's a lot of numbers but no people, and she's a really great people person. So we kept checking in on that, and then I said, hey, Marnie, is this something you're really serious about? Because if it is, we need a plan. And so she actually, a couple years ago said, so I'm going to study for the CFP®.

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And I said, okay, great. So on her dime on her time. And she then said, okay, I'm willing to commit to you. And we did an internship last year. She would sit in toward the latter half of the year on client meetings just for me to make sure, is this really what you want to do because this is going to be a lot of work for me. Long story short, we signed a letter of intent — I'm like, this is a business deal — at the end of year. And she started working for WealthChoice as a W2 employee on January 1.

Lauren (11:48):

Okay.

Bridget (11:49):

Yeah. So this is real.

Lauren (11:53):

This is the real deal.

Bridget (11:55):

And so she's got a hybrid role. I do not plan to retire. I love our industry. My business model for my firm is I do this until I can't because it's very gratifying. I don't have a vision of retirement where I play golf or pickleball. My vision of retirement is I work part time and I can travel but I see my father who is still running a business at 86, who is very viable. The guy's amazing but he's also cognitively aware and he feels fulfilled. That I think is critical. So that's my vision for myself. But that said, I definitely need somebody who's a clone of me. So Marnie's job, my daughter, Marnie Bonner, her job is really to become incredibly good at financial planning, an expert in that space but also a business owner, somebody who will know how to run this company because we solos, we wear two hats, business owner, and we take care of clients. So how do you do both? Well, she's getting a crash course on everything.

Lauren (13:13):

Can you tell me more about that crash course? I feel, I mean, I felt that too, right? Growing a business and then that first hire is a big one. You've got a lot of stuff that's packed in your head that you have to really think about, how am I going to help to transition this, fold them and help them learn along the way? I mean, onboarding, you're in the throes of all of that. What have you done? I mean, I'm sure that's naturally happened just over the years of her seeing you and watching and learning but what kind of systems have you put in place to help her be able to lean in and really see you in action and brain dump, for lack of better words, of all the things, right? 

Bridget (13:52):

Yeah, there's a lot there. So we started with a really tight onboarding plan, and I reached out to some great resources. Dimensional Funds has this amazing practice management arm, and we're a DFA shop. So you know what? They spent a lot of time with me — here's how we would figure out compensation, this is what onboarding should look like, this is what you should do in terms of timelines, in terms of responsibility. They were fabulous. The CFP® Board has amazing resources. And then I reached out to peers. And so by the time she started, we had a very tight onboarding plan from timeline to responsibilities. And so really, I feel like my gift is not managing people. And I was really stressed out about how I do not know how to manage. I do not know how to train. I just know how to do; I know financial planning inside and out but I have never had to train a person. And so it was really partially for myself to make sure if we had this really great outline of what she accomplished, it would help me make sure we stayed on track. So we put together the onboarding and we had really good resources behind us. We use Advyzon for portfolio performance and CRM; it is fabulous. I’m really close to the guys who launched Advyzon; we were early adopters and they keep enhancing that. So one of her goals is to master our tech because I have not had time to dig deep enough.

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She spends time on our workflows, putting them in and everything is how do we systematize better than I have done when you're cobbling it together between everything else you're doing. So really getting her to focus on, okay, here are the different resources we have access to; now master them and incorporate those in our client meetings. So she's done a really great job. It's so funny. So many people ask me, hey, how's it going? Friends, family, peers are like, so how is that going? And it's going great. I'm not kidding. It's beyond my expectations. Part of it might be that she drives herself really hard, and I don't think she wants to disappoint me.

Lauren (16:20):

A natural. She's got a natural sort of entrepreneurial spirit about her, which is I think critical as a small business is you need that entrepreneurial kind of energy. So not who knows what do I do but providing those recommendations, doing the research, pulling it together, finding that sort of cut of person is not always an easy,

Bridget (16:44):

No, it's not. And I'll tell you, it's a crapshoot, right? You don't know. Do you really know your child? And their work ethic. So I had made it clear, I am not a micromanager. I'm training her. I meet every single day. And Monday and Friday we have really deep dive meetings. Like Monday is, hey, well, here's what's going on this week. Friday is how did that go? What could we have done better? And then daily, it's like, hey, let's just check in. Did you have questions? So we've got a lot of framework but at the same time my expectation is that she’s doing her thing. She’s in Manhattan. 

