Latest / Only Fee-Only / #154 - From Side Hustle to Six-Month Waitlist: Ethan Miller’s Path to Fee-Only Planning

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#154 - From Side Hustle to Six-Month Waitlist: Ethan Miller’s Path to Fee-Only Planning · Only Fee-Only

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: How's it going, everybody?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to the OnlyFe-Ony Podcast.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for being here.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: On this episode of the OnlyFeel Podcast, we sit down with Ethan Miller, founder of Planning for Progress, to talk about his journey from working in the labor movement to building a successful fee-only financial planning firm.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: This episode he shares how he started his firm part-time while holding a full-time job, and how he slowly built it up to the point where he had a six-month wait list before finally making the leap to go full-time.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: We also dive into what it really looks like to run a lifestyle practice, how he thinks about client fit, and the intentional way he's built a firm around about 50 households so he can stay accessible and deliver real value.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: Plus, we talk about why being a people person might matter more than having a financial background when you're thinking about getting into this industry.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: So, with all of that being said, enjoy this episode with Ethan Miller on the Only the Only podcast.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, how's it going, everyone?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of the Only the Only podcast.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Peter Travolo.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here with my co-host, Brock Buckles.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And today we're really excited to have Ethan Miller on from Planning for Progress.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Really excited to have him on, share his story about how he's growing his firm and how he's serving his clients.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So Ethan, welcome to the show, man.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you bet.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: So we've had the privilege of being able to work together and also see each other in person at you know XYPN lives.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: But for those who don't know who you are, you want to give a quick background of who you are and where you're based out of?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, Peter, as you said, my name's Ethan Miller.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my firm planning for progress is based out of my house in Silver Spring, Maryland.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: So just outside of Washington, D.C., for those who aren't familiar, um, I've had my firm for nine years now.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're coming up on 10 years next next spring.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm getting ready, planning a planning a party for my clients and and colleagues in the local area.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: But uh nine years so far.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and what's a little unique about sort of my journey into my firm is when I when I first started the firm, I was running it part-time.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: I had a full-time job outside of the industry.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I ran it part-time for about five years before finally making the jump to do uh financial planning full-time.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it's been it's been a journey.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really happy with with where I am now.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, excited to to talk more about it.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: So what were some of the like what was your what were you doing before?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: What was the other part-time thing or full-time thing that you were doing before you were getting into financial planning or actually going full-time with your own practice?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: So uh my first career was in the labor movement.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: I worked for unions, I was a union organizer, I worked for some uh affiliated sort of organizations in a variety of roles.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: I did communications, I did research, I did organizing, I did digital media, um, I did a whole host of things, um, which brought me in contact with a lot of people uh who you know were not being well served by the financial, you know, advice industry or kind of uh by nature a little skeptical of uh the big financial firms, um, and the folks who, you know, are really out there, you know, taking up a lot of their time.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and sort of along the way, I, you know, had an interest in personal finance, an interest in financial topics generally.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um so when I first started getting interested in financial planning, I knew that I wanted to do financial planning for the people that I knew from my from my work world, basically.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: People who were values driven, care about social justice, um, many people who you know are earning a good living, um, you know, doing what they love, doing things that matter, uh, but are you know can be confused about what they should be doing with their money, how to be approaching things like investing, retirement planning, budgeting, um, you know, socially responsible investing, life insurance, you know, everything uh everything under the sun that falls into real comprehensive fee-only planning.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, how did you find the fee-only space?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I was this was like, I think maybe almost 12 years ago at this point, when I first really learned about what financial planning was.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was working at a community organization that brought in somebody, a supporter of the organization, to do a presentation for the staff.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: She was a financial planner, fee only planner, a member of um the ACP network.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um and, you know, she did a presentation for the staff, you know, the mostly 20s, uh, you know, the things you need to do early in your career to set yourself up for success, that sort of stuff.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um and sort of this light bulb, you know, went off in my head.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started meeting with her and I said, you know, what's this financial planning thing all about?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds interesting.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And she turned me on to XY, um, which at that point was really only a few years old.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was much, much smaller than it is now.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I started listening to their podcast, uh, which Alan was hosting.