Intro Hook
Unknown: a lot of people in the industry feel comfortable going from firm to firm and I never wanted to do that because I think it’s stressful on clients and on your staff.
Unknown: when when would you say you started having feelings that Edward Jones might not be a lifelong partner for you.
Unknown: so I knew the change was ultimately coming you know and I would have to make that really difficult decision.
Unknown: I I think the number one concern of most financial advisers that I speak with breaking away from an employee firm is felt really uh scary thinking like why did I ever want to do this.
Unknown: what do you feel like you gained by going independent for you and and for your team.
Unknown: on the flip side of that is there anything you feel like you lost you know leaving an employee model.
Unknown: you know for I mean there were six months where I thought well I’ve just got to blow things up.
Unknown: you what percentage of your of your assets did you did you bring with you.
Unknown: and a lot of people ask me so why didn’t you go ra and the honest answer to that is.
Podcast Opening + Introductions
Corey: hey everyone thank you so much for joining the podcast today as most of you know this podcast is dedicated to helping financial advisers find accurate unbiased information to help them understand what life would be like at another firm from number one from advisers that have made the leap before them and number two from experienced professionals like myself who have helped over a thousand financial advisers find a new home.
Corey: today we have an awesome podcast we have on Jennifer Markin formerly of Edward Jones who transitioned to aera prize in 2022 to launch Markel wealth management at the time she managed over $ 1.7 billion in client assets and was the number one producer at Edward Jones Nationwide.
Corey: typically when a financial adviser of this caliber leaves a firm it sends shock waves throughout the system of the firm and it just brings up a lot of questions am I at the right place is there something better what am I missing out on and hopefully this podcast today will answer some of those questions for you even if that answer is of the to that question is just staying put.
Corey: I have a special guest co-host today as well timy Robinson as we dive into the discussion today uh timy recently just joined the bridgemark strategies team um as an independent recruiting consultant like myself and at the time when Jennifer transitioned she was working for aera prize and was actually the recruiter responsible for helping Jennifer navigate various opportunities inside of Aero prize.
Corey: timy I really appreciate you being on the podcast today as well.
Timy: great thank you cor it’s great to be here.
Corey: for all of you listening today today we’re just going to discuss Jennifer’s overall experience at Edward Jones what caused her to start considering some other options and maybe how she’s running her business a little bit differently today versus how she was at at Edward Jones.
Corey: Jennifer once again thank you so much and Jennifer thank you so much for being on with us um.
Jennifer’s Background + Why She Entered the Industry
Timy: I’d love to start if we could uh with how you ended up in this buiness uh 25 years ago how how did that all come about.
Jennifer: um so I really was a working mom had a new baby wanted to have a little bit more flexibility with my life than what I had presently and I had gone to a financial advisor who worked with um with a big firm and talked to them about stock options that I had and that sort of thing and they basically ignored me they talked to my husband the whole time and I was the person who pushed for that appointment and really wanted to have this experience to talk about like the goals for our family what we would do longterm with our assets and so it kind of put me in the look mode of like who’s who’s serving the average family in the United States and who’s helping them understand how they can create wealth and build wealth.
Jennifer: and I read an article when I was on an airplane from a lady who worked at Edward Jones who later went over to woia that’s flashing back good ways but um but I read an article she was a working mom she had twins she was uh working from home and talking about how in the financial you know uh industry and at particularly Edward Jones at the time they were trying to try some new things out and make it where uh you know your work life could accommodate uh everybody and have to move to New York.
Jennifer: so you know 25 years ago that was huge and really put a bug in my Bonnet so I started kind of thinking about what it would look like to be uh you know in working in my community in a place where I I lived I’d moved there but I never worked where I lived and I never really knew anyone there.
