Welcome And Guest Overview

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Influential Advisor Podcast. Today, my co-host Gabe McManus and I are joined by Connor Delaney, founder and CEO of Good Life Companies, a platform supporting more than 200 independent financial advisors nationwide. Connor started as an advisor at 19 and has grown his firm from $40 million to nearly $20 billion in assets under management. In this conversation, we explore the identity shift from advisor to CEO, why most independent advisors become their own bottleneck, and how what Connor calls supported independence is giving advisors a different way to build their businesses and their lives.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Doing well, man. How about yourself? We're doing great. Awesome. First, Connor, we wanted to ask you, could you start off just by telling us your background and where'd you start out and what led you to where you're at today?

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Sure. I have the great opportunity to shepherd this business here called Good Life and have been the chief executive here. I think last week was 14 years since the business kind of got off the ground and whatnot. My orientation has always been professionally as a financial advisor. I started as an advisor actually as a teenager, with my story being just slightly unique in terms

Connor’s Story And Servant Leadership

SPEAKER_02 1:27

of how I got to where I am today, in that I was fortunate enough to be raised by two parents that were servant leaders at their core. They were both school teachers. And my father was somebody that always really looked up to and wanted to emulate and really model a lot of my behaviors as I would become an adult after him. And my experience was that my father passed away the day after I graduated high school, a couple days thereafter. And I had this cool opportunity in the midst of a really sad time to reflect on his life and the purpose that he had as a fifth-grade school teacher. And it was really cathartic in many ways to me because I saw for two days at his wake in his funeral, and then at his funeral, just the outpouring of love that people had for him because of his servant heart that he brought to his job for 30-something years and a successful 30-year marriage, a successful 30-year career. And I really made up my mind in that point. If I could do something that he would model the behaviors of my dad, that would be a cool call-in for my life. Even to the point where at his eulogy, I kind of closes eulogy with a quote from Ralph Alder Emerson, talks about the true definition of success, to leave the world a better place than it was when you got there, to earn the respect of honest critics, to leave a smile on the face of a child and know that even one life is breathed easier because you've lived that success. And that kind of became this sort of North Star for me, where my dad always tied success to what he didn't have around him. So we grew up in a place that was super high net worth. And my dad being a school teacher, we were sort of the outcast, right? And so he was like, I'm not successful because I don't have this and this. But the fruit of his labor was a body of work that had an entire community impacted when he was no longer with us. And so I got out of my journey and said, How do I do that? And what's the best place for me to operate and be able to serve others that way? And I got brought into this career as a financial advisor. As a sophomore in college, got licensed between my freshman and sophomore year, and started to work with people that reminded me of my dad. Almost to the point where I had like a chip on my shoulder, where uh my thing going into it was that if somebody would have cared for my father's financial plan, then his kids wouldn't have been homeless when they were 17 and we wouldn't have had those financial struggles. I wouldn't change what had happened because it created this like opportunity and this weird butterfly effect that if my dad doesn't die, then there's no good life today. If my dad doesn't die, there's no wife, there's no five kids, there's no all these other blessings that have come into my life. And this business being a blessing over what I think is our calling in this industry, uh, but it gave me this opportunity to go and work with the school teachers and the small business owners and all those people that nobody really cared about. That's what I did for the first five years of my career until I came over to the independent side and started to build out the business as we have it today, which is several hundred advisors around the country.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

What led to that transition? I know in a previous conversation we had, there was a very unique moment that led you to the independent side. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Yeah, I was fortunate enough to work at a company that really deeply ingrained in us this idea of financial planning. And that was awesome because it gave me those core tenants that I needed to bring success to the school teachers and whatnot. But I was noticing that like we were kind of