Lauren (17:20):

Oh wow, and you're in San Diego. Yeah, you're coast to coast.

Bridget (17:23):

We have tasks we create in our CRM, so we know what our responsibilities are, and she just does it. But you don't know when you hire a child, are they going to show up? Are they just going to take a paycheck? And so it's been really, really rewarding. It's been really successful.

Lauren (17:47):

Yeah. Well, hats off to you too, for taking the time and resources to be able to reach out to connections and then to be able to put together that plan. I feel like so much of, if the front work is done, it makes it just all kind of go downhill from there, assuming you've got the right fit and everything for the role, it almost seems like you've got a great template that then you can adjust. Did you want to hire more folks? 

Bridget (18:11):

Yeah, I don't know if that's the vision, honestly, but who knows, right? I never thought I'd sit here and be talking to you about bringing my daughter on as a mother-daughter team.

Lauren (18:21):

So I had talked with Stevyn, who owns Grow Wellthy™, and she had seen her father grow up in the advisory space, and then she spun off at a business. I interviewed her a few months ago, and it's all about health and well-being specifically for advisors. And so I think one of the things she probably alluded to earlier, she's seen in the space what that's like and to be able to grow up with that and the kind of energy it takes to really go all in. So that training seems like it was sort of built in the ethos. 

Bridget (18:54):

Yeah, it's funny because she does work I was doing before, and she said, I don't know how you did this, because I did both roles, right? I just said, so this is why my children think all I do is work. I'm like, so yeah, that's kind of all I did was work because there's so much to do. And so now it is actually really nice to have someone who's helping me with analysis for client reviews so I can spend some time on business development and marketing.

Lauren (19:22):

Absolutely. You can put your energy toward that. Sounds like she's got an operations component to what she's taking on. Are you already bringing her into client meetings as well?

Bridget (19:30):

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. She's up and running. She's a sponge. So at every client meeting, she's in there, she takes notes. She's actually just starting to contribute. We've got an agenda. Our meeting structure is really good. It's very repetitive. So she's got, man, I think at this point she's probably been in 30-something, maybe 40 meetings at this point because we are very heavy on meetings in the beginning of the year. And then she will follow up with the clients that this is what we heard. These are action items we've identified. She actually is, because she's taken the CFP® coursework and because she's interned and we spend a lot of time in financial planning together, she's helping with analysis for prep work for these.

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She's deep in the numbers and the weeds. Yeah, this is a crash course. You will be a financial planner.

Lauren (20:26):

You're jumping into the deep end. And then just, I want to be mindful of time here. There's a few other questions for you too. So I also see you're in a unique situation, right? Solo firm, moving into family business. I also see multi-generational family businesses, not just in this space but in other industries as well. Is there anything, especially since you did so much upfront due diligence and putting together the onboarding and talking with folks, were there any common themes you saw across the board? Was it that onboarding was really critical? Was it that it really needed to be treated like really extra lean into that, more business engagement? Are there any themes you saw that you would like to make sure people here, if they're entertaining bringing on their child, or they're thinking about that succession and bringing them into a leadership role and their active business, are aware of?

Bridget (21:18):

I guess it starts with what's the vision for your firm. If you're building a firm to sell it, I don't even know if it makes sense to bring in a family member. And really, when I made the decision, I had my firm valued a couple of years ago, and the expectation was you build it to grow and sell it, and then you retire somewhere. And when I changed my vision for my firm, I thought it would be terrific to have her here as a successor. Now, like I said, I don't plan on leaving and God willing, I could stay a long time but ultimately Marnie will probably take over this business. I would hope so. I think depending on what your vision is for the firm, I think it could make sense to bring a child on. I think you also have to be really clear on how you separate family from business. And I think that's an advantage for us working remotely because she's got her private life and I have my life but when we're on a call, even at the end of the day and we review, we are business, we don't talk about personal life. We really have limitations, very clear barriers. I think it's something to think about for folks if you bring a child on, and I was advised to be really clear with what's business and what's personal by one of my peers who really helped me with Marnie's onboarding.

Lauren (22:47):

That's fair. And I'm sure as you proceed forward, you sort of continuously draw those lines in the sand for what that looks like, I would assume.

Bridget (22:56):

Yeah.

