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From Fighter Pilot to Flat-Fee Advisor with Steve Ankerstar | Financial Planner Search · Financial Planner Search

• Gregory Wilnau: Steve, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. How are you doing? Steve Ankerstar: I'm doing great, Greg. Thank you so much for having me. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah, my pleasure. To get started, why don't you just take a moment and kind of tell us a little bit about your practice and and what you specialize in? Steve Ankerstar: Sure, everybody. hey, I'm Steve Anchorstar. I run an an investment firm called Anchorstar Wealth. Started it 13 years ago after I retired from the military. We service mostly Mass Affluent clients. So if you think of yourself from that half a million to a million and a half that's traditionally underserved by the bigger box firms, we're we're the folks for you. out of the eight person staff we have, six of us are either former military or former teachers. so we have a service mindset and that's what we offer our clients. Gregory Wilnau: Nice, I love that. maybe you could take a little bit more time and tell us kind of what inspired you to to do this. Steve Ankerstar: Yeah, well I got I got angry. So that's the the honest truth. So I've been a li've been a lifelong investor. I started in high school. We had a class at my high school in Lebanon, Ohio called Insensio essentiology, and they talked about stock market and stuff. It was kind of crazy. but I bought my first stock when I was in high school and then continued to be an investor all the way through my military career. And what when I say I got angry is what I saw from the finance industry was more of a focus on we're smart, you're dumb, hand your money to us and we'll do everything for you without talking to you. And I was a little bit disillusioned by that because I liked investing and I wasn't ready to hand my money over to anybody. I knew I didn't know everything, but I knew a lot and Anybody that I talked to to try to help have my invest my money with them, they just wanted to take the money and then not talk to me. So found that totally unacceptable. so as I started building my own portfolio out, I had individual stocks, I had index funds and I had mutual funds. I found that the mutual funds, and this was I'm from the age where Apple was kind of the number one stock out there. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Steve Ankerstar: you know, I had my own Apple stock, right? And then I looked at my mutual funds and they all had Apple stock as like their number one holding. So I was actually thinking I was getting diversification through this mutual fund system, which is what it promises. But actually I was loading all up on, you know, I was I was overexposed to one stock. Now it was the right stock to be overexposed to. but that really wasn't it what it was about. And they're charging me a almost a 1% plus fee for doing so. So I said, you know what? Gregory Wilnau: Mm. Steve Ankerstar: I can do better for myself. So I did. And then I started managing my parents' money. And then I started working with coworkers in the military and they were all pretty impressed. So kind of it got to this idea of, hey, Steve, once you retire from the military at the ripe age of 43, you know, I could have fully retired, I was financially independent, but I could also turn around and export this philosophy and help others do exactly. Gregory Wilnau: Nice. So you tired retired at forty three. That means you joined at twenty three, right? You were in for twenty years? okay. Man, that's that's a little later to be joining the military, isn't it? Steve Ankerstar: twenty twenty two, right, right out right out of college, you bet. Well, i for officers, it's not. So you gotta graduate high school and then I had an Air Force scholarship, went to four year four and a half years for engineering at Iowa State and then right on into the military from there. So yeah, but you're right. Right out of high school that's at thirty eight to forty two, forty three is kind of your earliest opportunity to retire for us military types. Gregory Wilnau: That's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Nice, nice. and how many clients do you have now? Steve Ankerstar: a little over three hundred. those are can be anywhere from households to individuals. we do have some business institutional clients, mostly on the small business sort sort of side of things. Gregory Wilnau: Congrats. That's awesome. Nice. That is awesome. All right. All right. thank you for sharing how you kinda got here and a little bit about your background and story. let's let's explore a little bit more about kinda who you work with. So maybe you could you you mentioned this a little bit earlier, but maybe you could take a moment to describe the the the type of person who typically comes to you. Steve Ankerstar: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you bet. The so I will say first our staff, we have five other myself and five other advisors, and