We talked with Broc about:

• The power of authenticity and trust when cultivating long-lasting relationships
• Digging deeper to ask the right questions when choosing an insurance partner
• How to align values and goals to spark collaboration 

About Broc Buckles:

Broc Buckles is the co-founder of BC Brokerage, a company dedicated to serving financial planners across all 50 states. BC Brokerage focuses on providing honest, efficient, and transparent insurance solutions exclusively for financial advisors and their clients. Recognizing the challenges financial planners face with traditional insurance brokers who often push products for commission, Broc and his team offer a trustworthy alternative. BC Brokerage empowers advisors, especially fee-only fiduciaries, to confidently implement insurance plans without concerns about upselling or misaligned incentives.

Featured Resources 

• Broc Buckles on LinkedIn
• BC Brokerage on Instagram
• BC-brokerage.com 
• Alan Moore on LinkedIn
• Michael Kitces on LinkedIn

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• Business Growth Tips for Accountants, Bookkeepers, and Financial Services Business Owners
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Full Audio Transcript:

00:00 - 20:03

Lauren Hong

All right, let's do this. So excited to hear from you today about business, insurance, online yards. You guys are an indie. Where should we start? I'm gonna throw it over to you to share a little bit about background. Like what you guys got going on over there.

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00:20 - 00:46

Broc Buckles

Yeah. For sure. Well, thanks. Thanks for having me on, Lauren. Good to be here with you. My name is Broc Buckles. I'm one of the co-founders of a company called BC Brokerage, and we work all over the country — all 50 states — with specifically and exclusively financial planners to help their clients be able to implement insurance in an honest and efficient and fair way so they don't have to kind of deal with the dark side of the insurance industry.

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00:46 - 1:11

Broc Buckles

I know a lot of people come from broker dealers or captive places where they're kind of pushed to do one thing, and it always feels like people are being sold one thing. And so the idea behind creating the company was really just to give advisors, who we believe are the true fiduciary, the true advisors of the world, which is fee-only, the opportunity to be able to implement things for their clients.

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1:11- 1:34

Broc Buckles

But when we were talking to them early on, one of the biggest things was, I don't know what's going to happen when I ask my client to get some insurance from these random people, and a lot of times they end up selling them. And so, we really pride ourselves on being the antithesis of that. And whatever they come recommended with is the insurance they get.

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1:34 - 1:52

Lauren Hong

Okay. So let’s kind of back up. How did you decide to work specifically with the advisor community? And how did you kind of navigate that path for you guys in the insurance world before? And then you kind of narrowed in here, or was it the other way around? Were you on the advisor side? And then you go, hey, you know, we see a problem.

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1:52 - 1:53

Lauren Hong

How did that come about?

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1:54 - 2:19

Broc Buckles

Yeah. Good question. So we started our careers — actually Peter and I met the first day of intern training — at a big Fortune 500 company that I eventually became kind of disenfranchised with. I was there for about five and a half years. Peter was there for a couple of years and kind of got on the brokerage side. Basically we met up one day, and I was like, I'm not happy with what I'm doing.

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2:19 - 2:45

Broc Buckles

And he said to me, well, it's funny because there's this type of financial planner who's out there. They don't do insurance but obviously good financial planning includes insurance. And so I think there's a good opportunity out here. And it was so funny because he always said to me, you know, get the phone to ring the other way — make good B2B relationships with people and then have them call you when they need help with their clients.

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2:45 - 2:50‍

Broc Buckles

And back then I thought he was crazy because the model we were using is you cold call everybody.

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2:50 - 2:51

Lauren Hong

Oh yeah.

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2:51 - 3:05

Broc Buckles

No one's going to call you. So he kind of told me about it and I said, hey, you know what? Let's run with it. And we started in January of 2020, which was a great time to start a business, right before a big pandemic hit.

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3:05 - 3:06

Lauren Hong

Yeah. Yes.

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3:06 - 3:18

Broc Buckles

It was rough but we were very disciplined about it. He took advantage of his operational strengths. And I love talking to people. And so it just kind of worked. And here we are today.

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3:18 - 3:43

Lauren Hong

So it's a whole world, right? Like the advisor community. There's a lot of jargon, a lot of inroads to be able to figure out and what have you. How did you guys go about that? Did you or Peter come with a base or a subset of that, or how did you help to navigate this community and kind of learn to speak their language and their needs and their clients’ needs?

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3:43 - 4:01

Broc Buckles

Yeah. So I mean, it came with just the very small sample size of the people in the Indianapolis area we had talked about. And then we had conversations with them and just asked them, what are your pain points? What is it you struggle with? What are the experiences, both good and bad, you've had when implementing insurance?

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4:01 - 4:24

Broc Buckles

And so we took that small sample size and just very literally applied it into a national concept and just said, hey, you know what? We're going to start going to these conferences. We're going to start looking at people who are only on LinkedIn. And honestly, it started with me probably calling 10,000+ people just trying to get appointments because that's what I knew how to do.

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4:24 - 4:26

Lauren Hong

Yeah. You were used to that.

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4:26 - 4:47

Broc Buckles

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, those days aren't really here anymore. We don't really do those anymore because there's a lot more inbound stuff. But it was that. And then we just kind of started meeting with more and more people. The more we met with people, the more we actually realized it's a small but it's a large world.

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4:47 - 5:09

Broc Buckles

It's a lot smaller than other parts of the industry but you definitely have everything from solopreneurs all the way up to firms that have billions and billions and billions of dollars under management. And we work with all of them, solopreneurs all the way up to the firms that have close to 100 advisors.

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5:09 - 5:26

Lauren Hong

Wow. Yeah. So you really see the full spread there, what's going on. Definitely challenges of those growth periods. So I know you guys work with a lot of IT firms that are part of the Philly network. They're doing really good work out there. I'm assuming a lot of NAPFA firms.

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5:26 - 5:35

Lauren Hong

We were talking right before this but just to give a shoutout to XYPN. I know you said it earlier. You're doing their conference, I believe.

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5:35 - 5:57

Broc Buckles

Yeah, we're going to be sponsoring it. Shout out to the XYPN community. Awesome community. And what an opportunity Alan Moore and Michael Kitces have given to people who really want to go out and do their own thing. So it's been so cool to watch that grow. And I mean, it was going five or six years before we even started our company; to see the evolution in the five years we've been around has been huge.

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5:57 - 6:07

Broc Buckles

And the people I talk to who have been there since the beginning can't believe it. It was like  one roundtable when it first started. And now there's thousands of advisors with them. 

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6:07 - 6:21

Lauren Hong

Well, they tapped into a need and yeah, shoutout to Alan too. We had him on our podcast here. It must have been several months ago but he gave a really good overview of how they built that up and the communities they're building and all that. So I'll make sure to link it to.

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6:21 - 6:38

Lauren Hong

Okay. So just to go back to what you were saying earlier about this subset, right? You're like, okay, like let's talk with people in our local area, figure out what their needs are, apply that at a national level. I'm sure you guys have learned a ton since then. So if you were in an advisor’s seat, right?

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6:38 - 6:52

Lauren Hong

What questions should they be asking if they're thinking about working with someone like you? What are the questions, the top questions they should be thinking about asking? Maybe what people start telling them to make sure it's like the right fit for wherever they are.

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6:52 - 7:03

Broc Buckles

Yeah. So I mean, there are obviously other firms out there that do what we do. But I think first and foremost, you have to make sure people have honest business practices, right?

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7:03 - 7:05

Lauren Hong

So have that alignment.

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7:05 - 7:24

Broc Buckles

Yep, exactly. Just mirroring their fiduciary responsibility in our own work is, I think, one of the things we pride ourselves on the most. And we encourage people to grill us and ask us questions, like why are you choosing this carrier for this client? Why are you deciding to do that? Planning this way? Why are you making this recommendation?

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7:24 - 7:42

Broc Buckles

And we build a lot of trust through things like offering some free offerings. We'll review policy analysis with people. So I would say the big thing you want to get a feel for very quickly is, is this a person you're just going to send business to and they're going to make money off the clients you're referring to them?

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7:42 - 8:06

Broc Buckles

Or does it really feel like an authentic partnership? And one that's going to create reciprocity and make sure you actually feel like you can lean on them not just for implementing business but also asking questions, and understanding things about the insurance world that maybe are a little bit more nuanced, that you're just not spending your day, every single day as a financial planner, focusing on.

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8:06 - 8:20

Lauren Hong

Okay, so the first thing is really just basically getting value alignment. Is this a fit? How do they go about picking their carriers and making choices so they can be rolled along the way and that's okay.

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8:20 - 8:21

Broc Buckles

So absolutely.

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8:21 - 8:28

Lauren Hong

Any other questions that you feel like advisors should be asking when picking the right vendor to work with?

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8:28 - 8:54

Broc Buckles

You know, I would say to ask them what their philosophies are on certain types of products is a really good thing to do. Like, I have advisors all the time ask me about the big, bad permanent insurance world where it's like a lot of advisors are recommending term insurance all the time but they want kind of as a test to ask why, when, and where do you recommend permanent insurance?

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8:54 - 9:12

Broc Buckles

And you better have a pretty good answer for that question. There are certain situations where it definitely makes sense; if people are over $10 million net worth, they have special needs planning, if you're looking to do long-term care planning. But ask them questions that are related to not just everyday product lines, right?

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9:12 - 9:35

Broc Buckles

Ask them questions about specific products and what situations you would use those products in to see if you align. Because I think you could say, are you going to be honest? Okay, can we trust you or are you going to sell our clients? And that's one thing. But if every single time you recommend something, they're trying to lead you in a different way or it's just a very hard conversation that's never going to work.

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9:35 - 9:45

Lauren Hong

So are most of your engagements where you're building the relationship with the advisor, and then they're referring you to their client? Just to make sure I'm following that.

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9:45 - 9:45

Broc Buckles

That's how it works.

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9:46 - 10:03

Lauren Hong

Okay, cool. That's helpful. Another thing I see sometimes is you can work with a provider and everything looks great on paper with the communications. It's totally want want, like it just falls flat, you know? What do you guys do to make sure that follow-through happens, right?

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10:03 - 10:13

Lauren Hong

And making sure people have what they need and the check-ins. Do you have any kind of systemized cadence you've got working with your clients? Because things can get stale, right?

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10:13 - 10:34

Broc Buckles

Yeah, things can get stale. So yeah, that's a really good question. And that's more of Peter's department. He's the operation mind. But we have definitely done some things that have truly improved the efficiency and the way things get done. So one of the things was automatic email reminders, right?

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10:34 - 10:51

Broc Buckles

So we have a cadence once a week from the time we're introduced. They're going to get a reminder; I would like to say we're pleasantly persistent. And so once a week, we're going to politely remind them to please fill out their intake form if they haven't done that. When we hit a month, we loop the advisor back in.

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10:51 - 11:09

Broc Buckles

And then we also created a portal. You know, I think we're a very tech forward firm in the way we want to keep everybody in the loop. So it's a portal that actually talks to our CRM. And then every advisor has an account name, and all of the deals we do underneath their account name with their clients, they can follow along instantaneously.

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11:10 - 11:20

Broc Buckles

So the minute we have an update about a case, there's no manual process of email, anything like that; everything happens right away. So that's cut down on processing time, which has been cool. 

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11:20 - 11:36

Lauren Hong

And communications with the advisor too because they've got that transparency, the same with your system or what have you. Oh that's really neat that you guys have built that in tandem. So it's not just like a referral relationship but you actually have a portal where they can have that hub and have that transparency to develop that trust.

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11:36 - 12:02

Broc Buckles

Yeah, exactly. We took a survey in the beginning, asking how are you keeping track of your clients’ insurance policies once they've been completed? And we heard way too many say via Excel spreadsheets and so were like there has to be a better way. So, when they're done and we've completed something, they can literally go into that portal, click on the policy’s tab and see every policy we've ever implemented with them.

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12:02 - 12:17

Broc Buckles

They can actually also add policies we haven't even implemented just to have a filing cabinet system for everything insurance related. There's a note section. So it's literally everything you could want from an organizational standpoint.

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12:17 - 12:21

Lauren Hong

Super cool. That's really helpful. Like that one-stop shop.

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12:21 - 12:22

Broc Buckles

Yeah.

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12:22 - 12:45

Lauren Hong

I also really appreciate how you guys are like, I don't know, in a high tower thinking about what people need but you're actually talking to people, like boots on ground, and then creating real solutions to be able to solve those problems. So, it's good to hear that too. Okay. So you've got the advisor side about how to potentially see if you guys would be the right fit.

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12:45 - 13:02

Lauren Hong

But let's kind of flip the table. So let's say an advisor is talking with a client. And they're trying to figure out if they need an insurance solution. What questions do you often tip off to advisors to help them kind of guide them down those right questions if their client does need a service like yours?

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13:02 - 13:07

Broc Buckles

So I want to make sure I understand your question. Like how are they figuring out if the client needs the insurance?

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13:07- 13:09

Lauren Hong

Yep. You got it.

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13:09 - 13:24

Broc Buckles

So, I mean, a lot of them, some of them come from the insurance world so they have a pretty good handle on it. Others, kind of the extent of the insurance knowledge they have is what they learned in the CFP® curriculum, which is not a ton. So there's a lot of on-the-job learning.

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13:24 - 13:49

Broc Buckles

But as a general rule of thumb, most people need life insurance. It's just a matter of figuring out how much. For disability income, that's one of those things to where you probably have some through work. Most of the time it's taxed. And so we tell them, if your clients can't live on 40 to 45% of what they're making right now if something were to happen, we probably need to be having a disability conversation.

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13:49- 14:07

Broc Buckles

Annuities and permanent insurance, that's getting into the weeds a little bit. So that's a lot different. But then we also recently started within the last about six months offering property and casualty, both commercial and personal, across the United States so that more or less just has to do with, hey, let's check your current coverage, make sure everything's adequate.

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14:07 - 14:24

Broc Buckles

Your limits are where they should be, if you wreck into the back of a Lamborghini, you're not going to have to pay out of pocket for it. And that's a little bit more black and white but that's kind of the way we just put the things into their ears and say, here's what you should be looking at.

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14:24 - 14:30

Broc Buckles

And like I said, a lot of people already know how to do it. But for the people who are kind of new in this space, those are kinds of the tips we try to give them.

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14:30 - 14:36

Lauren Hong

Yeah. So here's a spread of options. Here's the key things to be thinking about when talking with clients. So they have an idea.

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14:36 - 14:37

Broc Buckles

Exactly. Yeah.

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14:37 - 14:52

Lauren Hong

Okay. Do you mind putting this into reality too? Can you share a case study, maybe an advisor you worked with and kind of like how that engagement went, maybe like a timeline and how things are built over time. And working with them and their clients.

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14:52 - 15:10

Broc Buckles

Yeah. It's like a sample case of how we have moved forward with relationships with advisors, as I was talking about.

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15:15 - 15:01

Lauren Hong

Yeah, yeah.

