Intro Hook

Willard: Uh most people have talked to me would tell I’m probably air on the side of being too candid he was the largest producing financial adviser that that ever transitioned to independence from I thought I understood what the industry was about when I left and I started exploring uh and and doing a due diligence trip it was mindblowing the little environment and ecosystem that I had been literally my entire life raised in things that I’d been told weren’t allowed in the industry uh things that I’d been told that weren’t possible to do things that I’ve been told just can’t be done.

Corey: Yeah and I mean this is where in my opinion the light bulb goes off for financial advisers so you’re taking me back to about the the the scariest month of my life right there those those uh couple weeks leading up to it when you’re just right at the edge of the cliff fixing a jump.

Podcast Opening + Introductions

Corey: Hey everyone, thank you so much for joining the podcast today. For those of you that haven’t turned in before this podcast is dedicated to helping financial advisers that might be on the fence leaving their firm uh to truly get unbias information from advisers that have taken the leap before them insights from the SE suite at top broker dealers and Ras um and also for myself who’s helped over a thousand financial advisers but more specifically hundreds of Edward Jones advisers find a new home um.

Corey: Today we’re lucky enough to have Russell rigan a financial adviser in Texas that spent about 15 years at Edward Jones prior prior to launching his independent practice with Raymond James about three years ago um. Prior to Jennifer markel’s departure he was the largest producing financial adviser that that ever transitioned to independence from Edward Jones and it’s a great guy that does a ton in his community and has a really great story to tell you about launching his his independent practice uh.

Corey: Russell, I I really appreciate the time today.

Willard: Absolutely Corey. First and foremost thank you for having me on and uh thanks for setting so many captives free.

Corey: Yeah absolutely it’s uh it’s what I love to do I can’t see myself doing anything else but uh Russell if you don’t mind just taking a a little bit of time to um just just just talk about yourself personally and and how you started in the business. I I think your background is is really a unique one.

Background

Willard: Absolutely so I started in the business in 2003 as a uh assistant so an on Bea from my dad. I’d went to high school in Snider where my dad had his Edward Jan office he’s been there for 44 years. I played college football at abin Christian University and then got hurt transferred to Texas Tech was on a rodeo scholarship finished my undergrad and Masters at Texas Tech while I was on a rodeo scholarship. Pro rodeoed for a couple years and then went to work with my dad and his deal was if if I’d graduated at top percentage of my class then I could Rodeo for two to three years years and then join him in the practice and so I did that two years was enough for me I was ready to get to work and so I went in and for two years had been an on call BOA in his office and then in 2005 got licensed and started out and did a $10 million do goodnight with him and he wanted to make sure that he gave me less than what he gave the first goodnight that he had so if anyone ever brought anything up or question success he could say well I gave them less than what my first one got so he did give the first guy more than me and he gave my sister more than me uh but it’s worked out okay so I’m not going to complain.

Corey: That’s awesome. So I mean that’s that’s super unique you you you literally grew up inside of the the Edward Jones system.

Willard: That’s right. I I was a Jones Braden so it’s pretty neat my dad’s first uh diversification or Awards trip tap trip whatever whatever you want to call them now his first trip was actually hosted by Ted Jones uh and so he’s been with the firm that long he was friends with Ted but uh Ted Jones Graham Holloway which invented the IC guide uh a lot of the original people at Edward Jones were his uh first trip host when they went to Switzerland with him and my mom so really interesting a lot of history with Ed with Edward Jones family’s been with Edward Jones uh in aggregate between just my intermediate family uh we’d been there over 110 years and my mom my dad and my sister are still there my dad and my sister both financial advisers.

Corey: That’s amazing. You must have went on some uh amazing trips over the year as a kid.

Corey: I I accidentally um went to I went to gr Cayman for one of my friends’s birthday parties and uh there was a tap trip there um and I’ve known for all for so many years helping Edward Jones advisor’s transition like man I’m really going to miss these tap trips. I never really understood I understood now they they they truly roll out the red carpet so I I understand seeing it firsthand. So yeah.

Willard: So so the trip are great uh but I mean we’ we’ve kind of made up for that by doing uh vacations with some ex Pat Jones guys that are not Raymond James that are in our group and last year we went to Costa Rica rented a uh six-bedroom Airbnb stayed a week down there and so we’ve made up for it there’s a lot of other ways to make up for the tap trips.

Corey: Yeah I bet I bet no doubt um.

Roles at Edward Jones

Corey: So what what roles did you have inside of Edward Jones prior to your departure were you in leadership were you just a producing financial adviser can you just give us a little bit of background there.

Willard: Absolutely so I served in every role uh in the region outside of regional leader and outside of performance leader so recruiting leader all the different segments uh the technology guide the fast coordinator uh so I served in every one of those roles as well as some roles at the firm level. I was a coach for o did the Ted Jones coaching program and then uh did a lot of uh By Invitation meetings that I’d go and host in different locations around the country and also at the home office for Edward Jones.

Corey: Awesome.

Growth + Niche Strategy

Corey: So um I mean you you starting out with $10 million in in assets under management you know growing to what you were prior to to transitioning over 15 years was it 500 plus million in assets.

Willard: I it was about 53 million uh when we made the decision to leave Edward Jones and when we left was about 503 and we’ve increased that by about 50% since we left in the three years.

Corey: What do you what do you think that you did differently than other Edward Jones advisers to potentially you know Quin quintuple your production versus versus the average edber Jones adviser if not more.

Willard: That’s a great question and this business is all about relationships and I think that’s the that’s the best part and obviously the most important part of this business and I think my dad and I both have always been very good at building relationships and running in the right circles uh if you build relationships with the people in your practice that you want to replicate whatever you give attention to you’re going to get more of and so we’ve always been able to run in the run in the right circles with the right groups with people that are similar share similar experiences uh and so if you’re spending your time with those type of people you’re going to get referrals from those type of clients uh if you’re spending time with the lower end of your book or spending time with people that don’t do business with you then you’re either not going to get referrals at all or you’re going to get referrals with your clients that you don’t want to replicate and so we were constantly trying to grow constantly trying to work our way up the chain make sure we were fishing in the right ponds I call it social access doing things that gave us access to people that we wanted to work with outside of what our normal business routine was and and and.