Lauren (22:57):

Yes. Oh my goodness. Well, any other final thoughts? I know before we originally were chatting, I know there's a Kitces podcast you did where you talk a little bit more about the delegation component and what have you, and some other articles we'll make sure to share in here as well. Are there any other final thoughts you think would be helpful to share for folks who are in a position where they're looking to bring on a family member or any tips?

Bridget (23:19):

Sure. Yeah. I've had a number of people ask me, peers ask me how I did it. And they have children who they think could be a good fit for their firms. I would say I would encourage anyone to do it. I mean, obviously it depends on the child and it depends on the business structure. But I would absolutely encourage folks to think about that. To think about bringing on a child. I think it's a natural successor, and I would be happy to talk to anybody who had any questions about it. There's a mom perspective about bringing your daughter on and a business perspective — they need to align and make sense. But I'll tell you, it has been absolutely rewarding to have her on and to see her grow and to see her really get up to speed and take initiative and get stuff done and do a really good job and actually really help the business get better. So to that end, I wrote an article on Rethinking65 that covers a lot of these details too. When I spoke to Kitces this last fall, we really were talking about how do you scale? And a lot of this that we didn't really cover was by bringing Marnie on, we can bring on clients. I was absolutely at capacity.

Lauren (24:36):

Even though you're outsourcing other components, now you've really got someone who’s deep into it. Someone who can get into the planning side of it or get at least their kind of feet wet with it a little bit.

Bridget (24:49):

Yes, absolutely. So our goal is to bring on 40 awesome clients within five years, and then I think we're probably going to be done. We'll see. I mean, I know I probably should not say, but yeah. So there was no way I could bring any more people on and do really good work myself.

Lauren (25:06):

Yeah, that's fair. And it's honorable too, right? You've had a capacity and you want to be able to lean into, pour as much as you can to your clients. Oh, well, this is great. Thank you so much for sharing a little bit more about your journey, especially since it's so fresh that she's come on relatively recently. And to be able to see the success so quickly I think is also, like I mentioned earlier, a tribute to all the effort you put initially but then also her pouring into it as well. So thank you for sharing your story.

Bridget (25:34):

You're welcome. And thanks for having me.

Lauren (25:36):

Absolutely. We'll make sure to link to your website below and those articles we mentioned too. So thank you.

Bridget (25:42):

You are welcome.

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We talked with Ellie Alexander, Jimmy Lim and Tiffany Silverberg about:

• Reasons your company might need a website redesign
• Why identifying your target audience is important 
• What we use to organize and plan before designing a website
• The process of finalizing the design and copy elements  

About Jimmy, Tiffany, and Ellie:

Step into the dynamic world of website redesigns with the directors team at Out & About Communications. Ellie Alexander, our design director; Jimmy Lim, our marketing director; and Tiffany Silverberg, our content director, are experts on the intricacies of website redesigns, and all the elements needed to help breathe new life into your online presence. From crafting the initial wireframe to creating compelling design elements and meaningful copy, our directors take a client-centric approach while guiding businesses through this journey, and also share their insider’s perspective on the evolution of our very own Out & About website redesign. 

Featured Resources 

• Ellie’s On Purpose Interview about Logo Redesign
• Tiffany’s On Purpose Interview about Brand Personalities
• OutAndAboutCommunications.com 

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Lauren (00:05):

All right, so you are in for a treat today. We have our director's team at Out & About here for our On Purpose interview. I'm going to let each of them introduce themselves but we are really looking forward to chatting about website redesigns today. So we're going to get into the whole process, what it's like, and specifically we're going to talk about our website — Out & About Communications. We just redid our brand. We'll talk to that more in a minute. And now the next big hunky item is a website redo. So before we get into all that and what the process is like, I'm going to go ahead and do a round of intros. So Jimmy, why don't we start with you?

Jimmy (00:40):

Okay, cool. So I'm Jimmy; I'm the marketing director. At Out & About, I help clients come up with strategy, of course working with the rest of the directors team to determine how to get clients to where they want to go. And I'm excited to share more about our website today. On to Tiffany.

Tiffany (01:01):

I'm Tiffany. I'm the content director. I help our clients find their brand voice and make sure all the communications written especially really align with that brand voice and as well as their goals. So making sure everything is pointed to the target market and all of that. All words basically come through me and that's what I do. So on to Ellie.