we're all not from traditional finance. So we're again mostly from service industry. So we kind of consider ourselves outsiders. And the reason I I bring that up is because when you deal with us, it's like dealing with somebody who you live with in your neighborhood. Right. not more of the New York City suit and tie, again, you know, the we're smart, you're dumb, sort of mentality. We're more of the, hey, we've studied this, we're ready to bring these services to you. So the folks that we market to, the folks that find us attractive are again the mass affluent, that you know, half a million to one and a half million to where it's really they know they need to get this right. they're generally anywhere from age 40 up to, you know, retirement age, which is different for everybody. Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Steve Ankerstar: But certainly when somebody thinks about you know stepping away from their big income, they want to talk to an advisor generally to at least get a sanity check on where they stand and you know make sure they're that they're on the right path. So when we talk to folks, it's we want to talk to folks like us that are wanting to make sure that their money lasts but also continues to grow while they're in retirement. We do that primarily through a risk analysis software that we have that helps us build that out for folks. And then secondly, our financial planning software, Money Guide Pro, is the gold standard of the industry. And then that's where we dump all the numbers in there, can show them physically. Here's where you are and here's what your retirement looks like, depending on what age you choose to retire. Gregory Wilnau: Okay. I love that big picture description. Maybe let's get a little bit more focused and a little bit more specific. what's a sp is are there any specific typical situations that they need you to lead them through when they when they first come to you? You probably have like a couple of of patterns or tep a couple of archetypal situations. is there any one s situation that kind of stands out that your clients come to you for, t that needs your help leading them through? Steve Ankerstar: Sure. Yeah, I I will say this. It's anytime the phone rings or somebody comes up through the website or somebody walks in the door of our building, it's because they have a pain point. so it's the really what brought them to to reach out. If you don't have a pain point, you probably are just you know waiting until you have one, then you have to make a a decision. I would say the one that's most common, if you will, are inheritances. So the you know, the folks that traditionally maybe have not have Gregory Wilnau: Mm. Steve Ankerstar: really been focused on the management of money or wealth creation over their lifetime, that sort of thing, to where they've just kind of gotten by and then all of a sudden here comes a million plus dollars from you know from their parents. and they really have no idea what to do with it. And they are, you know, concerned, a little bit intimidated to go talk to a money person when they've never talked to a money person before. And again, the the movies in New York City don't help paint the right picture for what actual, you know, most financer advice financial advisors are really like. so yeah, so they they walk they walk in and say, Hey, I got a little bit of an inheritance, and I I really don't have any idea what I should do. then that's when we sit down, find a little bit more about them, what they know, what they don't know, and then really try to lay forth a crystal clear path as to, okay, this is a lot of money. Here's what kind of money, you know, you can generate without touching principle. And here's how, you know, if you have other uses for money as far as supporting philanthropy, that sort of thing, we can talk to them through those different options. Gregory Wilnau: I love that. We'll go into your process a little bit more later. but first I wanna I wanna talk more about your clients or your the pe kind of the space that people are in when they when they first come to you that cause them causes them to kind of reach out and understand the situation a little bit better. What are some of the questions they typically ask when they meet with you for the first time? You have like the top three most common questions or concerns and you know what kind of is keeping them up at night? Steve Ankerstar: Sure. The the the top three are all fee related, right? Because people want to know what they're paying up front, just like you or I do when we walk into a store or getting our car fixed or or whatever, you know. So they walk in, they say, Are you a flat fee advisor? And the answer is yes, and then it's are you a fiduciary? Or if they don't know that term, I generally answer the are you a flat fee advisor with yes. Not only do we charge a flat fee, but we're also fiduciary, so we're required by law to act in your best interest. And then the last one is how much do you charge? And even if they don't ask, I, you know, I tend to get towards