Corey: And what what were those circles that you that you typically ran in.

Willard: Yeah so I kind of built out a niche of High net worth High income either business owners or young Executives so the biggest chunk of my business I knew when I come through the Edward Jones training program I didn’t want to I didn’t want to door knock and I didn’t want to prospect the way that they had taught me forever that just it it wasn’t very fun there’s there’s a few people that say that they really enjoyed the door knocking I wasn’t one of those uh and so I wanted to build my practice the right way but I wanted to build it once and too many financial advisers would go and go get a bunch of uh clients that in their 70s 80s 90s where they had a lot of money uh but then 101 15 years into their business they’re having to rebuild their business or maybe Prospect again if they didn’t do a good job of hanging on to the beneficiaries so what I did was I focused on people that were in their 20s 30s 40s early 50s that were running businesses and that were highly compensated Executives and built my Niche around those type of people and then we also shared a Common Thread where where they were either involved in Rodeo which I’d always been involved in uh they were involved in in football uh so some football coaches and whatnot and then also involved in h big game hunting uh and owned businesses and I actually started a real estate business and a couple of other businesses just so that when I worked with those type of clients I would have firsthand experience on what it felt like to own a business what I needed to be looking for on deductions how to build out a team for uh attorneys and Tax Consultants and real estate iers so that I would be a One-Stop resource for the for the type of clients that I wanted to work with and I was speaking from firsthand experience.

Corey: Yeah none of those things that you mentioned any of those hobbies are are are not inexpensive things to be able to do you need to have some sort of you know disposable income to you know do do do travel football or you know I know I know big big game hunting costs a lot of money never done it but I’ve heard so.

Willard: Yeah if you go to a and I go to Africa every other summer and so uh I typically take different people with me some of my best friends go hunting with me I got a couple clients or you two sets of clients going with me this next summer and so it’s a really it’s a really neat experience it is an expensive experience but it’s obviously something that you work hard for and you need to enjoy the fruits of your labor life is short for sure.

Corey: So absolutely.

What Changed at Edward Jones

Corey: If you don’t mind going through I mean you you were you know at Edward Jones for 15 years but before that just kind of growing up in the systems what what were some some of the things that you loved about Edward Jones and then what were some of the things that happened to you specifically that made you consider looking around or or doubting Your Allegiance.

Willard: Man those are great great and complex questions and so I’ll start with the things that I really enjoyed at Edward Jones at Edward Jones the way that the regions had been aligned that they felt kind of like a team atmosphere uh and I’m not going to say a locker room environment on team sports but you were around the same people you had a small communication Circle so even though there were 17 18 19,000 advisers whatever they were at that time you had a you had a pretty tight circle of 10 15 20 advisers that you were around or you would go to NPC and you’d have 10 or 12 peers that you that you built a close relationship with and so that was one of the things that I really liked about Edward Jones uh growing up with with uh Ted Jones who I didn’t know but my dad knew very well and I knew what he stood for uh and then John Bachman had been to our house Jim wed Doug Hill used to stay in my room and come right horses and hunt with us and I’d got him on bird Hunts uh I loved that old school mentality uh and the Really caring about the people and and putting clients first and so I loved that environment and Edward Jones up to that point had been very had been very good to my family um.

Willard: As I started to grow and mature and as my practice got bigger and we got to the point where we were bringing in I think my last five or six years at Jones I was averaging 5052 million a year in net new assets every year it got to the point where Edward Jones didn’t have the type of Investments didn’t necessarily have the type of uh fintech that I wanted and then also didn’t have the um technology as far as marketing that I wanted. I know we’re on a podcast today inside my entity at Raymond James uh we we have a YouTube channel we have a podcast we’re on all different types of social media and we have a brand that I own and that I control and it’s my brand. At Edward Jones I was getting frustrated because all the marketing was done from The Firm level and the way their current leader who I’m not a big fan of whatsoever the way she runs the company was not congruent with the image that me and my clients wanted and when we’re getting to the area of the the woke and the backlash and all that typee of stuff I didn’t I didn’t want to be like a a a Target or a uh Bud Light where you lose control of your brand and you lose control of your image and you have nothing to do with it and I didn’t want to get to that point so all those things kind of snowballed to the point where it wasn’t a good fit for me uh it’s it’s a good fit for for my dad for my sister up to this point and and that’s great uh but it wasn’t a good fit for me and so that’s when I opened the door and started exploring and said Okay God willing if I’m going to be able to be in this business the next 30 or 40 years where do I want my practice to go what do I want my brand and my image to be if I’m responsible for taking 4% off of my client assets for them to be able to live on uh for the next 20 or 30 years do I have the right type of Investments to make sure that I can generate income without burning into principal and so those are a lot of the initial things that went into it.

The Client Meeting That Pushed It Over the Edge

Willard: The the story that really pushed me over the edge was ID went to visit with a client that had about six or seven million with me at the time and I knew he had more money but he didn’t bring it to me and I was frustrated about that and I’ve had I’ve had several people outside Edward Jones at the time when I was there say look not everybody wants to have their money with Edward Jones uh because they’re everywhere they’re in these little shopping centers and it’s kind of a cookie cutter deal and they’re limited with what they can do and I’m like well that doesn’t apply to me that doesn’t apply to me I’m a big producer and you know I’ve got clients money.

