Chelsea Ransom-Cooper and her partner, Jason Ray of Zenith Wealth, have built a firm with over $50M in AUM in just over a year. A large part of their success comes from creating an efficient onboarding process for not only themselves but also their clients. In this episode, Chelsea walks us through how to automate your process while still building long-lasting client relationships. ABOUT ALTRUIST: We’re on a mission to make financial advice better, more affordable, and more accessible to everyone. Altruist is an all-in-one platform built exclusively to help RIAs start, run, and grow their practices. Our platform saves you time and reduces your costs: You can manage your entire book of business, get performance reporting, and bill your clients with ease and efficiency. Want to find out how Altruist can help you grow? See more at www.altruist.com/advisorjourneydemo STAY CONNECTED: Instagram ► https://www.instagram.com/altruistcorp/ Twitter ► https://twitter.com/altruist Linkedin ► https://www.linkedin.com/company/altruistcorp/
Chelsea Ransom-Cooper and her partner, Jason Ray of Zenith Wealth, have built a firm with over $50M in AUM in just over a year. A large part of their success comes from creating an efficient onboarding process for not only themselves but also their clients. In this episode, Chelsea walks us through how to automate your process while still building long-lasting client relationships.
ABOUT ALTRUIST:
We’re on a mission to make financial advice better, more affordable, and more accessible to everyone. Altruist is an all-in-one platform built exclusively to help RIAs start, run, and grow their practices. Our platform saves you time and reduces your costs: You can manage your entire book of business, get performance reporting, and bill your clients with ease and efficiency.
Want to find out how Altruist can help you grow? See more at www.altruist.com/advisorjourneydemo
STAY CONNECTED:
Instagram ► https://www.instagram.com/altruistcorp/
Twitter ► https://twitter.com/altruist
Linkedin ► https://www.linkedin.com/company/altruistcorp/
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
Getting to $50M in AUM in just under a year: 6:18-7:44
Which automation tools can help you scale your business: 7:45-10:52
How pursuing referrals can help you launch your RIA: 11:53-13:55
Working with a consultant and how often should you do a tech stack audit: 13:56-16:41
The process of onboarding your clients and the conversation that closes the deal: 16:42-23:01
The cost of becoming operationally excellent: 23:15-24:02
RESOURCES IN EPISODE:
ADDITIONAL EPISODE RESOURCES
Here’s how to become a digital-first firm to provide the best experience for 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.
Dasarte: Altruist is an all-in-one custodial solution for independent advisors. With modern easy-to-use tools, independent advisors can open and fund accounts in minutes, manage investments with custom or Turnkey model portfolios, and provide a mobile app experience that clients will love using. For more information on how Altruist can help you grow, visit Altruist at altruist.com/advisorjourneydemo. Altruist Financial LLC, member FINRA SIPC.
that helps you easily manage your client accounts, build custom model portfolios, assign portfolios directly from our marketplace, and easily manage all billing in a single digital experience. At Altruist we help you grow and scale your business with minimal stress. Join the 1,000-plus advisors using Altruist by visiting www.altruist.com/advisorjourneydemo. Altruist Financial LLC, member FINRA SIPC.
Chelsea: Write out your process, circle the things that only you can do. Anything else really start to figure out what are the opportunities through your tech set that you can lean on that it can do for you. I think that was the best audit that we did and just like a project management thing of just saying, okay, what can Chelsea do? Chelsea needs to be in meetings. Chelsea needs to be on discovery calls but Chelsea does not need to send every email. Chelsea does not need to send every reminder or task nor does Jason. So then leaning on the tech opportunities from there and just reaching out to people honestly, like I would chat Wealthbox, I would chat Altruist, I would chat Wright Capital, all these systems and say, what am I missing? And a lot of the times, if you don't have the expertise in Tech that's fine, ask the people who do.
Jason: 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: Jason Wenk and Chelsea Ransom Cooper have built a firm that has over 50 million dollars in AUM in just over a year. A large part of their success comes from working with clients that inspire them and creating an on-boarding process that is efficient, not only for themselves but for their clients to. In this episode, Chelsea will walk us through how to automate your process while still building long-lasting client relationships. Chelsea, thank you for being with us.
