Between Now and Success

Guest: Janine Wertheim, who recently retired from Securities America after spending 37 years with the company. Janine started shortly after the company was founded and served in a variety of leadership roles. Most recently, Janine was President of Securities America Advisors, which is the $75 billion RIA firm she and a small team founded back in 1994. Insight: I started my financial services career working for Janine back in 1993. Under her leadership, we built Securities America Advisors, the corporate RIA, from $0 to nearly $2 billion in AUM by the time I left in 1999. Today, the RIA has $75 billion in AUM and Janine has served as its long-time president. It was a real treat for me to interview Janine as she reflected on nearly four decades of leadership. The industry has changed over the last four decades, but a constant has been her thoughtful, innovative leadership.

9 months of job interviews. 27 "No's" from top advisory firms. 33,000 cold calls. That's all it took for Erin Scannell to open up his independent office and land his first client back in 1999. Few people would have powered through that long, but as Erin Scannell explains on today's podcast, he learned some hard lessons in perseverance and resilience growing up that continue to motivate him to this day. Erin is the founder and CEO of Heritage Wealth Advisors in the Seattle area, where he directs 50 team members, 18 advisors, and about $2 billion in assets under management. Erin is also a regular on Barron's list of the top advisors and an inspiration to anyone who thinks the next hurdle in your business' growth is insurmountable – even if that hurdle is a global pandemic. (June 2020)

Guests: Patrick Brewer, CFA, CPA is the President & CMO at WealthSource, a full service national independent registered investment advisory firm. Prior to that, he was the founder and CEO of SurePath Wealth Management, a financial advisor practice with seven offices across the country. SurePath was acquired by WealthSource Partners in early 2021. He's also the founder of Model FA, which supports financial advisors as they grow sustainable businesses, increase their visibility, and change their clients' lives. Stephanie Bogan has had a long career in financial consulting, including founding her own consulting firm at the age of 24 and selling it 12 years later in a seven-figure deal to a Fortune 200 company, and a stint at United Capital as SVP of Training and Client Experience. Today she runs Limitless Advisor, which is a program for advisors and founders to create bigger, better futures. Insight: Financial advisors have never had more marketing tools at their disposal, more options for how their businesses can operate, or more access to prospects who value real human-to-human guidance. Your use of these mechanisms has to be connected to a clear, overriding strategy that will break down trust barriers between you and your niche, demonstrate your value proposition, and help your business grow.

Jim Crider, CFP® and CEO of Intentional Living FP discusses how his desire to guide people through the personal stress that money can create led him to a career in financial services and, ultimately, founding his own firm.

In a Nutshell: Technology is going to absorb most of the technical aspects of our work, so we have to become experts at what it means to be human. And advisors who embrace and further develop their "human" side of advising will thrive no matter how technology evolves. Guest: Clare Ciervo, CFP®, Advisor & Financial Planner at Balanced Rock Investment Advisors.

Most advisors effectively handle the money question. Few are adept at handling the emotion question. In this discussion, retirement expert Mitch Anthony and Steve Sanduski, CFP® show how you can become your client's retirement coach and help them navigate this tricky transition to retirement. For the full presentation, please register for our free webinar on June 29 at 2:00 ET. To register, visit: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bkodSXOASbyT0eTyIBH4wg This program has been accepted for one hour of CE credit from the CFP Board and for one CE hour toward the CIMA/CIMC/CPWA designations.

What do you need to be a successful financial advisor? An Ivy League degree in finance? A family practice that you can inherit? A group of wealthy connections that you can network? An "in" at one of the major firms? Well, Rebecca Rothstein doesn't check off any of those boxes, and she's currently managing over $4.5 billion in AUM. Without even a high school degree, Rebecca left home at age 17. She bounced through a series of odd jobs -- including walking racehorses after they'd finished running -- and by the late 1980s she was slogging through an unfulfilling sales position. She jumped to finance and earned her Series 7 just weeks before Black Monday. Anxious investors looking to take their portfolios in a new direction responded to Rebecca's curiosity and tenacity, two traits that she credits with helping her build her business brick by brick, one phone call at a time. Today, from her office in Beverly Hills, California, Rebecca's client list includes celebrities, athletes, musicians, and top CEOs and entrepreneurs. Rebecca has appeared numerous times on Barron's List of the top financial advisors, and according to Forbes, is currently the #1 woman advisor in the United States. In our conversation, Rebecca Rothstein and I discussed how drive and perseverance helped her to overcome the obstacles she faced early in her life and build a multi-billion-dollar AUM business. (Notes: This is a rebroadcast from October 2018.)

Episode: Joining me for this panel discussion on Bitcoin are: Meg Bartelt, CFP®, MSFP of Flow Financial Planning Ronnie Colvin, CFP®, of ColeFP Wealth Management Adam Blumberg, CFP® of Interaxis Academy Insight: Bitcoin can lead you down some very twisty rabbit holes. But as an advisor, learning the basics will allow you to answer the most common questions you're going to get from clients: What is this? Should I invest in it?

In a Nutshell: Top-performing financial advisory firms create an employee value proposition that goes well beyond what you pay them. The firms that are attracting and retaining top talent have developed multi-faceted strategies that address team members' financial desires as well as their innate desire to connect with something bigger that inspires them to do their best work. Guest: Anand Sekhar, Vice President, Practice Management & Consulting at Fidelity Investments.

Ready to take your marketing up a notch? Working with a PR firm can really accelerate both your media presence and your potential for growth. But PR isn't something an advisor can just outsource and forget about; you have to be prepared to invest both your time and your money to get the most out of this relationship. Guest: Jason Lahita and Jimmy Moock of StreetCred Communications, a public relations company specializing in the financial services sector.