Willard: So I go to this family meeting and uh this client who had six or seven million with me his son was there who had uh 200 300,000 with me uh he was an executive at a big Oldfield company and he would eventually have a lot more money but he didn’t have much s and so at the time I had the Edward Jones financial planning software Financial foundations I had their portfolio system and I had done Advanced planning with the with the parents and we had a owner defined benefit plan we had a family limited partnership we had an LLC a GP account Roth IRAs traditional IRAs joint account and so we had eight or 10 different accounts and Edward Jones wasn’t allowing me to put them on one portfolio report they wouldn’t allowing me to put them into or be integrated into the financial planning software because you know their excuse was we didn’t know if it was actually their retirement money or how do we know they’re going to use the limited partnership or how how do we know they’re going to use the defined benefit plan for their retirement so we can assign it to the retirement goal so I had to go in with this family and I had all these different reports and it was complex and confusing and complicated but it was the best option that I had.

Willard: And so after that I met with the two with their two sons and went over one page portfolio and one financial plan for them and the and the dad interrupted me and said Russell he goes why does all his stuff get to go on one page and mine doesn’t and I you know gave him the best excuse that I could from what the firm had told me and he said well it sounds like Edward Jones is geared more towards smaller accounts than accounts my size he goes and really that’s why I haven’t brought the rest of my money to you yet.

Corey: Yeah.

General Partners Feedback + The Recruiter Call

Willard: And I was so embarrassed and I was Furious and so on the way back it was about an hour and 105 minutes away from my office and on the way back I started messaging all the general Partners at Jones that I had a good relationship with and explained the story in great detail and I sent it memory serves me correctly I think I sent it to 23 or 24 different General Partners uh including uh Penny and Jim at the time and Jim had had recently retired and I only got a reply back from two.

Corey: Yeah.

Willard: One of the guys who’s on the executive committee who was a great guy said hey man I I apologize that’s just how it is which wasn’t an acceptable answer for me but at least he replied another of the ladies called me and said look Russell here here’s here’s the way we see it is we design most of our systems and Investments and processes for the middle 80% of the business and we don’t Focus as much on the top 10% and the bottom 10% and unfortunately a lot large percentage of your clients fall in the the top 10% and I’m not saying they’re not important but they’re not the priority.

Corey: Sure.

Willard: And that infuriated me that the people that were most important to my practice that were most important to my livelihood that I’d made commitments to weren’t a priority of the firm at the time and maybe that’s changed but at the time that’s how it was.

Willard: And so ironically enough uh Austin car at Raymond James his internal happened to cold called me that day and this guy’s probably cold called me 10 times over the previous five years along with a lot of other firms I never took their call.

Corey: Yeah.

Willard: And my Boa at the time buzzed in and said hey you got one of these Recruiters on the phone for you she goes you may put him on hold or hang up and I said send him through and she was on intercom and she physically walked into my office and she goes did you say to send him through I said yeah I sure did and so that had been the first time I had ever talked to a recruiter but he literally called me on the perfect day at the perfect time and at that point I was done and ready to go and I I wasn’t ever going to go and I saw the writing on the wall that Jones wasn’t the best fit for me wasn’t the best fit for my practice and for my clients but I thought I would be respectful and wait till my dad retired but that day I just had to make the decision hey it’s it’s not a good place for me and it’s time to start exploring what options are out there and from a professional standpoint it’s been the best decision that I’ve ever made.

Due Diligence Trip + “Other Side of the Curtain”

Corey: Do you feel like at that point you had a decent idea what it looked like on the other side or did you just have no idea and kind of took some Blind Faith to talk to Austin.

Willard: That’s such a difficult question to answer because from the mindset and from the perspective that I had Corey at Edward Jones I thought I understood what the industry was about when I left Edward Jones and I started exploring uh and and doing a due diligence trip to the Raymond James headquarters it was mindblowing the little environment and ecosystem that I had been literally my entire life raised in when I saw what was on the other side of the curtain I felt so angry so betrayed and so cheated and those were the emotions that I went through.

Willard: I mean it was like a it was like the star of the local Little League Allstar team being caught up and getting to pitch at Yankee Stadium in game in game seven of the World Series and you’re like oh my Lord what in the world and things that I’d been told weren’t allowed in the industry uh things that I’d been told that weren’t possible to do things that I’d been told just can’t be done was the standard operating procedure outside of the Edward Jones ecosystem and so it really made a massive uh impression on me and really gave me Insight of okay I’d really taken my practice to the to the top to the top 25 26 people at Jones and I felt really confident on where I was then and then when I saw what options existed outside uh it was it was mindblowing and and my mind has just been racing non-stop the past three years of integrating uh digital marketing integrating social media integrating podcast and YouTube channels and different types of Investments and it really invigorated my career and has brought a level of excitement that I hadn’t had in a long time prior to the move.

Corey: Yeah and I mean this is where in my opinion the light bulb goes off for financial advisers at at most employee firms they started off in an organization they got a shot and they built a business and are making more money than they ever thought possible and they have great respect for their leadership and they value their opinion and you know over time advisers start to realize once they go to a home office visit you feeling betrayed that you know you realize that they have told you a lot of misconceptions and a a a lot of half-truths um because they’re incredibly invested in you you know staying in your seat at Edward Jones or whatever other employee firm that’s that’s out there and typically when a financial adviser goes to the home office visit that’s where that’s that’s normally where the lights go off.

Independence Concerns: Book Ownership + “Plan B”

Willard: And and you just hit the nail on the head with building a business an employee uh because one thing that I started the last year before I made the transition the one thing that kept me up at night was I had built this practice where I was just shy of a $3 million producer at Edward Jones at the time and if something were to happen to me the policy at the time with Edward Jones if you were an NPC qualifier I believe a leader a leader uh conference qualifier is they would provide an insurance policy of half of your trailing 12 production from the previous year so if something would have happened to me my family would have got a $1.2 million life insurance policy or $ 1.4 million life insurance policy whatever that number was and that’s it and someone else would benefit from that and obviously I had worked significantly harder than most most people that were that were my peers at that time and that wasn’t acceptable to me it wasn’t going to be acceptable to my spouse at the time and wasn’t acceptable or fair to my kids.

