WEBVTT - Peter Mallouk on Making Financial Planning Easier

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<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. This is Master's in

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<v Speaker 1>Business with Barry Ridholds on Bloomberg Radio. This week on

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<v Speaker 1>the podcast, I have an extra special guest. What can

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<v Speaker 1>I say about Peter Maluke. He began as an attorney,

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<v Speaker 1>working on things like taxes and trust and estates and

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<v Speaker 1>consulting for various RIA firms when he became an RIA

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<v Speaker 1>and eventually bought Creative Planning when it had you know,

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<v Speaker 1>a handful of clients and you know, thirty thirty five

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<v Speaker 1>million dollars. He has since built Creative Planning into one

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<v Speaker 1>of the nation's largest rias and an absolute powerhouse, running

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<v Speaker 1>over three hundred billion dollars. Peter is the guy I

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<v Speaker 1>look to when I want to learn things about how

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<v Speaker 1>to build a firm, how to grow organically, how to

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<v Speaker 1>think about out acquisitions, how to structure your company, really

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<v Speaker 1>to become an enterprise as opposed to merely being a business.

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<v Speaker 1>Peter is also the author of two really interesting books,

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<v Speaker 1>The Five Mistakes Every Investor Makes and How to Avoid Them,

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<v Speaker 1>and his latest book is Money Simplified. Whether you're an

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<v Speaker 1>RIA or an entrepreneur, whether you're interested in finding out

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<v Speaker 1>about who should manage your money and what you should

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<v Speaker 1>look at when you talk to creative planning. I thought

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<v Speaker 1>this conversation was absolutely fascinating, and I think you will

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<v Speaker 1>also with no further ado, my discussion with Creative Plannings

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<v Speaker 1>Peter Maluk.

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<v Speaker 2>It's great to be back there.

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<v Speaker 1>So I didn't mean to imply that the other books

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<v Speaker 1>weren't interesting. I just those are the two most recent

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<v Speaker 1>books I wanted to emphasize. But let's talk a little

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<v Speaker 1>bit about your background in your career, which is so interesting.

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<v Speaker 1>You get a jd MBA from the University of Kansas

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<v Speaker 1>in nineteen ninety six. That's an interesting combination. What was

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<v Speaker 1>the plan for your career with that combo?

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<v Speaker 2>Oh? So here was the brilliant plan. I had had

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<v Speaker 2>been an undergrad at KU for quite a while and

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<v Speaker 2>I was having an incredible time. My brothers were, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>three four years younger than me, so they were coming

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<v Speaker 2>in when I was a senior. I didn't want to leave,

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<v Speaker 2>and so I thought I'll just stay and get a

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<v Speaker 2>get a master's degree. And then I learned that KU

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<v Speaker 2>was launching this combination thing. Instead of doing a law

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<v Speaker 2>degree for three years and MBA for two, you could

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<v Speaker 2>combine them and do it in four and if you

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<v Speaker 2>went in the summers, you could do it in three.

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<v Speaker 2>And so I signed up for it with no plan

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<v Speaker 2>other than to stay at KU a little bit, a

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<v Speaker 2>little that was the plan. I'm having fun.

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<v Speaker 1>Your siblings went to the same school at the same time. Well,

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<v Speaker 1>KU is a big joint. What was that like?

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<v Speaker 2>It was a blast? I mean, it's it's a it's

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<v Speaker 2>a really really fun town. My oldest son just graduated

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<v Speaker 2>from there. My my youngest two are going there next year.

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<v Speaker 2>So I get to relive it, you know, through them

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<v Speaker 2>a little bit. And many things have changed, but a

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<v Speaker 2>lot of things are exactly the same. That's one of

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<v Speaker 2>the reasons. I think a lot of people like going

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<v Speaker 2>back to the schools that they graduated from.

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<v Speaker 1>So long before you went to KU, Creative Planning was

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<v Speaker 1>formed in Kansas. That was back in nineteen eighty three.

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<v Speaker 1>What led you to acquire the company in two thousand

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<v Speaker 1>and four? You were an employee at the time, weren't you.

