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You Can't Hug a Spreadsheet with Frank Legan | Financial Planner Search · Financial Planner Search

• Gregory Wilnau: Hey Frank, how are you doing today? Frank Legan: I'm great, Greg. How are you? Gregory Wilnau: I'm doing awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I've been looking forward to chatting with you. To get started, why don't you just go ahead and tell us a little bit about your practice and and what you specialize in? Frank Legan: Sure. I've been in the business for twenty six years. I love it. Couldn't imagine doing anything else. I love the people that I work with. I skip in and out of the office every day. And we help solve our clients' deepest issues, providing clarity, comfort, and confidence around their bigger futures. Gregory Wilnau: You skip in and out of the office every day. if I worked for you, I'd probably do the same thing. If my boss Frank Legan: Yeah. Gregory Wilnau: came in and was skipping, I'd it it's it's hard to have a bad day when you when you when you start it out like that. So Frank Legan: Absolutely. Gregory Wilnau: what about this what about it do you love so much? What what kind of brought you to this work and and why do you love it so much? Frank Legan: Well, y you know, our our clients trust us on the journey with them and their wins are our wins and their losses and setbacks are our losses and setbacks. but everybody's a unique puzzle, their their own unique set of circumstances and hopes and dreams for the future. And meeting them where they are and helping them on that journey to get from point A to point B is it's a thrill. It's it's wonderful. It's it's great to be a partner like that with people that you really care about. Gregory Wilnau: I love that. So I wanna talk more about I wanna dig more into how you work with people here in in a little bit, but I'd like to to settle for another moment around like what brought you to this work? What's the story behind it? Where did you start? Did you realize someday that this is what you wanted to do because your dad did it, or did you go to school 'cause you were an e for engineering, you realized you hated it. So you switched to finance. What What kind of brought you to this, Frank? Frank Legan: No, Greg, if I was given twenty-four hours in a day, unencumbered, nothing scheduled, nothing to do, I would naturally gravitate towards reading about personal finance and investing. just for my own self. And while I was in graduate school, I actually interned with my parents financial planner and got to see it from that side of things. And I just fell in love with it from there and realized that I could take What I've learned about trying to help myself and apply that to others. Gregory Wilnau: So this is something that you knew you wanted to do from a very young age. Frank Legan: Yes. Gregory Wilnau: And you got to have the benefit of hands on experience actually doing it and see and having a mentor and observing a mentor doing it. Frank Legan: Yes, it was a great great experience. I'm I'm extremely grateful for it. And it was definitely very, very forming, motivating, and I just became a very enthusiastic participant from day one. Gregory Wilnau: I love it. I love it. How about the story of starting your firm? How did you how did you get into in into that? Frank Legan: Yeah, you know, I started in the business at a wire house and worked for a bank, kind of cut my teeth and grew and started to understand how to communicate with clients, more most importantly, their behavior. You know, human nature's undefeated. And when you Gregory Wilnau: Mm. Frank Legan: go through difficult times, it really is revealing about people's personalities and behaviors and their actual tolerance for risk. you you really learn during those periods of time. Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Frank Legan: And the lure of independence was the ability to do things my way, to build something Gregory Wilnau: Uh-huh. Frank Legan: from scratch in my image, where I'd be able to write how I wanted to write and communicate how I wanted to communicate without some of the restrictions that take place at at big firms like that. Gregory Wilnau: In your own image, that's interesting. the lure of independence, that's also interesting. I think a lot of I've personally found that a lot of reason a lot of advisors go independent is because of this. And one of the driving factors is they they don't it's not just because they want to do it their own their own way, even though that is one of the benefits, obviously within the bounds of the law, but because they feel a conviction that they can serve their clients better if they were on their own. Is that something that you felt? Yeah. Frank Legan: I would agree. I definitely adhere to a humanity driven approach as opposed to a numbers centric approach as it relates to planning. So a lot of people in our business will say, you know, to a client, tell me when you want to retire and how much you want to live off of, and we'll help you do the math and figure that out. And it's not that that isn't important, it is. and that's table Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Frank Legan: stakes, like we all have to be good at that. But that doesn't tell me anything at all about who you are as a human being, as a Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Frank Legan: husband, a father, as a, you know, marketing guru, those things in your life that really bring you meaning. So the humanity part of it is something that's really, really important to us. And we find that client outcomes are typically better following a humanity type approach where your resources are aligned with your hopes and dreams for the future, Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Frank Legan: as opposed to a numbers centric approach. