Posts
.jpg)
Hello Everyone,
First of all, thank you for visiting my blog. Having a platform like this has been on my “To Do” list for way too long and I'm happy that it has finally come to fruition. The goal here is to provide a place for open communications on things I feel are important to convey about my business, information on the market and economy, and to hear feedback from you. After reading a few of my posts, you should start to get a better sense of who I am and what I stand for, where I experience difficulties (yes, it may be hard to believe, but I work in a difficult industry), and of course give mention to successes along the way.
My Background
I spent my preteen years growing up around Yosemite National Park, CA, but as the late 1980s became a struggle for my parents to make a living in a faltering economy, we relocated to Seattle, WA where jobs were in abundance. I would spend the next 19 years living in the Seattle area and it was a blast. I was lucky enough to live in Seattle during a time when the Seattle music scene was taking the world by storm. I attended shows small shows where Nirvana, The Presidents of the United States of America, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, and the Foo Fighters played. (If you have not heard of these bands, don’t worry, I won’t judge you for being under-cultured.)
Ultimately, I wanted to have fun on stage like the bands I would go see, so I took up playing the drums and played in a few bands and actually got pretty good. As I neared the end of high school, I began to enjoy the audio engineering, or recording arts, aspect of the industry and earned an Associate degree in Audio Engineering in the late 1990s.
After college, I worked for an electronics manufacturing company where I was most proud of helping develop process improvement programs that saved the company over $250,000 each year in production waste and mistakes. I loved my job and the people I worked with but the job was outsourced to China in 2003. I wasn’t disappointed one bit because I took the opportunity to earn a B.S. in Business Administration. I simply loved the business and finance portion of my job and wanted to continue a career in business.
During my time in college, I also took up day trading and gained an infatuation with a simple financial planning software program developed my Microsoft called Money. I would run scenario after scenario to see how little tweaks would affect my wealth 40 years in the future. I was hooked. I kept very close track of our income and expenses and constantly ran reports for my wife to review. I would show her how her continued 4.3% monthly increase in Starbucks spending would affect her retirement savings in 2044. As you can probably tell, the response was not positive like I had expected, so kept most reports to myself and studied them intently. I was so enthusiastic with my new hobby that it rubbed off on friends and family and they wanted me to look over what they had going for them. I enjoyed the consulting work so much that I helped everyone who wanted help for free. I couldn’t imaging getting paid for something I enjoyed doing so much. Well that mindset changed when I began scouting financial advisory companies that I thought were a good fit for my growth as a financial planner.
It was a strange time to seek a career in finance because many finance companies were on the search for great advisors, so I felt like I was actually interviewing the companies to see if it was a good fit for me rather than I a good fit for them. All in all, it came down to my top three: Edward Jones, AXA Advisors, and Ameriprise Financial (a spinoff of American Express Financial Advisers). I decided to go with Ameriprise because they had one of the best training platforms in the financial services industry and focused on comprehensive financial planning, not "stockbrokering". (In fact, according to a book I thumbed through a few times in the Ameriprise lunch room on the history of Ameriprise—a topic for another post—Ameriprise would lose some of its best advisers to its competitors because competitors would wait for Ameriprise to train them, then recruit them.)
Moreover, I liked how the focus was around professional development and financial planning, but ultimately disliked writing financial plans for the purpose of selling proprietary products like variable universal life insurance. To me it seemed to be a huge conflict of interest when we could only sell their insurance products. Things may have changed now, but during my time there in 2005-2007 I experienced that conflict of interest over and over.
There was also a lack of focus on educating financial advisors around more sophisticated asset management and financial planning strategies that would help people navigate through difficult times like these…and I know this continues to be a weakness of theirs because I occasionally call some of my old buddies to talk about our respective businesses and the strategies advisors continue to use with their clients and feel reassured that my decision to leave Ameriprise was truly for the better. They still sell the same stuff and most advisers still lack in-depth knowledge of the markets, and alternative financial planning strategies. Okay enough with Ameriprise. It was a great company to start with and good for clients who are new to financial planning and need help.
