Latest / Only Fee-Only / #160 - The High-Income Paradox with Sean Rawlings

Transcript

#160 - The High-Income Paradox with Sean Rawlings · Only Fee-Only

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: How's it going, everyone?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to the OnlyFe Only podcast.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for being here.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Today we've got Sean Rawlings, founder of Wealthbound Advisors.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: Sean grew up in Southern California, started his career at one of the big mutuals right out of school, and made the leap to launch his own fee only firm at the end of 2023.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: He's built wealth bound around a specific niche, young, high-income earners who are scaling fast and need structure before the money becomes a stress.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: Real estate, tax planning, and genuinely great onboarding experiences are some of the things that are at the core of what he's doing.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: This is a full circle moment as well, because he shared with us that he actually found out a lot about the Fee Only Space, listening to the podcast, which is one of the reasons that we did this or that we do this.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: So that feels really good to hear as well.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: So great conversation.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Sean's an awesome guy.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: So without further ado, enjoy this conversation with Sean Rawlings on the OnlyFee Only podcast.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: How's it going, everyone?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of the Only Fee Only Podcast.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Peter Travolo.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here with my co-host Brock Buckles.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: And today we're so excited to have Sean Rawlings on, founder of Wealthbound Advisors.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Very excited to have him on and have him share his story.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, Sean, welcome to the show, man.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you guys.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: It is uh it is a pleasure.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and it's also full circle.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to just dive into what you just shared with us before the show?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I was uh just telling y'all how I kind of got familiar with the with the Fiona space and and whatnot, watching you guys at my previous firm before I made the leap to starting Wealth Bound.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is a cool moment for me to reflect back on of how far I've come.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, just also that this whole community is you know so great and has always been open and it really is you know different from what many of us you know came from, the the experience.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So this is super cool.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, love it.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, before we dive into things, let's get a quick background of kind of who you are, where you're located, and I know you're a new father as well, too.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously, uh my name is Sean Rawlings.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I am the founder of WealthBound.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I grew up in Southern California, but went to school out in Arizona, um, finished up there in 2019, started my career at a bigger broker dealer, Mass Mutual, um, before launching you know my own firm towards the end of 2023.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I did we did just have uh our first kiddo in December of last year.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's been exciting and busy, kind of forces you to optimize your life a little bit um just due to time constraints.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, so that's been interesting.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, you know, I've always been curious about money.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: My parents did really well growing up, but they weren't necessarily intentional with their finances, and that's kind of something that's always stuck with me.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I was fascinated by how folks could, you know, make really good money, but still not optimize it and have it be a stress in their life.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that's you know, that curiosity's turned into conviction over time.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and, you know, that I believe financial advice should be proactive, it should be educational, strategic.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I I care now deeply about helping younger high-income earners build that structure early on instead of trying to clean up mistakes later and and have money be a stress in your life.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no doubt.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and and that's cool.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: Appreciate you sharing that, man.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think that so much of how you grow up and your exposure to money and like seeing the way that it was treated really kind of like shapes the way that you go about things.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: And you've literally turned it into a career.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um but you did start like you got out of college, right?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you did start at one of the mother mutuals.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to dig into that because Peter and I obviously come from a similar background before BC brokerage.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was at one of those companies for you know almost six years.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, how did you kind of I don't want to say get stuck sucked into that world, right?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: But like, how did you like find it?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then like what was it kind of like while you were there?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then ultimately, what was it like to be like what was the realization where you kind of said to yourself, yeah, I think it's time to do something different?