Ellie (01:30):

Yeah, thanks. So I'm Ellie Alexander. I'm the design director here at Out & About. And so what Tiffany is to words and voice I am to visuals and design, whether that's helping one of our clients build a brand from the ground up and like, oh my gosh, we're starting at zero. What does that then look like? And working with our team of designers to craft that or further on down the line when we've got everything locked and loaded and we're rocking and rolling, just making sure the brands and visuals all stay consistent. So that's my world.

Lauren (01:54):

Awesome. So websites are sometimes put out there in the world quickly. You can literally redo a website overnight, 24 hours, you've got a brand new website and it is exactly what you want. Well, we are here to tell you that while you can make that happen, it's probably not going to be exactly what you want because websites are kind of like mini business plans. It really forces you if you're really doing them end to end to go through a bigger picture exercise and really think about how you want to be positioning yourself, especially in this very digital day and age. Your website is sort of like your office front. It's really that first introduction that a prospect — warm or cold — is going to have to your brand. So we, in another episode we can link to, went through a whole rebranding exercise. Ellie was on that and talked about what our whole brand looks like.

I’m very, very proud to be able to put that out there and shout out, major shout out to you, Ellie, and to the team for the work that was done on that and all the compliments and things we've been receiving. So very proud to be able to put that out there. But that was a lot of whole exercises to go through. So now we're going through the whole website component. So what we're going to do here is we're going to talk through what the stages look like. We're going to go through our wireframing, which is our first stage — really strategy heavy and really thinking through those big picture components. We're going to get to the design side of it and how you show it visually and the copy, how those are married together, and then the build and launch. But really with the team here, we're going to focus on those first two phases, the wireframing and copy and design. We'll get into just a little bit of the build too but before we get into all of that, why don't we start with why in the world would you do a website redesign because it is such a darn hunky project. So, anyone just want to speak to that before we get into the different phases?

Jimmy (03:38):

I can add to that. So I think we would kind of visit the idea of a website refresh or website redesign for a couple of reasons, starting with evolution within the company. You have new service offerings, your team has changed significantly. You're doing something different or new technology, maybe there's a function for those that are selling consumer products, they have the WhatsApp chat function. That could be something that's helpful to customer service. They could just do a web refresh. Sometimes it's like living in the same house but you just want a fresh coat of paint to make it look fresher. People who come to your house just feel like, oh, okay, it's a little bit different.

Lauren (04:24):

Any other thoughts?

Ellie (04:27):

Yeah, I echo everything Jimmy said but especially if you or your audience has changed, I think that's a big one. Maybe your website is technically fine, it works, it's on brand, maybe it's not. But yeah, if you've realized your company has changed enough that your website now appeals to the wrong group of people or you need to hone in more on a specific subset of who it should appeal to, whether that's what it says, the content, or the design or this is going back and I hope nobody is like this, but if it is not mobile friendly, if your website is so old that it is the same on a desktop computer as it is in a mobile device, it’s definitely time. Definitely time. I think most people have caught up to there but there are still a few stragglers out there. 

Lauren (05:09):

Tiffany, any thoughts too?

Tiffany (05:11):

Yeah, I mean I think they've pretty much covered it but I think the only other thing is just, well, I always say your website should work hard for you. It should be an asset. And so I guess just the other layer is if it's not really serving you or doing what you want it to do, I think it's easy to consider a change. To your point earlier, that turnaround, 24 hours thing, it's easy to just slap a logo on and type some copy and I have a website but there's so many things your website could be doing, whether it's SEO or maybe it's a lead generation tool or it's figuring out that passive marketing for you, what you want that to be doing and then building it from there. 

Ellie (05:54):

Yeah, that's a good point, Tiffany. There's a big difference between having a website and having a targeted strategic, accessible, SEO-optimized website. It's night and day.

Tiffany (06:05):

Exactly. And that's where it becomes a whole redesign. So with some clients, we do just pop in and make a few tweaks. We're not looking to make big changes. But the question of why do a redesign is for this: let's just take it all down to the ground and rebuild based on what sort of strategic decisions we want to make.

Lauren (06:22):

Yeah, that house analogy is a really good one, Tiffany, that you were alluding to, and Jimmy as well. So let's talk about the break it all down component, the first phase. So Jimmy, can you talk us through that wireframing phase? What's it about? If you were going into that phase, what should you be prepared for? Tell us a little bit more about what that looks like.