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15:01 - 15:18

Broc Buckles

Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny how this happens, actually, we have an advisor we've worked with basically since the beginning. And in the beginning it was very much like, here's what the client needs, this is what we want. A lot of the dialog was not rigid but very specific about what the client needed.

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15:18 - 15:34

Broc Buckles

And then, as they continue to work with us and we work with case after case and they knew our planning philosophy, when it came to certain product lines, was about the same as theirs was, it's been really cool because now the emails consist of, this person needs this product, take it away.

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15:34 - 15:53

Broc Buckles

I trust you guys. And so it was really cool over the last several years to be able to build that relationship to a point where they just know we're going to do the right thing. And when the relationships get to those points that feels really good because that means we're all doing a really good job of making sure we're on the same page.

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15:53 - 16:10

Lauren Hong

Yeah, I hear you. It's that trust component too. I think that goes back to your earlier initial question of make sure the value base is there. I mean, that's a good question for vendors in general, make sure there's a good value for it. But I think in this space in particular, like you said, there can sometimes be a bad rap that's associated with it.

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16:10 - 16:15

Lauren Hong

And being able to make sure there's that alignment, that philosophy alignment and fiduciary alignment.

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16:15 - 16:29

Broc Buckles

So yeah, and you have to stay on your stuff because one thing is for sure, you got to keep people happy. Because, like I said, it can be kind of a big community but it can also be a small community. So you need to make sure you're doing a good job for people.

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16:29 - 16:39

Lauren Hong

That's right. That's so true. Okay. So any other final thoughts, shoutouts you want to give anything to?

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16:39 - 17:03

Broc Buckles

Yeah. The thing I would say is if you have any questions about what we do, feel free to reach out to me. It's Broc at bc hyphen brokerage.com. Check out our website, BC hyphen brokerage.com. And if anybody's listening who’s thinking about starting an RIA and wants me to put you in touch with someone who's been doing it, I know a lot of people who are very generous with their time, so I'm happy to do that.

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17:03 - 17:07

Broc Buckles

And if you want to bounce ideas off me, please don't hesitate to reach out.

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17:07 - 17:13

Lauren Hong

Broc, thanks so much. I also want to give you a plug for your podcast as well. So is it fee-only? Is that right?

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17:14 - 17:23

Broc Buckles

Only fee-only podcast. You can find us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Those are the two main hubs.

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17:23 - 17:38

Lauren Hong

Okay. Sweet. So we'll make sure to include that link below also to your website, BC Brokerage, as well. So thank you. Appreciate your time and the work you do for this community. Paying it forward. Thank you for sharing your time and insights today.

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17:38 - 17:40

Broc Buckles

Yeah. Thanks a lot. Was great to talk to you, Lauren.

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17:40 - 17:44

Lauren Hong

Thanks.

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We talked with Gretchen about:

• Talents versus strengths and how to turn a talent into a strength 
• How overusing a strength can turn it into a “weakness” 
• If you are giving away your strengths for free 

About Gretchen Pisano:

As the CEO and co-founder of pLink Leadership, Gretchen Pisano focuses on executive coaching and leadership development, aiming to align individual and collective growth with organizational strategy. She finds joy in the challenge of guiding teams, likening it to steering an aircraft carrier—a hard but rewarding task. Her journey reflects the idea that no experience is wasted, as she believes her early career in graphic facilitation laid the foundation for her expertise. For seven years, she traveled globally, illustrating live conversations during high-level corporate meetings. This experience honed her ability to listen deeply—not just to what was said but also to what was left unsaid, across various cultural contexts. It led her to facilitate strategic conversations, where she noticed while organizations invest heavily in systems, they overlook the importance of changing how people think. This realization spurred her to pursue a master’s degree in applied positive psychology, combining her street smarts with evidence-based theories. 

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Featured Resources 

• Gretchen Pisano on LinkedIn 
• Gretchen Pisano on Instagram
• pLink Leadership on LinkedIn
• Clifton Strengths 

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Enjoyed This? You’ll Also Love: 

• Reaching Gen Z: How Financial Services Companies Can Engage and Hire the Next Generation with Mary Wisniewski 
• Tips and Trends for Hiring and Onboarding the Right Team in Financial Services Firms with Caleb Brown
• Using a Coach Mindset to Unlock Your Full Leadership Potential

‍

Full Audio Transcript:

Lauren (00:05):

Gretchen, thank you for joining us today.

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Gretchen (00:07):

Thank you for having me.

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Lauren (00:08):

Yes. I was just reading again, your bio before you joined, and you have such an incredible deep background of working with companies of all different sizes and cultures and what have you. I think what really resonated with me, I actually have to read the lines about when you work with organizations, the outputs around really increasing revenues, establishing honest and inclusive cultures, aligning mindsets and behaviors that really impact and foster just a positive working relationship and culture within an organization. That is not easy to do. So there are so many components, emotional, psychologically to intermix with that, not to mention just org structures and all kinds of stuff. So I want to get into some of that today but I don't want to steal your thunder. I'd love just to hear from you a little bit more about your background and how you got into the really impactful work you're doing today.

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Gretchen (01:08):

All right. Well, it's a story but aren't they all, and I think this is a great example of no experience is ever wasted, how it all kind of weaves together. So early in my career I did something called graphic facilitation. And in graphic facilitation, you're literally illustrating the conversation that's happening in the room. And so large organizations use this when they're doing large-scale meetings. And all that meant was I had seven years of literally traveling around the world in different companies, working with different facilitators at the time, and listening to the way the people think. And when you're illustrating a conversation, your back is to the room. And so you're really listening not just to what people say but also to what isn't being said and breathing patterns and how that differs when you're in North America or in Asia or South America.

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And so that was, I really think about that as my 10,000 hours in relation to listening to how people think. And that led me directly into facilitating strategic conversations. I was naturally good at that. We're going to be talking about strengths. It was one of my strengths and I spent a lot of time with very senior teams helping them think through strategy. And I noticed people were spending a lot of time and money designing organizational systems and they were not spending the same amount of time or money helping people think and changing the way people think and the number one obstacle to successfully executing on a great idea is people, is human nature. And so that got me really interested in the field where I am now by passion and by project. So I evolved into a master's in applied positive psychology to help me partner up my street smarts with some good strong theory and evidence to understand that.

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And then I scaled that into pLink Leadership, where we do executive coaching and leadership development that is designed to be an enterprise solution. And I just qualify that because sometimes when you think about executive coaching, it's like a one-off outside benefit. And the way we approach it is that this is integrated into your strategy and the goal is to make it all fit together so people are working both individually and collectively on the things they need to be working on to be able to advance the strategy. And it is hard. I mean, it's really fun and we love doing it. I love doing it and it is hard. It's like turning an aircraft carrier to get a whole bunch of people pointed in the same direction but hard stuff is worth doing and I love doing it.

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Lauren (04:08):

It is. So tell us a little bit more about the strengths component. I know you were alluding to that too. How are you, when you're working with individuals and teams, really defining strengths? You talk about strengths versus skills and how do you define those two?

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Gretchen (04:26):

I mean, we go back to the theory on that—we are not the original authors of the strengths theory. Really that would be the CliftonStrengths, which roots back to Gallup. And so they are really the preeminent experts in this area. So they define a strength as a talent plus knowledge plus skill plus time invested. So what's important about that is that a talent is a naturally occurring way of thinking and feeling and doing. It's something you don't have to think hard about doing. You're just sort of drawn to it and maybe you are naturally good at it but it doesn't become a strength unless you flank it with knowledge, flank it with skills development, and then invest the time. So you can have raw talent that never becomes a strength. A strength is when you've invested that time in; it just becomes a part of who you are in terms of your thinking, feeling, and doing. And that trio is important because behavior we know is motivated by emotion, and emotion is driven by thought. So it all kind of works together to make us very good at something with less effort and a lot more enjoyment. Like the act itself delivers satisfaction, not just the output. And that's a strength, that's a strength in action. And then a skill, you can be really good at something that is not a strength. The distinction is that exercising a skill consumes energy. Exercising a strength produces energy even while it's putting it out.

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Lauren (06:15):

That's such a great way to think about it sort of in simple terms. So can you maybe share some examples for how you've been able to pull out strengths among teams or skills among teams? How do you kind of slice and dice that when you get involved with an organization and being able to pull out those nuances?

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Gretchen (06:36):

So it's important to know that people cannot make change successfully if they're not standing on firm ground. So we always start with helping people be sure they have a clear understanding of who they are in their current context. And that's important because context shows change. You can take a great leader in one context, change their context, meaning they go to a different company altogether or maybe their role completely changes, and all of a sudden they're starting to get negative feedback or the other way around, they're struggling over here, they get lateral and they just bloom and bloom. So the context is important. We help them to really understand who they are in that context. Strength is a big component of that; so are values. So is how you see your future best self. And so we use the CliftonStrengths assessment to get a baseline and we tell people going in, this is not truth; it's a doorway to insight. And we ask them to read through the strengths insight report and say, which of this feels most true to you? Give a blank version of your guide to somebody who knows you well and ask them which things in here stand out for you as being true, and then work with that. And then from there, we help them to think through which of these ones that feel most true—I know this would be true about myself for as long as I can remember.

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And then we really move forward from there to help them understand what does that look like when it's in excellence, meaning it's serving you really well and you're using it in the way that makes sense and is productive and where might you be overusing it. I think this was one of my early really big insights, which is that oftentimes an area of development or what people refer to as a weakness. I don't like to use that language because it implies it's an inherent flaw in us when really a weakness is just something other people don't like. Just like a weed is still a plant. It's just a plant growing in a place you don't want it.

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So I like the notion of an area of development or an area of opportunity, and we have these areas of development we hear all the time—you're honest to a fault or why don't you ever sit down? Or how come it's so important to you to be the architect of what's going forward? And we hear it so many times, and it's connected to one of our strengths in excess because we have to remember when we're using a strength, it feels fulfilling to us. It feels natural to us, it leaves us rewarded but sometimes we can overuse it and other people experience that as a flaw.

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And so then they give us that feedback and they tell us, you shouldn't be like this. But then we tell ourselves, well, how can I not be like this? This is who I am. So then if we start to understand it's about volume, we are like, oh, we just have to learn how to modulate the volume. So if I have the strength of ideation and I love to throw ideas around when I'm hanging out with other people who also have the strength of ideation, we're speaking each other's language and we can go to town with that. But if I'm in a room full of people who maybe are in charge of making the plan real, they're more of the executing strengths. I need to temper my ideation because I'm just thinking out loud. But to them, they become overwhelmed with all the different directions something can go or how would we make that real?

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Lauren (10:45):

I see that as well oftentimes, or can frankly just get off track from a strategy that's preset and making sure we are aligned, right?

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Gretchen (10:56):

Totally innocently, they don't even know. We don't even know we're doing it unless we've done the work to understand our strengths and what they look like in excellence. We just pop off with an idea and then we're shocked when other people don't love that we're contributing an idea. And somebody else might say, Gretchen, we're 10 days down the path on this. We're not going to change right now.

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Lauren (11:21):

Right. So when you're going through and doing these strengths assessments, are you doing this across the team or is it just within a department or a leadership team, or is it sort of case by case with the engagement?

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Gretchen (11:34):

Yeah, I was going to say yes. And so if we're doing individual coaching it’s part of every coaching package but it's also not uncommon at all to start this way. If you are bringing a team together for the first time, or say you have a new leader to a preexisting team, it's a great opportunity to do a strengths inventory to understand who's on the team and help people have the conversation with each other about which of the strengths they see most present in their leadership style, in their current context, what they lean into when they need courage or when they're making a decision. We have a conversation where we ask people to share what they see as their superpowers in kryptonite. So it's not like you say, oh, my superpower is futuristic ideation maximizer. That doesn't mean any sense to anybody. It's like, wait, how does that even translate? But if you're able to say, my superpower is in really helping people figure out where they can make their contribution, or my superpower is in seeing around corners, or my superpower is in helping us think about a different way of doing something, then people are like, oh, okay, I get it.

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Lauren (12:53):

I get it. It feels more tangible or real or what have you.

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Gretchen (12:56):

Yeah, it's like what you see every day. So that's how a team would use it when you're first coming together and building a foundation.

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Lauren (13:04):

So fascinating. So you've given the example earlier about ideation. You'd be in a work setting and there's maybe someone who's in more of a senior leadership role, a CEO or what have you, it's just they're an ideator. But sometimes those situations where they're perhaps over indexing and their strength innocently comes out in just natural ways. What role do you play—I don’t know if the right word is intervene—but to be able to help kind of coach teams along the way, and those things that are just naturally coming up through the day. Is it those one-on-one conversations? How do you be that fly on the wall to help guide the teams?

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Gretchen (13:48):

Yeah. Well, I think that is different by engagement. It really depends on what they're asking you to be in there for. But the initial meeting we do, typically it's a one-day session where you've got a team together either virtually or in person, and you're doing both values and strengths to lay the foundation, and you're helping them to have that conversation with each other. We give them an artifact afterwards so they can see how the team lays out. It would also be really important for me to say out loud that just because something's not your strength doesn't mean you're not really good at it.

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So a common mistake, we see people being like, this is so great. I want everybody to have a placard with their strengths, and we put that outside their office or their cubicle. And this is a terrible idea because it's like you wouldn't say, hello, Lauren. Lauren doesn't have any strategy strengths. We're just not going to invite her to this conversation. Just boxing people, boxing. And that's also not how it works. The strength piece of it is that you are more naturally good at it and you're going to be drawn toward wanting to do it. So that piece of it is different and it's going to energize you doing it. Typically, you'd also say people have a higher, faster rate of learning when they're in a strength. And people by virtue of knowledge and skill and time invested can become very skilled at something and how they recharge afterwards. That's none of our business. So I think it's really important to make sure people are clear that as an individual, it's your decision point about how you want to navigate your role and where you want to be investing yourself. What I'll say as a coach with many years of experience is that it's not uncommon to see people build entire careers on their skills because we believe we deserve to be paid for what feels hard, and we give away what feels easy.

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Lauren (15:54):

Interesting.

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Gretchen (15:54):

So people volunteer in their area of strength, people discount their services in their area of strength. They give it away for free in their area of strength, and then they're like, this is where I'm going to charge. And then you end up creating a structure, a lifestyle portfolio of services or clients and then you're like, why am I doing this? I'm not enjoying it. I'm really good at it, but I don't enjoy it.

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Lauren (16:19):

You look around and you go, gosh, not everyone's as good at doing what I'm doing. 

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Gretchen (16:25):

Right. The other things. Yeah. So I would just offer that. So going back to your question, our goal would be to equip the team to talk to each other about the strengths and then to be able to do some one-on-one coaching with, for example, the more senior people to help them to understand where they might be habitually. Part of our workshop is understanding which of the ones that you might have a habit of over-indexing on and what might trigger that.

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Lauren (16:56):

Yeah, super interesting. So it sounds like bringing not only self-awareness but not boxing that self-awareness, and then along the way, helping to coach individuals so they can flourish where they might not have recognized strengths before. 