Willard: And so when I went over to to Raymond James and and went through the due diligence process and was learning hey uh my practice over here is worth $9 million plus my practice over there is worth a life insurance policy for 50% of my trailing 12 it was like okay am I doing right by my kids am I doing right by my family am I doing right by my staff by putting all this time and all this energy and if I become disabled or if I die prematurely there’s no RTP plan there’s no compensation there’s no appreciation for the work that you’ve done and that’s a big deal when you spent 10 15 20 years putting Blood Sweat and Tears holding hand holding clients hands through ups and downs of the market and if you don’t own your book of business that’s not very attractive uh and it’s not very encouraging and it’s definitely not fair to the family.

Corey: Yeah I mean just just another thing I work with probably 20 financial advisors a year where you know they’re making a move to another firm where they just didn’t even plan a transition you know maybe they did something where at you know other firms may have been a slap on the wrist you know they all of a sudden spent 20 years at an organization building relationships building clients doing all of the right things and then all of a sudden they’re out uh they’re out on the street trying to protect their reputation find a new firm without any preparation whatsoever of of of of making another move and I’m sure there’s advisers in in in in every region that have that have seen an example of of an adviser getting let go that’s another thing to prot and you’re left with nothing uh and Edward Jones has always been to smear every way possible your u5 and most non- broker protocol firms have been like that and so you’re not even you’re not even guaranteed that you’re going be able to continue to be in the industry uh if that’s the case and and that’s a scary predicament to find yourself in.

Willard: And I’ve had a couple friends that left Jones uh because of the fear of that and that’s warranted I had a one of my very close friends that’s still had Edward Jones um had a had a compliance issue and was worried he may not have a job and they were leaving in leaving him in limbo for about six weeks and I mean the guy was having massive anxiety and so I tell every financial adviser at a at a firm where they’re where they’re an employee adviser you better have a plan B and youve better have done your due diligence you better have worked with a recruiter you better have visited with another firm you better have contacts with inside of another firm because all of a sudden one day if they decide to pull the rip cord and they don’t don’t need you anymore you have nothing uh and if you’re a million-dollar producer and bringing home a nice income for your family or even significantly higher than that it’s obviously even more critical but that can be that rug can be jerked out from under you at any time and so I tell advisers even if they don’t plan on leaving you better have done your due diligence where if it comes down to it and you’ve made the wrong person mad at at the firm and they turn on you and you’re gone you better got make sure you’re taking care of your family.

Corey: 100% 100%.

Mid-Episode Sponsor Break

Corey: Hey breaking in real quick I really hope you’re enjoying this episode and finding my YouTube channel of value if you’re a high- performing financial adviser that can use somebody as a guide or resource to explore all your transition options out there in the marketplace I’m a non-biased independent transition consultant that can help make this process so much easier for you and another Plus it costs absolutely nothing to work with me if you want to have a conversation please feel free to text call email DM me my contact information is all over this episode and I’ll let you get back to it.

Partnership Misconceptions

Corey: So just going back in the timeline a little bit you’re you know you’re you’re still at Edward Jones you went to Raymond James was blown away by the home office visit being the size producer that you were I’m one of the biggest piece P of of push back that I get from financial advisers that I’m helping explore different opportunities some are just leaving a massive amount of uh partnership behind you know and it’s it’s it’s something that they feel really attached to and something that you know they simply don’t want to be uh they don’t want to leave behind they want to be made whole on it. I mean can you can you talk about that you probably had more partnership than others like how did you where did that go inside of your equation in terms of you know should I stay or should I go.

Willard: So you you just made the same assumption uh that a lot of people would assume I’d been in Edward Jones 17 years had been through three uh partnership partnership offerings and I had like 150,000 in in LP okay I mean that’s nothing and so that LP let’s say if it made 20% per year which is about 2% more than the long-term average uh making $30,000 a year from partnership and so we were always made to feel like that was such a critical part of the of the compensation plan and and the partnership going back since Ted Jones I mean it was a great it was a great story still is a great story and a big part of the culture but at the end of the day the partnership I mean a $30,000 a year pension off $150,000 is basically what you would get if you retired and stayed in good in good standings with the firm that’s you know less than what my social security would be right.

Corey: Yeah.

Willard: And so when I Own 100% of T Talent financial services and I Own 100% of that in practice I mean I would have to have 2030 million do worth of uh limited partnership I’d have to be at Penny Pennington’s level and in order for it to be the same for me and I’ve always thought that was a little bit frustrating because the general Partners were definitely taken care of at Edward Jones uh but when it came to the producers it wasn’t ever the case and I know at this point now they’ll go back and if an advisor is about to leave or if they’re a big producer they’ll wave some general partnership in front of them and that’s a little bit of a different story uh but in my opinion the partnership whether it’s general partnership or limited partnership at a firm like at a firm like Jones it is a it is a perk uh but it’s not near as well as near not near as good as owning a 100% of your own practice.

Valuation + Private Equity Tailwinds

Corey: Yeah I mean once one sitting down with you know a recruiter and helping them understand you know what your net payout is is after the day after the end of the day the additional ways that you can grow and also just the true Enterprise Value that you could have on your business not just a bigger multiple of you know potentially four plus times your trailing 12 Revenue it’s a function of eida but just for this conversation four times trailing 12 Revenue Plus for a large practice at long-term capital gains tax rates versus ordinary income 20% versus 40% I mean it’s truly you know three times plus the after tax money if not more once you once you actually put the pen down to paper and I really think that number is going to do nothing but go up um.