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<v Speaker 2>I was, so I had started out, you know, accidental

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<v Speaker 2>journey to becoming an advisor, and I really found myself

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<v Speaker 2>as an advisor to advisors. So I would go from

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<v Speaker 2>one brokerage house to another, and one independent advisor to

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<v Speaker 2>another from morning till you know, the day was over,

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<v Speaker 2>and I would do legal work for their clients, or

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<v Speaker 2>give tax advice, or do planning or investments. And at

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<v Speaker 2>some point, the people that were running the financial planning

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<v Speaker 2>department for Creative Planning, which was a sister company to

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<v Speaker 2>an insurance company, there were three guys that were selling

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<v Speaker 2>disability insurance to physicians in Kansas City. One of them

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<v Speaker 2>passed away at a young age, one became disabled to

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<v Speaker 2>a young age, and the people that were running the

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<v Speaker 2>financial planning arm had left, and the owner of that

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<v Speaker 2>firm is incredible guy, had brought me in to handle

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<v Speaker 2>the planning and investments for Creative Planning. So while I

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<v Speaker 2>was doing all this work for other advisors, I was

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<v Speaker 2>also managing you know, their thirty or forty clients that

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<v Speaker 2>they had at the time too. And that's where, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>from ninety eight to four, I got this sense of Hey,

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<v Speaker 2>all day, every day, I'm doing little pieces for different people.

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<v Speaker 2>What if there was a firm that did all of

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<v Speaker 2>this in one place.

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<v Speaker 1>One quarterback to oversee everything that's right? Oh four, you

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<v Speaker 1>do the acquisition. I mean you're working as an attorney

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<v Speaker 1>for a advisory firm. It's kind of hard to write

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<v Speaker 1>a big check at that point. How did this process

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<v Speaker 1>go about you for you acquiring, Well, I.

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<v Speaker 2>Mean it was it was managing a very very small

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<v Speaker 2>amount of money, so there was no big check. There

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<v Speaker 2>was no big check to be written, or I wouldn't

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<v Speaker 2>have been able to buy it. And he was, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>very great. I mean we're talking like, you know, six

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<v Speaker 2>figure check right spread out over you know, sixty months.

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<v Speaker 2>So it was not a this was not a big

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<v Speaker 2>operation at the time.

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<v Speaker 1>And thirty four million dollars not a lot of money,

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<v Speaker 1>that's right. And now it's up. What is that a

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<v Speaker 1>thousand x? You're over three hundred billion. Let's talk about

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<v Speaker 1>how you got there. You for the first what is

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<v Speaker 1>that fifteen years, did no acquisitions, so strictly organically grew

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<v Speaker 1>from thirty four million to forty two billion. That is

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<v Speaker 1>a giant one hundred x set of gains. How do

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<v Speaker 1>you grow a company organically that quickly?

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<v Speaker 2>Well, I think we were ahead of the game and

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<v Speaker 2>a lot of things that now a lot of firms

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<v Speaker 2>have started to do. And I think like we were

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<v Speaker 2>doing financial planning without a separate fee. We were passive

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<v Speaker 2>on the equity side. We never used hedge funds, but

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<v Speaker 2>we used private equity, private lending. You know, very early

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<v Speaker 2>on for an RIA, we were doing legal, tax, investments,

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<v Speaker 2>trust services, planning all under one roof. That was definitely

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<v Speaker 2>revolutionary at the time. You know, there are the other

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<v Speaker 2>are firms. You know that your ten years fifteen years

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<v Speaker 2>later started to add those things. We had a very

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<v Speaker 2>big hit start and the market really responded to those things.

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<v Speaker 2>Like if you look here twenty years later, where did

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<v Speaker 2>the market go On the equity side, It went from

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<v Speaker 2>active to passa while we were there in the beginning.

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<v Speaker 2>On the private side, where has it gone from hedge

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<v Speaker 2>funds to private investments? We were there very early. It

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<v Speaker 2>used to charge separately for a planning fee. Now it's

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<v Speaker 2>more the way creative planning did it. And this idea

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<v Speaker 2>of adding other services in one place. The market's moving

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<v Speaker 2>there too. So I think we were just ahead on

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<v Speaker 2>all of those things. We had a big advantage in

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<v Speaker 2>that regard. I think when people are looking for an advisor,

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<v Speaker 2>they like to see usually two things. I think one

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<v Speaker 2>they want to see that you know what you're doing

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<v Speaker 2>and it's very hard to figure out that somebody knows