Chelsea: Thank you for having me.
Dasarte: It’s been a while since I last seen you and I'm happy that you're able to join Jason and I are on the Advisor Journey. So, thanks again.
Chelsea: Absolutely. And now that the pandemic is over, we can definitely get back connected.
Dasarte: For sure, for sure.
Jason: I'm just getting to know Chelsea and I'm super impressed by the way, and I can't wait for you to share with our listeners some of the ways that you’ve achieved this. You’ve done it in a way that is so efficient that it should be able to continue to scale. The headline number was 50 million, to my understanding, it's better than 50 million now, it's growing very fast. We talked a little off air about how many clients you’re adding, which is super impressive. I think I kind of extrapolated the mathematics in my head, 50 to 100 new clients a year. Most advisers like that would be mind-blowing that pace of growth. So, really, really excited to hear one, how are you getting those clients? And then again, how are you managing or operationalizing the onboarding process so that it is really efficient, scalable and so good right, that it actually generates more new clients, right? Which then creates a sort of virtuous cycle growth, which is pretty cool. So, before we get into all the nitty-gritty which we will for sure do, just take a minute, describe your firm, who you serve and also love to know a little bit more about your individual back story, kind of how you ended up starting a firm? How did you find your partnership with Jason Ray? I’ll let you take it from here. Fill us in.
Chelsea: Absolutely, and I’ll think I’ll start with that last question. So specifically, after I graduated college, I worked at Ernst & Young doing public accounting. I never thought I was going to actually be in finance, which is interesting. I always had a passion for music. But I was naturally very good at numbers, so I was like okay this is the, this is a career path that I'm going to end up in. But I was slightly discouraged because I felt like when you think about accounting and finance, you kind of see like this guy sitting in a button-down with like a pocket protector in a room with no windows, just crunching numbers all day. And I was like that was not me. That is not the type of personality that I have. But over time I really found joy and using my love of numbers and finances just to help my friends and family. As they were just navigating credit card, student loans, and just understanding what their options for retirement are. So that's when I started to figure out, okay, how can I transition into the wealth management industry. From that time, I did research about RIAs, barter houses, broker-dealers, to figure out what was really the best fit for me and my values. And I realized that being in a fee-only or fee-based area, was something I really aligned with my own personal mission. So, I joined ARIA, and I stayed there for a little over 4 years where I was servicing ultra-high-net-worth clients, typically ones with investable assets of over two million dollars. But at the same time, I was still thinking about the people that inspired me to be in this profession in the first place, which were my friends and my family, and I couldn't service them. They could not be clients. And that always just felt like I wasn't really utilizing my services for the betterment of the community and society. And that's at a similar time that I met Jason Ray where he was starting Zena Solutions at the time and was doing an excellent job with a firm and we started to have a conversation about what would it look like if we partnered together and we aligned our missions of wanting to serve specific communities, and not having that asset minimum and being able to serve them, number one, in a fee basis but also a discretionary investment management. And that's where Zena Wealth Partners came to be. So, we're a fee only financial planning and discretionary investment management firm where we service wealth-creators, so highly equity compensated individuals. We service business owners, we service young families and really meeting them where they are on their financial journey. So that's worth our assessment or project based financial plan. But also, with our comprehensive suite of services, I’ll say our comprehensive wealth management planning also while also serving institutions who are similarly mission aligned with our services,
Dasarte: So, the firm has grown to 56 million dollars in assets under management, in just over a year. So, what contributed to that success? I know onboarding is big for you to talk to us a little bit about the details. Like what do you think made that come to fruition?
