Foreign.

Welcome to Ditch the Suits podcast where we share insights nobody in the financial services industry wants you to know about.

We're here to help you get the.

Most from your money in life.

So buckle up and welcome to Ditch the Suits.

So we're going to talk today about how to know if somebody's a so called financial advisor or if they're a real deal.

So Steve, we talk about this all the time.

You know, the whole show was kind of started on people kind of masquerading as financial advisors or financial planners in our industry.

There's tons of titles and they don't really mean anything.

There's not, there's not like a law that says this is what a financial advisor is and this is what you have to call yourself, you know, like the credential, you have to have to call yourself a financial advisor.

And so these things get like really, really convoluted and confusing to people.

And then even when you talk to people and they kind of, they, they do a little bit of advising, it's like, what kind of advisor are they?

Are they the kind of advisor that I should be working with?

Are there things I need to be concerned about?

So we wanted to dig into that and not only like, how do you identify the difference between a so called financial advisor and the real deal, but also let's say somebody's getting into the profession.

So this is also for those people who are thinking, maybe I'd like to be a financial advisor someday.

How do you actually become the real deal?

How do you, you know, how do you not be the so called financial advisor?

The person kind of like we, we put in the crosshairs of this podcast where we talk about, look, these are the things that they do that really aren't for clients and they may not even know it sometimes because that's how the industry is kind of framed.

You know, you go and you start working for a company and the company kind of, this is how it is.

And so you kind of start to, you start your career thinking this is what financial planning is all about, only to find out years later.

At least this was my experience.

Find out years later, oh, that's what financial planning or being a financial advisor is really about.

So we got a four part episode miniseries on digging into the business of building and running an entire division of fee only financial planners.

So we're going to talk about our story a bit.

And through our story, I think we're going to be able to help create this comparison and help people walk through this topic and We've got a special guest with us today and it's one of our very own.

We love to brag about them.

I'm pretty excited about showing them off a little bit.

We've got our Senior VP of Financial planning, Jeff Chase with us.

It's going to be exciting.

And welcome to Ditch the Suits.

My name is Steve Campbell.

I serve as a Senior Marketing Director at Seed Planning Group.

My co host, Travis Moss is our Chief Executive officer and this show is all about us.

Seed is a fee only financial planning firm and so we want to bring you our collective experience and knowledge working in the industry so that you can get the most from your money in life.

Let's take a quick break to hear.

A word from your sponsor.

This episode is brought to you by Seed Planning Group.

If you're looking for a life giving experience working with a financial planner, then Seed is here for you.

Seed is a fee only financial planning firm with a fiduciary obligation to put your best interests first.

If your goal is financial freedom and independence without sales products or really glorified salespeople, then check out Seed Planning Group today you can visit www.seedpg.com.

that's www.seedpg.com.

and the best part, you can schedule a free consultation to find out if their fee only planners and their process are right for you.

Yeah.

So, Jeff, welcome.

Thanks guys.

I'm excited, excited to be here.

It's my first time on a podcast, so it's going to be fun.

Yeah, you'll be good.

This is my first time too.

It's always like the first time.

So I wanted to do a little bit of who was Jeff, but I didn't want you to have to just read your bio or something like that.

So, Jeff, you're our Senior VP of Financial Planning.

Senior.

In our language, senior means that you're actually an equity holder.

You're part of the leadership team at Seed, not to mention your job as far as leading the entire group of financial planners that we have.

But you've been in the industry a little bit before you came to Seed, and so I thought it'd be good to maybe share with our listeners a little bit about who you are, where you came from and maybe how you ended up at Seed.

Yeah, absolutely.

So how I ended up at Seed is quite the journey.

As you said, I was in the industry a little bit before I came to Seed.

I had about nine years in before I got here.

I'm about 13 years in now.

So in Seed years I've been here.

What 31 years or something.

We'll talk about that a little bit more in the future here.

Let's imagine 13 -9, that's 4 times 3, that's 12.

You're 12 in seed years.

12.

Okay, all right, a little bit off there, but yeah, I started kind of like what you were saying saying earlier, Travis.