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Gretchen (17:14):

Yeah, so I think in organizational development, the hardest part is you're thinking on three levels all the time, like an individual team and then let's call it mission. So you kind of have to be thinking about that all as an individual. How do I want to think about my own strengths as a leader? How do I want to capitalize on the strengths of my team? And as a person has responsibility for the mission and the vision? How are we doing moving toward that and who might I need to move around or what responsibilities might I need to move around to make that journey easier?

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Lauren (17:50):

So fascinating. Oh my goodness, Gretchen, this is such a deep topic and it's so important and impacts all of us and the workplace, and so I really appreciate you sharing your insights and depth of perspective and working with teams, especially all different sizes. Are there any other final thoughts or takeaways you'd like to share with folks as well?

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Gretchen (18:15):

I guess what I would end with is that we spend so much time at work. We spend so much of our waking hours at work, so why wouldn't we want that to be as enjoyable as possible? And some of that is about other people interacting with us and what we can manage and what we can't manage. But a lot of it has to do with the work we do. And so if we job craft ourselves, we don't even have to change jobs. If we just craft ourselves into a set of responsibilities that tap our strengths, it not only makes our outcomes better but it changes our quality of experience.

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Lauren (18:58):

Mindset lifts up.

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Gretchen (19:01):

So at the end of the day, you're like, oh, I feel filled up. That was so good, as opposed to just feeling wiped out and drained.

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Lauren (19:09):

Yes. So well said. Well, Gretchen, thank you again for your time. We'll make sure to include links as well to your bio and website and what have you but so fascinating. So many great nuggets to take away. So thank you again.

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Gretchen (19:21):

Good. You're welcome.

We talked with Seth about:

• The power of content creation in business growth 
• Key chapters in your accounting strategy you can’t afford to miss 
• The importance of shifting your focus to the outcomes rather than on time spent or number of tasks completed 

About Seth David:

Seth David, Chief Nerd at Nerd Enterprises, Inc., has a unique journey that combines creativity with analytical expertise. After majoring in computer science and dabbling in theater, Seth shifted his focus to finance, working as a stockbroker on Wall Street. He later earned an accounting degree and built a successful career as a senior revenue accountant. Driven by an entrepreneurial spirit, Seth went on to found Nerd Enterprises, where he helps accountants, bookkeepers, and financial professionals run their businesses more efficiently. Today, he thrives as a leader, blending technical skills with a passion for business.

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Featured Resources 

• Seth David on LinkedIn 
• Nerd Enterprises, Inc. on LinkedIn
• David Allen’s Getting Things Done
• Slack‍

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Full Audio Transcript:

Lauren (00:06):

Seth, thank you so much for being on the show today. I'm glad to have you here, and I feel like I kind of already know you because I've been checking out your website, watching your podcast, all kinds of stuff. But why don't you share with folks a little bit about your background. You've got a really interesting story and what you've created is very interesting as well. So I'll hand it over to you.

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Seth (00:28):

Thank you. I'll try to give you the very short version of what feels like several lifetimes of a story. But yeah, real quick, I got out of high school and I majored in computer science. I was a total nerd. I liked learning how to write code. The code we wrote in those days was very, very different from now. The languages we wrote in don't even exist anymore, I don't think. At least not in their original forms. And at the same time, a friend of mine invited me to get involved in theater, so I started doing acting. But at least in my view I didn't have any talent for it but I enjoyed it and then I got better at it over time. So long story short, I got into that and then left that at one point because my interest in academics was declining and I didn't want to waste time and money on college that I wasn't really putting in the effort toward. So I left. And my goal at that point actually was to get a job, make enough money to travel across to California, and make it in the acting world. I had this grand master plan, the kind of plans 19-year-olds tend to have. 

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Lauren (01:39):

Totally. I love it.

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Seth (01:39):

Very, very romantic. I was going to drive across the country in a Jeep with the top down and all the stuff you'd imagine that would go around us.

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Lauren (01:46):

Totally can see the picture.

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Seth (01:49):

And so that didn't happen. But along the way, as the means of making that money, I figured I needed to save up 10 grand to buy the Jeep or something like that. Again, we're talking many years ago.

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Lauren (02:02):

Prices were a little different. 

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Seth (02:04):

But still you get the idea. I needed to save up. So I was already kind of becoming a planner, like, all right, I needed 10 grand for the Jeep and then enough money to get across the country, and then I'd figure it out from there. So as I'm looking for jobs, I was looking to work waiting tables at restaurants, and all of a sudden I noticed stockbroker trainee $10,000 a month. I'm like, done. I can be there in a month. I can have my Jeep in one month. So next thing I know, I'm in stockbroker trainee programs with a company and studying to take my Series 7 license, and I'm like, I don't know where this comes from. This totally didn't feel like me but the guy who I worked for, the first one, he was a very good salesman and he was very good at getting you to open up so he could figure out what to sort of leverage to sell you on what he wanted you to do. And so he's like, oh, this is just an acting job. You're basically getting on the phone and painting a picture that you're this Wall Street tycoon. And I'm like, oh, is that right? It's just acting on the phone. Perfect. Done. Let's do it

So I did that. And then again, very long story short, I ended up actually doing pretty well. The years went on, I was 21 now working as a stockbroker on Wall Street, and I was convinced by my then girlfriend's brother as well as my own family that I should still go back and get a degree in something just to have something to fall back on. So I left that business and went back to school and got my accounting degree. And along the way I said, well, I should give this a shot since I've just put in a lot of time and effort into getting an accounting degree and Wall Street will still be there. And so there we were. And then a very long story, very short again, and I don't know how in-depth we want to go but I'll give you the simple version for now.

I know time is limited. I decided I needed a significant change in my life. And so I ended up coming to California but for very different reasons than I originally intended and started over and worked some temp jobs and eventually landed at a very large publicly traded company, moved my way up, worked as a senior revenue accountant for them, and then I went to a CPA firm. And then little by little I started my own company because frankly I just hated working for other people. And I came to the conclusion that I was unemployable because I couldn't stand having to listen to other people, especially when I didn't agree with the way they did things. So that's how Nerd Enterprises was born, quite literally. And then I just kind of carved it out. I was like, let me figure out what I really like to do and leave out the stuff I don't like to do or delegate it. I learned that early on, do what I'm really good at and the stuff I'm really good at tends to be the stuff I really enjoy doing. And when I don't enjoy doing something, I probably suck at it anyway, so I should give it to somebody else.

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Lauren (04:53):

Yeah, it's delegate or die syndrome. So I totally hear you on that. What you built is pretty amazing. I know you do a lot of consulting work for different businesses but you've also got this community. Can you tell us a little bit more about the facets of the business you've been able to build and why you've invested in these different wings of building out these offerings?

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Seth (05:16):

So a lot of it just happened organically, really just figuring things out as I go. So years ago I had a guy I partnered up with and we started a website based on a course I had written. It was like a bookkeeping basics course, and he had the marketing expertise. So we came in and we started building a whole business and I developed a bunch of other courses. And again, long story short, he and I parted company, and when we did, I actually walked away. I said, you know what? You keep the business. We just did not agree on how we did a lot of things, kind of the same old story, same reason I didn't like working for other people. And I said, I can own it. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm just not a good team player or something. So I said, you keep the business, I'm going to go do my own thing. Excuse me. This got me out of any kind of non-compete or anything like that. We didn't sign anything formally. We just said we're going to part ways so I go my way and they go their way.

And so I'm sitting here one day going, all right, I need to rebuild. I'm still going to do courses and things but I'm going to do it on my own. Question is where do I start? What do I do? I don't want to deal with all the headaches that seem to come with having a subscription-based site because I knew what he was struggling with. It was just constant, especially as the business grew and we had a lot of subscribers and I can't find my password. It's amazing to me how many people still did not know how to click that password reset link at the login screen. Anyway, so I just said, you know what? I don't want to deal with that. And I knew about the site Patreon and I said, you know what? I can kind of structure it through that. I'll create different tiers. I'll offer different course content. I'll put the videos up on Vimeo so I can make them private and only give them access to people at the right tier. And this way they handle that business part of it. If somebody has trouble logging in, Patreon handled it,

And I did that for a while until I got tired of it because obviously I was paying them a fee on top of the processing fees for the payment processors. And so eventually I said, okay, it's growing big enough that it's worth it for me to spend the time now and deal with the headache of running my own subscription site. And meanwhile, I had to establish these different tiers, one of which was based on $97 and up. I built out an official sort of name for a program that I called Accounting Business Academy but it was based on that tier from Patreon. And I kind of just ported them over and said, look, you're going to get all the same stuff but new platform and login.

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Lauren (07:48):

Better bells and whistles, much better whistles and so forth.

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Seth (07:50):

And the 97 please.

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Lauren (07:52):

Just to break, what was the threshold that you go, okay, I know you talked about it got to big enough point to move it out. Was it based on just the volume of individuals? What was that threshold for you?

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Seth (08:08):

I think the threshold was, again, very organically. It was based on a feeling like, I don't want to pay all these fees anymore that I'm paying to Patreon plus waiting for them to pay me out.

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Lauren (08:18):

It wasn't a community size. It was more of kind of where you were, you saw the evolution of where it could go.

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Seth (08:23):

Yeah, and I'm sure that was largely driven by the amount of people I was accumulating, and ultimately I wanted to get it on a platform I truly owned. So did it on WordPress with a subscription plugin, and eventually I was guided actually by a colleague to move it to Kajabi, which is what my site is built on now, because that's just an amazing platform that's built for course creation and just content creators and you manage the whole thing. All my emails go out from that system. It's beautiful.

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Lauren (08:56):

Okay, so you've got this pretty amazing community you built, and I know you do consulting work as well. So can you tell us who is in that community? 

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Seth (09:12):

It's mostly accountants and bookkeepers. I've got a sprinkling of business owners who aren't accountants per se but they just feel like they get value added but very, very minimal. It's almost exclusively accountants and bookkeepers who are looking for my guidance to help learn the tools and systems and strategies and processes to help grow and run their practices better. A lot of them have the same struggles. They're up to their eyeballs and work but aren't really making enough money. If you look at the money by itself, it might look good but when you compare that to how many hours and energy they have to put in to make it, it doesn't really feel like a lot of money. And so they want to learn how to scale and just do better and have more freedom. And by the way, the name 97 and Up just stuck. People liked it. Even my wife was like, yeah, it's a catchy name. You should just stick with that.

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Lauren (09:57):

It's easy to pronounce all those things, simple. Okay. So accountants and bookkeepers, and you've got this community. Are they leveraging the content you built? It sounds like it's evergreen content from a while ago. Are you doing community groups and conversations? Is there a forum? What kind of bells and whistles are inside of the actual community itself?

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Seth (10:18):

So they get access to a bunch of courses for free. That's just included with 97 and Up. They get deep discounts on any new courses. I have a series of courses called Bulletproof Bookkeeping. So these are major in-depth courses and they get deep discounts on those. We do two weekly calls. So we do a call every Tuesday and Thursday at 11 a.m. Pacific for an hour. And some of them I have open so people can just come and ask questions and we answer them. Others I have planned topics for and it's funny, bringing things forward to 2024, I'm actually using ChatGPT alot to help me outline the content. I would never dare have it write the content for me but I love having it write the outline for me because then I go in between the lines and fill in the details. Just saves time.

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Lauren (11:01):

Yeah, I hear you on leveraging that. Okay. So tell me more about this community. You've got all these super in-depth offerings. You've got these calls that are going on. What are the common threads of questions you see that are coming up over the years? Is there a common set of questions folks are asking or their deep dive need? And what kind of things are you seeing as trends within the community you’ve built?

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Seth (11:27):

So there's two kinds of major camps I want to put the topics in that I get asked most from the accountants and bookkeepers and the major camps are based on being in two different places. So a lot of them, of course, want more clients and their struggle is with how to get more clients. Accountants and bookkeepers notoriously I want to say rely exclusively on word of mouth and referrals. And some do very well that way. And so it works, it's fine. But in my opinion, humble or not, it's just leaving too much in the hands of the universe. And I prefer something more systematized. So I know I have a process that involves doing something to encourage the universe to drive those leads my way. You know what I mean?

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Lauren (12:12):

To be able to pull them in and say, hey, I'm over here. I can do really quality work and be able to validate that trust out in the marketplace. So one camp is basically, I need more clients. How do I get more clients? I'm assuming you as well as the community itself is helping to pour into those answers.

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Seth (12:30):

And by the way, it's in Slack. I've tried the experiment of using all these other platforms. When Salesforce bought Slack, I got worried they were going to kind of crush the small guy because Salesforce typically deals with such big businesses. And so I left Slack for a while. I tried Mighty Networks, I tried Discord, I tried a bunch, and I landed back on Slack because none of them quite measured up as far as I was concerned. It's funny, it's one dumb little feature that really drove me back that I really missed, which only Slack seems to have where I can go into a message and click the little ellipsis and say, remind me, and I can choose in an hour, three hours, on Monday, or customize the time I live by that I would drop so many balls if it wasn't for that feature. Discord doesn't have it. That one feature alone I think drove me back to Slack.

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Lauren (13:18):

User experience. Yep, yep. Okay. So pouring into those, are there any kind of automatic advice you're giving to folks looking to get more business? I know you mentioned earlier this kind of automation, let the universe know to pull you in. What kind of conversations are you having or at-large recommendations you're seeing for folks where they are wanting to pull in that business?

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Seth (13:42):

So number one, of course, and I've tried to work around this a bit because the number one way I'm naturally going to tell people to bring in clients is based on what I've done, which is produce content, videos, blog posts, podcasts. There's so many different ways to do it but a lot of accountants come back to me, excuse me, and say they're just not going to do it. They don't have the personality, they don't want to get on video, they don't want to turn their camera on. I say, fine, then keep your camera off but you can still do a screen share video and teach a thing in QuickBooks online or something. I mean, that's really how I did it initially; I took the questions I was being asked most frequently by my accounting clients and made videos about them, frankly out of laziness because I was tired of writing out the same answers in emails. So I made a video and said, here's a video. It'll do a much better job of showing you what to do than I can do in a wall of text for you.

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Lauren (14:33):

Yes, I hear you.

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Seth (14:35):

So anyway, you can fire up your Camtasia with your screen and don't turn on your camera. That's fine. But the other thing is the time. And that brings in the other problem. The other question in the other camp that a lot of them have, which is I'm up to my eyeballs. I can forget about taking on more clients. I need to figure out how to manage the ones I have and keep everything organized.

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Lauren (14:52):

That's scalability,

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Seth (14:54):

Especially in accounting, you have so many important deadlines. It's not like, look, let's face it, if a marketing company misses a deadline for producing a blog article, it's not the end of the world. I mean, it's one article.

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Lauren (15:06):

It's going to be okay. 

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Seth (15:08):

Yeah, exactly. But if I miss a sales tax deadline for a client, that costs the client money, a lot of it potentially. So there's a different kind of level of pressure for accountants and bookkeepers to make sure they don't drop any balls. And so that's the other camp where I work with them. And a lot of times a classic thing people will look to do, and this is not just for accountants, this is for any kind of company, is they see they don't seem to have capacity. So what do they do? They hire people. And that actually makes the problem worse because if you hire people into a non-system, all you're doing is amplifying the disorganization of that system. And so now you just have more disorganized people.