Chelsea: Yeah, so I think it’s really 3 things. Number one, I say it's really Jason and I’s partnership. So, our clients really like that they get two experts knowing that they have one person who's there certified financial planner that can help them with their comprehensive financial planning needs and also, they have an investment adviser as well that can really walk through the details of their portfolio. And then any nuances that they may come into with private placements are alternatives etcetera. I’d say, the third is our process. How streamlined it is, and how efficient it is. I think we really lean on technology in a way that our clients really enjoy. The fact is that a lot of our tools are apps our clients absolutely love. The fact that they can just check it on their phone. They get a notification the same way they get an Instagram notification, so they know what's up next for them in their financial plan is really key and then lastly, I'd say being intentional. As I mentioned before, I think about my family who inspired me to be in this profession, but also, I think about what type of financial firm do we want to be where we can be the firm that they knew about 10, 20, 30 years ago from now and that they could have worked with. So, I think about that as well as my north star. Whenever were thinking about our services or making updates would this have been helpful for my mother, for my aunt, for my uncle and could they have utilized this?
Dasarte: For sure. I was told that you once said that, if it's something that you have to do more than once, you find a system for it?
Chelsea: Absolutely.
Dasarte: Talk to me a little bit about these systems and the process that you use in figuring out what to automate and what to keep traditional in the approach.
Chelsea: Absolutely. So, when a client comes on to our process. Right now, we have like a discovery questionnaire that comes up. And then from there, they go through, they talk to us a little bit about their goals. What led them to even consider reaching out to a financial professional. From there it pushes the profile over to our CRM and then it also kicks off of workflow. So, all of that on the back end before they even have that first meeting is already done. When they’re in that discovery call, that's where we go into a little bit more of the details. But on the back end I’d say specifically, the technology we use is our CRM wealth box, we use Hubbly. It's kind of like an Asana, but for financial advisors, which is really great because it make sure that nothing slips through the cracks. I think sometimes as advisors, we know the process in our head. But how do we make sure that everyone on the team knows exactly where we are too? So that if I'm out or Jason's out, nothing else will fall through the cracks, and then you can just pick up where you left off. So that automation and streamlining has been really crucial, especially when we're onboarding clients.
Jason: I mean automating is, I think, key to any scalable business. I think it's not incredibly painful if you have to do things on an automated basis if you’re only doing it 5 times a year again, to your point, if you’re doing it more than once, you shouldn't. But a lot of people will just accept it. They’ll be like, yeah, I only have to fill out this 30-page new account form 5 times, I’ll only do five new clients, but you’ve created this interesting dilemma where you're adding so many clients, it's a forcing mechanism really. You can never on board that many clients and do a really great job without the automation, so how about just like one little tiny step back because a lot of people who are listening, they're on their own, Adviser Journey. They’ll just tell it straight up, hey, my biggest problem is I just need more people to talk to. So, you’ve got a number of ways you're getting new clients. Maybe just share a little bit more about some of the ways that have been most impactful, including the referrals, which I know has been a huge part, the biggest part of growth for the firm. If you could give some tips to listeners on, why are you getting those referrals that maybe others aren't getting, and they can hopefully learn and implement on their own?
Chelsea: Yes, I think specifically number one, having those conversations with your clients and figuring out who are the important people in their life so you can continue adding value to them as well. That's been really helpful where we do bring that up to clients from time to time. Social media has also been a blessing. And then also speaking, getting in front of our clients and offering to speak at ERG groups within their companies has been really crucial and pivotal to our growth, I think and then also just reflecting and asking them, okay give us some feedback. How are things going? And making sure that they understand it's a collaborative process where we're not just telling them things but they're working together for our growth as well. Feel like a lot of our clients feel just as invested in us as we are in them. So, they really like to give back and make sure that we're growing as well.
Jason: That’s cool. So, I’m just going to force you into uncomfortable revelations here. I know lots of advisors that spend way too much time on social media and they're getting zero results from it, other than trolls. What makes it unique? What are you doing? Is it what you are sharing? Is it the circle that you’ve built? Sort of the social connections, the fabric? What is it that’s made something, as an example that’s so ineffective for most, that has been effective for you?
Chelsea: Jason, that is the golden question, honestly. I really feel like I really just be honest with how I'm feeling with some of the financial challenges that I'm facing in my family and giving tips that I'm personally using. It really is not a marketing machine. It's just being genuine, and people have been receptive to it. Now I will say we still get some of the Bots and trolls like that's not inevitable, but it is so helpful being genuine and being honest about what inspires you and people really react to it and want to work with you just based on that.
