How did Wes White of Patriot Wealth co-build an $85MM firm without asking for anyone’s business? In this episode, Wes breaks down his success model, shares the specifics of how he identifies the right prospects for his firm (and the wrong ones), and uncovers the education-led outreach strategy that led to the rapid growth of his firm.
How did Wes White of Patriot Wealth co-build an $85MM firm without asking for anyone’s business? In this episode, Wes breaks down his success model, shares the specifics of how he identifies the right prospects for his firm (and the wrong ones), and uncovers the education-led outreach strategy that led to the rapid growth of his firm.
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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
Developing a seminar that works for your clients: 6:45-10:23
The “no-pressure” approach that can grow your firm: 10:57-14:45
The economics behind creating and filming a class: 15:45-17:10
The experience of the class from beginning to end: 17:30-21:05
Turning a student into a client: 22:47-28:35
Wes’ secret to growth: 28:51-30:59
RESOURCES IN EPISODE:
ADDITIONAL EPISODE RESOURCES
This RIA grew from $0-30M in one year-no selling involved
A purpose-based planning approach to serving your clients
For more tips on how to grow and scale your RIA, subscribe to The Advisor Journey on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
ABOUT THE ADVISOR JOURNEY:
Real-life strategies for the modern financial advisor who’s ready to scale. Join Altruist founder and CEO Jason Wenk, Altruist’s Head of Community Dasarte Yarnway, and guests as they share proven tactics, unfiltered advice, and hard-won lessons you can apply to your own practice. These conversations will propel your career to the next level—don’t miss it.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this podcast by the participants are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Altruist Corp or its subsidiaries. No compensation was provided. Altruist Corp offers a software platform that helps financial advisors achieve better outcomes. Nothing in this communication should be construed as an offer, recommendation, or solicitation to buy or sell any security. Additionally, Altruist or its affiliates do not provide tax advice, and investors are encouraged to consult with their personal tax advisors. All Copyright 2022 Altruist Corp.
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Wes White: The process is great because they just see maybe some pitfalls in their own plans and then when it comes to correcting them, again, the key is not begging them for their business but bringing them to a point where they say hey, Wes, Rick, Austin, can you help us? Will you help us? That’s the coolest thing ever when they do do that, and you’re the right fit, so it’s been a really rewarding process over the last six, seven years.
Jason Wenk: Welcome to The Advisor Journey, a podcast by Altruist, dedicated to giving advisors the edge they need with proven RIA growth strategies. Each week, Dasarte Yarnway and I will have hard hitting conversations about the topics that matter most to the modern RIA: how to scale, how to maximize efficiency, and how to effectively reach your goals. It’s real advice from people who’ve really done it, and we’re so glad you’re here.
Dasarte Yarnway: How did Wes White build an 85-million-dollar firm without asking for anyone’s business? Join Jason and I as we uncover the education-led outreach strategy that helped him grow. Wes breaks down his success model and shares the specifics of how he identifies the right prospects for his firm and the wrong ones. Today, we welcome Wes White. Wes, how you doing?
Wes White: I’m doing great. Thanks for having me, guys.
Dasarte Yarnway: Awesome. Thanks for being here with us. I know that I’m excited. The last time you and I got the opportunity to chat was when I was in my apartment in Princeton, New Jersey, and it was in the height of the pandemic, and we did an exceptional interview about how you grew your firm I think at the time from zero to 30 million within a year, right, so to see you catapult into this 85-million-dollar range going towards that 100-million-dollar point is incredible, so congrats to you, and it’s good to see you.
Wes White: You as well. It’s been fun to build a practice, but it sounds like Wes built this 85-million-dollar plus practice, but the reality is that only as good as the folks you surround yourself with and between my immediate partners and mentors and so forth, I think that’s been a huge key in the success of our firm.