So usually the answer is not hire somebody but let's dial in the systems. Let's take inventory. I've made a very thorough study recently, actually again, of David Allen's “Getting Things Done” so I could use that to inform how I work with accountants and bookkeepers and say, first let's just inventory every little thing that's pinging and dinging at your brain that's causing you stress and let's get it out of your brain and into, I don't care if it's on an actual piece of paper, just get it out of your head. And really what that all points to is they don't have a good system, they don't have a process. And the biggest mistake they make, and I suspect this is also beyond just the accounting industry, is they get the project management app and they think, oh, now I've got the system. But the problem is the app is not the system.

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Lauren (16:41):

That's right. It's the organization that goes into the system.

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Seth (16:43):

Yes, the system has to exist devoid of any apps. Then you use the system to figure out how you're going to execute using the app as the tool you use to execute the system. And they miss that. So they go from app to app thinking it's the app, and yet it's that definition of insanity being in the same place and expecting different results, doing the same thing and expecting different results.

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Lauren (17:05):

Yeah, I love “Getting Things Done” too. I've read it several times and one of my favorite takeaways from it is if it's going to take two minutes, just go and do it. If it's not, then put it on your list. It's just simple rules to be able to keep things going because you go, oh, this isn't going to take me that long. Two hours later you're in it, and then everything else is just shuffled around. So I want to back up. So you've got this amazing community. We've got kinds of different camps of conversations or questions that are coming out of it. You're also on the consulting end too. You're talking with businesses of all different sizes, I'm sure, different folks, and are there stair step themes you’re also seeing at different junctures of business, either from revenue size or employee count or what have you? I'd love to hear what themes you hear coming out of those consulting conversations.

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Seth (18:02):

So yeah, I think this is where it gets interesting because you're right to point out the size of the business and then how that drives the nature of the question. So the smallest businesses, all they care about really is how much money did I make and how much do I owe in taxes? And I never really liked working with clients on that level. I just felt like I wasn't adding a lot of value. And so eventually I reached a point where I would interview a prospect and if I got the sense all they cared about was getting a P&L and a balance sheet so they could get their return filed, I didn't want them. I'd pass them to somebody else. 

I wanted clients who wanted to really strategically use the accounting information I could compile for them. And so that made a difference. And for that, you're talking about your micro businesses that are doing say from a hundred thousand a year maybe up to half a million gross revenue. Just to kind of illustrate the point even further, years ago I had a client at this level, she probably did just about a hundred K a year. I used to try and encourage her to look at the balance sheet with me and she's like, no, no, no, I don't care. I just want to see the P&L. I just need to know how much money I make — until she got audited. And she was just randomly selected for what they call a desk audit, which means nobody's going to come in person; they're just going to request information and we send it in.

Well, looking at the auditor's questions, it was pretty clear to me what they were questioning because she had been in business for about five years. She was showing losses each year. And their essential question — they didn't ask this directly but it was evident from the questions they did — was how are you still in business running these losses? And the whole answer was on her balance sheet, which by the way, when you're a small business like that and you're just filing a Schedule C, there is no balance sheet. So they can't see that. But if I was able to show once, it was clear to me what they were going after; she had liabilities that equaled almost to the dollar the cumulative losses year over year. So I was able to basically put the picture together, and this is the thing about numbers for businesses as they tell a story, and this told the story of how she financed these losses based on debt. It's that simple. So anyway, it's interesting in that way. And then of course she got real interested in the balance sheet. After that she was like, okay, I want to learn about the balance sheet. I didn't even bother with the statement of cash flows.

But so then you scale up in size and all of a sudden, to me, it gets much more interesting because the questions get more interesting. Now they get more interested in how do I use this information to scale and grow? What kind of decisions can I make based on this? Okay, so if I look at your financial statements month over month, which I always insisted on doing, never just running it for the year in total but month over month. I want to look at trends. I want to look at the months where we did poorly, and then I want to understand why. And the clients, as you get to the million and up level, that's where they get interested in that stuff. And by the way, that's where they recognize a lot more value in what their accountants can do for them, which is where you can command much better fees. And also you get much fewer complaints. It's always the small clients that complain the most about your bill. At this level, they're like, I don't care, I'll pay you whatever you need. Just make sure I get the information. In other words, these clients at this level really want to save time and they'll pay a lot for that.

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Lauren (21:11):

Save time and resources so they can make more strategic decisions zeroed in on the numbers so they can adjust and flex. And if you're able to be there as a partner, I mean, that's tremendous value, right? 

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Seth (21:21):

Yeah, that's where the value is. And I still, going back to the conversations I have with the accountants, a lot of it is they're still attaching value to the inputs of what they do. And people like me in the accounting space have been working really hard for years now to try and get them to disassociate value with the inputs and reassociate value with the outcomes. And that's so important because we were just discussing the real value is in what I can help the client do differently with their business. It's not in how much time it took to reconcile their bank accounts or how many transactions they had. I hate that. By the way, when people talk about pricing based on transaction volume, it's such a low value way to price your accounting service.

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Lauren (22:02):

No, it's fair. So let me just back up again. So is your kind sweet spot in working with folks who are under the $5 million point, or how do you scale up with who you work with?

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Seth (22:17):

At one point I actually established I wouldn't take on a company that wasn't doing at least a million dollars a year. But funny story, I got into e-commerce by accident. I had a client come in my door who had seen my videos on YouTube and was convinced I was the guy, even though initially I was like, I don't have e-commerce experience; there are people who specialize in that.

But he kept insisting. So I chose to take him on. When I started working with him, I want to say he was probably doing well over a million dollars a year. By the time we parted company because he outgrew me and hired his own internal accounting staff, he was doing a million dollars a month. So I mean, it's quite a range I was able to work with. But with e-commerce, that's not uncommon, especially with big Amazon sellers. So it's hard to gauge it only based on revenues. There are companies that do very high ticket deals but the transaction volume is low. So that could be a $50 million a year company and yet not a whole lot in the trenches, so to speak.

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Lauren (23:23):

That makes sense. So it just really varies.

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Seth (23:28):

And by the way, when you get to his level, the companies that are doing $12 million+ a year, again, the conversation changes because now you're likely dealing with a board of directors and other stakeholders where I'm answering to my client who's answering to them. And so when my client and I had this happen, I can be honest, when my client gets ripped a new one, quote unquote, because he can't explain the numbers properly, guess who else is going to have that same experience? He's going to come back to me; that's going to blow back on me. And I've had to have those uncomfortable conversations where it's like, hey, I'm sorry but let's address this and get it fixed. So now you're dealing with several layers as the accountant; you're dealing with several levels because you've got your client and then the people your client is answering to. And then at one point, I was working with companies who were going right up to the point of going public. What I used to say to them is, the day you have to do your first SEC filing, I'm out. That's above my pay grade. The buck stops there for me. I'm not doing any SEC filings.

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Lauren (24:33):

That's fair. Oh my goodness. Well, this is so helpful. I appreciate you sharing, kind of like you said the mountaintops, just some of the themes you're seeing within your community, within your clients and what have you. I also just want to give a shout out to your content as well. Landing on your website, hearing your story, like I mentioned to you before, it's so human and so real. And you've got a podcast, Guide to the Galaxy, right? So super fun. I appreciate that realness. And also just you can tell there's that people-first educational piece to all you do. So I appreciate you sharing some of those lessons learned with folks.

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Seth (25:10):

Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

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Lauren (25:11):

And we'll make sure to include a link to your website as well. So this is great. Thank you again for your time and looking forward to just checking out all the great things you're doing and seeing more podcasts come out.

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Seth (25:23):

Fantastic. Thank you.

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Lauren (25:24):

Thank you. 

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We talked with Mary about:

• The similarities between Gen Z and previous generations and the fresh perspectives they’re bringing to the table
• Content marketing ideas that resonate with Gen Z and speak to their key priorities
• How financial services companies can rethink their hiring practices, marketing approaches, and other outreach efforts to better connect with Gen Z

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About Mary Wisniewski:

Mary Wisniewski is the editor-at-large at Cornerstone Advisors, where she shapes content strategy. In journalism since 2008, covering banking innovation and fintech with brands such as Bankrate and American Banker, Mary offers unique insights into the evolving financial services landscape. Her most recent work focuses on how companies are adapting their strategies to connect with the next generation of under-30 investors, financial planning clients, and employees. Appreciating Gen Z’s focus on self-care, work-life balance, and pursuing passions beyond financial success, Mary recognizes an excellent opportunity for banks, credit unions, and other financial services companies to engage a generation with distinct concerns and goals. Mary frequently speaks at industry events, in the media, and as the host of her podcast, “Money I$n’t Everything,” sharing strategies and research for better understanding and serving Gen Z.

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Featured Resources 

• Mary Wisniewski on LinkedIn
• Money I$n’t Everything Podcast
• Frich Webinar: Z Hits Different: How to Better Acquire and Engage a New Generation
• White Paper: Z Hits Different: How to Better Acquire and Engage a New Generation

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Enjoyed This? You’ll Also Love: 

• Tips and Trends for Hiring and Onboarding the Right Team in Financial Services Firms with Caleb Brown
• How Women Can Break into Financial Services Careers and Why They Should with Stephanie McCullough
• Unlocking The Power Of Innovative Hiring For Employee Retention And Success with Yonhee Choi Gordon

‍

Full Audio Transcript:

Lauren (00:05):

Well, Mary, thanks for joining us.

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Mary (00:07):

Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

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Lauren (00:09):

Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to hear from you. And our team was also just chatting about it. They're like, tell us more about Gen Z and all the things you're seeing in the fintech world and all these good things. So before we get into all of that, I'm just going to hand it over to you. Can you just share with folks a little bit about your background and how you got to where you are today?

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Mary (00:29):

Yeah, so I hear people say this, and it's also true for me. It's been a series of accidents. The only non-accident was I pursued journalism and moved to New York City for a job in jewelry writing at the time. But one thing led to another and I ended up being a blogger covering bank innovation in 2008. From there, I jumped in. 

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Lauren (00:51):

What a time.

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Mary (00:52):

What a time. Yeah. It was like, oh, what's happening? No one knows what we're talking about but that's okay. It really got me interested. It got me meeting people who really went on to huge things. It's fun looking back. But yeah. Then I went to American Banker editing op-eds and covering fintech for the brand. And then from there, Bankrate, and today I'm at Cornerstone as an editor-at-large who shaped their content strategy. And I also host a fintech podcast called Money I$n't Everything.

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Lauren (01:25):

Super awesome. So lots of experience in the banking world, fintech. It sounds like you've also had some really interesting conversations just from day one with your journalism background. So yeah, I love that. Well, I know recently you've put together a report specifically around Gen Z and the fintech world, and I’d love for us to just unpack that. What are you seeing in particular for the Gen Z audience? Because I feel like it's a different beast and it's a different type of communication, different ways of engaging. What is the landscape you're currently seeing out there as it relates to this demographic and then also the fintech world?

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Mary (02:08):

So I like to call them the under-30s, and I'm a millennial, and so I think back to when I was their age, and some things are very similar. Just because it’s a new generation doesn't mean everything's changed. And this one's such a broad one. It's very, very, very diverse but certainly they're bringing fun things to the work world. You can hear a lot of the older people are very mystified by Gen Z, and especially in banking circles, they're like, what's a self-care day? Or whatever. But I think it's really important, and I think previous generations have not been so forthcoming about what they need for themselves to actually perform well, and I think Gen Z is bringing it just in the way they're bringing their fabulous skincare. I love it. I think it's really fun in that way. And of course they're treating work differently. You're seeing Gen Z really double up on jobs, not only for money but here's my creative passion. I'm pursuing this as I'm also doing this corporate job and work-life balance seems to be a bigger goal.

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And for money. So the report you referenced, we partnered with Frich, which is a fintech company that's targeting Gen Z and pairing with credit unions to get Gen Z to them. Most credit unions don't have young members, and you see a lot of things that would be true of most people, let's say just targeted to graduating from college. They're worried about their first job. They're not, and it's interesting, one of the questions Fritz was asking the handful of Gen Z people was, what number do you think you need to be happy? And some people said a three-figure salary but others were just like 50,000 or something like that. So it's like you're in your early financial story; you don't really know what's going on yet. You're probably still getting assistance from parents maybe. And when you get that first job, it's very overwhelming to know what you're doing with that money. I didn't really have that experience. I did journalism. It was a low amount. But people pursuing higher earning jobs from when they're really young, then where do I put the savings? How much do I put in savings and so on.

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Lauren (04:45):

Oh my gosh, totally. I mean, it makes sense. I can see the parallels regardless of generation but it's really interesting to hear that, especially when you talk about working multiple jobs, like you said, work-life balance and bringing that forward. I want to get into the component you mentioned about credit unions; that’s really interesting about trying to be able to engage with this group more. What are you seeing along that trend? Are there certain channels banks are using or credit unions are using? Are there communication channels or types of ways they're going about to be able to engage this audience or even their employee benefit kind of offering? Is that changing the landscape? What are you seeing on that front?

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Mary (05:28):

Well, I think what I'm seeing is a lot of need to improve in this area. Definitely you need to do a big social media push for this audience. And I would say historically, less so credit unions but certainly I'd still put them in this bracket, it's just a little bit more formal, the communication, the language used, say for your retirement, all this stuff. But what's been happening, fintech has been pushing it to a more casual way on social media. If you follow Chime on TikTok for example, it's just fun. It's like showcasing three payday months or something in a fun way and giving tips. I would encourage the industry to be a little bit more casual and fun and try out some short form videos. 

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Lauren (06:21):

So we have a client we worked with for a really long time, and its CPO always had this role of no boring content, and we would do stuff that was sales focused but we'd also have some stuff that was just kind of wild and out there, and it's in the financial services world. It was goofy but it was fun. It was like humanizing. What are you seeing as a line that credit unions or others are sort of toting that there's that balance for the formality because this is a really serious topic but there's also the need to be relatable and human. Are you seeing more video content that's coming out? Are you seeing more infographics? You mentioned voice and tone of the copy that's being rolled out. What kind of pieces are you seeing or would encourage companies to use to, for lack of better words, humanize or add that pizazz or that personality to the brand?

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Mary (07:19):

I really do think this is just an area that needs improvement almost across the board from the financial perspective. But when they partner with fintechs, then the fintech brings playful marketing but you've got to think about stage of life.

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Lauren (07:37):

Totally.

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Mary (07:38):

One thing is this is something interesting about Gen Z, their openness to sharing their salaries, what they make, and just being more transparent about the numbers with their friends and family, just to what has been this secret. It's coming out. And I think that's really cool. But one of the things, topics, think about what's the average amount someone spends on a date, that kind of thing. That's money, things that would be on their mind.

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Lauren (08:08):

Yep. Oh, those are such good examples. Well, just basic marketing, you meet them where they are, right? What's top of their mind and getting to know them and unpacking that more too. What are you seeing in the fintech space? Is there any just pushing the creative envelope digitally or trying to build more communities? Are there interesting things going on there? 