Jimmy (06:41):

Yeah, I think it's really about just thinking about the target audience, who will be using the website, who do we want to attract? And then how they will be using it and then why they would be there, how they would get there. All of these questions usually, why? And then really building that out, putting yourself into the shoes of both the company that's having the website, and also the user, how we want them to navigate it, leaving little breadcrumbs and they're following a certain path you want them to follow. I think that really helps with the wireframing that intention.

Lauren (07:21):

You mind sharing a little bit more about what an information architecture is or kind of navigation and what a wireframe is. You hear these words and they're very jargony, and what would that kind of deliverable look like if you were to receive that once we've started to unpack those big picture questions?

Jimmy (07:38):

Yeah, I think it's always helpful to start with the information architecture, which really is almost like building a web, a food chain and then, oh, this is a homepage, this leads to this. It's just a visual representation of where content sits and how it's organized in an optimal way. And then from there you could take each component, which will be the webpage, and then you take it, build it, another visual around it, and then just, yeah, it looks like a website but it's just a webpage but it's just really a skeletal outline.

Lauren (08:12):

Yeah. It makes me think about if you were to go in and write a piece, you write a blog post or what have you, it's like that outline before you actually get into filling it in and that wireframing. And then I love this kind of skeletal idea of information architecture because it really helps you think about what's the organization. It's like if you've got a file cabinet but nothing's labeled and it's all kind of shoved in there; it really helps to get through that organization. And then Jimmy, how long does that process normally take in that kind of phase one engagement? A lot of meetings? What is that kind of like? What's the responsibility at someone else's end?

Jimmy (08:48):

Yeah, I think it really depends on how intricate all the pages are, how many pages. I think that influences it as well. I would say maybe first we'll have obviously a meeting with the client, kind of understand where they're at, what kind of content, just what the why is and things like that. And then once we have that, really it's building that information architecture. I would say that takes maybe a week or so, and then another maybe another week or two back and forth with the client to just get it ironed out. Then we build web pages themselves, the wireframe, so the individual pages. So yeah, I think that whole stage, depending again on the pages, if we're talking just a simple website, maybe six, eight weeks to be complete, I think.

Lauren (09:39):

Yeah, something around that. It can really ebb and flow depending on the number of templates or versions or things of that sort. It's part of the creative process but that sounds about right. Okay. So wireframe is a big component. Any key players who should be in those conversations too that you would want to make sure are helping to shape that? Just to go back to that initial discovery, who would you want to have in that call?

Jimmy (10:04):

From the client side, I think the sales team for sure. I think that would be helpful because again, the website is very much a part of the sales process nowadays. I mean, it's part of the puzzle. So I think the sales team's input would help. Obviously the marketing person, I think that would help because they would really understand their target audience really, really well and how that whole process of sales just unfolds. So we want to make sure they are involved so the website really just fits nicely and helps to move things along faster instead of causing hindrance.

Lauren (10:48):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then I know sometimes we've brought in key leadership just depending on the size of the company or what have you to help shape things out. So I love that point about the sales team because that's so true. That's a kind of marriage between sales and marketing, making sure that's brought out as well. So thank you, Jimmy. We'll jump over to Ellie. I want to hear about phase two when we get into the design component of it and the copy and the marriage between those. So once we've got the wireframing in place, I know we have an internal handoff here to make sure we're all on the same page. And Ellie, maybe we'll transition from Jimmy to Ellie here. What does that look like for you? Where do you even start? Sometimes people want to go in a totally different direction. They're like, my website was built in the ‘90s. So tell us about that.

Ellie (11:34):

Yeah, it's a whole can of worms. They can go a couple different ways but I think in an ideal world, I'm going to assume we have, even if the website's really old, I'm going to assume we have some sort of updated brand guidelines. If you do have a website that is 15 years old and you're doing a complete flip, you want to make sure you have something on the horizon set you're working toward. So whether we could use that website as a use case or a proof of concept for what the new brand would look like. And then that kind of becomes its own exercise as saying like, okay, we don't know what this brand is going to look like or we're evolving yours. We'll use the homepage to kind of figure out what feels right. And sometimes we have clients with a print piece, if they just have a print piece on hand, you're like, okay, we need to update our onboarding brochure.