Jennifer: so I I thought well I can help people with their financial situation I can help people plan for the future and you know be a great mother and so that’s what kind of spurred me to go into the industry is more of looking at families and where they end up long term it’s still kind of core to what I believe in is families need someone who can work with them to build their wealth to protect their wealth to transition it to Future Generations so it’s still kind of part of what I believe and I’m stuck to that for the last 25 years.
Timy: that’s awesome.
Secret to Success + Target Client
Corey: um so Jennifer I’ve I’ve I’ve I’ve heard just from timmery just kind of some of your story in terms of when you were working together um you’ve had some amazing amazing growth um prior to your transition inside of the Edward Jones um inside of the Edward Jones system what what do you think was the the secret to your success.
Jennifer: um I think that it was you know early on talking about things like planning and talking about like purpose of finances was really new and different at the time and I kept you know pushing for that kind of being something that was important also that women were creating wealth and being part of the decision making of their households you know at the time and so that was part of it also it was a strategy of really being selective about the types of claims that we would take on and the people that we could serve um.
Jennifer: uh Edward Jones was great it let me push the envelope that was there as far as like hiring team m ERS to help me uh I had probably I would bring in interns and help them get licensed um but you know that was something that let me have a little bit of Leverage with some constraints at the time.
Corey: gotcha in terms of being selective with clients what did you what did you mean by that.
Jennifer: um like we have a referral based practice so our clients come off of referrals so we early on I decided hey I’m super busy and in 30 minutes I’ll be changing a diaper so I should probably like make all of my minutes count and so we targeted the clients that would fit our practice the best which would be um you know that their net worth would be within certain criteria their objectives for their assets would be in their certain criteria that they would be kind of have the same value system that we had U when it when reflection on their family and that sort of thing so that was our Target client and we made sure that our clients who we serve best.
Corey: great that makes that makes a ton of sense.
Team Structure at Edward Jones
Corey: what did your team look like prior to transitioning to AER prize.
Jennifer: uh prior to transitioning to AER prize I had three licensed team members who were called branch office assistants um and so they had a limited capability at the time of being able to you know serve clients they had opened some windows where they could do some basic reviews with clients but there was a lot of limitations with them in their career path.
Jennifer: I had also another team member studying for his license at the time so I I was having a lot of like um good opportunities to help younger people develop their skills and become great advisers but I was running into some um roadblocks with the ability to get them to the next level to be able to really help serve our clients.
Corey: sure I mean with $1.7 billion do of assets I mean you must have R ran into some capacity issues for sure.
Tipping Point + Capacity Constraints
Corey: you know and and thinking about that that same stream of thought when when would you say you started having feelings that Edward Jones might not be a lifelong partner for you what what do you feel like was the The Tipping Point to not only um start looking but be more serious and and having those conversations.
Jennifer: so so um I always investigated opportunities outside of the firm not because I was interested in going but because I was extremely interested to see what other firms were doing to help clients and so I would always want to visit and look at the technology that the different platforms offered to look at like the structure to look at the focus of the of each firm so I have a lot of friends who work at a lot of different firms across the industry and I was always wanting to know who’s on The Cutting Edge of that and so that was very interesting to me for years.
Jennifer: when I crossed a billion in assets which is around 2018 I started to have some capacity constraints mainly around like the tradings and operating systems being able to have some tools that would allow allow us to you know group our client base together.
Jennifer: so we would uh when you have referral practice a lot of your clients are referred to you by other clients you want to be able to track that situation you also want to be able to maintain relationships with whole family group groups and so the system that we were under at the time would basically take your family groups and break them up and transition them to other teams um so you would be able to other advisers would take on your clients’s children or grandchildren uh through a system that was geared to sort of assist but in the way it would be um a negative because your team would still serve that family and answer a lot of the questions but the the assets would actually be held at another branch office.
Jennifer: so it started running into some problems once we cross that billion level it’s just like the system couldn’t keep us U serving our families the way that we thought was best.
UHNW Limitations + Tools
Corey: I’d imagine I’d imagine with like 1.7 billion in assets you probably have some you know significant High net worth clients inside of you know your your your your practice as well did you run into any limitations with some some ultra high net worth clients that you had.