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was sort of like in the first round of when Alan was hosting that podcast, um, and just really started, you know, drinking from the fire hose of learning about uh fee-only financial planning, what you know, one, what is financial planning, what is fee-only financial planning, the difference between fee-only financial planning and other models.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, pretty clearly from the beginning, I was like, definitely, you know, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna be fee only.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's no other way.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that I can do this and and feel good about the the way that I'm set up, be able to confidently talk to the people who I want to be serving.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, if there's any any room for you know conflicts of interest, obviously there's always there's always conflicts of interest.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone will always say there's never such a thing as no conflicts of interest, but um, specifically in that in that compensation, um, you know, any any air of of commissions or things like that, I knew that was a a no-go.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, not a route that you wanted to go down, which is good.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think it's it's always nice to see people who start and truly know where they want to be, you know, in the beginning, like start with the end in mind, and you already kind of knew that.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: So that's nice that you did that.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: What were some of the like challenges of starting the firm, right?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: So, like obviously you were part-time for a while.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: So was it kind of like just want to kind of dip my foot in the water, you know, see if I like it, see if it's gonna be a long-term thing.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, it's a big commitment, and you ended up, you know, these years later, you're you're full-time, right?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: You've been doing it for nine years.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: So obviously it worked out, but like, what was the reason for part-time?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: Was it just like a little bit more stability?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: Where was your head at when it came to that?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was, you know, frankly, you know, 11 years ago when I was, you know, thinking about this, I was I was pretty early in my first career too.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I wasn't ready to say, yep, let me make this hard pivot and totally do this other thing.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was happy with the work I was doing, um, you know, really found a lot of value in it, and and basically was like, let me learn more about financial planning by kind of by doing it.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I did I did the CFP uh education coursework, took and passed the CFP exam, couldn't call myself a CFP at that point because I didn't have the the experience hours.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I knew that, you know, the opportunities, the entry-level opportunities in the industry at that point weren't, you know, there were no opportunities to be an associate advisor for a small T only firm, really.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was, you know, go and work for the big uh the big companies, the whether it's the the commission-based, you know, insurance sales world or you know, the child call centers or or whatever it may be, those were the opportunities that that were out there, and I I didn't want to do that.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Frankly, it didn't sound like something that was actually gonna be interesting to me.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I knew I wanted to sort of be on my own terms, be able to work with the people I want to work with, work with them in the way that is gonna line up with what they need at that point, um, which is how I sort of started out.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was doing, you know, very small project-based plans for folks.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: My clients, you know, my first year, my clients were friends and friends of friends, you know, very much people in my orbit, in their mid, maybe the upper 20s, you know, earning an okay uh living, certainly not a lot of money for for most folks I worked with in that first year, um, who really were like, you know, how do I choose investments in my retirement account?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: How do I figure out what's the right amount for me to be saving in cash, you know, saving in a Roth IRA or in a 401k or brokerage account, right?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like those sort of really basic, like, how am I starting to think about my finances uh and thinking about the future?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Every year that went on in that sort of part-time journey, sort of my average client age, for every year I was doing it, I felt like my average client age was going up by three or four years.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that by the time I was in my sort of third year of doing it part-time, I was still in my 20s, but my clients were firmly in their 30s.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and suddenly the questions we were dealing with were just, you know, a greater degree of complexity.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we were talking about the the trade-offs between saving for college and saving for your own retirement and, you know, how much house can you buy?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And what's, you know, what is technically on paper affordable, but is going to lock you into this, you know, huge mortgage payment that is going to limit your options for for what else you can be doing.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, really sort of starting to think about more of those truly, I would say, comprehensive sets of questions.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, that also sort of opened up my eyes and in, you know, things that I was, you know, wanted to make sure I was learning more about.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: And the sort of what was out there as an advisor, you know, who was sort of growing a practice but very deliberately and slowly of actually what are the things that I want to be able to focus on with clients.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: So when was the turning point of going from part-time to full-time with the firm?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: So in my after my fourth year of part-time planning, I was able to get my CFP marks.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I had sort of over that that third and fourth year started to see just a lot more demand, you know, coming in my my proverbial door.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, part of that was just, you know, I had worked with a lot more people and then they were telling people sort of that that natural referral network.