the end of the consultation and I'm like, okay, what other questions do you have? And you know, when we get the silence or get, you know, it's like, okay, here's a question you should ask is how much do you guys charge? So since you just asked that, I'll go ahead and answer that for you. so I say the industry standard is a 1% flat fee, right? Of assets under management. That's kind of an antiquity antique and an old number, I'll say that. Thank you. Gregory Wilnau: Antiquated, there you yeah. Steve Ankerstar: Not an English major. The so I say that's an old number, so we do it cheaper than that. so we start folks off for smaller accounts at point nine five percent, which isn't much savings, but then we discount that significantly as their assets grow. So the way I say it is I'm from a flying background. I used to be a fighter pilot for the Air Force. As you can see, the airplanes behind me. if you're seeing this video, it's like we can do things more efficiently and we really cut down on the drag and the drag on portfolios is the fee that's charged by the advisor, right? And that's what keeps a lot of people away. So I like to say we're cheaper than anybody else you're gonna find out there and I'll prove to you over time that we're better. Gregory Wilnau: I love it. I love it. All right, let's talk a little bit more about where your clients how they how they find you. So where do you typically find your clients? Where how where w how do they find you rather? Where do they come from? Steve Ankerstar: I I you know that's a so that's a good question. So here's where I'm I have a different little different philosophy from a lot of folks. So a true business person and I have an MBA, so I know what I should be doing, but I still don't do it because I don't like it. I don't I don't like it when I'm a customer, so therefore I'm not gonna do it to my customers. Is I'm supposed to be asking everybody, how'd you find me? I don't like that question because I that when somebody asks me that I don't like that either. so largely we don't know. we do have a fairly aggressive website out there that has cool airplane pictures on it. So when I'm you know casually talking to somebody at the grocery store or you know, what cocktail party, whatever it is, I'll say, hey, check out our wet website, anchorstarwealth.com. If nothing else, you're gonna see some cool airplane pictures. So now I kind of leave it at that. So really the soft touch. so but we do think our website's attractive and designed correctly. to funnel folks to contact us. Secondly, word of mouth. Pretty, you know, we we don't really ask our clients a whole lot, but we do over, we try to overserve our clients. So they're very proud of what they get out of us. So they want to go out and talk to folks. Then we also have our own YouTube channel. when I started back in the it's just Anchor Star Wealth. When I started back in the day I found my clients were asking me when it was just me. And the clients were asking me the same things, you know, between ten and eleven in the morning based off of what they saw in CNBC that morning. So every day I would get up. And I would check CNBC website and have CNBC on and I would try to guess the three questions I was going to get asked and go ahead and answer those ahead of time in a eight to nine minute video on our YouTube channel. Done that now, it's 13 years old, it doesn't have a very big following, but It it does provide, you know, the followers we have are very loyal and they listen almost every day. So now I have different advisors kind of rotating through to do that. and then that's the the the primary ways we get people to find us. And of course we had a book release, which I will work in here somewhere, right? Because I because I can as an author. thesis and Gregory Wilnau: Absolutely. Steve Ankerstar: Louis Mike and I, who is my CIO, wrote that earlier this year. It was released in March and it kind of talks to our investment philosophy for those that want to know more information. Gregory Wilnau: So just so we know that say the the title one more time. thesis and conviction, get it on Amazon. Steve Ankerstar: Yep, thesis and prediction. It's got a cool airplane on the front, right? Because that's that's part of the branding, if you will. And it says investing for alpha in a beta world. And what that really is kind of getting to is we do a core and satellite approach. So if you go to like an Everett Jones, Raymond James, they're gonna give you, they're gonna ask you your risk tolerance and your age, and they're gonna put you in kind of a core portfolio. And that's where their service largely stops. any other great people and they have good conversations with you. But as far as generating alpha, we do have top themes we believe in and we invest a small performance small portion of the portfolio in those themes. think humanoids, think coin. quantum computing, think cybersecurity, space, those sorts of things, small percentage. Again, we're looking to try to generate alpha. Can't guarantee that, of course. but if you get the if