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think for most, you know, going through college or you don't really know what, I mean, and most people still don't know this, but like what a financial advisor is, does, et cetera, the different avenues that you can distribute advice through, whether that be uh, you know, the warehouses or the BDs or the insurance BDs or there's the RIAs.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I just had no idea about that.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my parents didn't have an advisor, it's not like I could ask them for it.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have, you know, like some great mentor in college who could describe to me the different avenues, you know, to explore.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was always interested in money.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what I necessarily wanted to do or that this was this was what I was passionate about.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: But um you just don't know.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: So when I got kind of the the offer to work, you know, as a financial advisor for this firm, I thought, great, like this is it, you know, like financial advisors make all this money, da-da-da-da-da.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I felt all cool, but pretty early on, you know, I I realized that it wasn't the way.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the what I was doing was was great, but the seat I was in wasn't necessarily the best place to deliver.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, so so after graduating, joined the firm, um, the mother mutuals, and uh I just kind of started learning the business.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Luckily, I was able to join a good team within the firm that, you know, they had acquired MetLife.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a bunch of advisors that came over from there, and they focused a lot more on the actual planning side of things.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that that was good for me.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of what kept me there a little bit longer, and I was able to learn a lot more.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but over time, you know, I realized I wanted to work with a completely different demographic.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Most firms are focused on the pre-retirees, the retirees, you know, and I was surrounded, you know, being fresh out of college by young professionals.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: I had a lot of friends in commercial real estate, they were killing it in sales, you know, they were starting businesses, and a lot of them were going from making, you know, 70, 80, 100K to 500K like almost overnight.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was a couple year process, but that's what it felt like.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And once that jump happened, you know, they naturally would reach out to me just because they knew me and they knew what I did.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they didn't need products, right?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like they needed structure, they didn't have a ton of investments yet.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: They just needed to figure out how to make this all work.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And and that was, you know, when things started to really click for me.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Were there were there ever any instances at like Mother Mutual where they were like, hey, don't be thinking outside the box here?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, like, no, they still need product, Sean.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it's it's the same old story, right?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like you'd meet with, you know, what we would call like a great prospect, and and they'd become a client, and it was, you know, I started doing financial plans at um mass, which was nice that we could even do that.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I would go try to share my you know successful meeting with um the GA or my manager, and they couldn't really seem to understand why you weren't pitching some insurance product to a 24-year-old who's single with trade on it, man.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so you can't do that with term insurance.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh that it was a recurring segment of that, which was basically like, okay, like this is obviously never gonna work long term.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that just took me a couple of years to not only have the confidence, you know, in like my planning capabilities to do my own thing, but just to figure out the landscape of how to even do this.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like when you're when you're that young and you're in those shoes, you're like, holy crap, like you can't start your own RAA.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: You need to have a billion dollars under management or whatever, right?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I still I had people at you know the firm that I worked with that would be like, How are you even doing that?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you need a hundred million under management or whatever?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, dude, like but that was just all that learning of like, you know, I I spent so much time, you know, watching others build and and those younger planners at the time who are now killing it.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, obviously you find out about XYPN, you start to really ingrain yourself in that, and you're like, okay, this is possible.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: There is a yeah, no, and Sean, I had to tell you, man, that's so relatable because I know all these advisors, right?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: And like I all of them were like, they got this like DBA, right?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: Where it was like your last name wealth management, or like you know, oak tree wealth management.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's like oak tree wealth management is a subsidiary of the blake, blink, blank life.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one, they all have the same structure on their website, it's all the same cookie quarter, you know.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, but and that's the funniest thing because like there is this like misconception that you can't start your own financial planning practice unless you're at one of these larger places, and there's only one way to do it.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I knew one advisor in the office that I was in that did do some fee-based planning, and everybody looked at him like he like had like three heads, right?