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there were other local advisors in DC who, you know, people would come to them who weren't a good fit for them for a variety of reasons, whether they needed something a little bit more project-based or just didn't hit the the minimums or whatever it may be.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was getting folks through through that that means, and then, and then still my just like natural professional network was, you know, was again a source of referrals.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it started getting to the point where I had a, you know, instead of doing it part-time, only doing projects, I had a wait list that was like six months long.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody would come in the door, they would say, Yeah, I want to work with you, and you know, we would I would talk about the project we would do.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was like two or three or four meetings and however much it was gonna be.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Great, if you say yes today, we're scheduling you for six months from now.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like we're gonna put the date on the calendar, it's gonna be there.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um but if you come back to me two months in two months from now and say yes, it's gonna be six months from then.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that was sort of a sign to me that uh there was something there, right?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: That there is potential more than just the the part-time project-based work, which, you know, realistically, I could only serve I could maybe do two projects in a month.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Some sometimes I could be a little bit more ambitious and do, you know, have three clients start with me in a month to do a project.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think at the peak in my part-time years, there's maybe a year I worked with 30 clients total, which is a lot for any advisor, especially when I also had a full-time job.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I do a lot of volunteer work and I'm on a board of an organization I help start.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I do a lot outside of work, outside of my other job.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: So, and real quick, not to not to cut you off, but I want to nail down on that real quick.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like, was there a feeling in your other job?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, holy cow, I'm starting to get really busy over here.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: I've got, you know, a six-month wait list.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: Was there a feeling of like the bit starting the business and doing that starting to bleed over into your other job a little bit as well, or like just kind of hard to try to manage both of those?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because it seems like you're it's almost like you're getting to the point where you have two full-time jobs to an extent.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I always try to, I was always very clear of having that clear divide of like, I'm not sitting in my office checking my my email for for the business.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was like, you know, maybe after work hours I'll just stay in the office just because I'm here already.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: But I always try to to really keep that divide very clear.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I sat in my office and did plenty of uh stuff from my volunteer work sometimes, but um, but it it sort of eventually did get to the point where it's not that it was a a moment where I really had to pick right then, but I knew, you know, I couldn't really grow the firm anymore than I already, you know, where I was.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that it wasn't a it wasn't something I could do forever.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly now, I don't have the same kind of energy to do that, where you know, I'm working nine to five and then working five to nine, you know, like I can't do that anymore.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I knew there was a point where where sort of I would have to make a choice.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I had sort of put it off for so many years.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: I had plenty of advisors and great colleagues who were always like, what are you doing here?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you seem like you have a great great business you're building.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why why are you holding back?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and then finally I I said, you're not, you know what, I think, I think you're all right.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um I, you know, that I had a been at a new when I started the firm, I was at one full-time job.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: I actually switched jobs at some point.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: I had been at the new job for three years, and I was sort of reaching the point where I was, you know, just starting to think about things.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I think, I think this is the moment.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: So at the end of 2021, I quit my job.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so at the beginning of 2022, if I have my if I have my years right, I think that's right.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um at the beginning of 2022, I was full-time as a financial planner, as a CFP.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I had been able to, you know, because I had that wait list already, like, you know, in November and October when I was I knew I was leaving, start lining up work for January and February, start going back to some of my previous, you know, project-based clients and say, hey, I'm actually going to be expanding my service model, not only doing this kind of project-based work that we've done, but also now doing more of an ongoing comprehensive planning, adding in investment management, that sort of thing.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I was able to sort of line some stuff up so that when I was, when I had more time, I was I was hitting the hitting the ground running.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what was it like growing the firm like pre-COVID versus post-COVID?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And kind of seeing that transition of how business was done.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was always, you know, sort of digital first, although certainly, I mean, there were many meetings that I, you know, many clients that I had uh in the early years who were, you know, local to DC, um, who would actually come, you know, I'd meet them at the at the public library, you know, we'd reserve a meeting room, or um, I had a few people at one job where it was a lot chiller to sort of use the office after hours, like come to my office, I'd go to their office, you know.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: I actually did meet some clients in person.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: They would hand me their documents, you know, printed out, right?