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Frank Legan: You know, you can't you can't hug a spreadsheet and Gregory Wilnau: Hmm. That's that's cute. I like you can't hug Frank Legan: So Gregory Wilnau: a spreadsheet. I'm wr I'm writing that down, man. You can't hug a spreadsheet. Frank Legan: Yeah. So I mean some people s some people are numbers driven that you know they want to do better than the market, they want to do better than their brother or their neighbor or their friend or whatever. And that's fine. We're not for them. They're not for us. but people who generally make decisions around the kitchen table about, you know, how they want their resources utilized for the the love of their family, you know, those those are really those conversations are so much more meaningful and so much more fun and just kind of life giving. Gregory Wilnau: Right. Yeah. Frank Legan: So You know, our our hearts are full generally, you know, after a conversation like that versus, Hey, Gregory Wilnau: Yeah, yeah. Frank Legan: we did a little better than this index or a little worse than that index, sort of Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Frank Legan: thing. Gregory Wilnau: It's mapping that into in into the meaning in in that the per the things that the person finds meaningful in their own personal life and and all of those things. numbers are the numbers. They're important, but they're not the whole picture. So I I I love Frank Legan: They're not. Gregory Wilnau: that. I love that. okay. I'd like to start talking about or learning more about rather, the people that you serve, the people you work with, the people who are best suited and benefit from working from you. So maybe you could just take a moment to describe the type of person who who comes to you. what situation are they in? Why what causes them to initially reach out? We can unpack that one at a time 'cause I kind of asked you three questions at once. But maybe Frank Legan: Sure. Yeah. Gregory Wilnau: we could start with maybe the describe the type of person who typically comes to you. Frank Legan: Well, the humanity factor definitely is a magnet or a filter. So, you know, people can kind of self-select out if they're a number centric person and know that they're not gonna be a good fit. But the humanity-centered, the the human-centered person is definitely we're a magnet for that. So that that would be number one. Then number two, you know, generally we're solving dangers for people and there's a mess that they want cleaned up in their life. There's some level of uncertainty that they have, you know. Are they going to have enough money to live independently from work at some point in the future? things like that. maybe people have some level of complexity with their financial situation, just it could be various accounts at different places from you Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Frank Legan: know different work situations that they've had over time, or there could be an event, you know, the the death of a loved one, a divorce, a job change, career change. Birth of a child, you know, big kind Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Frank Legan: of lifetime events that cause you to kind of pause and think and ask yourself, Am I doing the right things? Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. So that's a lot. Those are a lot of different things that would cause somebody to reach out to a lot of different situations. Are there any I don't want to ask this this in a way that comes across as insensitive because you know those these are all very important things, very sensitive things and finance is is intimate, but out of some of the situations that you mentioned, do you have a preference for your favorite types of situations maybe to work in? I know that you you everything you do involves, you know, the human side of things. So there are components of that s layered into all of them. But is there any sort of situation that you just are really enjoy sinking your teeth into that a client comes to you with? Frank Legan: Yeah. I would say that for a client or prospective client that finds themselves awake at two o'clock in the morning worried about something, we want to be able to help them solve that problem, mitigate that problem, to give them peace of mind. And so whatever that is, fill in the blank for people. we love sinking our teeth into something like that to to give people peace of mind and a sense of relief. And to try to eliminate some of that anxiety that they had when they were awake at two o'clock at the Gregory Wilnau: I love that. And that leads me to my next question, which is typically what are some of the questions that your clients typically ask when they meet with you for the first time? What's keeping them up at night? Frank Legan: There's a there's a long list of things, but Gregory Wilnau: Maybe just do t top three. Frank Legan: yeah, I would say are mom and dad gonna be okay? You know, are are we gonna have enough? Are we saving enough? Are we doing enough? The second would be are my kids gonna be okay? and whether that's education planning, whether that's what happens after they're gone and what that looks like, and whether they should share with their kids, how much they should communicate, how How prepared are they? And then just messes. I would say if there's some level of complexity that people have where things are all over the place and they just don't really have a handle on things and they're looking for somebody to help them simplify their life. That would those would be the top three. Gregory Wilnau: I love that. So it sounds like you really enjoy and those are all high impact things. So legacy is a huge one. Legacy and meaning, family, what happens after they're gone, and you love sinking your teeth into complex finance financial situations or messages messes as you called it, simplifying things and creating order out of that. to the point where a client comes in and they're like, my gosh, I have no idea what's going on. Help me out and then you get your get your hands in it and you can just, you know just show it to so that they understand and clean it up. I I I love that. what's a typical situation that they need you to lead them through? So oftentimes I find that there are certain kind of archetypal situations or or or profiles there are definitely edge cases, but where they where you