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Mary (08:29):

Yeah. Well, some of it's just growth from what has already existed, because if you think about it, this is the generation that grew up where Venmo would have been on their phone most of their life or a cash app or that kind of thing. So those brands, which are massive brands, have a lot of this audience. But now you're starting to see some fintechs pop up and they're like, I am specific to Gen Z. So I wouldn't say this isn't so creative but it is something that's happening. They're linking up with college ambassadors to help spread the like, hey, here's this fund money up, blah, blah, blah. And I think that's cool and larger than that, you mentioned community, and that's something I've been seeing happen just across the ages actually. There's a startup called Ultra that's working to help people improve their credit scores but on its app, it has live events where people drop in to hear about important topics, and then it's like the members are sharing their money hacks with each other. So it's sort of a little mini Mint community, a little Reddit popping up.

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Lauren (09:36):

A study group if you want a more formal title. But there's a transparency element that also aligns with what you were saying earlier of you just put it out there. There's not this sort of money story that's sort of in the back of your mind of like, okay, I can't share that. I don't want to be transparent but it's putting it out there in a safe way. Super interesting. As you look ahead, are there any trends, especially from this research you saw or things you see — I think about AI — how are these kinds of things impacting what's to come in the years to come?

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Mary (10:13):

Well, I'll track it just from personal finance tips. So I'm someone who used to work at Bankrate, where I covered fintech, so it was a different role but they have such evergreen personal finance writing as do banks, as do credit unions. What is a checking account? And honestly, that's a piece of content you need, especially now because people don't know. But AI, oh, AI can write that in a heartbeat and maybe better. It's really dull. It's really dull writing, and honestly, it’s usually entry-level people writing a lot of the content, so the AI might actually get it better, spice it up. Yeah. It's just like the AI for FAQs.

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Lauren (10:55):

Yeah, I like that. That's also good for SEO too. So a win-win from all the sides of things. And then I guess if you were to take that content and then put it also forward in more of an entertaining way or a digestible way — I think about Instagram feeds that come through. Like you said, quick tips, bulleting, those sorts of things.

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Mary (11:18):

Yeah. Oh, and Lauren, one thing I'm thinking about, one thing about Gen Z is there's this return to, I don't know, nostalgia, things they never experienced. I think it started happening last year, maybe even before, but these under-30s wanting to do envelope budgeting as their strategy, like the physicality, so used to the apps. Yeah. So I think an opportunity looking ahead is like, oh, there's a lot to be commented on. What's the point of a branch, that kind of thing. But I think there would be an opportunity to bring some kind of lively event and target Gen Z specifically.

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Lauren (11:58):

Yeah, that's fair. I think getting back to some of the things we've been used to, especially growing up in a generation that's so digital first with everything, missing that either human or like you said, the physical touch component.

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Mary (12:10):

The physical touch. If you even look at TikTok, there's a Gen Z woman who went viral for just reading the newspaper, like the physical newspaper. I guess it's like things you might've missed.

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Lauren (12:24):

Yeah, that's fair. It's like the idea of holding a book, right?

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Mary (12:27):

Which I still do. I love underlining. 

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Lauren (12:31):

Yeah, I totally hear you. I know. I was in a conversation with someone yesterday and we were talking about moving to Kindles, and I'm like, oh, but there's this idea of being able to write things down.

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Mary (12:39):

Write things down and give your eyeballs a break from the screen.

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Lauren (12:42):

Yeah. It's all these little things, so super interesting. Any other thoughts you want to share or resources for folks you think might be helpful?

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Mary (12:51):

Well, I think one thing that's probably helpful to this audience is that in our research, we did discover where Gen Z is going for financial advice. And I thought TikTok would be at the top of the list but it's there, it's present. But family was the biggest category followed by friends and then followed by your bank or credit union. You could check multiple options but the family was overwhelming.

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Lauren (13:18):

So that was the trusted source for going to.

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Mary (13:20):

The trusted source. Yeah.

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Lauren (13:22):

Oh, that's super interesting. Thank you for sharing that. Sure. Yeah, and I see that too. We work with a lot of wealth management firms and we see referrals come in. A lot of them come from family and friends and then trusted advisors, which is probably no surprise but it's interesting to see that across the board also to your comment earlier, to see across the board this need for community, desire for community.

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Mary (13:45):

Yeah, especially after the pandemic. We can't all just be locked in a room. 

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Lauren (13:54):

Oh my gosh, so good. Well, thank you so much for sharing these insights. We'll make sure to include a link as well below to that report you had mentioned and resources. So this was super fun.

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Mary (14:05):

I was glad to, it was fun.

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Lauren (14:06):

Great to hear from you and just dive into all of it. So thank you again. 

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Mary (14:10):

Thanks for having me.

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We talked with Angela and Elyse about:

• Return on investment (ROI) versus Return on the moment (ROM) 
• How to align your events with business goals to build impactful and meaningful relationships 
• Why you should cater to the needs of your ideal audience 
• Their Event Emergency Kit Checklist

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About Angela York and Elyse Stoner:

Angela York and Elyse Stoner are the co-founders of Event Advisors, a company dedicated to transforming event strategy within the financial services ecosystem. Angela brings decades of experience in advisor and marketing implementation as well as event planning. Her journey spans over a decade of in-house roles and another decade as a consultant. During the pandemic, she met Elyse Stoner, marking the beginning of their collaboration. Angela’s extensive background in the wealth advisory space, combined with her passion for creating meaningful and strategic events, has been instrumental in their joint venture. Elyse has a rich background in sports entertainment and higher education marketing. Her experience in strategic marketing led her to question the purpose and strategy behind events in the financial services industry. Her strategic approach, coupled with Angela's deep industry knowledge, has been key to their success. Together, Angela and Elyse bring a unique blend of skills to Event Advisors, offering event strategies that are purpose-driven and aligned with business goals. Their mission is to elevate events in the financial services industry, ensuring they are not just events but strategic tools that deliver value and drive business success.

Featured Resources 

• Angela York in LinkedIn
• Elyse Stoner on LinkedIn
• Event Advisors on LinkedIn
• Event Advisors website
• Emergency Kit Checklist

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Enjoyed This? You’ll Also Love:  

• How to Plan In-Person Events to Build Community and Loyalty
• Is Online Community Building Your Next Step? How This Financial Services Marketing Option Could Accelerate Your Goals Through Data, CRMs, and Social Listening
• Building a Community Around Your Story and Lessons You’ve Learned
• The Role of Marketing and the CMO in Today’s Financial Services Industries with Nick Richtsmeier

Full Audio Transcript:

‍

Lauren (00:04):

All right, well welcome. Excited to have you both here with us today.

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Angela (00:08):

Thanks for having us.

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Elyse (00:10):

Great to see you.

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Lauren (00:11):

Well, we are going to be talking about events, probably no surprise for folks who are in the wealth management community. I'm sure these faces are familiar and specifically around why events, events with purpose, and so on and so forth. So I'm going to pass it over to you two, just to share a little bit about your background, how you got into the space, and then we'll go from there. So Angela, do you want to start us off?

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Angela (00:35):

I do. My background is decades of advisor marketing and implementation in the world of marketing plan invitation and event implementation. And I did that in-house for over a decade and then was consulting for another decade. Fast-forward to the pandemic, Elyse and I met and we started colliding and comparing event planning. And back in the day, strategy wasn't really a piece of the event planning implementation in the advisor world and Elyse's background was all event strategy. So when we met it was chocolate and peanut butter. We’re better together because now we bring event strategy to the finserv ecosystem.

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Lauren (01:29):

Love it. And Elyse, how about for you? Love to hear a little bit more.

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Elyse (01:33):

So yeah, I was not born and raised in the financial services market. My background is in the sports entertainment and higher education marketing world. When I was in college and trying to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up, I had heard about this cool thing called sports marketing. And I spent about 10 years doing that, promoting rodeos and concerts and working for a Division 1 athletic conference where we put on basketball tournaments and everything was very strategic. You knew who your audience was, you knew how you were marketing to them. And when I kind of got out into the big wide world, I would go to these events and go, yeah, I'm not the right person to be here. What's the deal? So I started thinking about this whole idea of the event marketing strategy. And like Angela said, when she and I met, I was like, I know folks in financial services do a lot of events but why did they do them? Because their coach told them to or they're—

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Lauren (02:39):

—supposed to check in the box. 

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Elyse (02:41):

Yes. Exactly. And just the conversation evolved into this strategy and understanding why and understanding who you're doing the event for and talking, and we'll talk more about this, but talking to them in the channels they use. And really when we came together and created Event Advisors, it's being able to share Angela's experience in the wealth advisory space, my experience in strategic marketing, and really helping everybody in what we call the finserv ecosystem — have events that have purpose, that actually have their own sets of goals and are tied into their business strategy so they don't get a bad rap anymore. We love events. We hate that people say they're expensive and they hate them.

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Lauren (03:33):

I get it. I really appreciate the background you bring. A lot of times we'll talk about how we're zeroed in on this financial services world but there's so many other amazing things happening in the bigger community and like you said, sports and other spaces out there to be able to take those best practices and pull them in. So tell us a little bit more. So you met during COVID. What was kind of the spark for where you are today, is it different kind of pre-COVID to post-COVID, and what led you to really form the entity you have?

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Angela (04:07):

Well, I'll jump in there, Lauren. So I was working in the space of marketing plan implementation and event planning implementation for mostly local advisors, wholesalers, and some broker dealers. When the pandemic hit, as we all know, all events shut down. So at that point I started working with colleagues I knew across the country and advisors they worked with to help them navigate the landscape and not come to a complete halt but shift their event planning to virtual event planning. So I started working with advisors around the country to determine what virtual events made sense for their client base so they could stay connected to their clients during the pandemic. So that included your virtual wine tastings, game night, craft night trivia. As we all know from back then there were hundreds of different virtual options. And at the time that Elyse and I met, I was working in that world trying to help advisors navigate how to share the new message, how to execute a great virtual event.

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And I was learning about strategic events because as we talked a few minutes ago, strategy really didn't play a big part in the finserv events. Of course, we always paid attention to who we wanted to invite, where we wanted to have it but we didn't go one layer below that, what you do with strategic event planning. So when Elyse and I were talking about event strategy and I was trying to do these virtual events and at the same time as we progressed through the pandemic advisors were asking, okay, we really like these virtual events because we are now reaching some of our best clients who aren't in our geographical area. But now that we're starting to open up, we'd like to do in-person events; how do we redo our marketing plans and our event calendars? This was a big reset in the finserv community because for so long we just kept rinsing and repeating and when everything came to a halt, it was, wait, should we re-look at this?

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And how do we re-look at this and how do we integrate these new event tactics and strategies? So fast-forward, we joined forces and started working with advisors to create strategic events and strategic marketing plans where you're really looking at the business goals, looking at the event goals — they tie into each other — and then create the event based on those goals and the ideal attendee. So you look at where are they coming from, do they work, do they not, work in those little details so the event speaks to them. How do they like to receive their invitations? It's really about the ideal attendee, not about the host, the advisor, or whoever's planning the event. So that's how we started to work on these events. And then Event Advisors was born and we work with advisors around the country, wholesalers, and broker dealers.

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Lauren (07:36):

I love to hear that. Here at Out & About, we often like to talk about how we want to make sure that everything that goes out, like a social media post, for example, you can connect it to the bigger picture, the why — you're not just doing to do, right? So I definitely resonate with a lot of what you're saying too, it's that you're doing this in a purposeful way and it's aligned with a bigger picture objective. Could either of you or both give some maybe a mini case study example or two that would help to narrate for those who are listening a good example of a strategic event? What does that look like? How does it differentiate itself from maybe just an event like a happy hour or what have you? I'd love to hear a little bit more about a case study.

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Elyse (08:22):

Okay. I think we can give you two. I mean we could give you a whole bunch but we'll give you two.

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Lauren (08:27):

Yes, please.

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Elyse (08:29):

The first one is actually the very first partnership Angela and I worked on. It was an advisory firm in Texas, and they conceded that they needed to do a virtual wine tasting event, and they had three of their advisors who were teaming up and they're like, we know we need to do this thing but we have no idea how to do it. So Angela had contact with the vineyards in Northern California and again, the whole shipping wine to people's homes and all that good stuff. But what we talked about and what I came in to say is why are you doing this?

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Well, we need to connect with our clients. And then we talked about which clients they wanted to connect with, sort of almost made an avatar of those people so we could think about them; literally we talked about how many squares, how many Brady Bunch boxes do you want on the screen because do you want to be able to see everybody? Is this something that maybe is a multiple choice night, right? We're doing three of these and people get to choose which night they do because it was virtual and you're giving them some flexibility. So it was a conversation along those lines. One of the places we also thrive and we know is a pain point for a lot of our clients is follow-up.

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And this particular post-event. Yes, yes. Post-event follow-up. And this particular client, we spent a lot of time talking about that because what we felt was you've got everybody in their squares and they're tasting wines and they're getting educated and you talk about how you want to connect with them. We created a full follow-up strategy for them to not only say thank you and all the things we know we're supposed to do but we talked about the wine and we used the wine as what we call the positive emotional memory and said, we know when you reach out to your attendees afterwards, don't ask them, did you like the wine, yes or no?

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Which was your favorite? And if you didn't have a favorite, what is your favorite wine? So you're able to capture some information that you can go ahead and put in their database to use in the future for an anniversary, for those wow moments. Just kind of a nice little twist. The other side of that twist was one of the issues the client had too was our advisors hate doing follow-up. Like, the event’s over, they don't want to do it. So we came up with what in the industry is called gamification.

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Again, we'll be stereotypical, it was an advisory firm that was mostly male in Texas. So we basically said, how about a scoreboard and put it up. Some of these folks were still coming to the office. Put it up in the office and keep track who's making calls. My initial response was you could do a Starbucks gift card for the person who hits the marker the fastest. And the advisor was like, our advisors like bourbon. I'm like, bourbon sounds good. We like bourbon too. So really kind of leaning into that and they were able to connect with these folks and continue conversations and get really good information they've never really thought about when they would simply just say, y'all come and we'll have a little party and send them on their way. And then Angela, go ahead. Angela has a great example of another client who was struggling in a post-COVID manner and she can go ahead and tell the story.

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Angela (12:45):

So we had a client who really wanted to reach their top A clients but when we sat down with them, they couldn't pinpoint a geographical area where these top clients were. They had some here in Southern California, they had some in Orange County, they had some in LA, they even had some in San Francisco. So to do an event, a large client appreciation event, and expect people to come from the different areas, it's not likely. So they had put a stop to that idea, they're going, we can't have one because we have clients everywhere.

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Elyse (13:32):

Just so common these days.

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Angela (13:33):

Very.

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Elyse (13:33):

Exactly.