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Take notes on a notepad, you know.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's the old school, man.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's the old school.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: If I couldn't read my handwriting, I was screwed.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and but I always had clients that weren't in the DC area that I did meetings on Zoom with.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um and certainly, you know, I don't know how much of it was it was COVID, and people were thinking about money and finances in a different way.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh also I had had my firm for three years, and there's that magical thing that happens after three years where suddenly people know who you are and they want to work with you.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, 2020 was a you know, that sort of the the growth that I had part-time in 2020 is definitely a lot of what led me in 2021 to be like, I'm I think I can do this.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm ready to to take that leap.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah, and also just you know, being at home, you know, doing things over over webcam and zoom, you can you can have a lot more meetings when you're not going to somewhere else, meeting somebody, you got the chit chat before and after the meeting.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's just all right, here's our here's our one hour, let's meet.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, go to the call.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: I can just move on to the next thing.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, which is how I you know I run my business now.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Even my local clients, unless there's something that really we need to do together, which is very, very rare, you know, all my meetings are on Zoom, even the people who live down the street.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's just you know, it's it's so much more efficient for me.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's better for them too, in terms of like they don't have to get in the car or or you know, take the metro somewhere.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like they they can do the meeting from wherever they are, whether they're at work during the day.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: They also do I used to do a lot of meetings in the evenings and weekends, and now I do a few meetings in the evenings and nothing on weekends.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um so it's sort of just easier for everyone.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's good to have control of the schedule too, man.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: So tell us about like what's the setup of your firm?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: What's kind of like the long-term plan?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, are you more of a lifestyle practice, kind of going that boutique route?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: You want to get crazy with it and go enterprise one day?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like what's in the future for the firm?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm definitely in the in the lifestyle uh bucket.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, right now I have I have about 50 households that I work with.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's sort of been the case for the last two years.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: I sort of tried to tried to close off the the pipeline of prospects.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and every once in a while I sort of uh am my own worst enemy and I I say yes to somebody, even though I'm like, well, I'm really at the level where I am full technically.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um but then uh you know a good prospect walks in the door who's maybe somebody I know where they're referred by a client and and I just I can't I can't say no.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um but no, I'm I mean I really right now have the firm that I want, which is every year I bring on a few people, a few people leave, whether that's I graduate them out or um you know they leave by their own their own volition.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um so there's a little bit of turn, but but not too much.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've got plenty of clients that have been with me since since I went full time, you know, in the beginning of 2022.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, some weeks I'm really busy, other weeks I'm not that busy.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, I'm trying, I'm trying a thing in the last year where actually instead of having more days where I have just one or two meetings, I'm trying to have more days where I have three or four meetings and more days where I have no meetings.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Then I look at my calendar, I'm like, oh my god, I have all these meetings.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: What happened here?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, all right, this is actually the system working.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, so some weeks are busy and I get a lot done, and other weeks I have time to go fly fishing and pursue my other passions.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was just gonna say, I feel like there's something to that.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like, at least for me, if I've got like one or two meetings during the day, it's like I'm gonna get into work mode or I'm gonna get into podcast mode or whatever.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: But when I like start the day and I know I've got like six or seven, like I'm in it doing it.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like I know what I'm doing that day.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: You kind of get in a groove.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then the days that I don't, I can kind of be in like that, you know, I'm gonna go get a workout in, do whatever I want to do today.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have to think about it as much.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'll check some email.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: I I kind of like working that way as well, right?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like so sporadic throughout the week and you can control your calendar a little bit more.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: So um, that's really cool.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: And and I love that you're doing the lifestyle practice thing.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what is kind of like what's your client experience like?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like when you meet someone, like how do you determine if they're they're right to work with you?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then kind of what is the what are the what are the meetings look like, the first couple meetings look like?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, as far as you know, when when somebody reaches out right now, um the way you reach out is you you fill out a form on my website.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: You you can no longer book a prospect call directly with me without you know my involvement, which used to be that's what I used to do.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: You say, oh, you you just go online, schedule an appointment.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need to talk to you beforehand.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we'll have something on the calendar, we'll talk, and and that's great.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: But the you know, a frictionless experience.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: But now, you know, I don't want to set somebody up where we're gonna have a 45 minute conversation.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: About their finances and what they're thinking about.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the end, I'm going to say, actually, here's three other names.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: You should have the same conversation with them because I'm not, I'm not taking new clients.