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<v Speaker 2>what they're doing. But they could look at Creative and go, well,

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<v Speaker 2>Creator's been doing this a very very long time, right,

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<v Speaker 2>And if they can go talk to one hundred advisors,

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<v Speaker 2>none of them would have been doing what we're doing

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<v Speaker 2>back then, right, So I think they just know, hey,

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<v Speaker 2>we've been doing it longer, and we've got probably more people,

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<v Speaker 2>you know, doing these services, more specialties, more people with

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<v Speaker 2>those designations. We're now divided out and working with ultra

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<v Speaker 2>affluent people and the mass affluent and having different teams

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<v Speaker 2>that serve all of these And I think an investor,

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<v Speaker 2>a prospective client can figure that out in pretty short order.

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<v Speaker 2>You know, when my son and I were walking here

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<v Speaker 2>to the studio, we were trying to figure out, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>where to eat. We didn't have any time. We're gonna

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<v Speaker 2>have to eat and walk right so here in New

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<v Speaker 2>York City, and we got in late. We wanted to

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<v Speaker 2>make it on time here as close as we could.

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<v Speaker 2>So what do we do? We stopped at a food truck,

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<v Speaker 2>a bunch of food trucks, but there was one food

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<v Speaker 2>truck that say lone voted but best whatever, Trip Advisor

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<v Speaker 2>all that that's the one we stopped at, right, because

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<v Speaker 2>it feels like there's some social proof there that is

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<v Speaker 2>food Truck's food's probably better than the other ones. It's

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<v Speaker 2>sure enough. My son was like, if I was in

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<v Speaker 2>Can't City, I wo'd eat this every day, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>for lunch. I think when you look at an advisor,

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<v Speaker 2>you know we're both in the professions. So it seems, well,

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<v Speaker 2>I mean, does it that big a deal to we

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<v Speaker 2>be doing get a long time? Well? I mean, if

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<v Speaker 2>you get yourself out of the professional profession in a

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<v Speaker 2>medical condition, right, and you're looking for a doctor, you

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<v Speaker 2>like the doctor that's been doing it for a few decades,

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<v Speaker 2>with an enormous team that's invested in all this technology,

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<v Speaker 2>it's probably already made the mistakes they're going to make

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<v Speaker 2>that if something weird shows up, they've probably seen it before.

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<v Speaker 2>That is creative planning. And so the growth, it compounds

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<v Speaker 2>because the longer you've been doing it, the more that

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<v Speaker 2>credibility you have.

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<v Speaker 1>So you mentioned you have all these different teams and

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<v Speaker 1>all these different people. How do you maintain the corporate

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<v Speaker 1>culture when you scale up one hundred x? Like that's

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<v Speaker 1>a real challenge. How do you keep old horses pulling

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<v Speaker 1>the sleigh in the same direction.

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<v Speaker 2>Why take this incredibly seriously because you know, in this business,

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<v Speaker 2>all you really have is what's in people's brains and

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<v Speaker 2>in their hearts. Right, You've got to have people that

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<v Speaker 2>know what they're doing and they care about people, right,

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<v Speaker 2>Because this isn't like we're not a hedge fund, we're

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<v Speaker 2>not a mutual fund. Nothing's wrong with those things, but

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<v Speaker 2>we're dealing with actual human beings. You know, whether a creative,

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<v Speaker 2>whether you're a CPA or an attorney or a planner,

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<v Speaker 2>a wealth manager or whatever, you're sitting across the table

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<v Speaker 2>from somebody, you have to have that kind of consultative

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<v Speaker 2>nature about you or you're not going to be successful,

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<v Speaker 2>certainly not be able to do right by the client.

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<v Speaker 2>And so I look at culture a couple of things. One,

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<v Speaker 2>it's who you let in in the first place. Right,

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<v Speaker 2>So when I'm interviewing, it's not just who I want in,

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<v Speaker 2>it's who do I want to keep out? So I'm

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<v Speaker 2>always the last stop in an interview. Mine's always just

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<v Speaker 2>a few minutes.

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<v Speaker 1>Even today with how many of you guys have over

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<v Speaker 1>a thousand employees, twenty four hundred. Yeah, So every one

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<v Speaker 1>of them. You gave the stamp of approval before they

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<v Speaker 1>came in.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and I'll block quite a few now their background

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<v Speaker 2>check before they get to be somebody is already. Somebody's

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<v Speaker 2>already said, hey, I like them for my department. They

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<v Speaker 2>know what they're doing and all that we're not, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>we're not perfect. But there's a lot of screens in here.