Dasarte Yarnway: It’s crazy that you mention that because Jason just said that you’re an average of the five people that you spend the most time with, so I think we’re all synergizing today with that sentiment, but nonetheless, Jason, why don’t you take us through our first intro? Wes, I know you guys go way back, so why don’t you tell our audience why he’s special and why we have him on the show?
Jason Wenk: Wes is really special. Let me tell you – no, so yeah, I’ve known Wes for a while, probably seven, eight years, I would guess, Wes? Is that fair?
Wes White: Yeah, that sounds about right. I think the first time I met you was trying to sling a custom shirt on you or something.
Jason Wenk: Wes is a very well-dressed guy. We couldn’t get him live in the studio with us in LA, so virtually we only get to admire the threads a little bit, but yeah, you used to sell pretty nice custom suits out of his trunk as he was getting his start. Not really out of the trunk. That makes it sound a lot worse than it was, but you’d be like yeah, man, I’ve got all my fabrics. You can pick. My suit guy will come take your measurements.
Wes White: Jason, if I could interrupt you, I don’t think you’re that far off, really, because I remember one December, I went to Southpoint Mall, which is about 20 minutes from my house, really nice mall, and they’ve got – there’s not a Saks in there. There’s a Nordstrom, and I walk in there, and there was a lady that was picking out a couple of ties, and I said, “Are you looking for anything in particular?” and she named a couple of colors and said she was looking for something for her son and her husband. I said, “You know what? Out in my car, I actually have ties. I work for a custom clothier, and based on the choices you have here, I think you could probably do better elsewhere. If it’s not too weird, I’d love to show you what I’ve got,” and believe it or not, she said sure, so I took her out of Nordstrom, went to the trunk of the car, had the Square thing on my phone, and sold her two ties out of the trunk of my car, so you weren’t really wrong.
Jason Wenk: Alright. See? I’m glad that you’ve proven me to be honest.
Dasarte Yarnway: [04:46] a natural.
Jason Wenk: To fast forward, it’s cool to share that because part of The Advisor Journey – this show, the people listening to it, it’s a lot of people that are looking for that scale up growth in their business, and whether they’re today selling suits or ties and poaching customers from Nordstrom’s or they’re at a 10-million-dollar mark, a 20-million, their revenue’s at a quarter – they’re wondering how do I hit that scale mark. What’s really cool is if we fast forward – again, it seems like just yesterday, and there’s a lot of work between that moment when you were, again, just starting to today, but to scale that up and to reach a point where you’re now getting close – this may be the year that you hit 100 million of AUM revenue, likely I’d say well over a million, that’s really super impressive.
I think the story I want to share is I got a front row seat. I got to watch how you did it, and there was a ton of focus. That was one of the things that I admired the most. You and your dad worked together. You developed a really cool way to get in front of really good prospective clients. Your services were very much bespoke for that group. It’s very well-orchestrated, and then you just got heads down and committed to doing the work, and lo and behold it’s compounded into a really, really impressive business. It’s been a ton of fun to watch, and today we’re going to get back into that, so without me telling your entire story for you, just quick introduction about yourself, name of the firm, the clients that you serve. I already mentioned that you work with your dad, but maybe give Rick a shoutout. I’ll turn it over to you to do a little self-introduction to Wes White.
Wes White: Sure. It’s great to be here. Who I am as a person, first and foremost I’m a husband, and I’m a dad to two little boys, Noah and Isaac, so they’re two and about seven months. Last couple of years have been super exciting, and it’s been fun to actually share that story and the growth of our family with our clients. I’ll talk a little bit more about that later about connecting with them in that way, but many years ago, I started working with my dad and I was a freshman, actually, in college when I got my insurance license. Who the advisor or the salesperson that I was was a segue into who I am today because I know a lot of what I don’t want to do moving forward based on the mistakes that we’ve made in the past, and that’s all been well and good, and we’re headed in a much better direction, but I always felt like I was spinning my wheels when I was a salesperson.