Jason: That's good and I think beyond the social stuff I want to get on the referral side. I heard that when you first started you basically created probably months-long backlog of referrals because you just simply let your networks know so can you tell them or I mean what did you do on that launch day of Zenith where you shared, what did you share I guess that created such like a massive inbound of people, who were just, I really want to hire you?
Chelsea: Absolutely. So, when Jason and I first decided, we were going to partner, that's when I kind of went through the list of all those employee resource groups that I spoke at, the individuals that I had met with, who were like Chelsea, I want to work with you, but there’s asset minimum. I just created a list of every single person. Went through names, phone numbers, emails that I had all of them ready to go. And then highlighted them just based off of who I thought had the potential to become a client, who I thought would be interested but maybe later on, and then what types of services I think they would be looking for. For some of those higher-tier people that I was pretty confident that they would come on I actually just asked them. Hey, can we have a 20-minute phone call, and I talked about what I was doing and what the potential would look like with partnering with Jason, with Zena, and just ask, is this is something you'd be interested in. I'm just curious, what would you be willing to pay for the service? And then also I'm having a conversation specifically about what else could we do to make it better and getting feedback on that side? So, it was really helpful. So, on that day one when officially leave the firm, as you probably know in this industry, as soon as you tell them, they give you an hour, you grab your stuff, you go. Then the next day, it's off to the races. So yeah, I reached out to that entire list that next day and by day two, I had 3 intro calls scheduled and then the following week I had about 8 intro calls and three had officially signed on. So, I felt like I was very prepared. Of course, you're always hopeful that, you know, things will work out, but I felt very prepared for when that launch day came.
Jason: Good, that's awesome. I’m going to take just one more question and then we’re going to get really deep into onboarding. I want talk about the challenge with getting new clients because it’s such a struggle for most people, but once you've done that, so you have got this, big demand, all these people coming in, you got to figure out, oh man, how we going to do this? In the beginning, I presume you didn’t have a team yet really, it was just the two of you?
Chelsea: Right.
Jason: And you had to do everything on your own. So, I know that you started really building a lot of automation around your onboarding process, even hired a consultant or a coach to kind of help build some of those frameworks. So, tell us a bit about that because that can be super intimidating, I think for a lot of advisors. I think that they hate to learn how to do zapps or something and connecting all these tools to Hi’s is a foreign concept to them. But you’ve done it really efficiently to create even more efficiency. So, I would love to kind of hear some tips on that journey and the help you got on the way.
Chelsea: So, Jason, your spot on. Because after that first week I started to realize that this is moving. This has the potential to be something really big and we're moving really quickly, so by the third month and I think at that point, I was at 15 clients, and I was like, okay this is this is happening pretty fast. I'm also still trying to build out what is our services overview. What are we actually offering clients at the same time, and I had to acknowledge that I couldn't do it. I couldn't do everything right? So, I reached out to a friend of mine, Charise Filler at Level Best, where she's an operations consultant, specifically, for IRAs for solo shops and then also for multi adviser firms. And we signed up for her VIP day, where pretty much she does audit of your entire tech stack and your process. And she went through with a red pen and just kind of like scratched through everything. Was like no you need to change this, this, this, this, and this. Why are you doing this so many times? And then she gave us a, I think it was an 18 page, 18 pages of recommendations of all the changes we needed to make, and I literally sat down for an entire weekend and just knocked them all out. Because I knew that I needed, we weren't going to get to the place where I knew we could be until we got all that done. So that was incredibly helpful for us and that's when we really jumped up because that was around March, at that same time, we started getting more and more of those intro calls and we actually just did another one this year also. Just to make sure that we're staying on top of what are actually the options and technology and make sure we're just maximizing everything we can.
Dasarte: How often do you do that type of audit, right? Because things are coming out every day, right?
Chelsea: Right.
Dasarte: So how often are you looking at your business and saying, hey, this could help our onboarding process.