Started at, I started at an insurance company actually.

So that's where I was, you know, kind of getting my, getting my feet wet, getting my licenses kind of as they say, getting your teeth knocked in a little bit.

But I, you know, that's where I got my, my initial experience into the business.

Right.

So they would come over to my desk, I remember they'd come in, they'd give you what they would call a stack of Orphid fleets.

And that was clients who, who didn't have an advisor.

Right.

So our job at that point was to call them, try to set up a time to go and review, let's say their life insurance policy.

Right.

So you're calling like, you know, 87 year old grandma with, you know, a $12,000 life insurance policy driving all over the state to go and you know, set up a, set up a meeting at her house and then you get to the doorstep and nobody answers.

Right.

So that was, that was an interesting foray into my career as a financial planner.

But I bounced around a little bit.

I've got a lot of experience in the business at this point, which I actually consider myself very lucky to have that experience.

Now.

I worked for an insurance company, like I said, I worked for a bank, worked for another small independent firm.

And that really gave me a wide range of topics and things that I was able to be exposed to.

Right.

So I now I'm very grateful for those opportunities, but there was always, always something missing there.

Right.

And that's kind of how I found myself here at Seed.

So.

Well, definitely gives you a good understanding of the industry.

I think when a lot of times people take things for granted that they haven't walked through.

When you come into the profession and you start at one part of the.

Because the industry is pretty broad, you've got, you've got everything from the commit the captive commission people all the way to the fee only people.

And in between is the fee based and you've got independent and quasi independent and all this other stuff.

You get registered representatives, investment advisor representatives.

You've got a lot of ways that the business can manifest.

You know, you can go and you can work at an insurance company and call yourself a financial advisor.

And sell insurance.

You can go and work at a broker dealer and sell stocks and bonds and call yourself an advisor.

And all you're doing is making commissions, too.

Like, there's a lot of different ways you can be advisor.

So you, similar to me and Steve, kind of walked that gamut trying to figure out where do I belong in this profession.

And I remember when I first met you, you were actually considering, like, if this is what the profession is about.

I'm not certain that I want to be in the profession anymore.

I.

I think that there was a point there where you had got enough teeth knocked out that you're just like, yeah, you know, I'm gonna be.

I'm gonna have dentures soon here if I don't make a change in my life.

So you.

I don't know if you want to talk about that, because that.

I remember that specifically about you.

You're like, look, you know, I thought this is what the industry was going to be because you have your.

Your background, I think, is business, right?

That's right.

Yep.

Yes.

So you got.

How did you get into financial plan?

Let's start there.

Let's go.

How did you get into financial planning?

Then tell the story about what you were thinking when we first met.

Do you want more of Ditch the Suits?

Well, let's take a break to tell you about our Patreon channel.

If you're wanting more announcements, notifications, even access to prior seasons, you can head to patreon.com search ditch the suits and subscribe to our channel.

You'll get notifications of all episodes right in your inbox.

So visit patreon.com search ditch the suits or head to our show Notes where we got links to our channel.

Yeah, so I went to school for business.

Always took a lot of the classes that were available.

You know, we had some actual financial planning classes.

Right.

So it would be.

There was one class that I took pertaining specifically to financial planning, or what they thought financial planning was.

There were investment classes, economics classes.

I always had an interest in that.

Right.

So that's kind of where I would take my electives because technically I went for management at Niagara University.

But one day, Prudential actually came to the school and they had kind of a meet and greet thing, and they were trying to figure out, you know, who.

Who they were going to choose as an intern.

And I kind of just, you know, I think they were there from like 8 to noon or something, and you could just walk in and meet them.

And I knew they were coming from Syracuse that's always where I wanted to end up back in Syracuse.

And I remember it was like 11:30, and it was like a half hour before it was ending.

And I'm like, you know what?

I just have this weird feeling that I should go down there.

So I.

I ran down there real quick, went and met with them.

They ended up, you know, liking me, offering me the job.

It was $18 an hour as an intern, thought I was rich.