Why Independence Becomes Necessary

SPEAKER_02 4:41

outgrowing that space. There was maybe a thousand advisors at that previous company. And for me, it was there was a couple of moments in our journey where I was realizing that what we were building and who I was building it with, that the business construct that we were in didn't really give us the ability to paint that canvas the way that we wanted to. And to for me, I wanted to really go out of my way to honor my partner. She was the backbone of what so many things that we did in our early years. But the way the business was constructed in that other company was such that I was getting all the accolades and the credits and all this stuff. And as the rules continue to change across the board, I started to realize hey, we have to have control over not just the experience as we are getting it as advisors, but the experience that we're bringing to our clients, really moving from that culture of sales, which is where the business was starting to go, into this culture of service. Understanding that if service is the subject, and then the sales being the predicate is not a bad thing. A lot of times there's this idea that you have to be selling stuff all the time in order to be successful. I like to believe that if you take that servant's heart and if you are willing to play the long game, that service will always lead to the growth of an organization, the growth of a business, as long as you do it well and you do it with authenticity and things like that. So we got over and started our independent journey in 2012. And right out of the gate, it was awesome. We could create whatever culture we wanted to, we could create any processes we wanted to, but at the same time, it was terrifying because there wasn't anything. It was a blank dry race board. And we quickly realized that there is a big difference between being a financial advisor inside of somebody else's ecosystem and then having to build the ecosystem yourself. And there's not really a training manual for that. Certainly before Good Life came into the picture, there wasn't anybody really in the industry that did that. So you have this independent business that in the 1980s and 1990s, the value proposition was, hey, we're gonna pay you everything we can because there's nothing behind this curtain. Then that kind of shifted with the advent of technology and such to say, okay, we're still gonna pay you significantly more than you can get in any of the big wire houses, the big names and whatnot. But technology means you're not doing 100% of the work, you're doing like 80% of the work or 90% of the work. And so there wasn't anybody to help fill that gap to help orient myself and my partner to becoming a chief executive, right? On this independent journey, we talk to our advisors every day in one of three veins: advisor, CEO, and shareholder. And when you think about each one of those, they all come up with different needs and different scorecards, so to speak. So, as an advisor, when I'm talking to a guy that's at somewhere else, not independent, he doesn't know what he doesn't know. So it's a hard journey a lot of times to tell them that because they just see high payouts. But I need to speak in that first thing, advisor. What are my capabilities? Who are the guys I'm lining up with, left or right, and will they be able to support that business? Two, CEO, through that CEO lens, how can I cast a vision and how do I have the right tools around my ecosystem to execute that vision? And then three, what's the shareholder impact? Me being the shareholder. So I joke with people if you're not schizophrenic going independent, you certainly are later on, because the reality is like you're having these weird conversations, like, hey, I gotta go talk to my advisor about this stuff because the CEO is saying that the advisor's not performing. Hey, Mr. Advisor, and you're saying you're wearing the different hats, but when you can take that specific time to say, I'm going to be working on my business through this vein, I'm going to be in my business here, and I'm going to understand the implication to the enterprise value of my business. If you're not doing those three things, then you're missing out.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Connor, Gabe and I are currently writing a book about really the constraints that advisors have, time, but it's also really about the identity shift. Because most all advisors don't start out as a CEO, they start out as an advisor. And the ones that become successful at a certain point realize that they only have so many hours in the day, as we all realize at some point. And I think they have to make a shift or a choice at

The Three Hats Advisor CEO Owner

SPEAKER_01 8:49

some point. Am I the advisor or am I the CEO? And to pick a lane. I'd love to first just maybe go a little bit deeper in terms of your own journey because you started out like most advisors, you were an advisor and then you had success and you decided to make this transition into independence and become the CEO. And if correct me if I'm wrong, you've gone from that starting point to now a very successful business. Just your own personal journey. Can you just expand a little bit just what that looked like? What were some of the successes? What were some of the challenges for you personally?