Chelsea: I think we do the big audit once a year. But honestly on a quarterly basis I feel like Jason, and I really sit down and we’re like what are some of our pain points and is there anything out there where we can make some adjustments?
Dasarte: And if you’re doing it twice.
Chelsea: If you’re doing it twice, you’re messing up.
Dasarte: Absolutely. Let’s get into the onboarding conversation, right? So, where does it start? You have the discovery call. After that, what happens? First, what are you talking about in that conversation? And then, where do the clients go after that?
Chelsea: So, on the discovery call I really feel like it's about the prospect. I really should not be doing that much of the talking. It's really about them. So, we typically offer 20-to-30-minute discovery calls and I always start the meeting by asking them, so number one, have you worked with a professional before? The majority of our clients have not. And then also they haven't what led them to even start on this journey. So then from there get a lot of clarity on what their pain points are, what kind of lead them to that conversation. Then asking them what scares you about your finances or what keeps you up at night? And that really allows me to get more clarity than as well about like what is the key thing that they want to make sure that they're getting away with working with someone. Understanding the important people in their life. So, who is impacted with their financial decisions. And then lastly, I ask them what would a successful relationship with a financial advisor look like 12 to 24 months from now? Like, what would that be? How would you feel? And after those four questions, then I really target our services and I talk about what we offer because I feel like I can’t just make a blanket statement about this, is what we do. This is what Zenith is until I truly know what is keeping them up at night and how our services can actually help them. I think that's also been incredibly successful to our close rate and the number of clients that we had. Because the first 20 minutes, it's just them venting. They're just talking about what they need. And then the last 10 minutes, I'm just coming in and saying, okay, here are your three issues, here are my three solutions that I have for you. And then I give them a usually a day or two. They'll come back and say, Chelsea, we're ready to go. We're ready to move forward. And then from that, that's where our onboarding process kicks in.
Dasarte: I love how you said, they'll come, and they say, Chelsea we're ready to move forward. Like there's nothing, I don't lose. I really liked that part about it but let's talk about, you know, what happens next, right. So, is this when the workflows begin to kick in, after that? Take us through that and how it works after they say, hey Chelsea, we’re ready to go. What happens with your technology stack?
Chelsea: Yep, so that’s when that Hubbly workflow and onboarding process starts. So, then the client sent over to Advice Pay to pay for their planning agreement and their invoice. And then also, they get an invitation to Wright Capital. So, in that invitation to Wright Capital, they’ll get a list of everything that they need to upload specifically. And then also, there is a task template. So, specifically, we have our onboarding task template. And then after that, then we have our specific task templates based on business owners, equity compensated individuals, young families, etcetera. But everyone gets that first new on boarding task template. So, at this point, really all I've done is push everything over there. But, to them, they are like I got this email from Chelsea and this email, and I have these tasks that I need to do in the next 90 days. So, they're feeling like they're getting a lot of contact from me when really, I'm just kind of pressing a few buttons. And then after that we go into our goals and getting organized meeting. So, at that meeting that’s when I'm really ready to number one, see what they've uploaded. So, what is our current financial picture but also getting a better understanding of what their goals are and how we can create a timeline.
Dasarte: So, in that goals and getting organized meeting, you're not making any recommendations. It’s just you sitting down with them and reviewing everything that they’ve uploaded to your system, correct?
Chelsea: Yep, exactly.
Dasarte: Okay, awesome. How do you feel like that goes over with them, right? Because obviously when they come to you, sometimes have you ever been on a call with a client, that discovery call and they’re like hey, I have a million dollars and I have this and have an inheritance. Got $5,000 worth of debt or something and it’s our job to kind of slow them down, right? And not get them too far ahead of themselves, right? So why did you decide to put that meeting in between the recommendation meeting?
Chelsea: Yeah, and it just reminds me of a doctor. I feel I can't rush into like giving recommendations until I truly know you. I need to understand what makes you tick. What are your values? What are your goals? But also, what are your money habits? Because I can make recommendations, of course, but if you're not going to follow them, if it's not actually going to make an impact on you changing your life, it doesn't matter. So, I like to take a step back and say, hey, we need to work on this and sometimes clients will push and they’re like, okay, what's the recommendation? Like we have to slow down, we have to get a better understanding. I need to see everything and then we can start going into our second and third meetings about what some potential recommendations can look like.