Willard: At our chairman Council Retreat which is the top 100 advisers at Raymond James we had a couple uh private Equity groups and companies that specialize in selling your practice I’m 46 so God willing I’m a long ways from that but obviously in the top 100 at Jones I mean at uh Raymond James there’s several even at Jones and at Raymond James industry as a as a whole there’s a lot that are in their mid to late 70s uh that are in the that are in the practice and needing an exit strategy and with all the private Equity money that’s com to our business I mean you think of it there’s not that many businesses out there outside the credit card companies uh where you have such a a cash cow and a cash flow business if you have your business built the right way in a fee based practice uh and so if you have a solid brand and you have a long track record and you have a good beneficiary agreements I mean the private Equity money that’s coming into our industry is astronomical uh for people that are getting close to that and I just don’t see that going down or going away anytime anytime soon because this is such a great business and I don’t want to Discount that by not being at a firm where I could take advantage of it.

Corey: Yeah and I’ve done tons of videos on this for any listeners that are interested on on on my podcast called what’s your practice worth and it’s probably 20-minute video just breaking down what What multiples could look like you know how your practice is valuated what maximizes the value of your practice if you want to get a little bit more educated on that but let let’s let’s let’s go back to um let’s go back to transition day.

Transition Day + Client Reactions

Corey: You know you’re you’re resigning to Edward Jones you know you’re starting to call and have client and have conversations with clients. I mean how did your clients react to to that phone call.

Willard: So you’re taking me back to about the the the scariest month of my life right there those those uh couple weeks leading up to it when you’re just right at the edge of the cliff fixing a jump uh and then the first 30 days after that transition now I had it probably worse than most uh I was transitioning on a Tuesday my wife at the time uh come in and told me she’d been having a long-term affair on the next day and then on Friday I have a federal lawsuit filed against me from Edward Jones so probably one of the tougher environments and the tougher transitions that a financial advisor could go through but looking back I’d go through it every year to get to the point that I’m at at today and so my clients were so receptive of it uh my goal was like if I thought if I could bring 90% of my assets I thought I’d really hit a home run end up bringing north of 95% of the assets uh that I wanted.

Willard: Now from a relationship standpoint I probably bought eight brought 80% of the households but there was very few uh of the of the business that I did didn’t bring over and it might have been closer to 97 98% when it was all said and done because we still have accounts that are trickling in over here people maybe that we didn’t call or they weren’t sure but now they’re coming to us because they have relationships with people that transitioned and they like what they hear from new products services and communication and so we end up being larger at the end of 90 days I was larger by several several million than what I had been on the day of transition and basically a relatively flat Market environment so it wasn’t like we got a big Boost from Assets.

Willard: Now fast forward I think we were 503 when we left 509 million and now we’re at 740 uh and so we’ve seen tremendous growth because going back to that conversation that I’d had with uh with the family that was really the bowling point for me so many clients that I had a lot of money with or so many of their friends and family members that had a lot of money weren’t comfortable having money with Edward Jones uh and that wasn’t my opinion I didn’t think that that was the case but when I got over here I was shocked how many larger 10 plus million dollar accounts that I got five plus million dollar accounts that I got for people that just didn’t want to work at the previous firm and I didn’t think that would be the case but it definitely was.

Willard: And so we started we started making calls the day that we transitioned we literally walked next door um you can Google some details on my transition on several media outlets and it got a little nasty but I had a shop set up next door to where my current office was in a portable building and my staff literally we locked the door and came next came next door and started making calls to clients it was humbling but it wasn’t humbling in the way that I anticipated I would think that it was going to be very difficult to move people but so many of my clients said hey we have a relationship with you wherever you are it’s where we’re going and that was probably 50% of the convers ations maybe 60% of the conversations when I when I spoke with them.

Willard: And obviously you can’t invite them over but you can call and say hey just letting you know as of today I’m no longer with Edward Jones I’m now with Raymond James and this is my location uh and then they can ask you questions and you can’t solicit the business and we made sure that we followed the rules but every single time the client’s like well tell me why or can I move my accounts or what can we do how do I come with you and and then we could have the conversation if if if they started it.

Willard: There was probably 20 to 30% of the clients that were caught off guard uh and that were really shocked by it and needed a moment to kind of catch their breath and get over the shock because they’re worried well who’s taking care of my money where’s my money at and eventually all those came.

Willard: Then at the end of the day there’s probably about 10 maybe 15% of the households that you were kind of disappointed in that initial call and and one thing that I got from a few clients was well I’ve been with Edward Jones for a long time and Edward Jones has been good to me and I was like oh yeah I understand that they were good to me for a long time as well but I just got to the point where it’s going to be better for me and for my clients moving forward if if we’re not there and the guy kept kicking kept kicking back and pushing back and saying yeah but Jones but Jones.

Willard: And I finally asked the guy I said uh M Mr Clint who at the home office at Edward Jones have you talked to and he saidwhat do you mean I said from St Louis who have you talked to and I said I know you’ve gotten some calls on the surveys because you did not like that he goes well outside of the surveys I haven’t talked to anybody at the home office I had the relationship with you and your staff I said I know right but we’re not there and so was your relationship really with Edward Jones or was it with Russell Russell and Rachel and Kaylee and he’s like all right I’m headed down there let’s move my account.

Why Clients Follow the Advisor

Willard: And so at the end of the day if you’ve been through be markets with clients if you’ve helped them when they’ve had questions on refinancing their house if you’ve helped save money in retirement accounts for them to retire if you’ve helped them put money back for their kids and grandkids to pay for Education if they call you when they buy a car because they want to know whether they should pay cash or Finance you can take the best financial advisor at Edward Jones and there’s a lot of really good ones there and they can come come in and call my clients that I’ve worked with for 15 years and they can have 10 three-hour conversations with those clients and they can’t rebuild the relationship that I’d built over 10 to 15 years and most people understand that.

Willard: And I would tell you it gave me so much confidence and it was so humbling to hear my clients that said we don’t have a relationship with Jones we have a relationship with you wherever you go we’re going and that’s one thing that I’ve heard from so many of my friends I’ve had there’s 10 advisers that are with me that most of them are previously at Jones that are under my umbrella and then there’s over 70 that are good friends of mine that that have left and that’s the one thing that I hear over and over and over from my friends that have left is how humbling and how grateful the feeling is when clients tell you my relationship’s with you wherever you go we go and if you think it’s better for me and my family you’ve treated us you’ve treated us the way we’ve need to be treated up to this point we have no reason not to believe you.