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<v Speaker 2>But what I'm just looking for is, you know, every

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<v Speaker 2>now and then you have a leader and they're just

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<v Speaker 2>desperate to fill a role, right, and you really have

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<v Speaker 2>to you want to avoid that desperate hire where they

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<v Speaker 2>bring that jerk in right right, Because you know, I

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<v Speaker 2>was talking to somebody the other day about are most

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<v Speaker 2>people good? Are most people bad? And we were talking about, well, yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>think about all the violent crime and assaults and all

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<v Speaker 2>this stuff, and the reality is most people are good,

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<v Speaker 2>but one bad person causes so much damage. We had

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<v Speaker 2>someone that became a client because someone was stealing from

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<v Speaker 2>them and employe was stealing from them. Will turns out

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<v Speaker 2>they were stealing from four other businesses too, do you

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<v Speaker 2>know what I mean? Like so, but that's normal, right,

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<v Speaker 2>someone who commits sexual assault, it's a very tiny group

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<v Speaker 2>of people that commit sexual assaults. The problem is the

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<v Speaker 2>average person does it over and over and over, so

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<v Speaker 2>you create disproportion victims. Well, I look at it like

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<v Speaker 2>weeds in a garden. You get that one person in

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<v Speaker 2>your firm and they're a little bit of a jerk,

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<v Speaker 2>or they're overly self serving, or they can turn the

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<v Speaker 2>culture very very fast and cause a lot of distraction.

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<v Speaker 2>I think the biggest successes I've had in my career

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<v Speaker 2>are who I've hired. The biggest failures I've had in

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<v Speaker 2>my career are are who I've hired. And so I think,

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<v Speaker 2>like you look at the social curve, part of it's

0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.200
<v Speaker 2>attracting the right talent, but getting that you know, sociopath

0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:45.240
<v Speaker 2>or that kind of like really narcissistic type personality, keeping

0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:47.400
<v Speaker 2>that person out of your firm. I think that's step

0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:49.600
<v Speaker 2>one in the culture. Step two is if you make

0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:52.079
<v Speaker 2>a mistake, and we make mistakes, correct it fast. I'm

0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:53.720
<v Speaker 2>really bad at this, by the way, Verry.

0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.319
<v Speaker 1>Really it's hard to do. We all know the expression

0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:01.360
<v Speaker 1>high or slowly fire fast, but it's very It's much

0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:02.480
<v Speaker 1>harder to do than the sound.

0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:04.319
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And what's changed my thinking on this is I

0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:05.760
<v Speaker 2>used to just drag it out and drag it out

0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:07.280
<v Speaker 2>and drag it out. And this you know woman in

0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:09.120
<v Speaker 2>our firm who started with me early on, she you know,

0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:10.560
<v Speaker 2>came to me once she said like, hey, you think

0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:12.280
<v Speaker 2>you're doing this person a favor, but you're really doing

0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:13.760
<v Speaker 2>is you're punishing the rest of us. And that just

0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:16.840
<v Speaker 2>changed my thinking about it overnight, Like now I feel

0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:18.280
<v Speaker 2>like you're sending a message to the rest of the

0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:21.240
<v Speaker 2>firm and what you'll tolerate, whether it's in competence or

0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:23.880
<v Speaker 2>ill will or whatever. So getting people out, you know, quickly,

0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:25.280
<v Speaker 2>is another very big piece of it. And then the

0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:27.320
<v Speaker 2>other part is who do you make a leader. You

0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:29.520
<v Speaker 2>can't just make the leader the person who was really

0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:32.400
<v Speaker 2>good at something, right, Like you can't say, okay, you're

0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:33.920
<v Speaker 2>really good at taxes, I'm going to make you the

0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:34.800
<v Speaker 2>head of the tax group.

0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:36.640
<v Speaker 1>Or you're really you got a different set of skills.