Jennifer: yeah so so the uh for sure uh the product selection and ability the complexity of the planning tools were very um not what they needed to be to solve the problems that we needed to solve.
Jennifer: the um the asset allocation ability uh on the investment side was uh very manual and so there were three or four different areas that made uh the day-to-day operations of our practice just overwhelm overwhelmingly complex and so I think these are all things that um could and and and are being addressed but at the time you know I was in a situation that I couldn’t function and couldn’t serve clients and couldn’t you know be take care of the the responsibilities that I had in that platform.
What Excited Her About the Future + Evaluating Firms
Corey: so Jennifer when you started um looking at some of the other options out there in the industry I know at the end of the day you chose you chose a Mera prize when when you were looking at different firms going through technology demos going through the capabilities of different firms like what got you really excited about the future I guess.
Jennifer: um I got excited about the future because I saw that there was going to be a lot of changes that would come our way within the next you know 10 years uh with regards to like information from clients the ability to um make the transactions a little bit more linear whenever you’re on boarding clients and that sort of thing.
Jennifer: so I I wanted to be part of a firm that could actually bring that all together and um there’s I mean we’re all improving across industry um some people were willing to invest earlier on and take the risk of that investment in order to be able to build a platform on top of it.
Jennifer: so as um as Co came into play there were people who were running into it and improving theirself and investing in that technology that would come out of that situation and um there were some firms that were a little bit more hesitant to do that and also that has to do with like the the group of advisers each firm what they’re demanding out of their management because like age and demographics are a big factor in what gets pushed to the top and becomes the most critical thing that people need to provide in order to maintain their business.
Jennifer: and so um I looked at a lot of different ones a lot of them were uh wanting to improve but had some really clunkiness to them um any place that you went would be a huge learning curve we met with individual teams outside of talking to like uh anybody that’s in management just to just people that you have as friends and say what’s the hardest part of your everyday job you know what does that look like.
Jennifer: so we we talked to some really great teams who you know showed us like what was easy what was difficult about their day-to-day workload and it took some time to put that together and kind of just you know put together like these are the positives and these are the negatives across each one of the you know the firms that we considered.
Corey: sure.
Why Ameriprise Rose to the Top
Corey: was there was there anything like specific about aera prize that really just you know Rose to the top and made you choose them like anything specific.
Jennifer: um well they actually were on the Forefront of a lot of Technology they and and they have a system where they’re not afraid to risk that um and of course they have very good recruiting timmery is awesome there’s there there’s no doubt about that.
Brand in Her Market
Corey: did you um did you find it really attractive that um amera priz had a really strong National brand was that one of your criteria when you were when you were looking at different firms.
Jennifer: um I would have to say that uh they don’t have a strong brand in my market so that’s that’s one thing and but that did not frighten me a bit because when I went to Edward Jones they did not have a strong brand in my market either I mean I would for five years people thought I worked at H Edwards so um so I wasn’t really focused on that part it was important to me because I needed to know that the company was stable and solid but as far as like marketing it to clients not so much more of of assurance for me and my team that we were going to a place where we would be sustained they would have the breadth to service what we needed to provide to our clients.
Corey: awesome thank you for the thank you for the input I appreciate it.
Concerns Before the Move + Head Trash vs Real
Corey: what what con what concerns did you have you know once you started realizing that you know your your current firm might not be the long-term life partner I mean what what were some of the things that you were concerned about just like thinking about the transition and like life on the other side and then I guess the other question would be like which one of the which one of those were like real concerns and and which ones were were were head trash or things that didn’t actually come to fruition I guess when whenever you think about like making a transition like that one you know you have to look at you have to consider and I sat down and basically I said look I can just retire that’s an option um.