And sometimes then we'll use that as our example piece to kind of drive a new brand. But yet you could absolutely use a website. But then let's say you had the brand all figured out, then I think the next stage would be just asking lots of questions because sometimes designers may or may not have been, and myself may or may not have been in certain conversations but okay, why is this on the wireframe? What functionality do we need it to have? So having that meeting where we probably pepper Jimmy with lots of annoying questions like, okay, what do you mean by this? What kind of stuff is going to be in this dropdown? What do you need? What's the user going to do here to make sure we really holistically just get the brain dump of everything on that website so we understand it frontwards, backwards, inside and out. And then we can kind of start making sure the functionality is there underlying, and then start putting the brand frosting on top.

Lauren (13:05):

Yes, I know, I love that. The brand frosting. That's so fun. Tell me a little bit more about that. That website is so critical to all the other pages, the homepage. So you've got your global elements, your header, your footer, your typography. How do you go about choosing that brand frosting, if you will, like you said, to really spice it up because web design's different from print design. So what's the direction you're giving to our designers to really be able to help bring out that feel for the client?

Ellie (13:43):

Well, I think a big part of it too is I am kind of getting into actually the tactical weeds. Part of it is knowing what platform we're designing for. Are we building this website on Webflow where we have lots of creative freedom and we can, whatever we envision with this brand, whether it's really expressive, big animations or huge type more of sky is the limit type thing. Or let's say we're doing a smaller website that may need to be updated more frequently. So we're using a more user-friendly platform like Squarespace where the client could kind of go in and do their own updates but then our designs are a lot more limited on what we can do, the capabilities. So then it becomes more of an exercise of, okay, how can we bring maximum brand personality into a platform that might already be pretty locked down?

Lauren (14:28):

Okay. So do you mind sharing a little bit more about our website? We're going through that whole design process. I mean, we did the information architecture and Jimmy, we can swing back to that process for us too. But the design was such a critical component because we had just gone through that branding exercise. How did you go about bringing that to life? And is there anything that came out of that that you're like, yeah, that feels totally like us. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about our design process in particular, right?

Ellie (15:03):

Yeah, I think a big part for us too, and I think would be the case for lots of brands, but yeah, as you said, we already had new brand guidelines. We kind of knew what the brand could look like. We had our colors, we had our illustration style, we had the logo but we hadn't yet designed any big full pieces. So sometimes you think you look at brand guidelines and that should tell you exactly what everything should look like and it can but even within that, it's like, okay, we use those fun kind of limey to turquoise gradients. How much of that is on the page? If three chords are on the page, it's full of brightly colored gradients, it gets a totally different vibe than if, okay, we use that very sparingly or how much of the black we were using. We had all the parts and pieces but it was kind of like, okay, what are we maxing up? What are we trimming down to find just that right balance of how all those pieces interact.

Lauren (15:54):

So right. And then just to layer in there for us as we were building out our brand, we had to even start to create social media graphics and different things as a baseline. So we kind of knew how it would play. But Ellie, you did such a great job of leading the team to really say, now how does that translate into digital experience? Can you also talk a little bit more to the animation component, right? Because it’s not just designing flat files. What does that kind of show up as someone who's actually reviewing a design before it's going to be built?

Ellie (16:29):

Yeah. Well, I think we are, in this case, we are really blessed to have a really talented developer working with us. Josefina is just fantastic. And so it's been such an asset to have, because I can visualize, wouldn't it be neat if the animation does this or wouldn't it be neat if the animation does that? So can our designer but we were able to just say, okay, we know we want this to move. This is what we're thinking, Josefina — what can Webflow do? What have you seen out there? Because she’s probably closer to the web industry and where trends are going. So we could kind of seed her with, okay, we're thinking this, we want it to feel this way. And she could almost always take it up a notch, be like, oh, I see what you're saying. What about we do this? Or, okay, this new thing is trending. Oh, this is going away because of X, Y, Z. So in terms of animation, she could really point us in the direction of, okay, and also what's feasible. There might be two options that are equally great. Oh, we could animate it like this. Oh, we could animate it like this. This might take 10 hours, this might take one. And really, we like them the same amount. So then let's go with the more efficient one, all things being equal.