It was the best.

When I got that job, I was like, oh, my God, $18 an hour.

It's unbelievable.

You know, I'm in college.

Like, if I had 20 bucks in my pocket, that was.

I felt like I was doing pretty good.

But I did a Yourself, too, by saying the $18.

Exactly.

Exactly $18 an hour.

Are you k.

Well, they could probably.

You know, the viewers can probably tell that from the lack of hair on the video here on my end.

But, yeah, that was.

It was a good experience.

I would say the internship, just kind of getting into the business, but I did a summer internship, and then when I went back to school for my senior year, continued on.

I would travel to Buffalo and do my internship there during school.

And then when I got out, right?

And this.

This kind of permeates throughout, right?

It's not just my first job.

It's all the places along the way that I ended up.

What you were saying, Travis, you're 100% right.

And that was literally our first conversation.

I was just very straightforward and honest with you.

I was like, this is not what I thought this business was.

This is kind of my last, you know, hurrah, right?

Before I give it up and do something else, right?

And here's the thing, too.

Like, I always.

I always did well, right?

I was doing well.

I just didn't like the sales aspect of it.

And I always felt like something was missing.

I would come home, you know, this was on, like a weekly basis, right?

I'd come home, I'd tell my wife, I'm like, I'm done.

I'm quitting.

I'm done with this.

I'm going and doing something else.

I'm going to go work in whatever real estate, right?

But I kept showing up, right?

And I don't know.

I don't know why I kept showing up, right?

I think a lot of it obviously had to do with.

I did have a real passion for this.

Like, this is what I wanted to do.

I think part of it also was fear of failure, right?

Like, I was already deep into it.

I had.

Right?

We were having Kids, we had a house, all that type of stuff.

And I almost left the industry.

But I remember talking to former colleague of mine, actually around that same time where I was deciding, you know, I kind of don't really want to do this anymore.

And she was like, listen, she's like, this industry, I'll never forget this.

She goes, this industry needs people like you, right?

And this is what SEED does.

Let me get you in contact with Travis.

Please, just give it one more shot.

So I remember when we met, I was like, this is amazing.

I remember going home.

I was talking to my wife about it.

I'm like, this is exactly what I want to do.

But you know, the way my mind thinks, right?

And all the experiences I had, I was like, what's the catch, right?

And now that I've been here for a while, right?

And I understand what we're all about, and that happened pretty early on.

But this is the real deal, right?

It bleeds through from us as leaders to the rest of the organization to our clients, into our broader communities as a whole, and now hopefully into the industry itself, right?

What we're building here.

So I'm just.

I'm very grateful and glad that I kept showing up day after day, even though I hated it, because now I realize that it was because I was supposed to be here at sea.

This is home for me.

Yeah, I think it was.

I think I remember our first meetings.

I remember the internal dialogue about, okay, we met this Jeff guy because we had met some other people right, at the same time that we were looking at bringing on.

And they had a lot of credentials and a lot more experience.

And I remember talking internally to the leadership team at the time.

We were a very small company at the time.

Time you came like, we're a small company now, but we were like a third of our size, I think maybe even a quarter.

And I remember saying, like, but this is somebody we can build around.

Because the.

The push was, well, let's get somebody, you know, with 20 plus years of experience who can step right in right away and maybe has some, you know, CFP or clus or other credentials and stuff like that.

And my point was, look, I've worked with a lot of people with credentials.

It's not the credential that makes them good.

It's the passion for what they're doing that makes them good.

Like, you can have all the standardized testing that you want, but if you don't live and breathe financial planning and the industry, you are not going to be that effective, right?

You'll be able to scoop by on it.

And people will say, oh, because their credential, they must be good.

But in reality, it's that time and that effort and that energy and that desire that makes you good.

I remember talking to them and saying, you know, yeah, I like this other guy too.

You know, you've got some credentials here and some experience, but Jeff is somebody that you can literally build a company around.

Not to pat you on the back too much here.