I’ll never forget my first sale. It was an annuity with a 7.2% rollup, for those of you that know the lingo there, and I felt that I closed that business, and I couldn’t wait to close the next one, but it became a very weird feeling when you’re consistently feeling like you’re unemployed until the next sale, and it wasn’t until 2014 when I made my Series 65 and we began building the AUM side to our practice that I really felt like that we were doing good for our clients from a way that we could service them but also the manner in which that they came on board and the experience that they had as clients and even before they were clients as prospective clients.
Then came the course, and the course is something that was developed – my father started it, and we tweaked it together and really came down to a process that we were comfortable with and that seemed to be super effective, and that was teaching concepts to – what our niche market is is pre-retirees and retirees and their families, of course, but usually those folks are going to be about 55 and older, and we wanted to provide a way that they could come to an establishment and purely learn and not feel the pressure that a lot of folks have expressed to us just by asking questions about what it’s like to go to a dinner seminar. They always feel like there’s pressure to come in after that. There’s always something to be sold.
Through the class it developed because of that and wanting us to – and us wanting to provide that environment where they felt comfortable without feeling super pressured. The course was a – is a two-night course that also has a one-night version, but we cover what we’ve identified as seven headwinds or threats or challenges that retirees face today, and I’ll tell you what. In this day and age, right now with everything going on current event wise, it feels like we’ve had just in the last two years some crazy black swan events and people are certainly nervous, but with proper planning what they learn is that they can weather these storms, and they can actually feel confident during these time periods because it can be really, really scary for a whole lot of people.
If we teach something that we’re passionate about, which we certainly are, the attendees feel that, and they can see that in our hearts, we just want them to learn, but what ends up happening is that through the learning process and coming in to see us through what we call financial lab sessions that are simply an extension of that class, their guard is certainly down, and we’re allowed to just simply be ourselves, continue to ask a lot of good questions, and the process is great because they just see maybe some pitfalls in their own plans and then when it comes to correcting them, again, the key is not begging them for their business but bringing them to a point where they say hey, Wes, Rick, Austin, can you help us? Will you help us? That’s the coolest thing ever when they do do that and you’re the right fit, so it’s been a really rewarding process over the last six, seven years.
Dasarte Yarnway: Hey, Wes. That’s incredible. We actually just had an advisor talk about how he grew his business through mergers and acquisitions, but he didn’t mention that back in the day, steak dinners and seminars was the way to do it. Now I think that if you’re giving somebody a steak dinner, they’re probably looking at you like what do you want in return. Talk to us a little more about that no pressure approach because I think that’s important for somebody who is going to entrust their whole retirement to you. What exactly are you guys doing to build this environment that’s low stress, low pressure, and obviously gets people to buy into what you’re doing for them?
Wes White: The classes is branded as a class first and foremost. It’s not branded as anything that’s related to a dinner, seminar. There’s nothing offered as far as any food. You might have a couple of waters or something in the back of the room. That room, by the way, I think it’s very important that it’s held at a credible university or a library at the very least, but if you can get into a university and it’s a well-known situation, it provides that credibility of being a learning center. When someone comes to an adult education class, if we were to think about any class you could sign up for at any university, it’s not like there’s a dinner that’s waiting on them right there. They’re there for one reason and one reason only, and that’s to grow as far as what they’re learning.
We want that environment to feel exactly like a classroom, and when we go to teach, we think okay, what would a professor be wearing and how would they work the room? We’re not going to wear – this is just us. We’re not wearing our top of the line suits and so forth. We’re just very casual, maybe a sport coat at very most, but it’s – I think it begins with the environment, and because it’s over the course of two nights – a two-session class, because it could be in the morning as well if you’re holding maybe a Saturday morning class, that’s about four and a half to five hours that the attendees are spending with you, and so a lot of that trust and the rapport built during that time period – because obviously you have a lot of side conversations over that time period, maybe during the break sessions, but even prior to getting to the class, we do our best to send out a survey to nail down what’s on top of mind, what’s most important to the attendees that are coming that week.