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Yeah, sure. So I remember sitting in my boardroom early on, and that we were dealing with the complexities of a growing business. And I forget what the scenario was, but five or six sets of eyeballs were looking at me, like, hey, what planet are we calling here? And I remember being like, guys, I don't know if you know this or not, but there's no manual for how to do this. There's no CEO for dummy books. So when you are a dummy, it's you were further reduced in terms of your capabilities because I'm walking this out for the very first time. Whatever that scenario is, the first SEC audit, the first client complaint, the first time that you cross a certain threshold that's meaningful in the industry. We came and we started as independent advisors with $40 million in assets under management. And today we'll probably close this year close to $20 billion with a little bit of right direction north of $20, $20 billion. So $40 million to $20 billion. That's a lot of learnings along the way that you're gonna have happen there. I would say like one of our biggest learnings is that advisors are so many of us got into this business with a sort of similar to my to mine, maybe not as dark in terms of those early years when I was a kid, but with the goal to leave our families in a better position, to empower and equip our family with better financial resources, to serve other people, to bring the knowledge of creating that Mona Lisa for every financial plan we do in a cool and unique way, in a customized way. We all like that, those first 150 appointments we did, we were so excited and whatnot. But very few know that the requirement at some point will be to make that transition to CEO. And even fewer of those that figure that out are successful in doing that. And the reason is because it doesn't exist, there's no playbook. It's almost like when you go into medical school and you become a doctor that you spend 10 years cramming all this knowledge into your head, and then they have their residencies and all this other stuff. But how many doctors are equipped to be the chief executives of that business? It's the same lawyers, same thing, auto mechanics, same thing. There's a distinct difference from being that shareholder and owner of the business, being the guy that's executing the vision of the business, and being the person in the trench. And maybe there's a reason why these big firms are able to get away for decades with offering people a 30% payout, because the exchange of that is that you don't have to go and become a CEO. And a lot of people will land in that spot to say, look, I'm making three, four, five, six hundred thousand dollars a year. Mighty fine was that outcome. But it the calling and the trends, the callings on these advisors' lives, the trends that we're seeing in the industry is pushing more people to the IBD space. And frankly, if you then reverse it and say, what's the best thing for that client is to get that independent advice that's not tied to products, that's not tied to grids, it's not tied to a culture that doesn't honor the client first. And when advisors see that, this is the coolest thing about our industry. When advisors see the four quadrants of life, I know what I know, I know what I don't know, I don't know what I know, and I don't know what I don't know. And we're intentionally kept in that I don't know what I don't know category for so long that once these people realize, hey, wait a second, I can serve my clients better and more agnostically, if I can go from this quadrant of I don't know what I don't know to this quadrant of I now know and I can't unknow what's actually happening behind the scenes, they're willing to make that jump to independence at the cost of their sanity in many cases, because it's the best thing for the clients. They're oriented to do what's best for the clients from day one. The challenge is that you have a $35 trillion industry today. That industry is going to $70 trillion over the next 10 years. The people serving that industry is going to go from 286,000 to 283,000. So you have an industry that doubles in size with a trend towards the IBD space, and you don't have enough people to take care of them. And how do I know that? Because we can't serve the ones we have already today without the right processes, procedures, and policies in place. So that then when you think about the current state of advisors today, 71% of advisors have or are contemplating divorce. 73% of advisors have or will have type 2 diabetes. 77% of advisors wish that they had a better relationship with their kids. A little bit subjective, but the point is, guys, is that they're taking home all the anxiety from what happens in here every night. And they're trying to be present and they're trying to be good at everything else, but they're taking so much of this stuff home because they don't have those processes. And now they got to be a great financial advisor and a great chief executive, and it's hard to do.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Connor, what are you doing to help advisors change that that trend and to make improvements in their life as they're finding sit more and more success in the work that they're doing?

SPEAKER_02 14:34

I think if you start the journey at where I was when I was 20, 19, where advisors are when they're 19, 20, 21, getting in. We all made this trade. And the trade, the question was, what are you willing to do to be successful? And the answer was, whatever

Industry Growth And Advisor Burnout

SPEAKER_02 14:48

it takes. Whatever it takes, it took a lot. It took your health, it took your bed times, it took your mind, it took your relationships, it took your everything. You traded date nights with your wife for happy hours. And now these advisors are 40, 45, 50 years old saying, I want to get that back. And my commitment is like, hey guys, we will do what we can and equip you with the tools you need so that your next 20 is better than your last 20. How do we do that? One, I think it starts at the top. I was never willing to make that trade. I had the good fortune of marrying my best friend, and we've been together since we're 17 years old. And somebody told me the first month in business, and I'll never forget it. Always make Liz your number one client. And if Liz is, what are you willing to do for your number one client? Whatever it takes. Anything. That client needs you at one o'clock in the morning, you answer the phone. You got to make sure that you're honoring that relationship first. One. Two is I think that you have to the rest of the body work has to also there, you need to be a leader worth following. And so that's the core thing that we've tried to build here. Is my leadership team are just incredible people that we don't do everything right, but we try to do enough thing right. So when you put together that total body of work, you would look and say, hey, how do we plug into that system? Because those people are capable and they're people that we would want to follow. And then the second is awesome. So we have identified the problem that 71, 73, 77, that our advisors are taking home too much anxiety and stress, and that there's complexities to being a great CEO that don't exist when you're just being an advisor under somebody else's organization, but you are doing it their way, not doing the client experience your way, and you don't get the opportunity to build what's going to be your largest asset. So we have so we acknowledge that we see that, right? Then you have to be the leadership team in the organization worth following because of the body of work there. Third is you have to build those tools and capabilities to help them get there. And that's where we've really spent the time over the course of the last couple of years, really, to get at the right altitude with the advisor to not state the problem, but be in the trench with them to solve that problem. And so one of the things that we're doing right now, and what we've built out, we call the front office of the future. And what it is, it's automation, which is common, and automation's been around for years and years, meeting the advisor and his needs. Automation is around for many years, but it's still hard to do, and it's hard to expensive and it needs to be refined all the time, et cetera. But it's there. Automation sits here, advisor sits in the middle, and then logic and reason sits on the right. And what I mean by logic and reason is it's the ability to take the automation and the human capital needs that are there and then start to leverage that in a way that's unique to have in our world what we're doing is we're building a digital workforce that's allowing our advisors to get that time back. So the client coming into the office for the first time, that process of taking them through that financial planning journey, even if they don't do a full plan, they're just there for a product solution or for