Corey: I love it I love it that’s such a great it’s such a great message.

What’s Better Now + What’s Not as Good

Corey: So you’re you’re you’re three years into you know running an independent practice now I mean what are you doing differently now that’s led to to better growth more enjoyment in your practice um better serving your clients can you talk about what’s what’s better and then maybe a couple things that you know maybe aren’t as good if there are any.

Willard: Yeah and so I’m an open I’m an open book most people have talked to me with tell I’m probably air on the side of being too candid and so I tell everybody what the good and and bad are at Raymond James and what the what the good and bad are at Edward Jones and what the good and bad are at lpnl wherever I have friends that work at and and we share notes.

Willard: I would tell you the thing that sticks out the absolute most is being able to own and run my own practice and to be a true entrepreneur uh and that’s a lot of fun and I really enjoy it at at as a W2 advisor you don’t get that experience you kind of feel like you have ownership but at the end of the day you don’t own your practice and you’re not making business decisions and accounting decisions and estate planning decisions because you don’t own your practice and I love that part of it I love the challenge of it I love the excitement of that part of the business knowing that I’m building something that no one else is going to dictate where my practice goes I get to dictate that so that is awesome.

Willard: Uh at Jones that wasn’t the case because my dad had a very large Practice still has a very large practice was an MPC guy for 35 years and Jones at that time said there’s no way we’re going to let you give the assets to your son and I’d worked with people had had relationships with his best clients and Jones was like Hey we’re we’re going to punish isue uh basically by reducing your payout by reducing what you would get or just flat out have consequences if Russell takes over some of those assets uh because of the size of his practice and we didn’t think that was fair for our family to have to go through that uh over here I don’t have to worry about that if my kids choose to come into this practice or uh with some of the with some of the financial advisers that are in my practice now I don’t have to worry about that and that’s been tremendous.

Willard: I wouldn’t have an opportunity to do this podcast uh or any of our inhouse podcast or previous ones that I’ve done at Edward Jones and so being being able to Market I know that the world is moving and our industry is moving more into a Content based industry uh where you have content on social media you have content on YouTube content through podcast that clients want if they want just traditional Market uh if they want traditional Market information they’re going to go to CNBC Fox Business they’re going to go to Wall Street Journal they’re going to go to those places Bloomberg to get their information it’s everything else that they need to get from us it’s the it’s the planning and the and the thoughts on owning a business and the experience we have on Guiding clients through different scenarios and so the content creation was huge.

Willard: Even at Edward Jones at at the time I don’t know if there’s been anybody since but I’d won a 40 under 40 award from investment news I had to fight Edward Jones to be able to accept that award and when I went up to give a video like this Edward Jones had to provide the script to me and it was basically promoting Edward Jones and not recognizing whatsoever what I had done to achieve that award and that that was frustrating uh and so it was different.

Willard: The third thing is being able to dictate what investments my client has uh I I I mentioned you on on before the podcast that there’s about 35 to 40% of the Investments that my clients have now that are not available at Edward Jones whether it’s covered call writing strategies it’s private credit it’s private reads it’s private Equity structured notes index annuities index uh life insurance policies there’s so many products that I don’t have and I was told how bad they were or not good for the client or whatever the case may have been at the time that they just weren’t good uh but when you do your due diligence and you visit with people in the industry on how they’re using it and what our clients are are being shown from other companies you’re really at a competitive disadvantage if you don’t have access to those type of Investments and uh alternatives are such a big part of our business now when it comes to income generation and wealth wealth creation.

Willard: I tell my clients if you want to make money the public uh the public markets is a good place to do it uh if you want to generate build wealth longterm private Equity provides a lot of opportunities that the public markets don’t and as of right now 87% of all companies in the United States that have a hundred million dollar per more in Revenue are privately held and so you’ve really got a small channel of options if you’re only using publicly traded Investments and that was something that we spent a lot of time analyzing and that my entire team has done.

Willard: Fourth is being able to bring other financial advisers into my practice and have an ecosystem inside Talent financial services that allows us to serve so many clients in so many ways as a team that I never had at at Edward Jones and matter of fact it was extremely discouraged and I know they’ve allowed a version of that where FAS can be in the same office can share staff and I think there’s versions of house account but it’s really it’s a watered down version of what we’re of what we’re able to do and not that it’s bad it’s just different.

Willard: And and we have a financial advisor inside my practice that he’s really good at nonprofits and institutional money and Foundations and so we’ll go as a team to get to get those type of accounts and then he’ll spearhead it but we have it it split in a house account uh accounts that aren’t a certain size of Revenue or assets under management I have three financial advisors that I have household codes with that have different splits on the payout we each have our roles to take care of those clients uh I have another fin financial adviser that helps me with company retirement plans uh and we have splits that we use uh depending on who gets the account and who has the key relationship and so those are things that we have here that we would have never had.

Willard: And fifth is just the branding being able to own your brand and I know if my brand blows up which it could it would be on me and I’m not worried about a commercial I’m not worried about a marketing campaign I’m not worried about a s a set of morality or a political lean by anyone in my by anyone in my firm that’s going to dictate what my brand is I control my B my brand for better for worse I control the logo I I control every point of contact and access that we have with our clients and that’s important to me because I drive that relationship and whether a client’s Democrat and they love the woke uh corporate environment or whether they’re Republican and they detest it or anything in between I don’t have to worry about my brand being affected by the over overall uh corporate Direction uh that someone else chooses to make outside of my control.