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Angela (13:34):

And so we sat down and said, well, we need to have a different mindset because yes, you can have a client appreciation event. It doesn't need to be like the advisor next door, upstairs, down the street; it doesn't have to be a 100-person summer party, whatever it might be. So we actually sat down with a map of the different areas and had them dot the cities and the areas their top clients were in. And what we did is we created a model. We started with San Francisco because that really had the biggest cluster. And we looked at this map, physically looked at the map with the dots and considered traffic times and schedules and came up with an event and a location that would work with everybody.

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Lauren (14:32):

Figuring all that out, my goodness. 

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Angela (14:38):

So then what we did is we figured out where we wanted to have the event but what type of event? So we brainstormed and talked through the characteristics of the households of these clients, and you're going to think all we do is wine events but this was a common interest. They liked fine wine, they liked great food. So we came up with a small intimate wine pairing dinner up in Northern California. We had 10 people, so we're not talking large, we're talking very intimate because that's where this cluster was and everything from the personnel invitation to the follow-up confirmation to when they walked in and were greeted and sat down and who was seated next to each other. And it wasn't a sales pitch, there was no business discussed at all. It was just coming together, deepening that relationship, creating the community between the other clients.

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And we were told the restaurant actually had to ask them to leave; they were shutting down. They had such a good time. They were there well past 11, and I think they started at seven. And it was just this great experience. And the sommelier had given them a gift to let them track what they liked about each wine, what they didn't like about the wine, to help kind of spur some ideas for maybe future travel. So they left with this whole package and this positive emotional memory we touched on earlier, that really created such a great experience, something they can talk about with their friends and with the advisory firm for years to come. And it's just, again, it was a positive and strong return on the moment. It was a success.

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Lauren (16:39):

What I love about that story is through the narrative, you were able to identify the points of friction of like, well, who do I sit next to? Am I going to have an interesting dialog? Was it easy to get to all these kinds of things that were thought through? And as you're reducing the friction, that helps to make it much more seamless for everyone. So it's easier said than done. And then Elyse, I also appreciate the level of personalization you all are adding to those different events as well. And specifically in your story, you were like, okay, the follow-up is key but that personal follow-up is key, and we have to motivate action. And we see this too. You could have the best event, you can have the best whatever it is but if you're not getting people there and if you're not doing the follow-up, then it's going to fall flat. So it's really got to be this collaborative effort. It's like putting together a CRM. You've got to have people who buy into it in order for it to be able to take off just to create maybe a familiar parallel example for those who haven't done events before.

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Tell us about, are there any other trends you're seeing post-COVID? Are webinars still a thing in these virtual events? Are you seeing an upward trend and more of these kinds of event examples, the in-person event examples you all describe? What are you seeing in today's day and age if you will post- COVID?

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Elyse (18:05):

It's like a pendulum, and first there was the big swing one way — we've got to do events and we've got to bring together as many people safely as we can. And then it was like, ooh, I don't like that many people. They scare me. And then it would swing back to the other side. But what we're finding now is the trends are much more about value versus the things people are doing. We have this philosophy about, and Angela touched on this, when you're doing an event, it's not about measuring ROI, we believe it's measuring ROM, which is the return on the moment. You're creating this moment, which is like a rock in your marketing stream, and you need to set goals for that. And when you're setting those goals for judging the success of that event, one of those goals can be venue. And when we talk venue, venue can be virtual, venue can be in-person, venue can be hybrid, which is a combination of the two.

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You can use that to determine whether your event is successful. So we feel like the swing is really more in the bang for the investment, because as we know as marketers, right? Again, it's a rock in the stream. It's part of this client journey. If you're trying to measure ROI, you're really dependent on somebody else taking an action to determine, well, I spent X, I made Y but maybe they're not ready to invest with you yet. Maybe this is an opportunity where it's a client who maybe has some funds someplace else and they need to get to know you better. Is that a goal and are you achieving the goal with that event? So that's more of an ROM than, because again, like I said, we hear this, I don't like the ROI of events but chicken is going to cost a certain amount, and a venue rental is going to be a certain amount. So instead of trying to measure success that way, our model is return on the moment.

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Angela (20:33):

I'd love to jump in there as well. You had asked about the trends, and we actually prefer to stay away from the trends, which is actually what I don't want to say, got us in trouble for the decades prior to us implementing strategic events. But for those decades, the natural tendency, at least that I experienced, because finserv is really all I know is we were very trend driven. This advisor did that or wanted to do that, or my coach said shiny object. And so we like to steer away from the trends because it may not be a great fit for that advisory practice or the wholesalers doing an event for the advisor or the broker dealer doing a team-building for their advisors. It really boils down to the business goals. What are the business goals? Are you trying to deepen relationships with female clients?

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Are you trying to do generational planning campaigns? What are your goals? And create the event goals based on that and the attendee, the ideal attendee. Who are they based on, the goals? Then you build what type of event is best for that group. Just like in the example from Northern California I had mentioned; they wanted to do a large client appreciation event because they had seen other advisors do that. But when you peel back the curtain and look at that specific practice, it wasn't a good fit. It was a trend but it wasn't a good fit for them. What was a good fit for them is what the attendee wanted, and that was intimate their local area. They didn't want to fly from Northern California to Southern California. So that's really what we look at. Do the ideal attendees, are they not in your geographic area? If so, a virtual event would be great. Do they want small? Do they want large? Do they want after work? Do they want social? Do they want education? That's really what it boils down to.

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Lauren (22:36):

Yeah, so well said. And I think that's really easy to forget because we talked about earlier, it's easy to just do that check in the box. There's a firm we've worked with, and this was pre-COVID but I think the event is a good example. So they're in San Diego, they target biotech executives. They had an exclusive event, no sales, and it was just other biotech executives all with similar sort of job titles or descriptions. And the whole point of it was just to socialize, network. It was a sort of happy hour event but it hit those buckets, knowing your target market, adding value. And like it was mentioned earlier, it's really got to be about them and not about you. And so all of those things, it helps that, it helps differentiate you in the market but I think you just want to make sure, as you all have pointed out, that the differentiation is really coming from you defining what that is first before you just going out and doing something. 

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Angela (23:35):

Exactly. And events can be used for the different targets you want to deepen those relationships with. So it doesn't necessarily have to be an advisor-client relationship. It could be a wholesaler insurance company with advisors or broker dealers with their advisors. It can be team-building, it can be all of that, and it can also be centers of influence. So if you want to develop those relationships with your COIs, if they're estate planning attorneys or CPAs or whatever they might be where you share the same client, do lunch and learns, offer CE credits, use your wholesalers for content. So it doesn't have to be a Valentine's Day event, a holiday event, an education event. You can mix and match but again, it comes down to what are your business goals and how do you tie those into events.

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Lauren (24:30):

Yes. Okay. So I just want to be mindful of time as we're wrapping things up here but I would love for you all to share a little bit about more of this consultancy aspect you offer. I think sometimes when you think event planning, you're like, holy smokes, all the communication ramps up, the event itself, boots on ground, being there if it's a physical event, so on and so forth, all the posts. What is this consultancy piece you offer, and can you tell us a little bit more about that and how that works?

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Elyse (24:55):

Sure. So we recognize what we're talking about is a little different. When we say event planning, there's a certain picture that comes to people's heads, and while we both have a lot of experience, it would be a very separate, different webinar if we wanted to talk war stories of what happens at events.

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Lauren (25:18):

Yes.

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Elyse (25:20):

And we know there's a lot of really good people in the finserv ecosystem who are phenomenal event planners. So what we're doing with Event Advisors is we're actually here to help support those people and maybe help support the people who don't either don't have somebody or they have that person who's HR and admin and the event planner and making sure the plants are watered and all of those things. By bringing our decades of event experience both in financial services and outside of financial services to help people be successful, it's this idea of, we call it collaborative coaching. It's we can do whatever you need us to do — if we need to be researching venues, if we need to be spending some time learning about your ideal client, if it's coaching your team, they kind of have it going on but they're not quite in the strategic mindset, and you want to make sure you're maximizing that ROM.

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That's sort of our sweet spot. We have spent a lot of time taking the information we have gathered over the years, and for example, we've put together an emergency kit checklist. Everyone should have an emergency kit. When you do an event that's a little sidebar, we can talk. If you don't call us, we'll talk about that. But we've created this checklist that actually has live links, and you just go in and click on the links and it's everything from a first aid kit to HDMI cables to reading glasses, and most of that stuff is in there because we found we needed it. Somewhere along the way we're here to sort of help people not step in the potholes we've already stepped in.

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Lauren (27:31):

I get it. Oh my goodness. We'll make sure to include that emergency kit as well for folks. Any shoutouts? If you could pick one thing from that emergency kit, do not forget at home, what would it be?

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Angela (27:45):

Sharpie.

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Lauren (27:46):

Oh.

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Angela (27:48):

I mean, there's so many different choices. Sharpie is a great one. Rubber band is a great one. Duct tape.

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Elyse (27:57):

They're all great. And things like duct tape, for example. You can use it for so many different things. Not only is your banner falling off the wall but you have a black tablecloth and it came back from the dry cleaner and it's got lint all over it. Take that duct tape, turn it inside out. It's a lint cleaner. 

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Lauren (28:17):

So true. I know if you need to take that tablecloth in a little bit more, you can take that duct tape and just it's like your sewing machine onsite.

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Elyse (28:27):

Exactly.

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Lauren (28:30):

Goodness. Well, so fun. Thank you both for sharing your experience, your offering, and just a different way of looking at events. So appreciate your time. Thank you for being on the show.

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Elyse (28:42):

Thanks so much.

We talked with Caleb about:

• The fluctuating talent market and the art of positioning job roles effectively 
• A generational shift: Why is Gen Z seeking in-person opportunities?
• The importance of precise hiring strategies and how they lead to successful placements 

About Caleb Brown:

Caleb Brown is the CEO and co-founder of New Planner Recruiting, LLC. He graduated from Texas Tech's financial planning program in the early 2000s after initially majoring in finance. Encouraged by his father to pursue business, Caleb discovered his passion for financial planning a few years into his studies and made a pivotal shift in his academic journey. Upon graduation, he returned to Dallas and secured a full-time financial planning role, where he worked for nearly six years. During this time, Caleb became actively involved with the Financial Planning Association (FPA) in Dallas. Witnessing the challenges faced by talented financial planners during a tough job market, he was driven to find ways to keep them in the profession. Caleb’s efforts through the FPA led to the creation of career day programs and internship opportunities, and eventually firms began seeking his expertise to hire the best candidates. His experience helped lay the foundation for New Planner Recruiting, which he founded with Michael Kitces. Today, Caleb continues to shape the future of financial planning by helping new planners enter the profession and connecting top talent with leading firms. 

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Featured Resources 

• Caleb Brown on LinkedIn
• New Planner Recruiting, LLC on LinkedIn
• New Planner Recruiting website 
• Angie Herbers

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Enjoyed This? You’ll Also Love: 

• How Women Can Break into Financial Services Careers and Why They Should
• How To Develop and Infuse Generosity Into Your Company Culture
• Unlocking the Power of Innovative Hiring for Employee Retention and Success
• Is Online Community Building Your Next Step? How This Financial Services Marketing Option Could Accelerate Your Goals Through Data, CRMs, and Social Listening 

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Full Audio Transcript:

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Lauren (00:05):

Hi Caleb. Thank you for joining us.

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Caleb (00:07):

Hey, great to be here. Thanks for having me.

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Lauren (00:09):

Yes, and we get to go from one podcast show to another, so I know you've got a whole podcast. We'll get into that and the recruiting firm. But tell us, I'm going to hand it over to you. Share a little bit more if you don't mind about your background and working in this financial services world. 

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Caleb (00:29):

I graduated from the Texas Tech Financial Planning Program a long time ago before really anybody knew what was going on. And it was the early 2000s and I was trying to get an internship in financial planning in 2001 and trying to get a full-time job in 2002. And if you studied the investment markets, that's not really when they were handing out jobs, salaried jobs at fee-only firms where I didn't have a book of clients and really wasn't going to add much value and was asking for a salary. So it was a challenging time. But my father was an engineer. I knew I liked numbers and math but I just didn't want to do the engineering and he kind of just encouraged me to do something in business that was a good fit. I started out as a finance major at Texas Tech and absolutely hated it. I was just in there with thousands of people and they were gearing me up to create TPS reports for some global goliath bank or something, and fortunately I was able to stumble upon financial planning after a couple of years in school and changed my major and never looked back.

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Lauren (01:39):

That's fantastic. So a little bit of adjusting course as you go along. I think we all do that, right? A little bit of exploration and hearing what you enjoy. How did you get to where you are today though owning your own company and being on the recruiting side of things?

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Caleb (01:58):

Someone asked me this the other day. I was like, well, actually I think it was one of my high school buddies. If you would've asked me 22 years ago where I could never have come up with this, I never would've come up with this.

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So I went back to the Dallas/Fort Worth area after graduation, I was able to finally convince someone to take a chance on me and it ended up working out for him and worked out for me. I was there almost six years but I started as a full-time financial planner and was really heavily involved in the Financial Planning Association (FPA) of Dallas/Fort Worth. I saw a lot of just job seekers having trouble. People weren't as lucky, as fortunate as I was, and frankly, they probably were a lot more analytical and better communicators with more gravitas and more polished and they couldn't find a job. So they ended up leaving the profession and I told myself, look, it’s great that I've got a place but we can't keep losing these people I went to school with who could be really good planners. And they went to become teachers and football coaches and bankers. I'm like, look, that's all great and that's fine but we need you in our profession. Sorry I'm a little selfish but we need you in our profession.

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Lauren (03:11):

And keep you over in this neck of the woods over here. 

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Caleb (03:14):

Yep, that's right. 

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Lauren (03:15):

You were just seeing talent.

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Caleb (03:16):

So I thought, hey, what can I do going forward through FPA or whatever other channel to try to retain these people? And up at that point, everything at FPA was geared toward your 55-year-old CFP® business owner, a baldheaded white guy. 

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Lauren (03:34):

Different clientele, different time in the growth of the RIA community-at-large too. 

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Caleb (03:39):

I was fortunate enough to get nominated for a board position, the career development directorship, and I got elected and there was actually some age discrimination I experienced back then too. And I said, look, we're going to focus on career changers and new college grads. That's what we're doing. If you don't like it, you'll find somebody else to do this. And there's not a lot of people lining up to be career development director. So they were like, okay, do whatever you want. And in it working out, we created some career day programs and internship programs and all this do-it-yourselfer stuff.

At the end of the day, I had these firms coming to me and saying, yeah, that's great but can you just tell me who to hire? You're talking to all these people and I don't know who the best fit is and who the best student is or what the best story is, and I don't know how much to pay these people — can you just do this for me? And I was doing that on a pro bono basis for a number of years while I was helping a sole practitioner build a financial planning firm. And then I found out in 2006 or so, Michael Kitces was doing that. We met at a next-gen conference and he was doing that in Washington, D.C. So we started laying the groundwork for an entry-level financial planning recruiting firm. Everybody's familiar with Robert Half and the big headhunters out there that want to place people who are making hundreds and hundreds, millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands and millions, and then the people who want to move books of business.