Building A Digital Front Office

SPEAKER_02 17:41

a strategy based on a transaction that's happening in their life. They lost their job, they're selling their house, a parent died. There's an inheritance, there's a transaction that needs to get done. So you have a full financial plan, you have a product, CD CD came due, or you have a scenario, right? Each one of those are going to require some sort of data collection or something that's going to change what it's going to require me to do something. That process is exits today, takes about seven hours. Meet with the client, do all the data collection, you get the redundancy of data, then you got to present to the client, then you got to do all the paperwork, then you got to do more paperwork, then you got to put them into a CRM system that's probably broken, then you got to segment, but I can't segment because I love all my clients equally. So, what we've done is we've said, okay, we're not going to say, hey, look at all the shiny stuff on a shelf that you can use. Because if I give them a good idea, it sits right in the corner with the rest of the good ideas that everybody's given them. They're too busy to get to that stack of papers. By the way, it sits with the client stuff that you need to get to and the data collection that you were supposed to do two weeks ago and all of this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

From your experience, why isn't that? Because if anything, I don't think information is the problem. We're, I think we have too much information, possibly too many good ideas. Just from your observations, why is it that execution doesn't happen the way that we would want them to?

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Because the advisor is the bottleneck for everything. Every process, every problem, every solution, everything, everything. The advisor's a bottleneck. If the advisor's not the bottleneck, their admin is a bottleneck. So you have key man risk in both of those scenarios, by the way, which is why it drives down the valuation of the businesses, why we're forever in a buyer's market because the sellers, hey, I'll do whatever I can to get out. And the first question the buyer always asks is, How much is this business going to lose if you're not in it? And they say, Yeah, certainly I need to be in it as long as I can because I built this thing with sticks and bubblegum and Elmer's Blue. I don't actually have that core fundamental in place where we're teaching our advisors to push back against those valuations and say, no, wait a second. Actually, I would submit that if you take Connor out and you put somebody in, the business might be worth more, to be honest with you. Because I don't have all those emotional ties or whatever, but I've built the right framework and capabilities that absent of me, the business is still going to be just fine. That, in my opinion, would change the complete value of businesses where they go from that three to maybe four X multiple, something that drives significantly higher. Because when you really peel it all back, this business is a recurring business. If you can create a wide moat in terms of the revenues, then you're looking more at the valuations of those of a multi-level marketing, that recurring consistent wide mode revenue than you would of a transaction that might go down because the advisor got hit by a car.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

And that gets back to what you said earlier about there's really the three roles. There's the advisor role, there's the CEO role, but then there's a shareholder role, and that just underscores the importance of the shareholder role. You've talked to us in a previous call about your model. I believe you call it supported independence. Can you expand on that and how you help the advisors that affiliate with you appropriately calibrate towards those three roles?

SPEAKER_02 20:48

Absolutely. So I'll give you an example. So if you have, so let's say an advisor is casting a vision for the year, he's playing that CEO hat, that second tier, and he's saying, Hey, my goal this year is I want 40 new clients. And he announces to his admins, I want we're getting 40