We all know that they’re going to be answering them very similar to the last class and the class before that, but if we have those answers ahead of time of what they – things on the survey that triggers them, it allows us to really connect with them at the class, so it may be hey, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, we did receive your survey back. I know that your concerns are A, B, C, and D. Just know that you’re not alone in that, and that many other people are concerned about that as well, and I’m so glad that you let us know because over the next two weeks, we’re going to be addressing that together. That’s another thing is making sure that they know that we’re in this together.
I think it certainly helps with our firm that our clients are – a lot of them, anyway, are near the same age as my dad, so it allows them to connect on a level such as that, but they also enjoy that our firm has longevity as well and so when they see that there are two partners in the firm that are – one is shy of 30, and myself, I’m 35, they’re not going to ever be passed on to somebody junior or be left for somebody else because the principles of the firm are here, and we’re here with them to and through their retirement years. That’s where we try to connect with them at least initially at the class itself and then obviously from there towards the end of the class, they always have the opportunity to take what they’ve learned int the class and see how it actually applies to them.
If we have the mindset of when we were in college or high school or whatnot and you were taking biology or chemistry, there’s always that lab session to the actually class itself. That lab, as we know, is to use it to actually apply what you’ve learned, and the financial lab that we do is no different than that. Because we’re all unique, we all have different planning scenarios, estate planning needs and so forth, tax issues, we want to have those sessions to actually apply to their unique situation, let them stress test certain things. Of course, we’re there doing that with them, but it’s been a really cool thing to have that process and super effective.
Jason Wenk: That’s awesome. You and your dad really were the first advisors I ever go tot know well personally that went full educational and we’re going to go to a university, teach a real class, take all the sales pitch out, get rid of all the sleaze. Your economics are unbelievable, by the way. I just want to pause for a moment to talk about the economics because some people might think I have heard of people trying to do events and they’re too expensive or this, that, or the other thing, but really, the payback, if you will, on doing these events is fantastic. Talk to us about filling a class. What methods are you doing to get – let’s say you wanted to have 30, 40 people or whatever the number, 20 people, whatever your magic number is in a classroom, what’s the method, and if there’s such thing as a general idea of the cost that you expect when you’re hosting this, what does that look like?
Wes White: For the advertising piece of it, we like to us Facebook, all kinds of digital ads for it. While we don’t run that in house – we leave that up to marketing experts – what we’ve found is we spend a minimum of about 2500 on ad spend to as high as 4,000. It really just depends on the response and for the cost of the room, that’s different all over the board, right? It could be very much different in Raleigh than it is – which is my home city – than it is out in California for instance to rent a room, but if we can be all in for an event at around call it 5,000 bucks or so to 6,000, then that’s a good thing for us.
Getting the lead cost, I think to fill a seat, it’s running anywhere on the low end to about 120 on the high end about 170, 175 perhaps at the very most, so there certainly is an investment in it, but obviously just like anything, it takes money to make money. We just kept putting it back in the business, and you mentioned our exponential growth and so forth, and it was a lot of putting it right back in the business. It definitely took some money to make some money, but as far as a cost per lead standpoint, we found it pretty attractive.
Dasarte Yarnway: How frequently are you having the classes?
Wes White: We try to do it once per month, and obviously, the last couple of years it’s been a little bit different with the pandemic, but things have just recently opened back up for us at the university of – NC State, so we’re excited about that. We’re going to get going again in May of this year, so we’ll be holding one per month beginning in May.
Dasarte Yarnway: I want you to paint a picture for us, the experience of the class. I’m a client that’s now saw your ad. It looks very enticing for me to go to your class to learn a little bit more about these pitfalls that you’ve identified. What happens next? When I walk in the room, what’s the experience like? Walk us through what that is.