you get the thesis right, then the the alpha follows. Gregory Wilnau: I love it. So, you've got your book, obviously, you know, y you have a really cool theme and and cool branding and cool background, the playing, the military and all that. but you know, you've got a vision for your business. So where do you see it in the next one to three years? Like what's your vision? What goals are you working on? Steve Ankerstar: Yeah. Ab absolutely. So it started just the quick history was just me. I got to that kind of magic hundred clients point. where the you know the industry veterans say you're either going to have to say no to new clients or you're gonna have to start hiring people. so I decided I was gonna go ahead and hire some more people, hired an ops manager, a servicing advisor, and then quickly got up to 125 clients, 130. So I said I better start hiring other advisors. So the reason I give you that background is because when outsider like Think Private Equity, they you know, business consultants would come in, they would say, Steve, you're you're you're not growing fast enough. You need to, you know, spend a whole ton of money on marketing and things. And my answer there is, and this gets back to what my goal is for the business, has always been the same. I want to grow commensurate with my ability to grow the business, meaning preserving the culture, preserving the client relationship. So you know, we we take such a great make such a great point of saying, hey, you can expect a higher level of service from us because we're like you. We want to talk to you. You're smart, we're smart too. Let's go meet your goals together. We don't want growth to tarnish that just ch just chasing growth for growth's sake. So with that mentality, it's kind of a soft sale mentality, you know, when I when I talk to folks, I'm like, don't don't decide right now. I want you to come home, talk, go home, talk about it, and then reach out to me when you're ready to move forward. I don't promise them a toaster, you know, if they sign up today, that sort of thing. but that gives that that's such the you know, the joke I say is because I'm out of toasters, I can't make that promise. But the but no, we're really trying to be attractive to folks. We don't want what I call hostages, you know, the folks that feel that they got duped or tricked or just signed that big annuity thing or the UIL, IUL plan, whatever. Gregory Wilnau: No? Come on, man. Steve Ankerstar: The we want folks that want to be with us and really take great pride in in working with us. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah, I love it. I love it. All right. So, you know, on that note, you know, you you've grown, you've started, you your business, you you have grown. and this is never a a journey you go through a alone, right? So as your practice has grown, are there any programs or training that have kind of shaped your approach and positively impacted how you serve your clients? Is there anyone that you'd like to give a shout out to? Steve Ankerstar: yeah, I would say that the folks out there that we moved into crypto right after in twenty twenty-two. so Josh Brown from CNBC, Rick Edelman used to run a digit digital assets conference that they were involved in with that. I went twenty twenty-two, kind of discovered all of the crypto space and we started offering that to folks. And through traditional means, not holding it in cold wallets or really getting crazy with it. But when I say core and satellite, we start offering that as a satellite. position for folks and that really is a game changer. There's a lot of folks out there that that want to know more about digital assets, want to know more about Bitcoin, crypto, and they they if they ask their advisor, their advisors go, nope, compliance, can't touch that stuff. It's trash. It's kind of the future. Some of it is. A lot of it's trash. I mean I have to agree with a lot of it's trash. But the but you know getting folks exposure to that has actually brought us some clients in that are like, you know, no other advisor, traditional advisors even willing Gregory Wilnau: Mm. Steve Ankerstar: talk about this stuff. So it kind of opened up one branch of business. And then the second is Chris Josephs from Autopilot. Have you ever heard of the Pelosi tracker or autopilot? Yes. Well, it's very smart, right? And you know, regardless of whether ethically you think our politicians should be able to do blatant insider trading or not, right? I don't think everybody thinks that's wrong, but Gregory Wilnau: I yes I have. It's very sneaky. It's very smart smart, I think. Yeah. Steve Ankerstar: Since they kind of do, or Nancy Pelosi's just the most, you know, the best stock investor ever. Either way, doesn't matter. But if you can copy those trades, that that's one way to it's like, hey, if they're gonna benefit off of it, let's let's come up with a platform. So everyone can benefit off of it. So we met with the autopilot folks a little over a year ago. And really from switching it from what autopilot does to a business