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: So now, you know, it's you fill out a form and you, you know, you tell me the basics and you say, you know, can I share this form with other people, you know, with other advisors?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, is what you're looking for mostly just to get started with an advisor, or is there some reason why you really want to work with me and you're willing to wait?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and even when they check that box, when they're willing to wait, that doesn't mean that I'm I'm saying, okay, great, get on my wait list.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm still gonna have a conversation, gonna take a look at their at their info.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and nine times out of ten, I'm still gonna send them a list of a few other advisors.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: One, because I love supporting other advisors, you know, so many people gave me so much of their time, their wisdom, um, their prospective clients, you know, in my early years, and I love doing the same for other advisors.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have a friend who um started her own firm two years ago.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and together with another, another colleague and friend of ours who's also in the DC area, we sent her so many clients that she had to register in DC.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: She's nowhere near, she doesn't live anywhere near DC.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: So her like second registration state was DC, um, which I love.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm like, that's great.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, and now I'm like, all right, you know, she has more clients now.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, all right, who's the next person I'm gonna send much clients to?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, at this point, what qualifies somebody to wanna where I'm gonna say, great, let's let's actually think about working together, is um largely like, do we have a pre-existing relationship?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Or is there a re a reason why the work that you do is particularly compelling to me?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or like the person that you are, there's something that that speaks to me beyond your finances.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Where I'm like, you sound like somebody I actually really want to, you know, get to know and and enter into a long a long-term relationship with, right?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Ideally, the clients I'm taking on, they don't I don't want to take on a client that a year from now I'm gonna say, uh, you know, I don't know if actually they're but they're the best fit anymore.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: I want to take on a client who 10 years from now, I'm still gonna be working with them.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: 20 years from now, still working with them.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's kind of a uh you know it when you see it situation.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: But you asked also about uh the sort of client experience in the first few meetings.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I try to really uh not have too much that happens before they start at officially as a client.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we'll have a 45-minute call, you know, learn more about what they're thinking about, I make a a a little pitch, you know, very a very light pitch, because I'm like, you know, either either it's right for you or it's not.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to have to convince anybody what that they want, you know, comprehensive financial planning and a trusted partner for their financial decision making.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I you know, I share the pricing, I share, you know, all of that.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: And if they say yes, great.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: We schedule our first two meetings.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um the first meeting is the only meeting I ever schedule that's 90 minutes long.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I really don't believe in meetings that go much more than an hour.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes the first meeting, there's just so much to cover that that's that one's scheduled for 90 minutes.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um and what that meeting covers is it's basically hey, you know, you shared a lot of documents with me.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: I send them a list of like stuff to start putting together and sharing with me.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Let's first talk about like just tell me how you think about your finances right now.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Just where are you coming from?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how have how have your your understanding and decision making changed over the last few years?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, just kind of give me the basics, especially in a couple, you know, where usually there's a little bit of a different thought process.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I just want to start hearing that from the get-go, because it's it's gonna be important to keep in mind.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then what we do is we just go through all right, all the things you gave me, things you did forgot to share with me, you know, what are your bank accounts?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how do you spend money?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: What credit cards do you use?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you have money going right now?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Savings, investments, 401k, whatnot.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, let's take a look at your last year's tax return.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Just is there anything there that we need to flag?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what's your insurance situation right now?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have estate planning documents?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Just like literally, what is the big picture?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um then the second meeting, we put all that to the side.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: I actually say we're not gonna talk about numbers or money or anything right now.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're actually all gonna talk about your future and how you want to be thinking about the future, the things you want to be planning for, the things you don't really want to be planning for, but have to also be planning for too.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's not all just, you know, what would you do, you know, if you if you had unlimited resources, but it's also, you know, are your parents still alive?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Are they aging?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, well, how are you thinking about that?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: How are you thinking about your own kids if you have kids?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna have any more?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, does somebody have um special needs?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Something that we have to be thinking about in a in a different way.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, do you want to live somewhere different in the next five years?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to get a new job, make a big career change, you know, kind of really covering sort of the short, medium, and long term, and just in terms of like where do you see life going?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then from there, I sort of, you know, we'll do kind of a first, you know, kind of first draft financial plan, put stuff into right capital, make sure that the retirement projections look good, figure out, you know, what is the that middle ground to between now and retirement, because there's so much, especially for, you know, most of my clients, I'd say are somewhere in their late 30s, 40s, or 50s.