Willard: And I would say those are the five main things that are the most attractive here there’s a handful of small things uh that Edward Jones I think did a little bit better uh one of them that is a big pet peeve of mine is we don’t show the cash value of life insurance on a statement as an asset value so on our statements if a client has a million dollars and it has $100,000 in cash valay life insurance at Edward Jones it would show 1.1 million at Raymond James you still get paid on it the same but it’ll show a million dollars in the account it’ll show the life insurance policy on the statement it’ll show the cash value and then it’ll have a disclaimer underneath that says this cash value is not included in the asset value of uh of the account so little things like that that are very nitpicky uh but things that I was accustomed to at Edward Jones those those are that’s one of the things that bugged me.

Building New Camaraderie + The Willard Connection

Willard: I thought I would really miss the camaraderie and for maybe the first year I did with the regional meetings and the and the award travel like what we talked about but as we’ve been integrated and as I’ve had so many friends move to Raymond James from Edward Jones uh or advisers that reached out to me like you had a tremendous podcast with Willard Cy in in North Carolina and I didn’t know Willard till I left and when Jones drugg my name through the mud in the media it actually backfired because advisers literally from Maine to Hawaii and Alaska reached out to me and said okay tell me how what the experience was how did they go after you how did it turn out did Raymond James protect you and so I had conversations with a lot of advisers that I’d never met before at Edward Jones but that are tremendous people.

Willard: And so when we came to Raymond James we kind of formed our own group and so we have uh Communications Group inside the teams platform at Raymond James were were able to share advice and and share experience and compare Investments and talk about new products and then uh the last couple years we’ve had many uh Regional meetings where advisers from either the state of Texas or all over the country have came to a central location and we spent two days uh with product partners with attorneys with uh political activists with a three star admiral in the Navy going over uh the practice uh and then how we how we’re valuing our practice what succession plans look like and just sharing conversations and building that camaraderie and there was 50 people that I really wanted to be around sometimes at a at a region at Jones there was 40 or 50 people there but only 15 that you really got along with or were real close with yeah here we’re kind of able to to carve out our own Niche and carve out our own group where everybody’s like-minded most of us feel the same way about religion and politics and it creates a really inclusive environment that’s better than what I ever had at Edward Jones and and that’s been a very pleasant surprise because that was one thing that I was worried about.

Marketing, Branding, and Content Strategy

Corey: So we’re we’re coming up on the on on the hour I don’t want to take too much of your time but that went really really fast but um but um but I I I I I heard in a in another podcast and also having a conversation with you you mentioned one of your top five favorite things like marketing has just had a huge impact on your business and when a lot of financial advisers from Edward Jones that I have a conversation with they think marketing is just you know putting a few few posts on on LinkedIn or Facebook maybe I mean you’ve kind of gone all in from a marketing standpoint can you talk about how that’s impacted your business and and you’ve said the word image a few times can you can you talk about that.

Willard: Yeah I’d love to so our branding and our image we partnered with Oxley and Oxley would come talk to us when we were at Jones at NPC or leaders conference but we really couldn’t do much with it uh Oxley has a great uh branding program that we use for social media has great content we’re able to use artificial intelligence so when we have conversations with our clients and we hear topics that they’re asking and say man I wish my kids could hear this or I wish my grandkids would start earlier I wish someone could explain this concept or that concept we’ll actually use artificial intelligence to help us create a script and then we’ll go in and make some tweaks on it and then we’ll create a podcast or we’ll create a video and then send it to our clients and we have a library on our website of a bunch of different topics so if a client says I wish my kids could hear that I’d say great let me send you the podcast episode or let me send you the YouTube link uh to that discusses it and they get to hear me say it uh from a branding standpoint we’re able to use our faces our images our words and of course it goes through Raymond James compliance and that was one of the Pres pleasant surprises at Raymond James is they’re here here to build your practice not perect not protect the general Partners at the firm and so here everything is around the advisor the advisor like your fstar best client and they do everything they can to help the advisor build their brand.

Willard: At Jones it was everything’s built around trying to protect the general Partners returns and trying to protect the general Partners assets and if I was a penny Pennington making $26 million a year in general partnership or you know some of the other leadership guys that had that much I’m have the same mindset uh but I was never going to be in that role had no desire to be in that role and so over here The Branding is all about us and our clients so things that are important to our clients and that we hear from our clients we get to make uh social media post about we get to send out our own custommade uh uh newsletter either I write it or have I can have a ghost writer inside Raymond James that writes it and and so the content has been created towards the issues that are most important to our client not a cookie cutter website where we can go in and click and share the articles that we like part of but aren’t tailored specifically to the people that we work with in the industries that they have.

Community + Analytics + 401(k) Video Scaling

Corey: Yeah I mean so I mean just just doing research on you over over time and just through our our our conversations you know I know you’re you’re you’re heavily involved in your community on on on top of being a financial adviser you know just allowing people to to get to know you whether it’s your your current clients whether it’s prospective clients whether it’s centers of influence or other refer you know just allowing on a constant basis for them in your voice to be able to talk about how you’re different and how you’re helping clients is just so beneficial and I can’t tell you how many financial advisers I said Corey I’m getting phone calls from people they’ve almost made a decision to work with me you know when they reached out I don’t know I don’t know if you’re dealing with the same thing.

Willard: But oh for no no doubt and we follow analytics a bunch one thing that I wanted to do when I come over here was hire a girl that focused on social media marketing and the algorithms and newsletter and communication and content creation for our for our practice and so we started doing the analytics and for a while I would share Raymond James articles which were very similar to what Edward Jones would have uh and even though the software was a little bit better when we would share a firm cookie cutter article we would maybe have a handful of reactions when we would share content that we created it was 10 times that when we would share content that was custom made with our faces and our video and our image uh the interaction was off the charts yeah and so that just convinced us more and more and more how important that content is and how important it is for your clients want to hear from you at the end of the day they don’t have a relationship with the marketing department at a big firm whether it’s Raymond James or Edward Jones they have a relationship with the advisor and you know they can read an article they can read a post during a down Market when the Market’s really going down and they’re scared but to hear your voice and if you email out a video that’s huge uh and so that has had such great reaction.