Fixing The Bottleneck And Valuations

SPEAKER_02 21:03

new clients this year. Halfway through the year, you look at the work that's been done, he's trying to check and he's taking on the anxieties and he's got a couple data collections on his desk or whatever, but he's done six. And so right now, the typical response for most advisors is like, hey, I'm trying. There's no accountability framework, there's no accountability partner. But look, I'm still making a couple hundred grand a year. Family's happy, I'm finding the balance, and I'm doing the very best I can. Okay. As the shareholder, I'm probably looking to fire that CEO, who's me, by the way, in this scenario, right? And immediately looking to replace an advisor who's not doing what he said he was going to do and not following along the business plan, who's also me. And what we've done is we've empowered these guys to say, Hey, you're not on an island by yourself. That's not a you problem, because the you problem can be like, hey, I tried, especially if there's no accountability partner with that. It's an hour problem. So you're at six, you want it to be at 40, which means in July you should be at twenty. You're at six. So, what if there's a scenario where instead of you sitting there saying, I'm doing the best I can, and maybe I'll try harder the second half of the year, we're coming to you and saying, you know what? Here's three good ideas for you. One, we have lawyers and accountants in town. We did a radius search, it's about 11 in the area. We're gonna set up, not you, we're not giving you an idea. We're doing it with you and for you. We're gonna set up 11 lunches for you where you can go out and interview those people, and then we'll create the JVs that we can revenue share with them because we have the capabilities to revenue share through a above-board white-collar referral program here between you and those accountants. Does that work for you, Mr. Advisor? All you gotta do is this. I'll do the rest of the work. Marquim will take care of everything else, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Yeah, it's significant because Gabe and I work with a ton of advisors, and one of the perennial things that comes up is okay, we want more COIs, we want more COIs, and there's a very small group of people that have seemed to that do really well with it. Most people have spent time, energy, effort, and building relationships with accountants and CPAs, but oftentimes they aren't bearing the fruit of it. So just what you said there, that you not only get an idea, but you help actually make it happen. Can you go a little bit deeper on that?

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Yeah, absolutely. So let's continue to point out your scenario. Why doesn't it work? Why do they have a Rolodex full of people, but the revenue is not coming in? Because the advisor's a bottleneck again. So now you come back from those 11 lunches and you say, Hey, I got four that I really hit it off with. I'd love to see how we could do more business together. Say no more. I'll set up the revenue sharing. I, Good Life, sets up the revenue sharing with that advisor and the cadence by which you're gonna have the accountability with the advisor and that professional referral exchange. So now there's now you're putting that framework in place. How much has the advisor done so far? He had a lunch with it, guys. Gotta eat. Then in advance of that quarterly meeting, the activation team at Good Life is sending over to the accountant and CPA firm, hey, here's the agenda that Tom, our leader, is gonna walk through with you on lunch next week. Open cases in the pipeline, ideas that he's bringing you that you might be able to accelerate as you're meeting with your clients, Mr. Accountant, etc. You're putting the framework and the execution not in front of the advisor for him to do more work, but for him to be the beneficiary of that outcomes. All my guys need, all our guys need, all advisors want are those at bats to make a difference. And we're gonna put together the right growth strategy for them to get those at bats. But we can't do that if we don't solve the rest of those problems. So we look at in really five key areas that growth sleeve. How are we going and bringing new ideas? So that guy that wants 40 gets 40. Second, what happens when the client walks into the office? How are we triaging those different ways? Is it a full plan, a transactional plan, a product plan, etc.? Third is what does that onboarding process look like to make sure that we eliminate as much redundancy? Because a lot of clients fall off when they have to fill out the same paperwork seven times. It's like I took my daughter to the doctor the other day. They send you a text message, fill all the paperwork out, fill it all out, taking the time on my tiny screen to play with the buttons and do all this stuff. And I walk into the doctor's office thinking I'm a good boy and I got ahead of it. What do they hand do? Clipboard it.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Oh, we gotta redo it again. Then I just do that.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Let's eliminate redundancies and put the right framework in that onboarding process. Then let's take emotion out and just work with you on segmentation in a pragmatic way that allows you to have the conversation that honors the client, but that there's a distinct difference between the clients where they are in their journey, whether you said that by age, by account size, by need, whatever the case is, but we'll work with you on segmentation. And then finally, service. What is that ongoing service that the advisor needs to have the right capabilities behind him with the custodian, the broker dealer? But we can't solve that one through five. We can't go growth to service. Where we've built it out is what does that meeting look like when the prospect walks in? We call it prospect to client. That goes then to figure out CRM. So we go two, four, three, five, one. Because if I fix growth first for the advisors practice, if I don't overhaul the whole infrastructure of this current business, how he's doing it today, and I just throw more growth at him, he's 71, 73, 77, it's gonna be in the 90s. We have to put the right structure in place and then give them the way to take advantage of what's out there. These guys don't have to go out and start knocking on doors the old school way. The circumstances is doing that for them. The industry doubles in 10 years by trillions and trillions of dollars. Yeah, we just have to be in the right power to catch that. We need to look the best that we can to catch those relationships when they walk in the door.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

With that right structure in place, what meaningful differences have you seen in these advisors' experience where it's changed things forever for them and they're able to not have those bad outcomes and they're finding success with the growth that they're experiencing? What's happening as they start following that right structure?

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Yeah, I think it's all great ideas until you look at the data and make sure the data supports the hypotheses, right? And so we're fortunate enough that our partner advisors here grew the last two years at 34% a year.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Do you know what the industry average is of how that compares?