Jennifer: I and so one of the positives and negatives of just completely doing that would be like Wella my you know my clients would be dispersed and my family members to people that they don’t know who may have various experience levels and may not be able to serve clients as well as what I would want them to be served um.
Jennifer: so that would be a negative for everybody that is our client um it would be a negative for the people who work for me because they would be working for someone that they didn’t know didn’t trust and hadn’t build uh and a long-term relationship with to understand where they’re going with their future so it would be negative for the people that you know had worked on my team and so those were two of the biggest factors in my decision-making process is like where am I going to take these people where I feel like they’re going to be in a good spot to launch them to the next level you know in the future years and to take my business or my practice to the next level uh where it where it would automatically go but without causing you know something to you know get too constrained and so those were the things that I thought a lot about.
Jennifer: I was very very worried about um about you know uh leaving a company that had been a great company that I worked for for you know more than two decades and about the people there because I had a lot of great friends a lot of people in management who I have a ton of confidence that they’re brilliant people and doing the best job they can um.
Jennifer: I went to a meeting with uh Bill Williams and um he was trying to show me this this thing that he had in PowerPoint where it was talking about serving clients and I opened up a binder that I had and I had made the same thing and I thought oh gosh our glows are really aligning because we I don’t even know this man and he’s like thinking along the same lines as I am about clients and about the future of the industry and so that was a really positive thing to feel like there’s somebody outside of my current firm that actually could align with my thought process and the way that I think about clients.
Jennifer: I was concerned about the transition just the workload of it and and not for myself because I know how to work hard I mean anybody who knows me knows that but um but my team members I had never really seen them work hard so I said you know I’m not afraid for me to work you know 12 14 hour days for extended periods of time but I’m really worried that you’re going to like start crying and get in a fetal position and so that was something that I was concerned about for you know you know uh other people.
Jennifer: and and I really didn’t want it to be something like this was totally you know uh about doing something overall positive for everyone um because I know that even where I was in the platform that I was in I was probably making other people feel uncomfortable with just the the service that was required for our team and so um it was all considering you know the previous company the future company the management at both considering our clients our team what’s going to happen and of course you’re nervous but but I knew that I I wouldn’t be able to continue at the same path that I was in at the time so I knew the change was ultimately coming you know and I would have to make that really difficult decision and I wanted it to be right I wanted to make one decision and not have.
Jennifer: I I a lot of people in the industry feel comfortable going from firm to firm and I never wanted to do that because I think it’s stressful on clients and on your staff so I wanted it to be a good decision that would would solidify everyone in a better spot.
Partnership Considerations
Corey: yeah I mean J Jennifer I speak with financial advisers all the time especially top performing financial advisers like yourself and it’s so easy to just keep you know the status quo or keep things as is because you just have so much momentum behind you and I I I just hear the feedback all the time like Corey things are going too well right now you know I’m I’m I’m really scared to upset you know the the the the apple cart um.
Corey: you know one quick question I had for you which I hear from a lot of financial advisers you know they they really have a hard time letting go of the partnership that they have in an organization you know they’ve worked hard for it have pride in it they have you know attachment to it.
Corey: I I I’d imagine you had quite a bit of partnership inside of you know Edward Jones was that a was that a big part of your decision that you know not only did you have to take a step back just getting your business back in order at another firm but also also financially for a little while.
Jennifer: yeah I mean that for sure is something that you have to consider because you have to consider that your family you’re responsible for other people and yourself so you realize that there’s going to be some Financial ramifications for making that decision um and I did consider it and um yeah would I prefer to have my partnership too yes I would so you know but that wasn’t really like an option yeah.
Jennifer: so I had to take a financial personal you know step back obviously in order to do what I felt was the right thing to do and I mean for a year uh really basically two years I think um you know it took to re build and restructure um you know I mean two years is not anything compared to 20 three years you know yeah.
Jennifer: so um yeah you you’d have to take a step back and and that would be for I think anybody for sure for me because I I was on the more profitable end um at at the firm I was at and they do a great job at rewarding.