Lauren (17:29):

Totally. I mean, to Jimmy's point earlier about having the marketing sales team in the discovery, there's a marriage, there's a marriage also between design and development. And if you break out the two, I feel like the outcome isn't as strong. Okay, super. I want to make sure we get Tiffany in here. So once we've got our design, we've got our framing and everything in place, we've got our designs, then there's that. Maybe we kind of talk about that handoff again. And how do you make sure it doesn't feel like copy's just like, hey, I'm over here and the design's over here and they're not really like, so Tiffany, do you mind talking about that too? Some people are visual, some people are words people. Do you partner with Ellie too and the client to make sure we get really that right voice and tone that goes, they're talking to me.

Tiffany (18:16):

Yeah. Well, I was just thinking about that. I mean, as far as the actual workflow, copy does come at the end technically but I think part of it is just the three of us work together really closely all the time, and I think it's just a lot of communication. So I'm talking with Jimmy as the wireframe is being built out; do we need this kind of content? What kind of story would we tell here? That kind of thing. And the same thing with Ellie. She'll come to me like, should we do this picture or this? What kind of story are we trying to tell so when it does come to the copy stage, I mean technically we're kind of in a box now, the design is all built out and the Lorem Ipsum is there but really we've been working together all along. So we sort of know what each of those sections or whatever is going to say. So then it's just pulling out the voice and the details of who are we going to talk to and what are we going to say, which words would they use? So yeah, I think that's a big part of it, just staying involved in the process.

Lauren (19:11):

And Tiffany, how do you, even the question to Ellie initially, how do you tee that up with a writer? Because there's so many different styles of writing, technicality, voice tone, and then being able to really get inside the prospect. So when they're reading that, they go, they're talking to me, this feels like me. What's that evolution to be able to get from concept to actually reading it on the page?

Tiffany (19:36):

Yeah, I mean, I think to Ellie's point earlier, if we have a good brand guide in place, that really helps if we sort of know where we're trying to go. I mean, we'll always say this, the three of us, but if we have a brand personality that's super helpful if we know what we're trying to get to. So that does help. But even then, I mean I think this is the unpopular answer but the reality is that there's going to be a lot of give and take and back and forth with the client. Even with ourselves, there was a lot of, that word doesn't feel right, I would actually write this. And I think just being open to that process really helps because websites are very close to us but words are also very close to us. And so I think just being open to, okay, we know that's what we wanted to say generally but we'll make a couple tweaks here and there and make changes and just work through it.

Lauren (20:26):

So well said. I know at that stage in review, we've sometimes had sales folks come in and even take a look at it too.

Tiffany (20:33):

It really helps to have the key players involved because to Jimmy's point, sales is going to be using these pages all the time, or the team is going to be using these all the time. So they really to make sure, we would never use that word, and sometimes nobody would know that until it's actually, honestly, maybe none of us would know that but nobody would notice it either until it's in the design stage or even on the staging site, like, oh, now it's standing out to me. We would never say that. So I think just again, being open to the process and working together is really important.

Lauren (21:13):

Absolutely. And one of the things I really enjoy is that we take the design and we drop the copy in there.

Tiffany (21:18):

Yeah, exactly. It feels way different.

Lauren (21:19):

I feel like reading copy off a document versus in the design — Tiffany, anything you want to share regarding that, and even Jimmy, sometimes you play in there, you're like, okay but this is what we meant for it to go for this, or why did it go this direction? Because fill in the blank. So yeah, anything about that stage, this is pre-built. 

Ellie (21:43):

So yeah, one part of the iterative process is as we've been saying in general, it goes from wireframing, then we go to design and then copy generally kind of right to the design. If we realize, oh, we need much more content here, it might come back to design and we might adjust something to make room for the content or vice versa. But another thing we intentionally did was, especially across the site in the hero components or when there was a really big callout or a big piece of beauty copy, we knew there was going to be some big statement here, and we knew it was going to hit home some message but we didn't know exactly what the words were going to say. We didn't waste our time yet going and finding the perfect image to go with that because in all likelihood, we could kind of steer the design, the image could have steered the copywriter in a direction that might not have been as impactful or just might not have made sense. So we said, okay, we know there's going to be some big beautiful statement here. We're just not going to worry about what imagery goes with that until it's written, and then we'll come back and we'll find the perfect image to correspond with that copy.