SPEAKER_02 27:13

So the industry average, if you took it to markets gains last year and you put net new assets and organic growth on top of it, you might be in the mid-teens. So our gosh at 34%, you had market tailwinds meeting some net new organic growth. Okay. But then if you just strip out all the market growth, the industry average is three percent for organic growth. Our number was 10 and a half. So best in class is high single digits. And so to me, then if you look at this and really coming back to what we think as a firm here is like we're really in a mission field where we are helping advisors get back that time, that we're helping advisors improve and if make efficient their cash flow. We're helping to transform that end client experience. And if you do those things, those three things, their enterprise values going through the roof. And so it starts to the juice starts to become worth the trade, but worth the squeeze, making that transitions from that pure sit at a desk, be advisor, but give up 70 cents in a dollar to a world where you're netting out 60, 65, 70 cents in a dollar, and you've built a multi-million dollar legacy for your family.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

And in this model, just for my identifications, it's they're still independent, they're affiliated with your platform. The enterprise value belongs to them. Is that correct? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

Yeah, 100%. That's the way that that we've always built our business, even to the extent that I think humility is a great trait for an organization to be able to demonstrate and consistent basis. And even to the extent that like we have offices that call themselves Good Life, we tend to think it's a cool name. But but 85% of our advisors operate under their own DBA. Of that 85%, 90% of them didn't have a DBA until they came here. And it was actually through a cool curated experience that we gave them that helped them to really distinguish who they wanted to be in their local community. And then we build the brand around them. So their websites, their social presence, their all their SEO, all their AEO, all that stuff is being done behind the scenes. So the advisor gets to be the thing that sits out front, but behind the scenes is the army at Good Life that's helping them to transform the way that their business is being operated every day.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

I think that's one of the key things for an entrepreneur and being independent is that desire to have that freedom to make choices and to follow your own path. And to everything that you've said so far, by the same token, not everyone is equipped to take on all those roles and all the different bubbles that are there. So it just seems like it's a really good balance between independence and the support that you provide. Do you have any examples or stories? And you can use your names or not, whichever you prefer, of any of the people that are affiliated with you that stand out to you in terms of just really doing well.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Sure. And so when I think about the journey that a lot of these advisors are on, and even the one that I was on when I was full time in as an advisor, that first $40 million of assets coming in the door, it's not it's not easy. It's a grind, but the grind is you're balancing a grind with a wide open calendar. Then you get to that like $35, $40 million number, and all of a sudden you have service. And like, man, I got to take care of because if I don't service them, then I got to go get the next $40 million because this $40 million left me. So a lot of times is where that's where the conundrum begins. It's hey, $40 million. I start to think about can I leave the desk of wherever I'm sitting and go to a place that's gonna honor me as an independent advisor where I can take my DNA and put it all over my private practice. But the next 40 is the grind. And so they they wind up getting stuck a lot of times at 50, 52 million and hoping that they can get the tailwinds of the market without that plan in place to grow. Because the reality is not only do you have this service chassis that you have to manage, but the human capital starts to become an issue too. You got to start to put some infrastructure around you. And so now you're not just an advisor, you're not just the independent guy that needs to figure out how to operate as a CEO, but you part of that responsibility is you have to manage these people that you didn't have to manage before. And then you start thinking about what that construct costs, especially in the last couple of years with wages going up so much and inflation and all this stuff. Hey, that $40,000, $50,000, $60 million guy might be bringing in $500,000 top line, but if