0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:40.800
<v Speaker 2>Yes, you really need somebody who embodies the culture where

0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:43.480
<v Speaker 2>you know, someone was just asking us we do this

0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.040
<v Speaker 2>thing called ask Me Anything at Creative Planning where every

0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:48.640
<v Speaker 2>six months, separate from the other things we do, there's

0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:50.520
<v Speaker 2>just an hour people can ask me whatever they want.

0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:52.480
<v Speaker 2>And somebody said, well, what do you know? What's the

0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:54.559
<v Speaker 2>message you want your leaders to give? And I said,

0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:56.880
<v Speaker 2>I want my leader to be the message. Right. If

0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.320
<v Speaker 2>you have to ask what the the leader should just

0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:03.319
<v Speaker 2>persona what they want, what the example is of what

0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:05.599
<v Speaker 2>it's supposed to be. That's the type of person you

0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.319
<v Speaker 2>got to do all those things intentionally. Culture is very fragile.

0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:10.199
<v Speaker 2>I think we've been graded, and I think a big

0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:11.840
<v Speaker 2>part of it is that we've got the right leaders

0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:12.240
<v Speaker 2>in place.

0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:17.439
<v Speaker 1>Let's also talk about your headquarters. You're an overland park, Kansas.

0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.640
<v Speaker 1>The typical investment farm seems to be east coast or

0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:25.680
<v Speaker 1>west coast. What are the advantages of being located in Kansas?

0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.000
<v Speaker 2>See this is a happy accident too, kind of like

0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:30.520
<v Speaker 2>how I wound up with my majors or wound up

0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:32.280
<v Speaker 2>in the profession. It's just I was born and raised

0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:35.040
<v Speaker 2>in Kansas City and just was never ambitious enough to

0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:37.440
<v Speaker 2>go do anything else. You know, when my brothers moved

0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:39.280
<v Speaker 2>to Dallas and one moved to la and they both

0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.400
<v Speaker 2>enormously you know successful. All my aunts and uncles moved

0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:46.079
<v Speaker 2>to different cities. But I graduated, went back to Kansas City,

0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:47.280
<v Speaker 2>got a job, and next thing I knew I was

0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:49.240
<v Speaker 2>running Creative Planning, and by the time I even thought

0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:51.960
<v Speaker 2>about where I was located, Creative Planning had been you know,

0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:54.679
<v Speaker 2>too successful to consider anything else. Once I tried to

0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:58.240
<v Speaker 2>get my family to move twenty blocks and my kids started,

0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:00.920
<v Speaker 2>you know, screaming and ran upstairs clear and nothing, you know,

0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:03.680
<v Speaker 2>nothing was going to happen. So but it's been absolutely

0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:06.920
<v Speaker 2>amazing because to this day in my life, I have

0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:09.000
<v Speaker 2>not done a coast to coast flight. I mean I

0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:13.040
<v Speaker 2>travel every week, and it's very easy to get around

0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:15.040
<v Speaker 2>the country. If you are are you're.

0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:16.960
<v Speaker 1>Never more than two and a half hours away from anyway.

0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:21.280
<v Speaker 2>Everything's pretty everything's pretty probably yeah, yeah, I mean continental US, right,

0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:23.960
<v Speaker 2>so everything's really easy to get to something, to visit

0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.720
<v Speaker 2>an office, see a team or or give it a presentation,

0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.120
<v Speaker 2>or see a client. You know, I can do it.

0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.160
<v Speaker 2>And I also think that there is something to be

0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:35.080
<v Speaker 2>said for and I think it sounds cliche, but it's

0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:40.120
<v Speaker 2>not just this midwack Midwest ethics, Midwest work ethic and

0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.360
<v Speaker 2>and kind of the attitude, this bias towards integrity. I

0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.080
<v Speaker 2>found it very very easy to hire very high quality people,

0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:49.719
<v Speaker 2>and so many of our firm's partners are based in

0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:50.440
<v Speaker 2>Kansas City too.

0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:54.079
<v Speaker 1>We call it Midwest nice, yes, which it really is.

0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.240
<v Speaker 1>We have family in Chicago. Every time we're there every

0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:00.800
<v Speaker 1>year for Thanksgiving, every time we're local, it's like everybody

0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:03.960
<v Speaker 1>here is just so delightful. That's right, they're just so pleasant.

0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:06.280
<v Speaker 1>I guess it's because they're not in a rush and

0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:09.480
<v Speaker 1>the real estate isn't as expensive, so people are less stressed.