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was it was the weirdest thing to a lot of people.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, when when we found out about fee only, and then a lot of the advisors who come from that kind of organization find out about fee only, they're like, wait, what?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: This is the thing out here, you can actually do this.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that's yeah.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing I was doing some fee-based plans, and I was the only person in my office doing it, and I was also the youngest advisor.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you guys saw it probably, you know, the amount of churn and just like we're gonna bring in all these people, and then like weeks, people just dropping like flies because they come to the realization that, like, oh, like this is not what I was told.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Did you see any of the internship side at all by chance?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where they throwing people against them all there, seeing what stuff does the same thing, and it's like, first of all, I I mean, I have a lot of thoughts about how this whole industry works, honestly.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and I try to talk to people now about like how I wish I came up, which would be like, hey, out of college when you literally know nothing, and even if you go and get your degree in financial planning, which is great, that that even is a thing now.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't when I was in school, and I know that some schools offer it.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: ASU now has it.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's a cool hiring track for me, but conversation for another time.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you come out of school, you don't know how to know how to be a financial advisor, right?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so how are you gonna have some kid go reach out to 100, 200 of people that know him and he does have a good relationship with, and then you know, basically say, Hey, I've tee up a meeting with my manager for you to talk to my manager, this person you don't know.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just it's just such a weird good old joint work, yeah.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then the intern leaves for college, or they're out of the picture, right?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, and then it's a season coming up, still paying for the permanent insurance policy today.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy to me that like that system hasn't changed that much when everything else is changing so much around it, but I guess it's just a numbers game for him.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, we could sit here all day long.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we yeah, we could sit here all day long and talk about that.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: But let's keep let's keep making it.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: I digress.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I digress on the hamster wheel of all of that.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, moral of the story is if if you just graduated college, if you're there, you need whole life.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: If your net worth's 10 million, you need whole life.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: If you like don't even know what whole life is, you still need whole life.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the that's the moral of the story.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so when you're on that hamster wheel, one day you just listen to the only fee only podcast, and then how do we transition from insurance and you know, credits and BD stuff to financial planning?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, like I said, you know, I didn't have the confidence right away.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: This was probably less than a year into like being in the business to just like leave immediately.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was, hey, I I can either, you know, I sat back, I watched, I learned, I listened uh a lot of my free time in the office.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I was doing.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I did realize that, you know, over time this was an avenue I could pursue, right?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: That fee only was even a model.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, who would have known?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: But that obviously aligned with me much more closely with you know how I wanted to operate and how I personally believe that like financial advice should be delivered.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of what firms are still doing is like this quasi-financial plan that is really there just to pitch a product at the end of it.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I mean, I knew that long-term, you know, that product-driven model was was never gonna align with with what I wanted to do.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, just to hit on it real quick, again, when you're contractually obligated to, you know, push certain products, and it says that right in the contracts that you sign, you know, to me that creates an inherent conflict, right?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so that never sat right with me.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: But being 24, fast forward a couple of years, you know, I was single at the time, expenses were super low, and I was like, dude, if there's ever gonna be a time to take a risk where, you know, you don't have to support a family, I don't have a big mortgage to take care of, you know, this was the time.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it was either start your own or find an RA that was doing something similar and attached to that.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, I figured worst case scenario is if I started my own thing and I failed miserably, I can just go be a financial advisor at an RAA that's doing the model that I like.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: So the backup plan wasn't so bad either, right?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: But um, so that's where wealth bound came from is you know, this idea that you know most people drift naturally financially.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to build a firm that was centered around, you know, direction, being super intentional, and being quote unquote bound for wealth, um, you know, through proactive decisions rather than those reactive ones.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of the genesis of wealth bound.