Wes White: Sure. Even if we just take a step back and say before they walk in the room, they’re receiving communication that is digital and then also physical. We’ve found that by combining the two things of having an automated email follow-up and confirmation and we’re glad that you’re going to come and so forth, accompanying that with a concurred brand, so the same brand that they saw on the ad, they’re also seeing in a physical form where they’re receiving a syllabus of the class, an event survey, and also a little map with a direction to exactly where the class is going to be held, which again, for us, is at NC State University, so it’s going to show them exactly where to park, where to walk in.
We want it to be as simple as possible, but when we have something physical along with the digital and they’re coming to an in-person event, I think that makes it very real and it makes it feel really official. It’s something that maybe they’ve experienced in the past with an official college course that they’ve taken or some other even that they’ve been to. When they get there, there’s somebody that is signing them in and obviously making sure that they’re checked off on our attendee roster. They’re handed a physical workbook. That’s workbook one if it’s the first night, and then in order to get workbook two, they’ve got to come back the next time so they’re not just taking two books and running thinking they can just read them and learn everything that they need to learn.
From there, they’re obviously going into the classroom, and again, there’s a couple of waters that are set up in the back of the room, but other than that, that’s really it. There might be a couple cookies too just to hold them over because this is in the evening, so it’s usually for us 6:30 start and then it will end at 8:45 with one break in the very middle. Before class starts, that’s just a couple of minutes where maybe whoever’s teaching that class, whether it’s myself or my dad, we’ll spend a couple of minutes talking to people that are coming in, just shooting it with them and killing a little bit of time, and then we just jump in and give them a good background on why we teach and then let the know that yes, we do have our own financial planning and wealth management firm. It’s called Patriot Wealth. We’re not even here to talk about that today. In fact, we don’t even have any business cards on us even if you asked us. You’re not going to get it from us because this isn’t about us. This is about you learning what we think you need to know given where you are in your life.
That’s another little piece where, again, the guard comes down, but they realize that while we have a financial planning firm that provides the credibility and the background to be able to teach, so that’s a little bit about that opening process, and from there, it’s different with all classes based on the fluid nature of it. Sometimes you have a lot more questions and answer time than others. It just depends on the size of the class, but I will say on a personal level, I don’t really care if we’ve got 50 people there or 10 people there because the reality is that there’s some super good potential clients in that room either way, and if you treat the 10 people the same that you would 50 and they have a great experience, what we’ve found is the next time that they see that ad come up on their Facebook feed for the following class, many people share that because they had such a good experience, and they say I can vouch for this. This is really a legitimate class, and we have people that will email that to their entire list, so that’s where our data gets a little – where do we get this person because it’s being shared a lot, which is a good problem to have.
Jason Wenk: I’d say, yeah, for sure. It’s hard to communicate this with an audio podcast, but I’ve seen the workbooks and just so people can really appreciate the quality of everything you guys do is super top notch. It’s not some binders y’all made at home and punched them or whatever. It feels every bit like a real college class. The workbooks are beautiful. All of the [21:38], that experience, and those details make a big difference in your economics too, right?
Wes White: For sure.
Jason Wenk: People can’t find the parking lot, they’re probably having a bad first experience. The odds of them being engaged in the class and signing up for a lab, all of these things change. It’s a well-oiled machine now. I’m sure obviously in the early days it wasn’t always quite like that.
Wes White: I was sitting here chuckling because when you said hole punching your own binders, I was like I used to do that, and I totally get it because we were always nervous about what that might come off as.
Jason Wenk: It’s all obviously worked out, and this is how I think most businesses – they start off with a lot of grit, and you do what you have to do, and as they mature, you get better and better. Let’s talk about how developing a class has led to the growth of your firm. I’ve talked a lot about the cost to get the appointments in the door. We’ve already talked about the headline numbers and how much assets have grown, but – people come in. They have this fantastic experience. What’s a typical experience for that student look like once they decide to sign up for a lab? What happens next? You mentioned a little bit, but do they come into your office? Do you sell virtually? What should the – are they prepared? Is it a sales meeting? Is it five meetings, two meetings? Just tell us about what happens post-class.