Results Branding Support And Case Study

SPEAKER_02 31:35

he needs a couple people around him, he's now making lunch money instead of real money. What we've done is we've put that sort of virtual apparatus around them where they feel like they can walk down their hallway and there's my chief marketing officer, there's my chief financial officer, there's my operation operations team, there's my growth team, there's my investment team, whatever. If they were to build that apparatus themselves, that's a probably three to five million dollar build. So you got to be a monster. You got to be eight and a half, nine million dollars in revenue to support that and kick off enough revenue for you and your family. The challenge is they're never gonna get to eight million dollars the team. So it's a chicken and an egg situation where we are able to come in is really honoring them and saying, like, how are we going to give you that apparatus and wrap you with it and create that experience? So I'll give you an example. We had a guy in South Carolina that has been with us for 11 years now, and he came over about 35 or so million in assets, and he had one admin. And we started to put him on that journey. First, it's okay, what is that end? If we start at the end and work our way back, what do you define success as in your business? Because for everybody, it's gonna be different things. And then we built that business plan for him and with him and helped him execute against it. Today he's sitting with $225 million in assets, and his apparatus has grown in terms of his human capital on site. By the way, our PEO solutions manages all that capital for him. He doesn't have to worry about like how to create the HR manuals and how to offer benefits and all this stuff, which all advisors do as independent advisors. He's got that sort of PEO solution at Good Life that handles all the stuff for him. But behind that, behind his five guys that are working there on site with him, he's got the 12 people at Good Life that are in that business with him every day. That when we get little dings on our dashboard and what's going on in Ken's business, we're able to lean in there, oftentimes before he even sees it. And we're giving him that as a scorecard as a CEO. There's some things we're giving him as a scorecard as an advisor. Okay, the advisor needs to know where money's moving, right? The CEO needs to know what the performance are about his people and the people that we have representing him behind the scenes. But it's just helping to elevate them without crushing them with time and raw data. It's this is the data, this is why it's important for you. Here's the next three decisions we need you to shake your head yes or no on, and then here's our plan to execute against that. You're taking them on a journey, and it's a lot different than that. You grew last year at six percent, we need you to grow at nine next year, which is a typical experience that these guys had when they were at the wires.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

Just want to confirm so they're still independent. So if they're like, hey, I'm actually happy where I'm at, I don't want to do anything. I like the support you give me, but I'm just complacent. Not that that's necessarily many people, but if that was their attitude, do you still support them or does that not fit the model?

SPEAKER_02 34:16

I think it it's actually a trend that we see a lot in the independence space, is like advisors will create a cool lifestyle practice. Yeah, exactly. And the reality is I'm envious of it sometimes. One of my best friends lives down the street and he's one of our advisors and spilled an incredible business, and he's got a lot of our operating framework around his business, but it's still a super lifestyle business for him. And I'm running from one meeting to the next and this and that. And a lot of times I'll have like a 25-minute gap, and I'll I will leave this office, go and sprint three miles to get a workout in because I have a late meeting or whatever. And I literally will pass this guy's house and he's sitting up there in his rocking chair, waving at me as he's going by. And I'm like, man, you're three years younger than me. I'm running as fast as I can to get back to my next feeding, and you're out there sipping a lemonade and enjoying. There's nothing wrong with the guys that want to be on that lifestyle journey. But what we've also seen is that a lot of times that's a season for them where they want to enjoy and not necessarily put the foot on the gas for a period of time. Maybe that's when the kids are younger or something like that. But what we know also is very dang consistent is that the advisors that are in that last five to seven years, they want to dial it up. A lot of times they don't have those same complexities with the kids and the sports and all this stuff anymore. The kids are grown up a little bit and they know they have one last push in them. They maybe didn't need our apparatus 10 years ago, but they want the apparatus now to maximize their enterprise value. And they want us on that journey with them because we know how to maximize the enterprise value and we know how to do it in a way that never puts a client at risk. There's a lot of models out there today that is as you see this move in from private equity and stuff, it's all about monetizing this absurd top-wide number. Or at least the theory is like, hey, we're gonna get you double digits and this and that. But when you really peel the layers of the onion back, you're like, A, is it even executable? And B, is it in the best interest of the client? So, how can you be an advisor that spent 25 years serving the client and your last move is to serve him up? Like, you can't do that. So, what we try to do is to make sure that we're not asking advisors to come into our box. There's a lot of shops that will do that. There are also the shops that have their name as the owner like of the firm. So it would be like calling it Delaney Wealth Management or whatever that there are companies out there that have named themselves named to start to do the math on who I might be talking about, and they're saying, Come here, it's a my box that fits my enterprise value that monetizes the business best for me and my shareholders. And I certainly hope this works for you. And believe it or not, they get hundreds of advisors to do that. You're coming in W2 because it's best for me, not for you. You're it's best for my enterprise, not for you. You're coming in using my name and brand and logo because it's best for me, it's not for you. So these people are working in their Bloomington, Indiana, where nobody gives a rip about what that bigger firm's name is. In fact, that's the essence of what the advisor was trying to get away from, but they do it to take that poison pill so that they can get the exit that they think they need. There's a place in between there where you can come in and on to the client, get that incredible monetization event, and not put the integrity that you just spent 25 years building at risk to do it.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