Lauren (22:43):

Any other thoughts too? So well said, and I love you. You'll do the for placement only, just like, hey, we could go down a whole rabbit hole finding the perfect one but then it just doesn't match the copy. You're right. They have to speak to each other.

Tiffany (22:56):

So it's just a matter of working closely together. And as I was saying, it's just about telling the right story. So sometimes that comes from the image first and sometimes it comes from the words — because we've built sites too where we've put so much effort into an animation and it doesn't matter what the words say. That's the story, and then we will tell the story with the words later. So sometimes it goes either way.

Jimmy (23:21):

Yeah, I just want to add that this whole process, as much as we described it in almost like a linear way, it's not playing the telephone game where the information goes one way. There's back and forth. So maybe at Tiffany's stage, she may come back and say, hey, when you put this here, what was your intention? Even right down in the design stage or sometimes when everything's laid out, and then it's kind of back my way, kind of like, okay, did this kind of fit with that initial vision? And it's everybody's vision. It's not my vision. It's not just the client's vision. It's like a collaborative vision to make sure it works for everyone because it has to.

Ellie (23:59):

Yeah, the iterative process isn't like this. It's so creative.

Lauren (24:04):

And we didn't even get into SEO or other components like video that could also ebb and flow with the way that it turns out. Well, just for time’s sake, I know we didn't get into the build side of it as much but once we go through phase one, really the wire framing to phase two, the design and copy, then we get into the build, which is a whole technical component onto itself, and then the iterations to make sure it's ready to go for launch. As we alluded to earlier, mobile ready, responsive testing on various devices and actually just feeling it in kind of the real environment. But just, and I think we talk about this for hours honestly but just as we kind of narrow in any kind of final thoughts for folks if they're thinking about redoing a website, maybe they want to just add, as Jim, you alluded to earlier, a new coat of paint, something like that. Just thoughts you might want to kind of close with this process at large.

Ellie (25:11):

Yeah, I am kind going to echo what both of you guys said but I love the idea of thinking about it like a house remodel. It doesn't have to be a gut job. I'm actually in the middle of a house remodel right now. There is nothing on these walls. This house is somewhere in the middle. We're gutting parts of it and keeping other parts. But sometimes you ought to tear it down to the foundation. Sometimes you're moving across the state or sometimes you're just like, yeah, coat a paint, touch things up a little bit and they'll be good to go. So yeah, you don't have to scare yourself by thinking it has to be an all-in down to the ground demo job. It doesn't have to be.

Lauren (25:43):

That reminds me, just like a house, when you're going to recut it, sometimes you get it and you're like, whoa, didn't know this was here. Sometimes when you go through the process and you get further along, you go, oh my gosh, what about blah, blah, blah, or I didn't realize dah, dah. And so that's part of, like you were saying, Ellie, it's just part of the creative process, and that's for everyone, even if you're in a creative seat or not creative seat, we're all in creative seats. Any other thoughts?

Jimmy (26:13):

Yeah, I think since we're going with the house analogy, I think just really listening to your gut. I mean, kind of like the house as well, if you kind of feel, yeah, I wish there were more power sockets here. I wish there was one more room for this third child I'm expecting. Listen to your gut. It's the same thing with websites. If it's not flowing in a certain way, it may not be a whole refresh. Don't be like, oh, I need to tear the whole house down and build it again. Sometimes it's just a fresh coat of paint.

Tiffany (26:48):

And there's still very strategic things we can do to ensure it's aligned with your target, speaking to your target market, aligned with your goals. We can really get it working for you and not just kind of a business card or brochure on the internet. So I agree there's a lot of different starting points and endpoints along the way.

Lauren (27:07):

And I know we've even done just, can someone just look at my website and just give me what a fresh coat of paint looks like? Not even the full end to end, the whole wireframing and this and that, we kind of alluded to earlier, there's various kind of flavors of redesigns or upgrades you could do, and so you just have to decide where you're at, what your appetite is for undertaking a project, and it helps to steer you accordingly. So well, thank you all for being here. This was super fun. Started off with you’re in for a treat, and you guys totally delivered, so it was fun to unpack this a little bit more and hopefully provide some context of what it's like to do a whole website redesign or a component of it. All right. Thanks guys.

Tiffany (27:52):

Thanks. Thanks.

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