We knew that was a red ocean. We were looking for a blue ocean. So we're like, look, we're not coming with this recruiting firm to try to help those people — our focus is somebody who’s making between $50 and probably $150, $200,000 a year. So that's not an executive person, and they've got probably less than 10 years of experience and we're going to help them find jobs with salaried financial planning-focused firms where they're going to learn and they get to work on their existing clients and receive mentoring from a team, and they're not just thrown out there with a phone book.

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Lauren (05:40):

Yep, yep. It's such a needed space too, because I think you see a lot of firms and they have their clients, they're doing a good job, they've got them there for a long time. So you want someone who you can help bring up as part of the culture, able to really offer that to them. And that's still your focus today. I mean, I know your whole podcast is focused on that. Tell me a little bit more. So it sounds like you not only identified the blue ocean but then tell me more about how it's stuck, right? So are you seeing a growing need for this still in this, for this audience, for placement?

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Caleb (06:18):

Absolutely. I remember sitting around a conference table and Michael and I were just debating and it's kind of like, well, why hasn't anybody else done this before? It's like, well, because people, they just do it on their own. They just get somebody out of college or they find they're easier to find and it's like, how are we going to get someone to pay us to do this? And then it's like, wait a minute, isn't that exactly what they're asking their clients to do with them? Their clients can do the financial planning on their own if they want to but they're going to outsource it. And frankly, the client side is never empty, because I have two pipelines to fill — the clients and the job seekers — and we've always had sort of a line of firms lined up to pay to for us to do this for them, which is flattering and also exhilarating and good job security and helped me build a career and been a lot of fun along the way.

The challenge is just finding a good match. I mean, just because someone lives in San Diego and they're in the salary range doesn't mean it's a good fit. And some of the firm is like, oh, okay, maybe I should take this a little peel back the onion a little bit more, peel back another layer. So it's just been fun to do that. We kind of have a niche carved out and we've just been doing it long enough now where the firms that want — I mean, look, you've always got those who say we don't need you guys; we'll just post on LinkedIn and we get all these people. It's like, look, if that's what you want to do, that's fabulous. You do that. That's great. That's exactly like that prospect who comes to you and says I don't need a financial planner.

I can do it on my own. All right, same thing, but we have a niche carved out. We're looking for delegators, and there are a lot of firms out there that want to delegate this hiring because as you probably run into, they're not that great at it. They don't do it often. It's very time-intensive and there is some art and some science there that a highly, highly compensated firm owner or a financial planner does not need to be doing a lot of this stuff, especially on the front and the back end, right? 

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Lauren (08:18):

There's a lot. I mean, hiring's tricky. Being able to find the right fit, comb through all the resumes, do the promotions, really get a pulse. Every call you have, it can be, you want to make sure it's a good use of time on both sides too, right? So tell us a little bit more about these firms that are coming to you. I mean, how are you helping to shake out the right fit or even coaching them to go just to even make sure the job description's clear? What kind of process are you using? Are they coming to you and they're like, we know we've got this person, this is the fit. Are you working with the job description and coaching them up to that even before they open up the job? What does that whole process look like? I'd just love to hear a little bit more about the advice you give to firms as they're entertaining making a hire.

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Caleb (09:06):

Sure. It is both. To answer your question, I mean, we spend a lot of time on the front end. I mean, a lot of my questions are like, okay, I'm asking them about their business: How many clients? What's the pain point? Okay, that doesn't sound right. Trying to do a lot of the practice management diagnosing, at least at a cursory level. And a lot of times, can you outsource this? Can we send it out to a remote paraplanner? Is there technology solution? So before you even get to hiring, because once you start hiring people, then now you're a business, now you're a manager and you might've just wanted to be a technician or an entrepreneur and now you're managing people. And what I've learned is a lot of the firm owners and your practitioners who are technicians, that's not their skill set. That's why they're not good at hiring. A lot of times they're not good at managing. Now, a lot of them learn to be good managers, which is because they can manage their client relationships. You can, I mean, managing people's a little different. So we're trying to help them figure out who to hire. A lot of them come in and they say, Caleb, look, I don't know what's out there. Here's what I think I want.

What do you think? Does that make sense? I love people like that versus the clients who are like, well, what do you mean that's not out there? I mean, this is what I was looking for. What do you mean? Well, I'm paying a salary. Everybody should be applying to my job and having to walk it through with them. Here's the talent market, just like this stock market. It fluctuates. I mean, it changes, it's fluid.

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Lauren (10:42):

It was a very different situation when we were going through COVID and what the market was demanding compared to now too. It's interesting. I mean, on the marketing side, we see it too. We have talent conversations. I was talking with another CMO recently, and he gave this analogy about how marketing basically is that kind of glove that fits across departments and impacts the culture and how it's being shown up on the outside and all of that. So I think just to your points about, there's a lot of thinking that goes into it, and then how you're positioning the job description itself is a whole art unto itself. Do you actually help with the writing of the job descriptions and the messaging and what is your team involved with on that side of things?

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Caleb (11:25):

We handle it all. We're looking for delegators. They're the final decision-makers — we're the CFOs, they're the CEOs of the situation. We're going to do all the legwork, everything, bring them awesome people to look at and have them agonize over who to hire. That's our goal.

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Lauren (11:47):

It's funny, sometimes we've had firms we've worked with that have gone to look for the right messaging, and they go through all this stuff and they realize sometimes the input is not getting them the right output, which is sort of an interesting piece of it. And the other thing that some firms we worked with as well is then they go, okay, well, we got all this out there but we realize we've got a great culture and we're not showing it off. We're not telling people we've won awards, we're doing these fun things, or this is what makes us different. And I think that's one of the components to hiring too, is to be able to say how you differentiate yourself as a firm and as a culture. And if you're actually going to have success, you're not just going in and being a transactionalist, right? You're going to really be supported. And how are you working with firms to help them think about that step, even beyond just getting the job description out the door?

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Caleb (12:37):

Well, candidates pay attention to that, especially, so your Gen Y, Gen Z. It's a differentiator, right? They look at that. I mean, the awards, it's like, okay, what really happened for that person to get the award? Is it one of those deals where you pay a fee? 

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Lauren (12:55):

I hear you.

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Caleb (12:57):

But they look at that, it's social proof. Just having people talk about their job and the day in the life at the firm and some pictures on the social media account. I think that's becoming more table stakes now; everybody's kind of like, you go to LinkedIn, you could spend all day every day just looking at new hire announcements, and it's not a coincidence that once someone did it all, they all do it. And here's the welcome package. They get their umbrella and their laptop cover and their dog leash and their…

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Lauren (13:34):

…baseball hat, sweatshirt, and all the things.

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Caleb (13:37):

It's not a coincidence.

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Lauren (13:38):

Yeah, yeah. It's so true. It's interesting. What other things are you seeing on the market, just kind in the trends, hiring trends, things firms should be thinking about? 

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Caleb (13:54):

I guess just even in today's day and age, there’s a little bit of a disconnect on the virtual thing. Frankly, after COVID, I thought the virtual thing was here to stay and we were going to just stick with it. That hasn't really panned out that way. Most firms settled on kind of a hybrid but you still have a good subset — I would say 90% of the job seekers send me something like, here's the location I'm interested in but also remote. Before COVID, they never knew that was an option.

If I'm in Austin, Texas, I'm going to have to move to Nashville if I want a job there. And now it's like, well, no, they can just do it remote. And not all the firm owners are on board with that. So there's a little bit of disconnect there on the remote piece but although the Gen Z, the people who were in school during COVID, they want the furthest thing away from all virtual they can get because it was such a disaster for them.

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Lauren (14:51):

Yeah, that makes sense. I didn't put those two together. 

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Caleb (14:55):

The other thing I see is the impact investing, the ESG, just the B Corporations. What else? The advice only. Those are sort of the buzzwords that catch people's attention. But also too, I think just a lot of these bigger firms that have these super high five, 10 million minimums, they're losing a lot of next-gen advisors; they call me and they say, get me out of there. Because looking to help someone go from 10 to 20 million is not very rewarding. Helping someone go from 700,000 to a million and retire, that's very rewarding. And I'm kind of more in that camp. So it's just something to consider, if you're a firm owner out there listening to this who's got the big minimums, I get it. It's great, great business but I am seeing a little bit more traction develop there.

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Lauren (15:58):

Are you also seeing any unique models with how firms are structuring teams to be able to help bring up the next gen as well?

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Caleb (16:06):

Yeah. Angie Herbers has done a lot of work on this, and I followed her. We kind of got started the same. That diamond team stuff. I rarely get people on the siloed model anymore. It's all diamond teams. We want to try to make sure we can keep promoting, keep replicating, and building these out — making sure there's places for people to go so they don't have to go to another firm after three years because they have to wait for someone to die or retire.

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Lauren (16:35):

Along with that, are you also seeing anything when it comes to firms segmenting against a particular audience? Like, okay, this is our team for business owners. This is our team for pre-retirees, retirees, so on and so forth.

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Caleb (16:49):

The larger, I would say north of 10 billion, those bigger firms are doing professional athletes. You got your entertainers, your celebrities, you got your business owners. And when they say business owner, they mean Jeff Bezos type. They'll have some specialties. But I mean, I think for the other somebody, you might have someone in a smaller firm like, hey, you're an expert in Lockheed Martin. You deal with them or you deal with Coca-Cola, whatever it is. But it's still pretty much just whoever they fit well with, whoever has capacity or whoever brings them in is kind of the mix.

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Lauren (17:27):

We see a similar thing too and more of that ensemble firm size where there's, like you said, a general target, but then there are specific advisors who might own a particular audience, if you will. They've got the business owners exit planning certification or so on and so forth but it's certifications or experience or just who their network is that aligns with that particular audience, which I would assume could be an attractive growth path for someone who’s younger. If they have more of a sweet spot, they want to narrow into seeing that the firm is investing in them going after a particular demographic. So super interesting. Any other things you think would be helpful to share just for if firms are thinking to hire, things they should do to prepare for that hire or initial things to be thinking about or that window of hiring?

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Caleb (18:18):

Yeah, I mean, I just look at the business. Where do you need the help and you need to get started probably before you hit capacity. I mean, that's where we see a lot of oops. I get calls like small firms, 300 million, 300 clients. There's one advisor helping an associate helping the firm. I'm like, there is no way — you're not servicing all these people and you should have hired someone a long time ago. And so that the timing but also just the clarity being very clear. I mean, when firm owners come to me or the hiring managers, whoever it is, comes to me and says they're clear on who they want, as long as it's reasonable, if it exists we can find it for them. But when they're like, we don't really know. We just need somebody up here just to try to get some plans done and get some climbing, just kind of send us some people, that never works. And that's like the clients coming to them saying, hey, I don't really have any retirement goals. I just want a big pot of money, and can you make that happen?

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Lauren (19:18):

Totally fair. It's like their unicorn, right? 

‍

Caleb (19:21):

I don’t know what to do with that.

‍

Lauren (19:24):

I'm sure you see this too. I can say with owning a company myself, there are certain roles we hire for, and we hired more than once for them. We have certain people in a number of roles but we've learned to refine the job description over the years. And then we've also learned how long it actually takes to onboard someone for that. So that impacts when you actually go to put out that job description, how long it takes to hire. And that takes time. And so I think one of the great things your firm offers is you're having all these conversations. It's almost like you can speed that up versus going through multiple years of trying to get it right and then knowing when you should actually pull the trigger and then what to look for. So by the way, that makes me think too, we use DISC as a training tool for personalities. Are there any kind of tools you use as part of your hiring process to get the right fit?

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Caleb (20:15):

There's a lot of them out there. So on the conative side, Kolbe Corp, out of Phoenix, Arizona, on the affective side, I mean, we've used Caliper in the past, StrengthsFinder, we used DISC. There's a profile, there's the culture index predicting. There's a ton of them out there. And we do see a lot of firms have their own, they probably have a consultant at some point, and they've brought in something, and that's what I recommend for firms, just make sure you're testing all areas of the mind, so the cognitive, the affective, and then the conative, and to try to get a good sense on who you're actually hiring.

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Lauren (20:52):

Yep, makes sense, especially if it's someone who’s in a client facing role, right? Really owning those relationships but also supporting the work itself so it's reflective of how the business operates and shows up in the world. Not easy to find the right fit. But thank you. I appreciate your time and sharing a little bit more about what you all do. So just to direct folks to your website, it's newplannerrecruiting.com; we’ll make sure to link below. Any final words, final thoughts?

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Caleb (21:24):

It's a great profession. If there's any job seekers out there, I share this all the time. I spend all day talking to people who are trying to get into this business — so if you're in it, you've picked the right one and just keep doing your thing and you'll have success.

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Lauren (21:40):

Awesome. Thanks so much, Caleb. We appreciate your time.

‍

Caleb (21:43):

Thanks for having me.

‍

We talked with Robin about:

• How her unique blend of business acumen and creative vision has led to impactful documentaries 
• The process of distributing her films so they go on to foster discussions and drive advocacy
• How she ensures every screening is not just a viewing but an opportunity for education and dialog

About Robin Hauser:

As president of Unleashed Productions, Inc. and director at Finish Line Features, LLC, Robin is renowned for producing cause-based documentaries that inspire and educate. After beginning her career in finance, Robin's passion for photography and visual storytelling led her to documentary filmmaking. Her journey began in 2010 with a project about a high school cross-country coach diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease. The success and emotional impact of this documentary ignited Robin's dedication to creating films that highlight important societal issues through creative content. Self-taught and supported by the vibrant San Francisco documentary community, Robin combines her business acumen with a deep commitment to storytelling, fundraising, and mentorship to bring impactful stories to life.

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Featured Resources 

• Robin Hauser on LinkedIn
• Robin Hauser on Instagram
• Robin Hauser’s TED Talk 
• Finish Line Feature Films 
• Robin Hauser’s website

‍

Enjoyed this? You’ll also love: 

• How Women Can Break into Financial Services Careers and Why They Should with Stephanie McCullough 
• Your Media Marketing Strategy: Start by Letting Your Why Shine Through
• The Power of Podcasts: Building Influence by Being Your Own Loud

‍

Full Audio Transcript:

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‍Lauren (00:05):

Robin, thank you for joining us.

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Robin (00:07):

Oh, I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks so much, Lauren.

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Lauren (00:09):

Yeah, so we'll make sure to include links because there are so many incredible videos you've produced — and TED Talks, I know you've done many of those as well. I want to really give you a chance to be able to get into your story. But I know you are the president of Unleashed Productions and do videos around cause-based documentaries. And just to kind of open up the discussion here, how did you get into that world, right? And specifically in the actual production of these videos but then how did you land on this idea of storytelling and, I don’t know what the right word is but maybe cause-based just to focus on where you are.

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Robin (00:54):

Yeah, exactly. I got my MBA when I got out of undergrad and I was working in the stock market. I never really thought I would be a documentary filmmaker, although photography has always inspired me. It's always been one of my hobbies. And I thought maybe one day I can do visual storytelling. Maybe one day I'll be able to do something super creative, like an actual documentary film. And that opportunity presented itself in 2010 when my daughter was in high school and she was running for her cross country team and her coach, who was a famous coach in California because he had so many wins, was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease. And so there was a story that developed around that with how hard these young women worked to try to win and make Coach Tracy the winningest cross country coach — actually, it was the winningest coach in all of California history, not just for one sport, for any sport.