management for myself and our team is traditional wealth management's a very analog experience. It's a very sit across the table, it's have deep conversations, but we don't really have a digital offering. And this allowed us to branch off to a digital offering to where a lot of the folks, I have two daughters, they're you know late teens and early 20s. They don't want to talk to somebody. you know, they just want to be like, hey, I want an app that I can invest my money and make money. So we talked to autopilot, set up the relationship, and we have 14 portfolios on autopilot, which is the number one outside of autopilot itself. different yeah, different portfolios that allows people who've never who don't want to talk to me. I'm not offended, right? but you'd rather just copy my trades, right? So we lit we have these 14 portfolios, which we're updating continuously for different themes like humanoid. Gregory Wilnau: Yes, congress. Steve Ankerstar: and quantum, Bitcoin if you're interested, those sorts of things that they can now participate that way. And so from a business model, it's two different revenue streams. You have kind of the traditional wealth management, but you also have the digital experience of feeding some money in there too. Gregory Wilnau: I lo I love that. Love your tra experimenting with these with these different things and thinking about the future and where it's going. Quantum, robotics, AI, those are all interesting things, but cryptocurrency, those are all interesting. Okay, so what I'd like to do now is I'd like to understand more about what it looks like to work with you. So maybe you could walk us through your actual process. So if somebody were to become a client today, what happens the next what what happens the n the first couple of weeks? What what is what is your onboarding look like? Steve Ankerstar: Yeah, you bet. So initial that first we have the consultation, right? But re after they I say the f the ball's in your court, you know, reach out to us whenever you want to get started. From there, it's a very efficient process of digital onboarding. Meaning, once they say I go, once you give me the green light, we're gonna run as fast as we can. And you let, you know, so you let me know if we're going too fast for you. but we'll talk initially about exactly what accounts you want to have open and where you're transferring assets in from. we explained that very clearly. We have our ops manager, Candace, who's a machine as far as making sure all this paperwork gets out to folks, they can electric electronically sign it. And really we can have people onboarded in two to three days. So And there's a subset of the population that takes two to three months, right? By the time they you have to remind them, you know, a handful of times that they have a docu sign waiting for them. But we do like folks, you know, we move fast, we have a fast mover background. So if they want to move fast, we can we can move, you know, it's like challenge us to move faster, right? and then once we get all the assets onboarded, we use a program called Nitrogen, which is it's the old risk-alize. It's a weighted average. It takes that we build our portfolios, which are now in the models, so we apply that as the core. of of a weighted risk average. per age, that sort of thing, put that into the core. And then we come back to the client and we say, okay, here's the core portfolio, which is really the same thing that Edward Jones, Raymond James, the big box folks, you know, Morgan Stanley, private client. That that's kind of what they're delivering. And then we're like, now the the satellite piece is the more interesting part, if you will. it's gonna be what interests you, here's our major themes. We know we have six of them that we're pushing right now that we think are the themes that are going to change the world. You can hold those through ETFs or individual stocks as an example. You know, cybersecurity, you can hold cyber CIBR as the ETF, or you can hold Palo Alto Networks if you're interested. you know, there's a couple ways to different play it so to play it. And then we get in the mind of the client too. And if the client's like, hey, I want to invest in data centers, it's like, okay, we can talk about either the real estate piece of data center or the power providers for data centers. So what we're trying to do there with the client is there should be something exciting in their portfolio. Not too exciting, it's not gambling, but you know, exciting enough to where they want to check it and they want to follow a theme and they want to have they want to be able to believe in their portfolio, which you just Gregory Wilnau: So based on kinda like interest, something that they're interested in or curious about. Steve Ankerstar: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we we you know, and I don't tell my clients no or that's a bad idea. but if somebody wants to invest, say Delta Airlines and be like, okay, well, I like Delta, they're a premier airline. However, the airlines, you know, go bankrupt every what 