lead them through like a typical process where they enter with a problem or a situation that you kind of lead them through with ideally an outcome. We obviously we can't promise outcomes because that would be unethical, but Frank Legan: Right. Gregory Wilnau: what's a typical situation that an a normal client or an average client might need you to lead them through? Frank Legan: Well, my favorite question to ask, Greg, is this is from my coach and mentor Dan Sullivan, it's strategic coach. It's let's fast forward to three years from now. Let's say that we're all together again three years from now. What needs to happen in your life between now and then for you to feel comfortable and confident with where you are in life? And it's open ended in nature. So it could be you know, things that we can help with, and it could be things that, you know, maybe we we can't help with that that are just more personal in nature that that they're thinking about. But I think they will tell you what they're looking for. They'll tell you how to help them solve their problems. And it's also back to the magnet and filter, for those that are willing to engage and answer that question, you know that they're serious about seeking help. For those that are a little skittish or shy, that they're not willing to be kind of intimate with you in that moment. in terms of answering that question, I think that's telling as well. Gregory Wilnau: Is that because they there's not trust yet? Frank Legan: I think so. Definitely. I mean, this is a this is a trust business for sure. And Gregory Wilnau: Definitely. Frank Legan: for clients that have been with us for a long time, you know, we've been through a lot of things together, lots of things together. And that that builds trust and in the beginning, you you've got to earn it. So one small step at a time is how you earn it. Gregory Wilnau: tempted to to unpack that a little bit more in some ways that you do that but maybe we'll maybe we'll probably I'm thinking we'll naturally cover that in the next section when we when we talk about kind of your values and and your Frank Legan: Mm-hmm. Gregory Wilnau: philosophy. But first I wanna understand more about how do they how do your clients typically find you? Where do they where do they come from? Frank Legan: Well the the largest source would be referrals and that would be from existing clients, from an accounting network and an attorney network that we've curated over time, people that we've worked with. And then I do a fair amount of writing. So we do a lot of content. We have a pretty good list of folks that follow us. And you know, we're we're constantly writing and sharing, you know, what people are sharing with us in in one-on-one meetings with clients. That's the that's the best source of content is that when different people are coming to you under different sets of circumstances but with similar themes or questions, you Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Frank Legan: know that there are most likely others that are feeling the same way. And so we we like to use that as our way of of writing and and what to share. Gregory Wilnau: So it's not just market updates. Frank Legan: No, not at all. It's it's stuff that's really meant to be evergreen. So, you Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Frank Legan: know, not something that's gonna be stale the second after it hits, you know, and it's Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Frank Legan: distributed to everyone. It's more thinking about your thinking than it is Gregory Wilnau: Thinking about your thinking. Frank Legan: topical to something that's going on right now. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. yeah, timeless principles, things that always will always come up and or all will always be there. Things that people face, writing about that I think is important. In any time you can get you can get market insight from anywhere, but in the interpretation of these these things is some is a unique perspective that you have and that you share, it sounds like in your writing in your newsletter or or or your emails, which is explains why you've got a following. So Frank Legan: Yeah, we write for Kiplinger Personal Finance Magazine. We're part of their advisor intel program, which is which is great. So we've gotten a lot of exposure from from that, which has been really good. And I published a book in twenty twenty three, just kind of describing to the audience, you know, who we are and what we do, but more importantly sharing client stories. So hopefully people could see themselves in those stories and know that there's a path forward. So it's it's called the humanity factor, of course. Gregory Wilnau: What's the name of the book? G The Humanity Factor. I like it. I just never wouldn't wanna pass up an o opportunity for you to plug plug your book, man. I love that. And I'm sure some of the things that you've you talked about are in the book of of course. you share some of the things that some of the scenarios people go through, some of the the themes and the principles that you talk about in your in your content in your newsletters is all in there in n in one one place. Frank Legan: Yes. Gregory Wilnau: I I love that. all right. So I wanna talk about how you work with your clients. but first, I wanna understand a little bit more about your vision and where you're where you're going. So when it comes to your practice, where do you see it in the next one to three years? What's your vision? Are there any any goals you're working on? Frank Legan: We are. So we have what we call a unique ability team. And unique ability is is an interesting concept, but it's basically things that we're naturally good at that give us energy. So I love to simplify. I I told you that's that's a big thing for me. So if I'm spending eighty percent of my time in my unique ability, then you get to skip in and out of work every day. It's it's like energy giving as opposed to like energy taking. So there are things that I'm not good at or that I don't enjoy doing that would fit in somebody's unique ability category. Exactly, exactly. Gregory