Wes White: Sure. Post-class, it’s usually three meetings if they go through the entire process, and that can be virtually or that can be in-office. It’s going to be interesting I think coming up with this next round of classes to see how many choose the virtual route versus the physical option because we want to provide both, and that’s because from a lifestyle standpoint within our practice, we certainly enjoyed the virtual meeting but recognize that it’s not for everybody, especially within our niche, but if we assume that they were in-office like man of them have been in the past, it’s usually, again, a three-meeting process.
The first meeting is largely as it is for many advisors that data collection meeting, affirming that data that maybe you’ve received on the front end, and if you haven’t it’s making sure that it’s completed when they come in the door because they do have the option to send in just the basic financial profile and so forth to us ahead of time, and that’s provided through the Calendly system with an automated link to a pdf and so forth, and they can send it right back. That first meeting is, again, just a lot of data collecting and asking a lot of questions to get down to what I think should be looked at as how they view money, right, and what their relationship with money is.
It was a handful of years ago I read a book – I’m trying to think of the name – Values Based Financial Planning by Bill Bachrach. To me, that was – it’s one of those books that’s probably best suited for an investor or someone looking for an advisor, but it’s super good I think for advisors to read this book because it gives us some insight on an investor that is asking the right questions, and it can allow us to see what their relationship is or maybe help them find out what their relationship is with money and continuing to ask questions that are open ended and one of the questions that I like to ask on the front end is what their favorite or what the best experience that they’ve had as far as making a money decision. What do they like about what they’ve done, and you know how people are. We tend to want to brag about our wins, and we don’t really talk about the losses. You talk to a gambler who goes to Vegas, they’re always hitting the right numbers. They’re not going to tell you how much they lost in order to win 500 bucks, right?
Same goes with people. If we allow them to have some wins on the front end and then ask them some questions about maybe perhaps what they – if they could just change one, two, or maybe three things that they don’t really like, what would that be? Really just ask these open-ended questions, their experience with money, what’s it look like with their spouse. One of the things that I like about in-person meetings – while I love the virtual thing, the in-person thing I think’s really neat is you can really use the communication or the first meeting to really gauge what the body communication is like. If you are with a couple, what I’ve found is that if one of them begins to tune out, they’re not going to become a client no matter how interested one of them is. I think they both have to be on the same page, and if you notice one that’s – maybe the husband’s looking off and he’s disengaged, then we need to bring that person back and start all over. We’re not ready to move forward yet.
That’s an open-ended – long-winded answer there, Jason, but that first meeting is certainly asking the deep questions and it really allows us, I think, to decide do we want to pursue this relationship or are they not necessarily a right fit and maybe you don’t know yet. We want them to be able to test what they’re currently doing and again discover their own pitfalls based on what they learned in the class and that second meeting is to reveal the results of what they’re currently doing and then maybe perhaps begin to drive a thoughtful wedge, right, into what they’re currently doing.
Maybe it’s a relationship they have with a current advisor or maybe they’re a do-it-yourselfer and they begin to have a little bit of doubt that they can accomplish everything on their own, or if they can do it all on their own, maybe they can just use a simple, low-cost model instead of the complicated stuff they currently have and they’ll be off and running, and worst case is at that point is maybe they’re not a client, but hey, they saved themselves thousands of dollars by implementing a plan that is lower cost than what they currently have, and that’s a happy person, and I know that they’re going to tell others.