10, 20 years. You know, any hiccup in the economy, the the b the airlines are bankrupt. So I would say so so I'm not really for it, but if you want to put a small subset amount of shares into your portfolio because you like to board the plane like you're the owner. Right. Yacht walk onto the airplane because you got dull chairs. yeah. So you know, let's do it. Right. So it keeps it fun, keeps it interesting, keeps a little more relevant. And and then secondly, that also parlays you know, to the clients. I'm like, if you got kids, this is exactly the way to get your kids interested. They're not interested in VOO. They're not interested in how much international exposure they have. But if you buy a you know, a a stock of you know, Apple, it's like, well they got an iPhone, they got a Apple watch. It's like they can they can understand that because they see it. So yeah. Gregory Wilnau: Right. Yeah, absolutely. I love I love that investing based off interest, having at least one thing that they're interested in and have some curiosity about. That's that's good. All right, so that's kind of what onboarding looks like. what does it look like to work with you ongoing after arm onboarding? Maybe you could kind of explain what it looks like to you to work with you during the course of a of a calendar year. What's that look like? Steve Ankerstar: Right. Absolutely. And this is where we are very different from everybody else. And you should see the look I get on other advisors' faces when we talk at conferences about how we do business. And so it's usually it's the the question is, you know, you're at a conference and but it's like, how often do you meet with your clients? And and I said, I rarely meet with my clients. Which of course everybody looks at me and it's just like, I thought you're Mr. Service guy. And I'm like, Well, I am because Gregory Wilnau: Interesting. Steve Ankerstar: Meeting with clients is what like people my age, I'm fifty-six, right? I'm old. that's what we used to do. It's like you have a question on July, you know, whatever day it is, and you call your advisor and they schedule you for the third week in August so you can ask your question. That Is right out and ridiculous, and that's filled with a PowerPoint presentation of a financial plan, which nobody wants. Right? So here's what people do want, at least in my opinion. And this is what we do as a firm. If you have a question, ask it. You send I have one, I don't have a personal email for my business, it's VIP services. So at anchorsarwealth.com. So if you have a question, you fired into that. Right now, obviously I'm not looking at the email because I'm 100% in tune with what we're doing here, but somebody is. So client client questions that are coming in right now are being answered by my team. And we're going to get you an answer either right away if we can, if it's or within 24 hours if we can't get to it right away. And that's what we offer folks. we do archive our text messages and I encourage my clients to text me. It's just like, hey, if it's on your mind, text me, email me, get your question answered. And we have found traditionally that as long as you offer that to folks, they don't need to come in and look at PowerPoint every three months or whatever you know they're used to as far as their advisory experience. Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Steve Ankerstar: So very, very different, but I think we are very forward leaning in that aspect. And a lot of people find that very attractive. So if nothing has changed in your life, we don't need to necessarily talk. But if you have something on your mind, it's like hit me with it so we can get you an answer. Gregory Wilnau: I like that. It sounds like it's very respectful of the time, but you'll you you give them space but you also they also know that they're there any time you need them and you give an easy ability for them for them to reach out. So so I love that. On that note, for somebody who is listening and wants to get in touch with you or is curious about learning more about how they could work with you, what should they do next? Where should they go? Steve Ankerstar: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you bet. We funnel everybody to anchorstarwealth dot com. there's a start the conversation in the upper right. So that's really your easiest. once you go there, again, we'll have an answer to you honestly within fifteen minutes unless we're all asleep. so if you're if you're during the day, I've got somebody that monitors that and we'll get right back to you and just ask you some follow on questions and from there we can we can Can start the conversation. And if you go to our website, you'll also see a whole bunch of cool airplane pictures. So if you're an airplane junkie, then check us out anyway. Gregory Wilnau: I have been to your site and they are some there are some cool airplane pictures. All right, Steve. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We appreciate ya. Steve Ankerstar: Mm. Thanks. You bet, Greg. Thanks. Gregory Wilnau: Bye.