Wilnau: Who not how, right? Kind of thing. Yeah. Frank Legan: I love that. yes. So who not how is absolutely something that we adhere to here. And so growing that unique ability team so that we have a group of people working together, serving our clients, doing what we do best every day. That's at the forefront of of what we're doing and and how we're thinking about growing our our team and our and our business. Gregory Wilnau: So a priority for you is building out a team people who have a unique ability and making sure you have quote the right butts in the right seats, basically. That's another way to say it. Ooh, not how. People Frank Legan: That's right. Yeah, absolutely. Gregory Wilnau: who are really good at what they do at that role. Is that some so obviously you're a you're a business owner and your firm is is larger and you get to do that. You've made the transition from doing it all yourself and learning the new s completely new skill set of running a business, which those two things are very different, right? Frank Legan: Yeah. Gregory Wilnau: And it sounds like something you really enjoy is finding creating an environment where awesome people can do an awesome job. And get rewarded for it and be also be able to live in their unique ability. Yeah. Frank Legan: That's that's right. That's right. You know, we spend a lot of our lives in work and it should be fun, it should be fulfilling, it should be meaningful, and we want to laugh together and you know, have have a good time, but under the purpose of you know what's important to our clients and and what are their needs at at the center of how we're Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Yeah. Frank Legan: spending our time. Gregory Wilnau: I used to th I used to think about retirement a lot and be like, you know, I want to retire early. And I was kind of fortunate enough to have a retirement experience with my first business where I built out the team and I didn't have to work at all for almost a year. My team did everything and I like played video games all day and I felt retired and it it was actually miserable because I think that and this is why people get jobs in retirement because you you need to feel you want to feel useful. You wanna do what you love and what you enjoy. And I think one of the cool things about how a lot of advisors approach retirement with people who are t retiring in a traditional sense is you help them think about that. You help them think about how to make that transition and to do things that they really find enjoyment and meaning in. And that most of those people are doing that for the first times in their life. They're thinking about that. Frank Legan: Mm-hmm. I agree. There's an art to it and a science to it. So the the science is really around the math and making sure that you know somebody's Outlive their money. But the art part of it is, you know, who are you as a as a person when work is no longer and we we find this a lot with business owners. It's so much of their identity. You know, it's it's easy for Gregory Wilnau: Yes, it is. Frank Legan: somebody to put their head down for 30 years, work every day, do their best, prepare for that moment, but not really think about what does that really mean six months after they're retired. It's easy to daydream about not setting an alarm and you know, sleeping in, whatever, playing golf, traveling, doing those things. And that's cool for a while. but six months after, a year after, who are you really? And having a sense of purpose and defining what that's gonna be for you before you hit retirement is really important. And we find Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Frank Legan: that those that are most satisfied in retirement have those conversations with their loved ones and think about it versus those that just kind of blindly go about it and kind of wander aimlessly trying to figure themselves Gregory Wilnau: I love it. Frank Legan: out. Yeah. Gregory Wilnau: And having somebody like you help them through that is I i is is extremely valuable. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Thanks for sharing a little bit about more about where you're thinking about taking the business. sometimes I'll ask like i is have there is there anybody who shaped your approach and helped you add value to your clients and how you run your firm and it sounds like you've already mentioned Dan Sullivan is a big influence and I'm I'm familiar with him. I've never worked with him, but Frank Legan: Mm-hmm. Gregory Wilnau: I it's good that that you are always in a process of growing. All right. Now what I want to do is I want to talk about what it looks like to work with you. So let's say I'm a client, right? I I just became a client. maybe you could walk us through your actual process. So when somebody becomes a client today, what does onboarding look like? What happens the first couple of weeks? Frank Legan: Yeah, I think, you know, comfort is really important. We want people to feel comfortable and confident in the decision that they made to work with us. It's a big deal for somebody to trust you with their dollars and with planning. So any relationship starts with what we call an approach talk, which is where we'll walk through and find out not just the numbers, that the numbers are easy. We can gather that stuff from statements and things like that, but really more the the meaningful stuff, you know, what we're what we're trying to solve for. So everything starts there and it generally leads to a financial plan where we'll be able to plan out and give them potential solutions to to solve their issues. And then, you know, when it comes to onboarding them as clients, we we've started from a really solid foundational place where we have a firm understanding of the whole picture, not just one piece. We don't want to operate in a silo and just focus on one thing. we often find that there are missed opportunities and coordination gaps that happen. So we want to play team. If they have existing accountants and attorneys that they work with that they like, we want to work with them to help them and play team together. And in the beginning, we just spend a lot of time hand holding and making sure clients understand their statements and what they look like and how things are going to go moving forward. You know, logging in online for those that are interested and kind of following along more often than a monthly statement might you know, give them an update on how things are going. So just a high touch, really trying to make people feel comfortable with us and just wanting to, if if anything, overcommunicate and they can tell us to kind of slow down Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Yeah. Frank Legan: as opposed to undercommunicating. I think the first hundred days that you are with someone new really can make or break the relationship. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah, it's kinda like a first date that takes place over Frank Legan: Mm-hmm. Gregory Wilnau: a course of a of a month or two, right? They're Frank Legan: That's right. Gregory Wilnau: probably susp they're suspicious coming anyway, so they're probably looking for reasons to justify suspicion. So you want to make sure you give them no reason not to trust you, right? Frank Legan: That's right. I mean, a lot of people are are joining us because they've been dissatisfied with the relationship that they're currently in. So that suspicion exists and we don't want them to second guess, like, hey, am I Gregory Wilnau: And they know what to look for, they're yeah. Yeah. Frank Legan: just in for the same thing that I just left? So we want to remove all doubt as it relates to that. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Yeah. Do you find that a lot of that is done th the mo as far as leverage, the best leverage time and process to do that is through the onboarding experience? Frank Legan: It's really important. I I think it's just incredibly important. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Frank Legan: So, you know, the reason that we do the content that we do and the writing that we do is to give people an opportunity to get to know us and how we think and kind of our tone and, you know, the culture of our our team. So oftentimes when people get to us, they're they're relatively warm. They have a sense of who we are and how we talk and how we think about things. So we find that that's helpful. And then certainly the repetition of that over time, just constantly communicating with Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Frank Legan: with our audience and the the people that we want to be heroes to. that's it's important. Gregory Wilnau: People that you want to be heroes to. Frank Legan: Yeah. Gregory Wilnau: I love it. All right. I might have a couple of other questions. yeah. I love to ask this one. Because it's you know, you're you're a lot like me. You like to simplify things, you like to remove the fluff, get to the all the most important pieces, create structure, right? Organize chaos. Frank Legan: Yeah. Gregory Wilnau: that's something that you enjoy. So How once you're once they're onboard and they've gone through your your process, we could talk more about your onboarding process and the structure if you want to, but first I'm really curious about what does it look like to work with you during the course of the calendar year? What does that cadence look like? What's the what's the client experience? What what are the interactions? Frank Legan: So we start with what I call 1242, and that's once a month we'll talk, we'll check in and see what's going on. four times a year, you're gonna get a performance report from us emailed to you, so you you know how you're doing. And then twice a year we'd like to do those meetings in person. And not everybody follows that. Some people need a little bit more hand holding, some people need less, particularly those that have worked with us for a long time and kind of know and are just kind of comfortable. so it won't necessarily follow that exactly, but we'd like to use that as our baseline and then let each client tell us how much they need. Because, you know, the reason that most people leave advisors is lack of communication. It's not necessarily performance or investment related, things like that. It's generally around just not feeling seen and heard, which is really important for clients to feel seen and heard and understood. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah, that's interesting. Most people leave advisors 'cause of lack of communication. I think lack of communication makes you feel forgotten and you by default assume that nothing's happening. Right? Even if Frank Legan: Right. Gregory Wilnau: nothing is happening, you could just s reach out and say, Hey, everything's going good. I'll be in touch if anything changes. Otherwise I'll talk to you during our next scheduled meeting. Or feel free to reach out and for if you need anything in the meantime. Just that little thing right there could make somebody feel heard. Frank Legan: Absolutely. Well, and you get personally invested. You know, you want the update on the kids, you want the update on work and travel and what's going on in people's lives. And it we're just generally curio curious, you know, we wanna know. We wanna know what people are up to and if there are opportunities for us to step in and and lend a hand. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah, I love it. Well, Frank, thank you so much for coming on and sharing more about your story, your unique approach and how you serve your clients. for anyone anybody who's listening who wants to get in touch with you, what should they do next? Where should they where should they go? Frank Legan: We would encourage you to visit frankleegan.com. You could schedule with us. You could read our writing, our content, get a better sense of who we are, and hopefully you can see yourself in the stories that are told and know that there's a path forward for you. Gregory Wilnau: Awesome. Well thanks thanks, Frank. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Have a great rest of your day. Frank Legan: Thanks for having me, Greg. I appreciate it. Yeah, you too.