Dasarte: Yeah, awesome.
Jason: I'm on still a bit enamored by the processes because, of course, you know I'm thinking of being a technologist and I can see where all this is going. All the potential by the way, it's all like mapping out in my own mind. But what’s fascinating is that you're not doing duplicative data entry in anything. You’ve got all these systems that are technically going to talk with each other and, in theory, once the client decides hey, I love this plan. I want to go forward with that. You've already got your payment mechanism in place so if they’re a subscription client, right, they can continue that. It’s already set up and ready to go. Presumably, and by the way Dasarte, we need to get someone to record a jingle for us. Whenever we’re going to do a shameless plug, we be like, shameless plug. Since you work with Wealthbox, right, if you are like, I want to open that account over at Altruist. Boom, I click a button. Bam, it’s done in 10 seconds. So, all these systems are actually working. I’d be glad to, I’ll go ahead and break a cardinal sin of being a fintech founder, but our Wright Capital integration should be done sometime in the next, you know, who knows when?
Dasarte: Shameless plug.
Jason: Shameless plug.
Chelsea: That is so good to hear.
Jason: But all these systems, they all work together. So, obviously it was super intentional. I mean, you really crafted the stack and the information, but nothing actually requires a duplicate of data trail. It is really designed to scale and it's still super simple. It's beautiful.
Chelsea: Absolutely, and that is so good to hear because I actually asked Wealth Capital on a weekly basis for this integration so that is hilarious. But yeah, absolutely. All of that going into the goals and getting organized meeting. Then after that more takes become available. And I'm very intentional about what clients can see. I don't allow them to see every part of the Wright Capital portal or anything in advance. So, it's released to them after each meeting. So, it feels like oh, okay, this is something new that I have to add on, but it's just working in the back end. Really the biggest time commitment for me is obviously creating the plan, right? But that's the biggest value add as well. Everything else can happen within at most 15 minutes.
Jason: That's awesome. So, this stuff is still probably a little bit intimidating for users. Most financial advisors again, they might identify with your zeal for math in a, but they might still be oh yeah, this sounds really complicated. So curious, what did it cost like? You know, I just need some help to guide this because we can all see the power of it. But so is it seems like well they mush have spent $50,000 or something. What does it cost to get systemized and to really get operationally excellent?
Chelsea: Yeah, the range, and it varies just depending on the size of the team, but is anywhere from, let’s say on the lower side, $2,500 and then on the higher side, if you're talking about teams of 10 to 20, probably like $10,000, but that's kind of the range that you look at it, and that's like a one-time fee. So, if you're doing that on an annual basis, you'd pay that. But yeah, that's for the audit. And then there's also separate fees, where you can just do the implementation on like a monthly, quarterly, anything like that basis.
Jason: This has paid for itself like, oh, a million times over.
Chelsea: Absolutely, absolutely.
Jason: It sounds like it. So, I mean I think that’s incredible. I’d love to just touch on the client experience. They're getting these different notifications. Hey, upload this, it feels like there’s a lot going on there. As you take them further along the process, pass the second meeting and they decide to engage on an ongoing basis. And we talked a lot about referrals. You may have the science for this, but if not just your opinion, like how much does this process really help drive more new referrals from existing clients.
Chelsea: Significantly. We actually have one client who referred a friend, and she said it was specifically, she's like yeah, I love that Chelsea sends me these notifications on a monthly basis and she reminds me of what I need to do and, in my head, I’m sitting there, I didn't do that, the system did. But that, I think, speaks volumes about number one, how clean it is but also how helpful it is to people as well. That clients are referring people and just forwarding things like that and saying, hey this is what I'm getting for my advisor. Are you getting this from your advisor? If not, maybe you should talk to Chelsea and the team at Zena.
Dasarte: Obviously, a lot of advisors that are listening to this show are trying to make it simple, buy their time back. So, if you can give one piece of advice to those advisors that are trying to do what you and Jason did with Zenith, what would that piece of advice be?