• 14:45
  unknown: Yeah.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you're on the XYPN chassis.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you're 28 now.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of you hinted at ASU.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you see the firm going as far as building it?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, a lot of people they can stay, you know, solo, they can kind of do a boutique or they can try to grow and be an enterprise.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you see this thing going?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I mean it could change over time, right?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you know being solo lifestyle is necessarily the move.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I want to stay boutique and really centered around, you know, in a perfect world, you've got you know a hundred of these A plus clients, right?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's essentially where I want to get to.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: It would be having, you know, a couple employees, right?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: And scaling to a really good size where you know the business doesn't control you.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm interested in doing other things, you know, financially.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to just be consumed by this.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, running your own business obviously gives you that time to do other things too, as long as you know, financially, you know, you're you're doing all right.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, I mean, I want to be in the stay in that boutique space for the time being.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of interesting now, I mean, how how far things have come, even technology-wise, where you know, you you would need to have hire a plant pair planner on salary, and you can kind of do a lot of the pair planning stuff in the background, you know, for a lot faster or more efficiently now.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, so that's kind of interesting.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, people talk about AI and you know, taking jobs and whatever, but I think it just makes you a lot more efficient.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it could make margins even better.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to stay boutique, you know, and just really focus on having those really good A clients as the base, and then, you know, a couple employees, some people like like I wish I want to find someone like my past self who just graduated, who's super interested in financial planning and you know, eventually be able to make them a partner and then them, you know, so grow it that way.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, that that makes total sense.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's nice that you said that.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: You're like, I wish that I would have known sooner, right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: And there are some really like acclaimed financial planning schools around the country that are like do preach that, right?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think Texas AM is a big one.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: We know some advice from there.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, too many times it's like people have to kind of go this like longer route to get to where they're actually wanting to go.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like they're they love the idea of financial planning, they just don't know what's out there.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: So um, and yeah, then I think that the fact that you're looking kind of at that boutique route is really cool because I think that that's like maximum efficiency and allows you to like do what you're really good at, enjoy the parts of the work that you really want to focus on, but offload some of those other things that you don't like as much to people that are just like going to be either better at them or just like not hate them as much as you do, right?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: People like doing different things, so you know, you you want to find people that are like, hey, I I would prefer to sit in the background and do all this work that I personally don't like.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want to be out talking to people, I don't want to be doing that stuff, so yeah, just figuring all that out is you know part of this whole learning curve, and also being an operator, not just an advisor.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it it to me, it's all really fun and it's kind of a challenge, right?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, and and what was uh what was kind of like obviously coming from where you were before, like you were already doing some feed-based planning, so you already had a planning mindset coming into this, but obviously you get a lot more like operational autonomy when you have your own thing going on.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: So what is kind of your process?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how are you going about your meetings?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what does kind of the structure look like for somebody that's quote unquote walking through the door or meeting you on Zoom for the first time?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, thankfully, you know, I'm not one of those, well, not thankfully, I'm not one of those advisors, but I'm not one of those advisors that has this like beautiful content engine, this huge brand online.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like thankfully, I've a lot of the people that I came up with, you know, just happen to be in those like niches that I that I work with.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so having a lot of friends in those spaces and whatnot has made, you know, the the intros to those people a lot easier.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I think because of the terrible taste in my mouth coming from, you know, the previous firm is that, you know, that onboarding experience and like kind of getting a breath of fresh air when you meet with a financial advisor is not like some stuck up meeting.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I try to have that whole onboarding experience be, you know, really fantastic for anybody.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it and it starts with, you know, obviously educating heavily, um, but also digging into like people's emotions with money, right?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's where you can be intentional with things.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like when you start from that place, you know, it's pretty easy to then, you know, implement things, but it takes a couple months, you know, these most of these folks are making, you know, at least half a million, most of them seven figures, and they've they're all younger.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: So they've never really worked with an advisor before.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's about cleaning up everything first and making sure that everything's optimized and their systems in place for again not making money be a stress in your life and having things automated a way that you know you don't have to think about them, and then you just know that you're doing the right things, right?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have to think about that, then you can go spend more time doing the things that matter to you, whether it's you know, increasing income or you know, being with the family and whatnot.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: So the onboarding experience for me is is super important, especially being on my own.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: I have to make sure that it's efficient for me too, so I don't get bogged down, you know, by stuff.