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's a lot still of life to be lived, even for my 50-year-old clients, between, you know, where we are now in retirement.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot to be thinking about there too.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then that that third meeting is actually just kind of going over that.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, here are my general impressions, here are my first sets of things that recommendations that I want to make sure we're working on, you know, over the course of the coming year.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then from there, it's sort of we're we're hitting the ground running.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: The next meeting, we're opening investment accounts, we're transitioning over accounts if there's something to transfer.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then we're moving more into a cycle of we're meeting, you know, periodically throughout the year.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: I my goal is for everyone is that we're meeting about three times a year.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Some clients, it's usually more like four or five, because they just have a little bit more going on.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: They might be a little bit more on top of scheduling their meetings too.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And some clients it's more like two meetings a year, just because there's, you know, not every year is gonna be a year with a lot of moving pieces.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um and if also if they waited a few months to schedule their next meeting, you know, now where it's October, and yeah, we're gonna meet in October, but we might not meet again until the next January or something like that.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I try not to have it be too rigid, right?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not on a surge schedule or anything like that.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: I do like to generally kind of clump my meetings just so I have, you know, free time over the summer and you know, free time over the holidays, stuff like that.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, my calendar is open for my clients.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of the reasons I really do want to keep myself to about the 50 households is I want to be accessible when clients need me.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I never want to be, you know, so busy with other clients that you know when something comes up, they can't, they can't get me and get my get my attention.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's a great process.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, really hitting everything there.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I mean, coming up on 10 years in the business, what are maybe some golden nuggets that you would share with some other planners, just kind of looking back over your experience so far, like, hey, you know, this is a good learning lesson or just, you know, something to get out there for the audience.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, people often will ask me, like, how do you like how do you have so many prospective clients coming in?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: And part of it is like, it's actually something that I don't think can be necessarily replicated always, but part it's part of the reason why whenever somebody comes to me and they say, I'm thinking about, I want to learn more about financial planning, I want to maybe become a financial planner.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: And they come from a totally different industry, I'm like, do it.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you're a people person, if you're a relationship person, you can learn the financial things, but you can't learn to be a people person.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's that's just you either are or you aren't.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I really do think that, you know, I have a lot of friends and colleagues in the industry who are former teachers, right?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think teachers make excellent financial planners.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and I think there's also something about coming from outside the industry, your natural network, whether it's your old professional network or your family and friends or whatever, isn't already inundated with people who work in finance.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you studied finance and you went and worked at, you know, you did a few years at a warehouse and then you launch your own firm.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, it's a little harder to get clients from just what I've what I've seen in the industry.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so my my nugget to share is like if you're not a financial planner, you don't have a finance background, but you're thinking about becoming a financial planner, you should do it.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you should maybe work for somebody else for a little bit, just to as a good to learn uh not as you go.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I had the luxury of being able to do that while doing it part-time.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: So the the money didn't matter.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I could charge my first few years, I was charging a few hundred dollars to do a project for for clients.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I was lucky that that you know I could maybe, you know, I was able to cover my costs after year one because the costs were so low.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, I didn't need to cover my rent with my with the the firm.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: That was it was all extra, so I could kind of learn the lessons and then have the momentum behind me that you know all the benchmarking studies show the XY1, especially that takes a few years, the firm gets going, and then kind of sky is the limit depending on what you're doing.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I had the luxury of being able to spread that out over a few years of of the money not mattering.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then I could sort of just jump in when when the when the the wave was was cresting.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely, man.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: All great points, and yeah, I mean, I the tons of gold nuggets in this podcast.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, for people that want to keep up with what you're doing or want to connect with you, maybe they're thinking about getting into financial planning.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: What's the what are the best ways to do that, Ethan?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh, these days it's LinkedIn.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I used to be a big Twitter guy.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not really a big Twitter guy anymore.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's it's LinkedIn.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's sometimes I say it's my favorite social media.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: People laugh at me for that.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's obviously it's filled with slop like anything else, but it's one of the only places that like people are talking about real things.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because we're there for work and we're there to actually like learn from other people.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's that and the XY uh Facebook group.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like those are the places I hang out.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: Fair enough, man.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: Fair enough.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you so much for the time.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and definitely look forward to keeping up with you.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'll see you uh I'll see you guys in San Diego.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, absolutely.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: See you there.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: All right, thanks so much.