And, you know, I think we need to move that way because in five or six years, you know, and that's a lot of times what people don't understand is when you're, when you're working with anybody, if you're working on something like financial advising, and you're saying, look, these are my planners and they're going to put together plans for me, and this, these plans are going to shape the, you know, possibly the rest of my life.

You need to be thinking, five, six, seven years down the road, you need to be thinking, this person in front of me, can I trust them?

And, you know, like, in your case, where you're evolving and you still work with clients, but, you know, I've walked a path that ahead of you, and there's.

I do less client work now because I do more mentoring and coaching and working on the business.

And my job now has turned into making sure that we have the highest quality people in front of people that take care of them as we can.

And you're making a deal with the firm.

The firm is here to take care of you as a client.

So I think that it's really important with the leadership that we find people that have that kind of passion that are saying, I can't even explain it, but this is all I want to do.

And it's for the right reasons.

For you, it was never about money.

You know, none of our discussions were about money and what you could get out of it and things like that.

It was just simply about I, I was getting into financial planning and this is what I wanted to do.

And if that's not what it is, then I think I'm going to go do something else.

And I was like, no, it could be that.

Let's, let's get you in a situation where, where you can have that experience.

So now let's go forward and say, okay, so I talked you into this, right?

Somehow or somebody talked you into this.

It's like, okay, here's Jeff.

And I remember when you first started, and when you first started, we didn't Even have a training program.

Basically we brought you in and like, we did a little bit of training, but nothing like what we have now.

It was a lot more like learning from the other people around you and kind of self paced and that stuff.

Now it's much more structured.

But talk about that experience.

You came in as really what we would call a financial planner.

Yeah.

You know, cutting your teeth, you know, at the ground floor and kind of worked your way up through now to the VP of Financial planning, kind of.

How's that experience been?

Yeah, it's pretty cool to look back on it now, but the experience was great.

You know, when I came in, I kind of just did whatever I needed to do.

Right.

I wasn't trying to pigeonhole myself into, hey, I'm only going to do this, or I only like doing this.

It was just, what do you got?

Let me do it.

Right.

I'm ready to learn.

I'm ready to, ready to do whatever you need me to do.

But you're right, we didn't have a training program.

Right.

So a lot of it was working directly with you, Travis.

Right.

We do pool work.

You would give me, you know, certain things to work on with clients and I would kind of just pick up things along the way.

Right.

I described it as, or I describe it now as kind of just adding tools to my tool belt.

Right.

That's all I would do.

I was just trying to be a sponge.

I knew that most of the other people here that I was around knew a lot more than I did.

Right.

So anything that I could pick up and learn from them, whether it was from you, Steve, you, Travis, the other planners that we have, that was my whole mindset.

And you're right, it wasn't about money, it was about opportunity.

Right.

Because at that point, you know, I wanted to just, if I had the opportunity to actually do financial planning, something I was really, really passionate about, that's all I cared about.

The money will come.

Right.

That's not the most important thing.

But looking back on it now, probably the best decision, you know, I've made in my life besides marrying my wife.

You see what I did there?

But being, being here seriously on a serious notice made me a much better financial planner.

And I think it's the environment that accelerates your professional growth in that way.

Right.

We joke about earlier, right?

The 12 years or 31 years or whatever.

One year at seed is like seven years somewhere else.

I think about the new planners that we have coming in now and the things I didn't know when I came in.

And now, you know, the, the program that we have around them, the way we can put our arms around them and really teach them from day one.

Right.

The right way to do things.

So it's really cool.

It's an environment of constant learning, constant collaboration among team members.

You know, one of my favorite sayings is iron sharpens iron, right?

And that's, that's what we do here, right.

We have strong leadership, strong culture, and if you marry that with something that you really love, it's all you can ask for.

Yeah, I think it's really neat when I watch the work.

And for those that don't know, we have, we call it the pit.

All of our offices are set up so that everybody just works in a common area and then they go off to the conference rooms for phone calls or meetings or whatever.

And so our most experienced people and our least experienced people are sitting right next to each other and get to hear each other talk and what they're working on.

And so the amazing thing to me is having started in this profession in my twenties and working my way through.