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, what are some of the systems that you use to keep yourself efficient?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I definitely use as of recently a lot of I use Claude for like I'm not artistic at all.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And for whatever reason, Claude can create really pretty, like, you know, onboarding packages, the whole sequence from when you know we have an initial meeting to the email follow-up to here's the next steps.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I'm trying to make sure that I I really nail down is like, hey, here's exactly what's gonna happen at this point, and exactly what to expect after this, you know, because a lot of people they don't they still don't even really know what a good financial planner is gonna do.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I I want to be the quarterback for every piece of someone's financial life, whether that's from structuring, you know, purchasing a business and working directly with your attorneys, to your real estate person, to your mortgage broker, to your um CPA and doing all the tax planning.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I I I try to make sure that I'm at the forefront of every single one of those decisions and folks are coming to me before making any big decision.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: What do you see?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, like, what are some of the most common problems that you see, like when you first meet with somebody?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, like some people are like, Yeah, I make a lot of money, I'm just not great with it.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: I spend it too fast.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: Some people are, you Know I get nailed by taxes every year.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: I need to figure out an efficient strategy for that.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: Some people are trying to make big purchases.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what's I guess give us one, right?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what's a recent um kind of planning hurdle that you've had to help someone through?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, to answer the question, it's all the above, but the biggest thing is always, you know, my income 10x from last year.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm not sure what my withhold, it's all centered around tax.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, do they need to be S-Corp?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Are we optimizing the salary there?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: What are estimated payments look like?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: How do we make sure that the variability of that income throughout the year doesn't create a stress?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: So having a system for paying yourself.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it all starts with cleaning up on the cash management side, I would say that because that you know lends itself into how you can make sure that you're up to par with the tax planning.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I mean, it's really all that I I most frequently see that there's never really a system in place for how to handle the income.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's all just landing and you're spending, your lifestyle's increasing, everything starts increasing, and then it's like, shoot, where did all of it go?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to, you know, we try to make sure that we're getting ahead of that, you know, when whenever we meet with someone.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And luckily, because most of the clients are late 20s, early 30s, they haven't yet, you know, had the years of that income.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we're getting to it right before it's about to really happen.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's when things can really start getting exciting.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, what are maybe some of those conversations like, or what what are maybe some of your entrepreneur clients like some other avenues that they're looking to expand their wealth in?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely a balancing act because there's so much that people see on social media, right?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, what about this?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: What about this?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: So um, for me, I've you know, like I got my real estate license when I was in when I was in college.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've always leaned heavily into the real estate side of things.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the really cool planning that we're able to be doing now is, you know, doing stuff with real estate professional status.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, as long as somebody is is interested or wants to be involved in real estate, then that's kind of an avenue that we we pursue pretty heavily of how do we use it not only for the tax benefits, but you know, I think real estate is great long term as a as an you know in as an asset class.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um so digging deep into the real estate side of things is something that I'm super passionate about.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's what you know I do with a lot of a lot of clients is making sure we can do the cost seg and you know, all of that.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you connect, you know, someone with finding the right deal and then making sure that you know you squeeze the tax benefits out of it.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and so all of the real estate stuff is super interesting to me.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of the the fun part of the job that I enjoy doing with folks.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not building the plan in the background, it's actually implementing it.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that brings up a good point too.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, like a lot of I'll see a lot of advisors kind of on social media that will be like, yeah, I mean, you probably just go index funds, or like just go like, you know, do something else.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like real estate's too complicated, or unless you're really gonna get into it and and know what you're doing, like it can be kind of overwhelming.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I like that you're saying, like, I I treat it as an asset class, like I really like that.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, are there are there like caveats to that, or you have to be willing to do that?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what is kind of your thought on like before you would say, yeah, okay, you should get into real estate?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you need to understand some of these things before we even have that conversation.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, that's a big part of it because it sounds all great, but it does require a lot of work.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, a big thing is like, are you gonna even have are you you could be interested in it, but do you actually understand what it means to operate in it?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so after having some of those conversations, some of those people weed themselves out where they're like, yeah, you know what, maybe you know, the complexity isn't worth, you know, whatever.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: But for most people, either, you know, there's a non-working spouse or they're already active, like for all the guys in commercial real estate, they're already actively kind of in that.