At the same time, if they’re able to discover that they truly want help, then we would move to a third meeting if they’re the right fit, and then that third meeting, they’ve already told us in the second meeting that we understand that you’re going to go to work for us. We understand that you’re taking that just purely teacher hat off and you’re beginning that consultant hat with the advisor side to your practice and you’re going to build a portfolio for us and a plan and a strategy moving forward, and that’s where we have the most fun is being able to come back for that third meeting and tell Mr. and Mrs. Jones that we’ve been hard at work for them and that we’ve come up with two to three different options. They all work, but today we’re going to implement the one that they feel best about, and we’re going to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of all two or all three of them, and from there we implement moving forward. That’s a shortened version of that, but we try to go through the same process to a degree with every single person, something that’s scalable and it’s replicateable, and it think it's worked just fine.
Dasarte Yarnway: Awesome. Jason asked a good question about your firm’s growth. Last year, or in 2020 when I talked to you, zero to 30 million, right. In this introduction, 85 million, so just give us the impact of these classes and some of your marketing efforts and how its grew your firm throughout that timeframe alone. That’s incredible. Talk to us about what that’s done for your firm from a numbers standpoint and assets under management.
Wes White: I think it was the first year of AUM actually adding clients was like 2015, and we had – it was zero to 30, and then it quickly went to 60. When the pandemic it, I think at that point, it had gotten to about 65 or maybe 70 or something like that, but the growth that we’ve seen recently has been a lot of referrals and so forth because we really – during the pandemic we took time to just focus on our current clients, make sure they were well taken care of because obviously it was a little bit of a scary time for a lot of folks, especially that were in retirement, but for the growth of our firm, the class has been really the main driver, the main source of clients, and it continues to be moving forward because that will be the main marketing avenue. We did have other things in our marketing strategy such as a radio show, podcast and so forth, and that was more of a nurturing thing than it is a acquisition for us.
We tend to add about with each class about $2 million to AUM, and that’s a fair amount that we have with insurance, too, because obviously with our niche market building in some contractual income streams and risk management, obviously, is paramount. If we’re able to hold a class and add anywhere from one and a half to two and on the high end we’ve added five million, that’s a super successful class, and it’s a process where you’re just simply teaching instead of telling, and then before you know it, you have folks that are actually – in their mind they think they need to apply to become a client because one of the things that we like to let them know is yes, we do grow our practice through classes, but we’re not actively seeking new clients. If the right fit comes up, then we’ll talk about what that looks like moving forward and what it’s like to work with us, but at this point, we’re not there yet as you say what we say. That’s why it’s been a success. Again, low key, no pressure, and if we can add anywhere from two to four million call it, then we’re thrilled whenever we do a class.
Dasarte Yarnway: I love how you’ve thought through every aspect of holding these classes, even to the point where you’re like hey, we’re not actively seeking clients. I think psychologically that creates a demand, right, in some of the people that you might be speaking to, so that’s really neat. I wanted to ask a question. Obviously, Jason touched on the economics in the beginning of this show, and I was thinking to myself for an early advisor, $5,000 a month, that’s $60,000 a year. They might not be able to do that, right? That’s a lot of money for a young advisor to throw into a class without doing it or getting some wind under his wings, so for the younger advisor that wants to do something like this, wants to – is confident in their public speaking, feels like they can go out and talk to crowds, how do they start? You mentioned that you had hole punches in your house before getting the booklets. Where do you start if you want to start today?
Wes White: That’s a great question and just one idea that popped into mind is the online spaces now that you can put together, so I think you and Jason probably know Twitter and Facebook and Instagram better than most, but being able to simply plug into interesting groups and so forth that is likeminded and maybe you can have a group of people that you can speak to that maybe can connect you with others. I think that using our circles of influence online if that’s what your business model is, that’s how you want to begin to grow your practice certainly using your own network there. We’ve had a lot of interest lately from our clients, their children, and that’s one of the most rewarding things is when the parents are having a really good experience with our firm and they connect us to their younger client base, then it makes us want to develop a class that is more geared to that group, and I think that that would be online. I think that’s how we’re going to connect with those people the most is through online spaces.