Same thing with you, Steve.

Same thing with you.

The stuff that our planners in their early 20s now are doing is more advanced than the stuff 20 and 30 year planners were doing when I started in the profession.

You know, and there's this stigma with young people in the generation and blah, blah, blah, blah.

You put them in the right environment, you know, because of their abilities with technology and, and frankly, if you get young people that, if you get the right young people, you know, you get that energy bang.

It's, it's, it's amazing.

But now you look at them and you see these really, really just incredible work that's being done at a very young age, which for our industry is not typical.

It's very not tip.

It's very atypical to find 20 year old, you know, people in their 20s.

So I don't want to say 20 year old, but people in their 20s that are really, really effective financial planners.

And not only that, but they're like, they're pushing to get to the next level where most of the time in our industry you're just starting to kind of figure out where you are in your 30s and then maybe in your 40s to develop a little bit of a specialty and then you kind of just sit on your hands for the next 10 or 15 years and then sell your book and retire or something like that.

Right?

Like that's kind of, we've got like people really pushing the Boundaries.

And then I would say that's in large part about the work that you do, which we're going to talk about in some of our next episodes.

But certainly, you know, that seems to be part of the, the journey that you've been asked seed, because like I, I think you were saying, let me check my notes here.

Just the opportunity over money.

And so really long winded tangent.

Let's, let's throw that out there.

We've got like one or two more questions for this episode I want to get to, but this kind of sparked me a little bit.

If you were to talk to, and you do all the time, if you do a meet and greet with prospective employee, what are you telling them about the industry and about that journey through the industry and what they don't know and the importance of opportunity over money right now.

Yeah.

So I tell them the story.

And I think, just going back to your previous point, I know we're talking about something else now, but you're 100% spot on with the pushing.

I remember you telling me, right when I first came in, you're like, I need you to push, push these, these other planners who are here too, right.

Push them to become better, push yourself so that we're all getting better as a team.

And that's, that's something that I've tried to allow to kind of permeate, continue on, right.

Go through our team going forward.

That is still the focus, right.

But what I tell planners, new people that were we're interviewing, I tell them my story, right, of how I started in the business and, you know, some of the good and some of the bad, right.

There's a lot of good that came out of it.

There's a lot of experiences where I feel like I have a wide range of knowledge that I can talk about.

Right.

I can really help people with a broad range of things.

But at the same time, being able to start at a place like this where you're allowed to come in and grow, right.

In the right way, it's invaluable.

And I'm going to give everybody laughs because I give a lot of golf, a lot of golf analogies.

I'm going to give you another one.

Right.

And I tell this to new hires as well.

Anybody who's listening to this right now, if you're a golfer, right.

You know that it usually, if you don't get professionally taught from day one, right.

How to swing a golf club takes a long time.

It takes like 10, 15 years to figure it out.

And that's what I've had to do.

Right.

It's the same thing with, with being a financial planner.

Took me a long time to piece the things together to really become, you know, effective.

If you get taught early on the right way how to swing a club, you are so much better off right in the long run.

And that's, that's the analogy that I use with new planners that come in.

So I really just tell my story.

I tell them what this place is really going to be able to do for them, and I give them real world examples of what it's done for the planners who we've brought onto our team, including myself.

All right, so I think, I think for our first episode, this pretty good.

We'll get Steve talking a little bit more the next one.

But this was really good to kind of set the table to dig more into the industry and more into really understanding what a real financial advisor is and what it takes to be one and you know, how to identify it one when you find one.

So we'll get into that and starting in our next episode.

And I want to leave a little bit of a cliffhanger here.

Let's start the next episode with what is one thing that you would actually change about the industry?

Thanks for checking out Ditch the Suits.

Be sure to write a review or drop a comment about this episode.

And if you want more like this, head over to ditchesuits.com you can send us a message and get in touch.

Let us know how we can help and be sure to share any topics you'd be interested in having us cover on the show.

We're here to help you get the most from your money in life.

Thanks for being our guest and checking out Ditch the Suits.