Transition Day + First Year Reality
Corey: and and making the move you know this must have been you know a huge undertaking for you and for your team I know you talked a little bit about the preparation for that you know being the number one at Edward Jones um if you could describe just what that day one looked like and probably more importantly what what day one of that transition felt like.
Jennifer: it felt really uh scary and because you just don’t know and so um and you know you you go into it with you know you don’t have like you like I had no idea what was going to happen.
Jennifer: I drove to my office on Monday morning after the transition I worked a Friday just calling like my family people that I knew to say hey this is where we are and if anybody that you know wants to talk to us you know this is how they can get in touch with us.
Jennifer: and so um our phones didn’t work for the first little bit because we had our phone forwarded we had all kinds of like you know things as far as setting up technology and stuff and think well this is going to be a total Game Changer.
Jennifer: but I worked I worked um Friday afternoon till late Saturday Sunday Monday morning when I drove up to this office space there was people in lawn chairs on the sidewalk waiting with their statements Tock get in the door and then it was just busy so overwhelmingly busy um because they had gotten calls from other people telling them where we were and different family members and stuff.
Jennifer: so uh it was just trying to like set up the accounts go through the rebuilding and establishment process with much better tools as far as getting our clients information helping them reestablishing goals re establishing you know accounts reestablishing risk Horizons and time you know it was just it was a lot but and I really didn’t feel like we were where we needed to be for um you know for at least a year and then in in the second year after like you know the asset transfer then the restructure.
Jennifer: and I mean our practice is larger now than it was when we left and you know we’re not we’re two and a half years into it as of right now and we have a bigger practice we have a lot more growth potential we have much better method of tracking for clients and making sure that we can serve them.
Jennifer: uh we’ve established a planning business that we didn’t have before uh so we’ve been able to do some things that kind of changed the Dynamics of what we’re able to do we’re able to reestablish like portfolios that are U more um tailored towards clients so just a lot better spot to be in for the future and uh feel like we made the right decision.
Jennifer: but I will tell you like you know for I mean there were six months where I thought well I’ve just G to blow things up you know uh.
Jennifer: so you that first fear and and you know but I remember starting in the industry thinking like why did I ever want to do this you know because you have those time periods when you’re going through that you know establish and growth and you know I mean you know I can be a bit dramatic so I I would occasionally you think you know well I won’t even say it I would think that there would be different things in the world that you could do that would have less stress involved but it turned out fineing me in you know.
Corey on Transition Reality
Corey: yeah I mean it’s a huge it’s a huge change it’s different policies it’s different technology it’s different paperwork it’s different culture it’s it’s different everything and I I I think I’ve had more roles in in in in different firms than than than you over my career at but I I don’t think I’ve ever liked a job for the first you know four months there’s just so much banging your head against the wall so I I try to prepare every you know recruit that I work with to just try to tell them that there’s going to be you know it’s not it’s not all roses in in in in the transition the beginning and anyone else that tells you otherwise Run Run for the hills.
Jennifer: yeah that’s right.
Corey: I mean you know it’s it’s going to be hard work and it’s a challenge to make it happen but in the end it’s it’s you know it can be worth it if it’s what you need to do and you’re at the right spot and that’s what’s really important is making sure that you do the research beforehand you know what you’re what’s important to you what’s important to your clients your your team to make sure you’re in the right spot.
Client Questions + Change Resistance
Timy: no I was just going to say I appreciate the honesty with the question what were some of the objections from your clients like if any when you were having conversations with them about Le leaving Edward Jones like what were the questions what were what was the resistance.
Jennifer: uh I mean I didn’t really I mean I didn’t want to solicit clients so like I would let them know where we were and you know uh and some people I mean obviously some people they get really comfortable with just their statements and Ed Jones has a great statement I know I was on the statement committee that created it so uh you know.