Again, maybe that’s hosting your own events online because I think we can do that in a really cheap way, and especially when you can use technology to have the evergreen webinars and so forth. I think that’s probably the most low cost way to develop your own course if that’s what you want to do and then just invite people to it and continuing to maybe spend a few bucks here and there for advertising. Doesn’t have to be that six to seven thousand. I think anytime you do anything physical in an actual local establishment, obviously that’s going to cost more.
Dasarte Yarnway: Alright, let’s transition into one of my favorite parts of the podcast. This is our rapid-fire questions. I’ll ask you the first one similar to the [33:38] episode that we did back in the pandemic, and Jason will round us about with the last two, so if you’re ready, Wes, I will ask the first question.
Wes White: Okay.
Dasarte Yarnway: What’s the most interesting thing that you’ve read this week?
Wes White: I just started it. It’s like 560 pages, but Ray Dalio’s The Changing World Order. That’s pretty interesting. It’s a really neat piece that, again, I haven’t finished yet, but it’s talking about every boom and bust of great empires and so it’s timely. I’m not saying it’s going to heck and a hand basket here, but it’s certainly really interesting. It’s called The Changing World Order by Ray Dalio.
Jason Wenk: I think if Dalio writes something, as financial advisors, we owe it to ourselves to read it because all of our smartest clients are probably going to read it anyway eventually, right? Don’t want to be unversed. Next question, besides finding your niche, what is one thing an RIA can do this week to grow their business?
Wes White: Simple. Love the clients. One of the simplest things that we’ve done that clients have absolutely loved is every single month, there is a nice print newsletter that goes out to our clients with a feature article that’s on the front that has nothing to do with finances whatsoever. It’s talking about life events of our – of people that work for our firm, which is pretty small. It’s myself, my dad, and my good friend Austin, and we just share what’s going on in our lives, and then also every Thanksgiving, every single client of ours receives an apple crumb pie and for them to be sitting around at a table eating that pie with friends and family, they’re saying where’d you get this pie, and of course, Patriot Wealth comes up, and so that’s been a really cool referral source. RIAs, love your clients. Make sure that they’re appreciated, and you’ll be rewarded also.
Jason Wenk: That’s awesome. I think the ultimate cheat code is happy clients. You even proved it over the pandemic, right? Had to take a pause in the classes. Still grew by 15, 20 million. It’s pretty awesome. Last rapid-fire question. Wes, you’ve been independent for a long time, but a lot of advisors, they start their careers working somewhere, bank, another wirehouse, brokerage firm of some kind. If an advisor’s thinking about going independent, what’s one thing that you would tell them to help them prepare to start their journey as an independent RIA?
Wes White: Mentors. That’s my biggest thing is surrounding yourself with folks that have been there before, that are doing it, and built a practice that you want to mimic. Lean on your mentors as much as possible and the really cool thing is that while I think in the financial advisor space the old adage is really that we’re egotistical and we don’t want to share things and so forth. I’ve found that some of my closest friends and advisors, they will open their practice up and just share what works, what doesn’t, whether it’s scripts or just processes. That’s what I think’s been really cool, and so I’d encourage you to find a mentor and follow that process.
Jason Wenk: That’s awesome. Couldn’t agree more. Seems like we’re hearing that a lot [36:45] the quality of people and to not be bashful. A lot of people who are successful love to share. Dasarte, want to take us home?
Dasarte Yarnway: Let’s do it. First of all, speaking of mentors and accountability groups, we’re going to have to get a group chat going on here seeing the success that you both have had, so we’ll get that done after the show, but Jason, Wes, thank you so much for joining us again on another edition of The Advisor Journey. We’re looking forward to the next episode in which we’ll see $500 million of asset management, right – assets under management and just the impact that your firm is making in your local community. If you’re listening to this podcast, you want to follow along, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Follow and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, again The Advisor Journey with myself, Dasarte Yarnway, and Jason Wenk. Until next time, we’ll talk to you all soon.
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