Chelsea: Write out your process the same way we did. Circle the things that only you can do, only you can do. Anything else really start to figure out what are the opportunities through your tech stack that you can lean on, that it can do for you. I think that was the best audit that we did and just like a project management thing of just saying, okay, what can Chelsea do? Well, Chelsea needs to be in meetings. Chelsea needs to be on discovery calls, but Chelsea does not need to send every email. Chelsea does not need to send every reminder or task nor does Jason. So, then leaning on the tech opportunities from there and just reaching out to people honestly, like I would chat Wealthbox, I would chat Altruist, I would chat Wright Capital, all these systems and say, what am I missing? And a lot of the time, if you don't have the expertise in tech, that's fine, ask the people who do.
Dasarte: Awesome, awesome. Alright, let’s get into it. The part that we both like the most. Rapid fire questions is our opportunity to get inside your brain, figure out what you're thinking, what you’re reading, how you’re feeling. I'm going to ask the first question and then Jason's going to finish it up with the next two. So, the first question, this should be a layup for you. What's the most interesting thing that you’ve read this week?
Chelsea: So, I just started a book actually. It’s called Advice That Sticks by Morris Summers, and it’s basically just helping people about how to adhere to advice that they're actually listen to and why they don't listen to it in the first place. So that has actually been my favorite read. But also say masterclass, I got the app for Christmas, and you can watch the videos of Chris Voss, Sara Blakely, all these awesome experts and learn from them in a really quick way. So, I know it's not a read, but I think that's a great option also.
Dasarte: For all the nonreaders out there, right?
Chelsea: Exactly.
Jason: Alright, next question. So, besides finding your niche, what is one thing an RIA can do this week to grow their business?
Chelsea: Yeah, I think the specific thing that they can do is they got to look at their process but also, I would tell them to reach out to two or three of their favorite clients and just kind of set up a mastermind and say hey, we really want to make sure that we're continuing to offer you successful services. What can we do to make sure that we're getting more clients, specifically like you, and just having an open and honest conversation with them. It's a really nice way to just check in with people and make sure that you're still adding as much value as you think you are.
Jason: So, for someone looking to go independent. You had a really, I think great learning experience before starting an RIA. I think being part of a big firm, just being a part of a big accounting firm, you have got to see a lot.
Chelsea: Yes.
Jason: But ultimately you had to make the leap. And you made the leap, formed an RIA from scratch. What's one thing that you would share with someone who maybe is thinking about that themselves and they should know before they start their own adviser Journey as an RIA?
Chelsea: Make that list. You have to make that list because it gave me a lot of peace of mind being able to look at okay, best case realistic, worst-case scenario, how many clients can I bring on? And then also doing the math on the back end of how much money will you make? I think it's also very scary when there's this assumption when you go independent that you're going to be broke. So at least having some idea of what could the financial bird and bee, or how much could you actually make? What do you need to sustain? How much do you need to have saved? And then also, how many clients do you need to bring in? I think when you're making that leap that will give you a lot of peace of mind where you’ll feel either more confident or understand that maybe you need a little bit more time.
Jason: That’s awesome advice and for those who missed that. Earlier, I thought about the list of people before you left your old firm that you couldn't have worked there anyway, right?
Chelsea: Right, exactly.
Jason: It’s not like you breached any agreements, right? But that list was really key to filling the calendar, getting momentum. That's led to this amazing early success story so far as you know.
Dasarte: Awesome. Well Chelsea, I feel like I see you every two years. In two years will be at 500 million at Zena. So, I'm speaking that onto you and Jason Ray. It was a pleasure listening to you talk about the onboarding process so thank you and we’ll have to have you both back some day to talk about your process and just the firm's growth. Jason Wenk, my partner in crime, thank you as always for joining me on the Advisor Journey. And if you want to subscribe to this show, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and all the other social media channels. And be sure to subscribe to this on your favorite podcast platform wherever you listen to your podcast. This is Dasarte Yarnway, my co-host again, Jason Wenk. Until next time. See you soon.
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