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Lauren (01:56):

Wow, that's impressive.

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Robin (01:58):

Yeah, no, it's really impressive. And so everybody was assuming this would be his last year coaching, which in fact it was. And so ESPN and all sorts of different big production groups were there filming. And the documentary filmmaker came to me and said, we're going to make a film about this. So anyway, that's how I jumped in. I got involved and I jumped in and that was really fun. It was a hard project. It's like going to school but I'm glad I did it. And after that, I just got the bug. And what I really loved was this idea of producing creative content for the good of other people. So I didn't want to beat people over the head with any sort of a lesson about unconscious bias or the importance of diversity. I just wanted to find creative ways to bring these important societal issues to people's attention.

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Lauren (02:55):

You've been self-taught then along the way, or how have you learned? There's so many nuances to the art of being able to put together a story, actually producing it. There's so many components. How did you make that leap?

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Robin (03:08):

Yeah, I never went to film school but I did have and continue to have amazing support and mentorship from the San Francisco documentary community, from people I hire who have actually have a lot more experience than I have or have been to film school. And I think that's a really important thing to build a team, not just of sponsors and mentors but also of people of diverse ages, diverse backgrounds who can really offer input into this. So self-taught in a way? Yes. It's unique that I've come to filmmaking from a business perspective. So I wouldn't say this is happening to me right now but for the past 12 years fundraising for these films has been a little bit maybe, I don't know, everybody says I'm so good at it or you make it look so easy. Well, it's a lot of work but because of my business background, I knew how to at least contact corporate sponsors and try to engage people like that. So I come with a different perspective. And then at the same time, I didn't know any of the lingo on film sets, and I didn't really know how the whole idea of credits worked and everything. So I relied heavily on people who have been making films their entire lives. And I'm so grateful to all the people who have helped me learn what I've learned.

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Lauren (04:35):

I feel like that's more than half the battle though, just understanding the business side and then being able to speak the lingo of at least the business component. And then when you're able to marry that with also the creative component of actually the production side. So tell me a little bit more about how you are identifying people who say, yeah, we do want to — I think you used the words sponsor or support the creation of these productions. How are you going about that? And is it part of a bigger cause or a conference or a campaign, or how does that come about?

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Robin (05:08):

Well, the idea for this was knowing I had to raise very well for my second film, which was called “Code: Debugging the Gender Gap.” I needed about $850,000 to make the film. And that premiered in 2015. So I looked at it, what is the issue we're covering? We wanted to expose the fact that tech wasn't diverse. It was mainly white engineers. Now it's mainly say white and Indian, for example, throw in Southeast Asian maybe. But I really was wondering where the women were. I mean, these are really good, well-paying jobs; women are just as good at science as men are. Where are the women? Are they actually keeping them out? Anyway, then I thought about, well, what are the companies that actually would care about this? What are the companies that stand to gain from a film coming out that are going to look good if they're behind this film?

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And of course, the tech companies. So it was a little harder to get to companies like Google and Facebook and some of the really big companies but I was able to bring in some amazing sponsors for that film and through the corporate world, people who really cared about those issues of diversity. And same thing, when I made my next film after “Code,” I made a film called “Bias” about unconscious bias. And for that film I had all sorts of sponsors. IBM jumped in. Melinda Gates jumped in through Pivotal Ventures because people knew how important it was that we're all human. I wasn't pointing a finger at anybody. I put myself in the film as a guinea pig. But I was saying, look, this is really important. We all as humans have bias. What are those unconscious biases blocking and thwarting in our lives and how do we learn to mitigate them so we can produce better products and become better companies?

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Lauren (07:07):

Absolutely. Can you tell me more about “$avvy,” about the video or the film you produced?

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Robin (07:15):

Yeah. So “$avvy” was inspired by the fact that I got divorced in 2016. And I have my MBA, I've had really good schooling. I consider myself a pretty savvy person. My father was an investment counselor. Even though I had all that as a foundation, I still was ill-prepared to manage finances on my own when I got divorced. And I also was filled with some shame that I let myself be in a position like that where I didn't really pay attention to what was going on with family finances when I was married. And so at age 50, I had to start over completely. And I was lucky enough to be in a position where I had some support that was going to be coming my way for the next several years but I thought, boy, if I'm in this position, there must be so many more women who are in even worse positions.

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And how is it that if/when you get divorced, everybody's supposed to land on equal footing? Why is it that within three years men have so much more net worth and are on such a higher trajectory than women and a lot of women who get divorced end up under the poverty level? So that was really disturbing to me, and that's what made me want to make the film. We identified sort of the major issues women face when dealing with money. So not being intimidated by or not understanding investing, having high credit card debt, not understanding what the APR is and how that can affect you, credit scores — how important it is to have a good credit score so you can rent an apartment or get a mortgage or lease a car. So student loan debt, of course, is huge, not just to women but to women and men, financial abuse. Now, this is something that happens to all genders but really specifically financial abuse where women are targets. And then the older community too — women who are widowed, what happens to them if they're not financially savvy, if they're not prepared to take the reins of their finances? So it's a film that's had a lot of exposure. I've taken it around internationally with the American Film Showcase. It's really been a very rewarding project. And yeah, happy I got that one done.

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Lauren (09:42):

So after you've completed these pieces, right, these documentaries, how are you getting them out to the public? Are there organized functions where there's a watch and discussion around fundraising efforts and where do you go to even watch as well? I'd love to hear a little bit more about that piece and how people are using these as really, I think to promote discussions, advocacy, and so on and so forth.

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Robin (10:12):

Yeah, I mean, once they're finished my first line of action is to apply to film festivals. And not everybody chooses to go the film festival route. It can be a lot of money to travel to them but it's one way to win awards. It's another way to get the film really out there into the world just to give it exposure early on. So that was a fun way to do it. We did really well on the festival circuit so far with all my films. They've won awards. And then we've had follow-up screenings at universities and different companies. Also, it's an opportunity for me to then promote private screenings. So I've had a really robust schedule of curated private screenings of all my films, whether it's to huge companies like Google, Microsoft, and Citibank, or even smaller organizations like the YMCA of Milwaukee. And then after that, I'm lucky enough to have been able to get distribution. I know some good distribution companies. I send the film around online and to a bunch of different — you can employ a sales agent if you want. None of my films have sold outright. It doesn't surprise me. The world doesn't really value cause-based films; they're looking for sexier films about drugs and sex and …

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Lauren (11:43):

… violence, all of that.

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Robin (11:44):

Violence sells really well. True crime is a big one. And honestly, celebrity-driven Kardashian-type films. So that's not the kind of films I make but I have been able to get distribution for my films; you'll find them on YouTube, on Amazon Prime, Google Play, on a lot of different platforms to be now too. So the only one I've held onto for now, although it is available internationally, is “$avvy.” And that's because I've just gotten a little frustrated with the amount of revenue that comes back to a filmmaker once they have it out there on a major streaming platform. So “$avvy” is available on my website for a $25 tax-deductible donation, and I'm doing it that way for now. We'll see what I do with it in the future.

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Lauren (12:33):

When you have the private screenings, you had mentioned earlier that work with corporations where they've done that for their employees — is that going through an HR department, DEI initiative, and then is it a private screening and discussion? How is that sort of brought about? And I'm asking the question really because there could be folks who are listening who say, I want to bring this to my organization. And how do you prompt that conversation to be able to have a meaningful dialog and then those meaningful dialogs that can often shape culture, it can shape hiring decisions and org structure and all kinds of things and thinking. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about if there's a framework for that or what your folks are doing.

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Robin (13:14):

Absolutely. Well, the good news is I work for myself so I can be super creative. And generally what happens is somebody is seeing the trailer or watching the film at a conference, for example, and they want to bring it to their company. So they'll reach out to me at the website — finishlinefeatures.com — to inquire about a curated screening. And the price has gotten, for nonprofits the price is a little bit less, but at this point we've been able to command pretty good pricing for a major corporation of $25,000 for an unlimited audience. And that includes my presence to curate a 60-minute post-screening discussion. So that works really well. And there are different ways companies use this. Sometimes, say a bank, I mean, let's just use Capital One Bank as an example, which is a great client of mine, they would want to bring me in. They want to have their invited guests, so not necessarily do an internal screening but also this is a wonderful opportunity for them to say let's invite the community.

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Let's invite our community and have this as a perk. So then I always suggest we fill up a panel with experts in the field. So if we're talking about women and financial independence, we're going to want to bring somebody in who's a wealth advisor, probably somebody from the host company, and then maybe somebody who's experienced hardship in a way onto the panel. And then I can either curate or I as director can just be a participant on the panel. But I have a discussion guide for every film I've made that really helps people understand. It has a lot of content in it but it also has instructions on the best way to set up a screening. And again, at different times a lot of universities do the same thing. Sometimes companies want to do it all virtually, in which case I will get them a virtual screening link with a password. They share that with everybody in their community or whoever they want streaming it. Then we'll do an online post-screening discussion on a mutual date. They can record that. They can't record the film but they can record the post-screening discussion, put it up on their website, and then people are going to have access if they weren't able to watch the film.

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Lauren (15:34):

Sort of a separate training, if you will, for folks.

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Robin (15:37):

Yeah, absolutely.

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Lauren (15:38):

Yeah. Oh my God. So I enjoyed hearing too that you have a whole, sounds like a set of discussions too, to be able to help to guide that conversation, even if it's independent or things to think about post the conversation. So I want to be mindful of time here. I feel like we could actually talk for quite a bit. And I do also want to call out the Likability Dilemma TED Talk you've done and would really also encourage folks to watch it. It's such an inspiration for, I think, hearing your words and how you're really able to just really own the stage and share some tough things that aren't always said out there. So anything you want to say to that? I kind of want to be able to give you the floor because it pairs so well with the cause-based work, and especially just coming off the conversation about really empowering women and their finances.

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Robin (16:26):

It's interesting. Most people's journey onto the TED stage is first to do a TEDx and then to do a TED. For me, it was the opposite. I was approached in 2017 by the TED team when I was making my film “Bias” and somebody had, I guess, seen a trailer or something, and they came to talk to me about what was the most surprising thing I learned when I was studying unconscious bias. And I told them about how even artificial intelligence was biased. And at the end of that discussion, I didn't really actually even know that I was pitching a TED Talk to them.

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But they got back saying, we love this. Can you do a TED Talk? So that's a crazy experience. I mean, it's wonderful but they set you up with all these different coaches — a speech coach, a writing coach, a design coach. It's a lot of work but it's a really fabulous experience. So after that, I mean that one I think now maybe has 70,000 views or something but it was very specific about whether we can protect AI from our biases. And it was about 18 months later that somebody approached me to do a TEDx talk in Marin County, and I said, I've already done a TED, I don't want to go do that again. It's a lot of work. They said, we'd really like to have you, is there anything you'd like to talk about now? And I remember I was going to be doing a screening that night at Indiana University, and they called once again and they said, we haven't received your application.

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Would you please apply? So finally I just sat down and I started writing about the microaggressions that women face and modern-day sexism. And what that really reminded me of was this likability dilemma that I had learned about from a really brilliant woman at Harvard named Iris Bohnet. And so I called Iris and I said, can I have your permission to talk about the likability dilemma? And she said, absolutely. She's like, yeah, I think you should. And so that's really how I brought that into the talk. But what was interesting about this is that what we're talking about is microaggressions, right? I mean, present day, it's rare you're going to have somebody in a corporate audience slap a woman on her derriere and say, boy, you look good today, sweetie. I mean, those kinds of things that happened in the “Mad Men” era aren't really happening as much now but why are we still feeling these microaggressions of sexism? The little things like one of my examples in that talk is my being at a cocktail party and asking somebody what he did for a living. And he said fintech. I was interested. I said, really? What kind? And he looks at me kind of up and down and says, oh, it's complicated. Completely dismissive. What? Too complicated for me because I'm a woman?

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So I just think it’s really interesting that he didn't intend to be dismissive. He didn't intend to be anyway, really, but it was his unconscious bias that just sort of assumed that as a woman, I probably wouldn't understand the intricate details of his company or of what he was doing. And it's possible that's true but let me decide and let me ask the questions afterwards, right?

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Lauren (19:46):

Right. Well, I'm thankful you took up the opportunity to give that talk because it's really powerful and I think it's really important for folks to hear that message and the courage to be able to stand up on the stage and say the things you were able to say in such a fluid, thoughtful way. So I feel like we can have a whole separate conversation on that. So I do want to, again, just round out our time and just give you another opportunity if there's anything you want to share as far as maybe new projects you're taking on, or trends you're seeing that are upcoming or things of that sort just to share with folks.

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Robin (20:25):

Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited about the film I'm working on right now. It's called “Thaw,” and it's about the rapidly rising trend of elective egg freezing and the future of fertility.

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Lauren

Oh, fascinating. 

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Robin

Yeah, you've probably heard birth rates are dropping in the U.S. and for the first time ever, in 2023 more women had their first children in their 30s than their 20s. Infertility is on the rise. One in six couples have a difficult time conceiving but it makes sense, right? I mean, we used to have babies when we were 15, 16. Historically, that's what biology wanted us to do. Now we're waiting into our 30s to try to get pregnant, and we're having a really hard time doing that because our bodies weren't meant to work that way. And in a way, I guess you could look at it, we're out-evolving evolution, right? So the hacks for this, I mean, what can we do?

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And I also was struck by the fact that as young women, we spend half of our lives trying not to get pregnant. Every time we talk to a doctor, a fertility doctor, they're telling us how to be careful, how not to get pregnant and not to get an STD. And then suddenly you turn, say 35 or 36, and you try to get pregnant, and you're having a hard time, thinking, why didn't I know about this sooner? So the idea of just awareness, how important it is to be informed about your fertility and maybe to look into egg freezing early so it takes the pressure off your biological clock. The problem of course, is that it's very expensive and it's not that accessible. So we need to find ways. Women are leaving the U.S. to go abroad to have this done where it's cheaper. But it's a really interesting trend that I'm excited about. So if I can raise the finishing funds I need, I'm going to submit to Sundance by the end of the summer.

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Lauren (22:17):

Wow. Fantastic. Well, it's a topic I think is very important, and you're right, it is definitely, I don’t know if the right word is trend but it impacts a number of people. So thank you again for your time, for just all the work you're doing to be able to help promote these conversations. And I think more importantly, as you alluded to earlier, doing it in a way that's storytelling, to really be able to impact that social change, and ultimately to potentially change policy or culture or just climates we're all in. So again, thank you for your time.

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Robin (22:54):

Thank you, Lauren.

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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 
  ‍

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 
  ‍

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

‍

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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Enjoyed this? You’ll also love: 

• Tips for Effective Branding and Website Strategies for Financial Services
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• Supporting Financial Professionals and Their Aging Clients

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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?

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Ian (21:10):

So about two and a half years.

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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.

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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.

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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.