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of them are involved personally in their own commercial real estate deals where they're, you know, a uh GP or an LP in it.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: So for those guys, it seems to fit pretty easily, but they don't even want to explore like the basic single family stuff, is it's much more complex.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, so that you know, is is part of it, is just helping them be an operator in real estate too and managing those deals.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's a life, there's a lifeline on all those where you know there's then you bring in the 1031 exchanges and all this.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it requires kind of a lot of ongoing management, which also just fits good with you know the ongoing planning model.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Is like, hey, I'm not working with people where you know there's one off complexity thing.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, we've got to manage this deal over the next three, five years and and make sure to plan accordingly for it.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so pretty cool that you yeah.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was just gonna say a lot of you know, it certainly is complex and time consuming.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that that is obviously the conversation before anybody actually gets into it.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, the benefits seem great, but it's not worth it for everybody, and they don't realize the time that it takes, and then you explore different avenues.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: No, I love that.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you've had a lot of different experiences between your real estate license, your insurance license, you know, financial planning.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and you've had a really cool story um just finding the fee-only space where you are.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, what would be some general advice maybe to you know, a college kid or somebody, you know, at a mother mutual, you know, about like how they can, you know, I would just have a couple right steps to get them over um into the fee only space.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, after they finish their project 200.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm just kidding.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think you know, you just have to stay curious.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I would have never known about any of this stuff if I wasn't constantly asking myself the question, like, there's gotta be a different way, there's gotta be something else out there.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you kind of just have to learn it on your own because the people in your office are not gonna necessarily offer that up.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: They probably don't know about it either, like they're stuck in their ways, too.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think staying, yeah, staying curious is is the biggest thing.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you feel that conviction that you know something's not quite aligning with how you want to operate or how you think it should be done, you should explore that sooner rather than later.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: The longer you wait, the harder it gets.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um I probably overthought my own transition for a while, you know.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: But if you know you want to build something differently, the earlier that you can lean into that, the better.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think you got to specialize faster than what feels comfortable.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: You always being a younger planner in a in a older, you know, industry, like you you always have this head trash that you don't know enough to do something or you can't do something because you're not old enough, you know, it's a stupid head trash, but we all have it.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think specializing, you know, faster than what feels comfortable and and being specific about who you want to serve, that allows you to structure how you want to serve them.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then everything else becomes a lot easier.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, no doubt, man.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: And and I mean, I love that you said be curious because for those people that are out there, whether uh they're at a Schwab helping people get back into you know locked accounts or resetting their passwords, or you're at, you know, a Mother Mutual, and you're if you're listening to this, you're already on the right track, right?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: Not necessarily the the only feel only podcast, but if you're like getting into the feeling world, or you're listening to Michael Kitsis, or you're checking out XYPN, or you're you're listening to podcasts, watching that stuff, you're already on the right track, you're already doing a good job.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's just figure out like how do you have a what's your game plan?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: What's your time horizon?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: When are you going to do it?
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and figuring out, you know, there's a way to do it on your own, but then there's now so many RAAs that one can join that you'd probably feel so much happier at and better off at.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so even that is better now, right?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I still don't feel like even in like 2020 it was like that prevalent.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like you were in the minority if you were an RAA alone, but you know, fee only or or whatever.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think fee only is the only way, but I think being independent is definitely the route you've got to be in.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure, man.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, certainly appreciate you taking the time to come on.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: Any last kind of uh thoughts or anything that you want to make sure that you get out there before we wrap up here?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, like I said, um I appreciate you guys having me on.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's a really cool full circle moment, you know, where I go back on on the shoes that I was in.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there's a bunch of younger kids out of school that are feeling the same way.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope as many of them can hear this as possible, that you know, there is a better way, there's a different way, and and um, you know, the community is super welcoming and warm.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: So explore those curiosities.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, if if uh if there's anybody out there listening, I'm always happy to to talk with folks or explain how I did it or any of that.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you can easily reach me on LinkedIn, you know, Sean Rawlings, or check out my website.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I mean I again I just appreciate you guys having me on, and uh this has been awesome.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: You bet.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Sean, thank you so much for your time today.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: We really appreciate it.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right, boys, thank you.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, man.