During my stint at Ameriprise, my wife and I had our first child and we knew very little about taking care of a baby. I took a month or so off of work to get a handle on baby raising and went back to my two hour daily commute a changed man…which the commute wasn’t a huge issue before we had a baby; but after several months of leaving home before my daughter got up and getting home when she was already in bed for the night, I realized my job and commute wasn't worth missing out on my daughters first few years of life. I began to ponder what it would be like to work as an independent financial advisor. On the bright side, the commute gave me the opportunity to come up with better ways of serving clients, being with my family more, and of course that Northwest brewery tour I’ve always dreamed of going on.
I kept my options wide open and ended up locating a financial adviser position in Arcata, CA of all places. Where the heck was Arcata my wife and I first asked each other? Well we located it on the map and realized that it was only two hours north of where my father lives in Mendocino County. “Oh, we love that area of the CA coast,” we both shouted. So, I responded to the job posting, but did not plan to drive down for an interview due to the 650 mile drive. Soon thereafter though I received an email from my father telling me that my grandfather had passed away and the viewing was in Willits, CA. I immediately made the trek down to Willits to pay my respects and be with my father for a few weeks. On my way back home I stopped by the Raymond James office in Arcata to meet with the owner, Hans Overturf, for a face-to-face interview. The interview went well and my 10 hour drive back up to Seattle was full of excitement. My wife and I discussed the pros and cons of relocating, starting a financial planning practice from scratch in an area I knew absolutely no one...and decided to go for it. It sounded adventurous to us. So we rented out our home and officially relocated in early May 2007.
Adventurous was an understatement...
I got off to a quick start by taking a lot of folks out to lunch to explain the differences between financial advisers and financial planners, but after taking over 200 people out to lunch, I realized that seminars may serve as a less expensive and more productive means of educating people in Humboldt County and working for them as their financial adviser. The three seminars over my 20 months with Hans worked well (and I enjoy public speaking).
Admittedly, cold-calling is not my forte, so I spent more time in the community developing strong relationships with business owners, individuals and families, and other professionals in my industry. If you are a fan of being cold-called and believe I am crazy for not calling you out of the blue, then I apologize for not calling. My hard-sell training at Ameriprise doesn't work with Humboldt residents and thankfully, because I hate pushy sales myself too.
Ultimately, my decision to focus on building public relations first resulted in a much slower process for building a financial practice, but did improve our overall public image. Unfortunately the stigma from events stemming from Hans' involvement with the Redwood Lodge in Del Norte County was too much to overcome. I started to get question after question about his involvement in the Redwood Lodge from prospects. In time, I think my growing disconnect from Hans and a growing concern for my and Hans' clients, led me to where I am now.
I wanted to provide a level of business and financial services not found in Humboldt County or anywhere along the North Coast, so I had to go out and start my own financial services firm. Although the process started in late November 2008, I officially become a Registered Investment Adviser (RIA)with the State of California on January 20th, 2009. This move came from five months of interviewing other RIAs and my own research regarding the significant benefits to working as a fee-only financial adviser. I am very excited because it is no doubt the choice best suited for my clients, future clients, and the overall future expansion of my practice. I am now able to reduce client portfolio costs, expand technology, add nearly 150 years of independent equity research experience, and develop personal advisory councils for clients who require more complex financial solutions. I am now working with managed portfolios, writing financial plans, as well as writing business plans for people who want to start or expand a business. For dental professionals, I have a team of professionals who specialize in finance, tax, law, psychology, and technical writing who will help with setting up a pension plan, transitioning a practice to a new associate, or help avoid the "tax spiral".
And to think all this is available here in Humboldt County.
End Note
...If you are interested in learning about the reason why Hans Overturf had to transition from Raymond James to Sterne Agee by December 31, 2008, please contact Raymond James directly. I can answer some of your questions, but it's best if you contact Raymond James. If you have concern about your accounts now held at Sterne Agee or Raymond James, again please call Raymond James' compliance department. If you need the phone number email me or call 415-391-6800. I apologize, but the details are not appropriate for this blog due to the many people involved and the need to protect all the affected parties...
-