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 1993. 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.

Between Now and Success

Securities America’s Janine Wertheim Reflects on Nearly Four Decades as an Industry Leader

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)

Best of: Erin Scannell

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.

A Masterclass in Marketing

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.

A 4-Part Framework to Work with Families Who Desire Early Financial Independence

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.

Becoming an Intentionally Human Financial Advisor

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.

How to Become Your Client's Retirement Coach

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.) 

Best of: Rebecca Rothstein

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?

The Digital Money Advisor: Bitcoin Discussion for Skeptical Financial Advisors

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.

How to Attract and Compensate A+ Team Members

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.

What You Should Know Before Hiring a PR Firm with Jason Lahita and Jimmy Moock

Episode: Recently I was a guest on the Wicked Pissah Podcast, where I talked to hosts Chris Boyd, CFP® and Jeff Tomaneng, CFP® about how my lifelong interest in finance and tech led me to investigate bitcoin's potential as digital money and a store of value. Today's episode is a rebroadcast of that show. Insight: I believe that our global financial systems are at an inflection point. You don't have to agree with me about the role that Bitcoin might play in this transition. But you do need to have an informed opinion so that you can answer your clients' questions and help them make the best decisions for their future.

Bitcoin: Financial Advisors Must Respond to It

In a Nutshell: If you want to grow your business, you need to build out a systematic, repeatable action plan that will reach your ideal prospects and motivate them to make some positive changes in their lives — including working with you. Guest: Jeremy Keil is a CFP, CFA, CIMA, and founder of Keil Financial Partners in New Berlin, WI. My Key Takeaways: Be specific. Jeremy’s firm is laser-focused on helping folks 55 and older transition into retirement. All their branding and messaging revolves around positioning the firm as an expert consultant for soon-to-be retirees. Take advantage of opportunities. When the pandemic hit, Jeremy doubled his marketing budget, which helped him reach more folks facing early retirement and other COVID-19 financial challenges. You can’t make other people change their behavior. But if you improve your interviewing skills and learn how to ask better questions, you can lead folks to realizations that can inspire change. Also Learn: How Jeremy rebranded his business around his target niche and name recognition. How Jeremy created a repeatable marketing system that adds value before a prospect even picks up the phone and generates quality leads. How Jeremy uses motivational interviewing rather than slick sales techniques to turn prospects into clients. 

Creating a Repeatable Marketing System That Generates Quality Leads

Back in the fall of 2014, I started this podcast, Between Now and Success. And it was one of the first, if not the first, podcast that was specifically targeted to financial advisors to help you effectively run and build your business. At the time, I felt that podcasting was going to be a big thing and I wanted to be one of the first people to use this form of media and share the wisdom of the industry’s great leaders. And since I launched this podcast back in 2014, there have been dozens of new practice management podcasts directly targeting this financial advisor space. And frankly, it’s become very crowded. And so it’s time to move on to what I see as the next big move for financial advisors. As I see it, there are inflection points in history where major changes move from being probable to being inevitable. And I believe we are at such a time right now with the US and world financial system. Just like tectonic plates move slowly over time, then snap all at once, I think we’re in a situation right now where the world is quickly moving to a new system because the current one is broken.

Two Podcast Announcements

In a Nutshell: The next wave of fintech and wealthtech will offer dramatic efficiency upgrades for advisors. Prepare your team to spend less time shuffling papers and more time having meaningful conversations with clients that will create real value. Guest: Marty Bicknell, Founder and CEO of the $35 billion AUM behemoth Mariner Wealth Advisors. My Key Takeaways: We need a true advisor desktop platform. Marty believes the independent space still lacks a unified advisor desktop platform and that miss hurts our productivity. But he says it's coming. Embrace change. Before the pandemic, about 25% of Marty's team was using the company's internal technology platform. During the pandemic, usage jumped to almost 100%. Now 85% of Marty's employees believe their productivity is up too. Those kinds of workflow and efficiency upgrades can be permanent if you build buy-in with your own team. Explore your options. From upgrading your existing systems to affiliating yourself with a larger firm like Mariner, advisors need to evaluate the new pathways to growth that are opening in front of them. Also Learn: What Marty says is the number one problem in finance that tech can help advisor address. Why Marty believes that the consolidation trend in our industry "isn't going anywhere, it's just getting started." What changes Marty's team made because of the pandemic that will continue to be part of their business post-pandemic. How Marty is leveraging the advantages of WFH while also helping his team work through the downsides, such as feelings of isolation. 

Marty Bicknell Sees a More Efficient Future for Advisors Who Embrace Wealthtech

Words have power, especially when you pick three of them at the beginning of the year and use them as a guide for the next 12 months. Life is filled with distractions and it’s so easy to let the “stuff” of life knock us off the path we planned to follow at the beginning of the year. But an exercise I picked up from Chris Brogan called My 3 Words helps me stay on that path regardless of what life throws at me. The idea is simple. Pick 3 words that motivate you, remind you, and guide you on your road to making 2021 your best year ever. Then write them down in a place where you’ll see them every day. My 3 words are printed at the top of my Daily Outcomes sheet (my prioritized to-do list) so I see them multiple times a day. By being thoughtful when you identify your 3 words and then reviewing them on a daily basis, you’ll have a daily reminder of your key focus for the year and this will help you stay on track and on plan.

My 3 Words for 2021

Host Steve Sanduski, CFP® is the founder of two financial services companies, a New York Times bestselling author, podcast host, executive coach, and speaker. Through interviews with top achievers and visionary voices, Between Now and Success brings you the strategies, tips, and tools you need to succeed at the intersection of business and life. In each episode, Steve's guests open up and share their journey and the lessons they learned on their road to the summit. So rope up and get "On Belay" as we climb the summit to success together.

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Between Now and Success

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