Jennifer: I mean there’s like there’s some there’s some things that that they do really well for clients people get comfortable in what they so it’s a change and so change is always hard to get other people to change is is always a challenge and I think that was the biggest thing is just people get comfortable and um of course there’s um.
Jennifer: I had clients around you know in different communities and stuff and now they may have an advisor who’s really close to their Community they can go to and so that was something that people you know um like were were considering.
Jennifer: we’ve had people throughout you know even you know 6 Months 8 months 10 months later say I did try to stick it out and you know they just weren’t you know being served the way that they wanted to be served.
Jennifer: and but the the change factor is always big for people and so making people you know understand what you could provide for them is really important um and making sure that people understand why you made that decision because I mean and anytime you make a decis ision there’s a lot of people who don’t know why you made your decisions who kind of tell people why you did yeah so like um like you hear stuff about yourself like like you’re dead um or you’re retiring or you hear all kinds of interesting things about yourself that maybe aren’t accurate so that’s part of it.
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 advisor 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.
Asset Retention
Corey: what percentage of your of your assets did you did you bring with you.
Jennifer: um well I mean I would say like it’s we quit measuring it after that first year so it was between 80 and 90% that first you know year um and so then we kind of put because it kind of went above that but the market was also moving it was easier to measure when the market was down because you could look at like what that was there so there’s not like a you know because it’s coming over several months of time um.
Jennifer: and you’re in after we started we kind of stopped I told the team I said we’re not going to say the word transition anymore we’re going to end it we have done the transition and we’re a year in and so um beyond that it was just about like growth and so um that’s where we are today.
Jennifer: so we’re we have exceeded our assets that we had there and it’s it is a Time situation it takes months for insurance policies to move over 401ks to re-register there’s a lot of of the business that is just just takes a long long time to make work the right way and you know and that would be even your personal insurance policies yeah that you own on your spouse so um so there’s just like it it there’s part of the industry that takes like longer to move and I’m sure that will is probably better today than even was two and a half years ago with technology improvements.
Jennifer: I feel like probably in the future it won’t be the same as it was in the past and so some of the things that were a little bit more tedious and manual for us probably won’t be the same way for people in the future and so the industry has to be prepared for that you know transition that will happen as technology is able to pour information for clients a lot easier.
Corey on Client Loyalty
Corey: I I appreciate the feedback I I I think the number one concern of most financial advisers that I speak with breaking away from an employee firm is or or my clients going to come with me and I just try to coach them through I mean if they’ve had relationships with people for you know 10 plus years they’re doing the right things for their clients and building relationships like you are you know the path of lease resistance is following you to another firm it’s not the you know the tech technology and the chief investment officer of the firm that you left that they like it’s the relationship with you.
Corey: and I’ve told the story multiple times I had a doctor that I’ve been uh working with for 15 plus years and he left to move to another practice and I was so concerned that I wasn’t going to be able to stay with him and I would have to build rapport and Trust again with a new doctor again like it wasn’t even a there wasn’t even a question um.
Corey: the path of least resistance and the smart move was to make the move with the person I made the relationship with and I picked up the phone day one and I I I think financial advisers once they transition they they see that time and time again but it’s great to hear it from from somebody like yourself.
Jennifer: yeah and I mean that so for some people it’s just important for them to look at where they are and look at their future and say am is the chair I’m in today is it the right chair for me to be in down the road and to bring that to the people that they work with and make sure that that they’re in the right spot 100%.
Gains vs Losses After Leaving Employee Model
Corey: and Jennifer what would you say what would you what do you feel like you gained by going independent you know for you and and for your team and on the flip side of that is there anything you feel like you lost you know leaving an employee model.
Jennifer: so one thing that we gained is I gained the ability to award the people that work for me in a more um transparent open platform because it was not the way that it was previously so that was huge for the people that worked for me.
Jennifer: uh I gained the ability to have future owners other than myself that’s also something that’s very positive for people that are in family wealth offices.