That's significant. Even I speak with many advisors, and it just seems like you've really found this. I don't know if it's a blue ocean or not, but just the sweet spot in between the I won't say almost two extremes, right? It's like complete independence, but now you have all the responsibility and you don't in the fits things that you're not necessarily good at doing versus being in the wirehouse or working for someone else and not having that freedom that you desire.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Yeah. I as we're talking, I'm like, man, so here's the thing you have on this side greed. Just pure, I gotta get as much as I can out of this business for everything this business can provide for me. Greed sits over here and inertia sits over here. I'm making a good living, I got a couple kids, I'm in my 30s or 40s or 50s. Do I want to put this all on the line? And there are advisors that are pinned to either one of these extremes. Where we play is everything in the middle. Saying, hey, there's nothing wrong with being a capitalist, but I would submit that there's an element of like that that most advisors have that servant heart that never's gonna pin them to the greed side. And inertia, certainly there's risk in everything we do, but that risk could create generational wealth for you the same way that you've been creating wealth for your clients. Let's get you off of this spot to here, or let's get you off of this spot to here. And in that is all that pragmatic dialogue that you can, if the advisor is willing to go on that journey with you. We're not asking them to come into the our spot, which is right here. We're saying if a nurse is here and greet is here, just if you're here, we'll meet you there. If you're here, we'll meet you there. If you're wherever you are in your journey, go with the guys that you know are going to line up in the trench with you and understand where you're at, understand the best way to do it with authenticity and with integrity to get you where you're going, and then put throw your helmet on and lineup maximum.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

Where did you come up with the company name, good life companies? And also just going forward into the future, you're already on this, you've already grown tremendously, and you're on this rapid increase. What is the vision for the next five, 10 years or however, or whatever time frame you have in mind?

SPEAKER_02 39:27

Yes, certainly. Starting with the last question, our desire isn't to be the biggest, our desire is to be the best. Our desire is to be that reliable

Vision Company Name And How To Connect

SPEAKER_02 39:35

person that they can look at that that advisor vein, see capabilities and authenticity. It's the peer the person that has lined up as a CEO for 12 years and going with a team of leaders that have also been chief executives and say, okay, that guy can help me with executing the vision and help make my vision a reality. And then third, he understands the enterprise value, his organization understands enterprise value, and they're looking at us as entrepreneurs as much as they're looking at us as advisors. And so if we can look back in five, 10 years and say we've done that and we've served a couple of hundred advisors in that, like again, it's a it's a huge industry. If we take 300 advisors along the journey of new advisors between now and then, on top of the 200 that we have the privilege of serving every day, I think that everything else will take care of itself. And as far as the name, really funny story. I wish it was something cooler to it. But my partner and I were sitting, understanding that we were going to go independent and start this journey. And she had an idea around a diamond, and each part of the diamond was going to be a different core principle that we believed in. And I pushed back against it because I felt like if you walked into a room of school teachers or small business owners, they may not relate to a diamond as much as they might relate to something else. Nothing against it. I just said, let's keep thinking. So we're thinking, we're sitting at a restaurant in right in Pennsylvania. On the radio was a song Good Life by One Republic. And so I'm like, man, it's on the tip of my tongue. I just I gotta come up with it. I know it's right there. And then I was like, there it is. That's the name. And it truly is. It's a good life. It's a good life for us with the opportunity to impact and shepherd the lives of so many. It's hopefully a good life for those that we have the opportunity to serve every day. And and I'd like to think with the 50,000 clients that our advisors serve across the country, that there's a number of Brian Delaney's in there, just like my dad, Brian Delaney, that are getting an experience that they would not have gotten without the hearts of the advisors that we have the opportunity to work with every day. And so when you put all that together, again, it starts with what we were saying, like the dollars and cents figures itself out. The business, the core business plan of fundamentals has to be there. And then that emotive heart, that idea of that you have something that will give you the passion and the inspiration to get through when you have those rainy days. You start to put all that together, and I think you have the cool foundation that leads to long-term success.

SPEAKER_01 41:48

What's the best way for an advisor listening to this, if they're interested, to find out more about how to potentially work with you guys?

SPEAKER_02 41:58

One of the things I've always been excited about is just trying to be accessible to people. There's in our organization, you'll see me doing the same work that you'd see the new kid that started last Monday doing. And so from an accessibility standpoint, there's you you can always reach out to me. My our website is goodlifeco.com. And my e email, I made it nice and simple, is just CEO at goodlifeco.com. And so if anybody looks us up, looks me up, we'd love to just share in that journey. And again, with the idea that we make the next 20 better than the last 20.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

So fantastic. Connor, we've gotten a lot from it. Thanks so much for being generous with your time and talking with us. Absolutely, man. God bless you guys. Yeah, you too. Thanks, Connor.