Willard: I’ll tell you one other quick thing that we just figured out and we did recently is we have quite a few 401ks and it was getting difficult to go to all the different locations in the oil field or in Industries where you may have to draw a four or five hours and have five or six employees so we worked with the with the marketing department at Raymond James and we were able to create five to 10 15 minute videos that explained what the 401K is all the key features the key benefits what you could do what you could not do hardship withdrawals the match and then give a brief EC IC update run it through compliance and then could email it to every single employee at those companies with a passcode to their company email where instead of us having to be there now they’re getting a quarterly update on their plan and a brief update on the market and the investment environment and on on the any changes on policies that normally would have taken me a hundred hours during the course of the year to drive and go do those meetings and so just the way we’re able to scale and use technology and content uh it’s it’s added so much back to our practice and it’s built our brand to the point where our referrals have at least doubled since we’ve left Edward Jones.

Corey: That’s amazing that’s amazing.

Why Marketing Works: Trust Before the Call

Corey: You know clients want to be able to hear from you they don’t want to hear from the chief investment officer from you know any any employee firm they hired you to have conversations with you and I’ve experienced the the same exact thing in my business with with with all of my marketing um people have the ability to get to know you before they pick up the phone and it’s not even always about work sometimes people will reach out to me and they say Corey I I see you have a a the the PGA in your back I’m a big golf fan too just even people want to work with someone that they trust that they have the same values as and they just have the ability to be able to see all of that before they have the before they even pick up the phone which is so powerful.

Willard: Oh and that and that’s what helped so much that relationship building and to know you uh that’s what helps so much during the transition process is because people they don’t want to go back through that experience of a 10 15 years building relationship in a lot of cases when uh employee Channels backfill with less experienced advisors or new advisers and they had that initial conversation with them and they’re like oh no I don’t want to be I don’t want to be in those shoes and then you’re building your practice I mean it’s it’s so awesome when you rebuild your practice and every time those assets trans for in you realize number one I own that number two that client chose to come with me and that client values my relationship over the other name on the statement uh and and that is that is so humbling and such an honor.

Respecting Those Who Stayed + Bigger, Better-Fit Book

Willard: And it just there was some clients that haven’t came with us I think there were two or three that I wish would have come they didn’t come for whatever reason family members in the practice at another firm and it gave them an opportunity to go somewhere else and and that was great I I respect those people people that did that and I respect the people that said no I’m going to stay here uh but now having a book of business that’s 50% larger from an asset standpoint with clients that chose me and chose our team it doesn’t get much better than that.

Corey: I love it Russell I’m I’m I’m so happy for you so happy you took the risk and and and and so happy it paid off for you um I I really really appreciate the time and this is going to help so many other Edward Jones advisers I I I really really appreciate it.

Recruiter Reflection + Transition Advice

Willard: Yeah and one more thing if you guys just a second one thing that I do want to add is I didn’t use a recruiter when I came to uh Raymond James I was blessed enough and we have a mutual friend Austin Carr that was that was phenomenal and and Austin did so right by me during the process uh I mean everything he everything that guy says is Gospel and that’s what my friends who had said had came to Raymond James from Edward Jones had said and so I was fortunate looking back when I made that change you would ask earlier what it looked like from a perspective standpoint from being inside the firm and then seeing things from outside I wish I would have used a recruiter uh someone like you uh because you all know during the transition process what people go through and I tell my clients all the time that I help people retire every week you help make yourself retire one time M and so there’s a big difference someone that’s done things hundreds of times versus one uh and looking back there was a lot of things during the transition process that I wasn’t aware of that I didn’t know to ask that I didn’t know to look for I didn’t know what type of Leverage that I had uh and so it’s been good to to meet you and a couple of other guys that help people with that journey and I’ve always told every adviser that I that I’ve met with hey I recommend maybe you look through that through that uh through that conduit because I think there’s some things you could be leaving on the table and also things uh that help you transition so that your role along with having a great Securities attorney makes all the difference in the world and makes the transition so smooth uh and it it is a lot of work and anyone that says it’s not a lot of work for those 60 days prior prep the 90 days to six months afterwards they’d be misleading you if they didn’t say it’s a lot of work but looking back 12 months 18 months 24 36 months later I would do it every year to get to this side of the business.

Corey: I love it and I think that’s just such great feedback.

Consultant Value + Finding the Right Fit

Corey: You mentioned during the podcast you got you know a CO call at the perfect time and that happens to a lot of financial advisers but a lot of time it’s the wrong firm from a fit standpoint that’s calling them on the other side and not using a consultant you could wind up ending down the road with a firm that might not be a fit and God forbid you make a move to that firm and make a mistake um that’s the worst case scenario but a lot of times we just see a lot of financial advisers that are exhausted of their search because they pick up the top the two three firms that have been calling over the years and they very much might might not be the right fit we just take the time to help a financial adviser understand what they’re looking for educate them on the industry help them kind of develop their wish list because a lot of them don’t even know what the answer to the to that question is on their wish list and from there take the hundreds of options and narrow them down to the top three that make sense so they could they they could find the right place negotiate on their behalf help them ask the right questions so we’ve helped more Edward Jones advisers transition than anyone else in the industry um we have so many best practices mistakes to avoid if you have any questions whatsoever my my services are are no cost to the adviser um you have a lot to lose and everything to gain.

Wrap-up

Corey: So Russell I really appreciate the time today you are a humongous help and I I I wish you nothing but the best of success.

Willard: Oh thank you I appreciate you having me on here and if you ever need us back on here again to share to share more experiences or to help any advisers uh find the promis land I’m happy to be on here anytime.

Corey: Let’s do a miniseries I love it.

Willard: He sounds good pleasure.

Corey: Thanks so much.

Willard: Thank you sir bye.