Jennifer: I gained the ability to establish a family wealth office where we could have different practices where we can serve locally and just our community of clients uh across the US with different tools.
Jennifer: I gained the ability to hire people remotely that can work from different cities to serve our team which we do.
Jennifer: I gained the ability to um have our own type of marketing even though we had a lot of flexibility where we were it’s a it is a a leg up I guess you would say an improvement where client communication can be on better platform so the tools that I had to be able to you know communicate with clients was much better than what I previously had.
Jennifer: um I gained the ability to uh encourage people to improve theirself so you know um having people on your team who get their cfps and their credentials and be able to learn more as far as like they don’t have to be out on their own but we can work together to serve clients together has been a huge a boost for um the education level the the competency the uh I don’t know just overall um um I don’t know credibility for the people that work with me and I’ve uh been really happy to see that happen.
Jennifer: and so um I think that when you what you give up when you’re at a company is you give up the security of they do the payroll oh that’s so nice they uh run the 401K plan but they can’t really match you the way that you want to match because it’s a big firm and so you can do things different when you’re in a small firm as far as rewarding with people on your team um.
Jennifer: there I mean it’s you don’t have to look at like health insurance plans right that’s type of pain so there’s things like that as a being independent that takes some time for you to think through.
Jennifer: but there are things that you’re dealing with with your clients every single day especially your business owner clients so these are things that we do all the time because we’re dealing with business owners we’re setting up their 401ks we’re talking to them about their their health insurance plans and what they need for future planning and their estate so it’s it wasn’t like out of something out of the blue that we didn’t understand we do it all the time anyway so we’re just doing it for oursel.
Jennifer: and so I think that part uh is is a little bit more work of course there’s uh working with a firm you share you know the profits of the firm in a big way and that is also a difference so you’re really you are on your own um.
Jennifer: but whenever you know I went through the financial crisis and I remember like calling um other offices just to see who was in the office working and yeah I was and you know then you go through covid and you’ve you have people who are not really making it happen and I was and so I’m not afraid to say that hey like we’re going to do this and we can do it independently and we have a ton of support from Air prize I can’t even discount that at all because you know we have amazing people it took me probably I don’t know maybe like a year to figure out who they were but um but I’m coming for him now so I’m just kidding but uh you know what I mean like to figure out like you know what department do you call for this or that so that took a little bit of time and I was very comfortable at ever Jones knowing who I could talk to so that part of it of knowing how to get things um done that you need done um was a big change but it it was it was going to happen anyway because people that you know over like decades they do retire things do change you have to you know kind of reestablish things and and the industry changes all the time so you can’t be afraid of change if you are in this industry and you can’t be you have to be optimistic because we’re investors we have to believe that there’s something positive in the future.
Jennifer: so you know it’s natural for people in our industry to want better to want more to want bigger because that’s who we are.
Advice to Advisors Considering a Transition
Corey: Jennifer to two two advisers that where you were you know when when you hit a billion dollars in assets and started you know picking up your head and just kind of seeing what else is out there and that are maybe considering a transition um or you know working working at another firm what what is your advice to them you you just going through this yourself um.
Jennifer: I think they have to educate their yourself on what’s out there in the industry what firms are you know like investing and improving and moving forward they have to talk to you know advisers and people who talk to a lot of advisers about you know and so that’s the one thing that’s really really difficult when you’re looking to uh improve a situation is in our industry if somebody’s looking to do something they can’t tell anybody else that they’re looking to do something and so that part of this like there’s you know like someone else who’s like you you know in another city may be thinking the exact same thing as you but you can never share that information with each other and so and that’s the nature of of the industry understandably so um.
Jennifer: so um when you think about that it it’s difficult so you have to have a good partner who can really help you who talks to a lot of other people who’s familiar with all of the platforms that are out there and I feel like if you have you know a good relationship with people who can who are open to talking with you with other advisors that’s not me okay fair enough you’re busy enough yeah but you do have to have a relationship with somebody who actually knows what’s out there and knows what firms are offering knows what it looks like um.
Jennifer: and there’s still uh if I had to do it today I would know all the questions to ask that I didn’t know because there’s some things that you will still even if you make what you feel like is a really great decision you’ll still not know everything because that’s the way it is it’s the same way when you have a child you can read all the books in the world and get all the advice but you’re not going to know what it feels like until you actually are you know waking up in the M Night taking care of it and so it’s that’s the way the world is is you’re going to walk into it with as as much information as possible and you know those things like hey what would you wish you would have known you know like I wish I would have known you know everything everything that I know today all the tools all the software all the things that you can’t possibly know until you’re at another firm um.
Jennifer: those are the scariest parts like what are we going to do if we don’t know how to how to use well the industry is very similar across the board so it’s not that scary I mean the terminology is you know pretty standard across the board there’s tons of acronyms at every company that’s only used at that company which is I don’t know why they do that but they do um so be careful with the acronyms um.
Jennifer: but other like things uh that you don’t know at compensation grids and things like that that you are unfamiliar with because you know the industry reports a certain way and one and this company or that company does something different those are really important things to to have a handle on but you can’t possibly experience the experience until you’re actually in the middle of it and so it’s it’s like you know anything that you do in life that’s that you’ve never experienced before yeah you’re going to get in there you’re going to figure out some things you didn’t know before.
Jennifer: if you had somebody tell you before that you know this is the best formula to get for your baby this is the best diaper um it may be right for your baby and it may not but get as much information as what you can and this is our practices are you know they’re really important to us they are what we built they they are something that we take a lot of pride in we want to know as much as what we possibly can going into it you will not know everything but but you can make a laundry list and go to somebody who is who is familiar with every single firm or almost every firm um.
Jennifer: and a lot of people ask me so why didn’t you go ra and the honest answer to that is we did not have the bandwidth to do that we needed the support of a firm at the time and um going independent is different than going ra and maybe we could have done it but at the time it just wasn’t what we needed to do.
Jennifer: and so there are there’s a lot of different options that people have and they need to know I just made like a sales spreadsheet and I did all the different firms I did the different types of and I just put you know what was that going to take in time and aptitude and what we going to be prepared to do that so resources from people who are in the industry and no recruiting are invaluable because they can give you and um and I’m saying even the people who do recruiting at each firm they are open to talking and showing you what’s going on with their firm you’re going to get more information getting in getting your boots dirty and talking to people who actually do the work every day.
Corey Closing + Wrap-Up
Corey: sure yeah I mean the one thing that I would say is you know working with the recruiters at each firm many of them are are very capable very knowledgeable can help you through the decision-making process really highlight all the benefits of of their firm but it’s it’s really up to you as the financial adviser to figure out where the downsides where the skeletons in the closet are where the non-starters are and you know a lot of financial advisers just really don’t know those questions to ask because they’ve only made one transition to Transitions you know in their life.
Corey: where you know working with someone that works with with all of the firms um you know they can really help you not only highlight the benefits but help you just figure out some of the dangers help you go through a decision Matrix help you stay organized help you negotiate to get the best start at your at at at your new firm so I I I agree with you 100%.
Corey: well Jennifer I I I really appreciate it this was super super helpful I think you’re going to help a lot of financial advisors I think so many people you know have these questions and I just really appreciate you being so honest and candid throughout this it’s not there’s a lot of benefits but it’s not all you know uh sunshine and Rainbow and I I really appreciate you you know highlighting both sides for everybody.
Corey: I really appreciate everyone tuning in today if you have any questions at all or or or want to learn more there’s another 150 plus videos on this YouTube channel and podcasts that are just dedicated to giving you the information uh to make the right decision if you have any questions at all please feel free to reach out my contact information is uh all over my YouTube channel uh and my website thank you so much everybody for for joining today and I hope you have a great day [Music]