0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:12.360
<v Speaker 1>That's what I usually talk it up to. But Midwest

0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:13.920
<v Speaker 1>nice is really a thing.

0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.160
<v Speaker 2>It's really a thing. Yeah, there's a lot of reasons,

0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:19.080
<v Speaker 2>but it's a real thing that I appreciate more and

0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:20.080
<v Speaker 2>more every year that goes by.

0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.600
<v Speaker 1>Let's talk a little bit about the growth at Creative Planning.

0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:27.480
<v Speaker 1>It was organic for the first fifteen years, and then

0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:31.000
<v Speaker 1>in twenty nineteen you did a few acquisitions. First off,

0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:35.280
<v Speaker 1>what led you to the decision to say, hey, we've

0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:38.960
<v Speaker 1>gone as far as we think we can organically, let's

0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:42.200
<v Speaker 1>take advantage of all this cheap capital around and start

0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:43.200
<v Speaker 1>doing acquisitions.

0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:46.440
<v Speaker 2>So really, for us, I had never occurred to me

0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.360
<v Speaker 2>to even do an acquisition. We were from the very

0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:54.040
<v Speaker 2>first month growing faster as fast as we could possibly handle.

0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:58.440
<v Speaker 2>It was just moving so quickly. We've always been higher.

0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:00.400
<v Speaker 2>Every quarter in the history of creative play has been

0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:03.280
<v Speaker 2>positive net inflows every quarter in the history of creative

0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.120
<v Speaker 2>We've been hiring, right, and we're just growing, growing, growing, growing.

0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:08.160
<v Speaker 2>But you look at even over that period, Forbes had

0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:10.880
<v Speaker 2>done a ranking of the fastest growing firms in the

0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:12.920
<v Speaker 2>United States and we were number one on that list,

0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:14.480
<v Speaker 2>and that was ten years in. It was over the

0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:18.000
<v Speaker 2>ten year period. Even then, if you went to an

0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:20.960
<v Speaker 2>average American city and visited one of our offices, we

0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:24.280
<v Speaker 2>probably didn't have a physical office. We probably had one

0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:28.120
<v Speaker 2>or two advisors, and in that particular city, we might

0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:30.920
<v Speaker 2>have managed, you know, eight hundred million dollars, right, So

0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:32.440
<v Speaker 2>it was clear to me that I could do this

0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.000
<v Speaker 2>till I was one hundred and ten, and I was

0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.160
<v Speaker 2>not going to be able to build a national independent firm.

0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:41.040
<v Speaker 2>I might have had the biggest independent ria, you know,

0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.600
<v Speaker 2>at at doing that pace, I might have we would

0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.000
<v Speaker 2>have continued to be successful. But we had sat around

0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:48.400
<v Speaker 2>a few of us and said what do we want

0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:50.480
<v Speaker 2>to do, and we said, we have this opportunity to

0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:54.080
<v Speaker 2>set the standard of what a client should receive from

0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:56.280
<v Speaker 2>an independent wealth manager. And we looked at our competitors

0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:58.400
<v Speaker 2>of who else we thought might be that standard, and

0:15:58.400 --> 0:15:59.800
<v Speaker 2>we thought, you know, we you know, we're proud of

0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:01.960
<v Speaker 2>what doing. We thought, Hey, this is the right way

0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:03.520
<v Speaker 2>to do it. This is the right investment approach, this

0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:05.520
<v Speaker 2>is the right wealth management approach. We have this opportunity

0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.640
<v Speaker 2>to do this, let's do it right. And so along

0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:12.200
<v Speaker 2>the way we made one acquisition, very much by accident,

0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:14.960
<v Speaker 2>Metafather and Son that turned out to be wonderful. But

0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:17.320
<v Speaker 2>what we've observed from them was they grew faster when

0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:19.480
<v Speaker 2>they were with us. Their advisors all stayed and were

0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.040
<v Speaker 2>very happy. Their clients got more services, they referred more,

0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:24.200
<v Speaker 2>so their growth rate went up. And we were like,

0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:26.040
<v Speaker 2>wait a second. We did all of this and we

0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:30.480
<v Speaker 2>doubled our presence in that city was Minneapolis. This is

0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:32.440
<v Speaker 2>the recipe, And we went back and started to call

0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:35.880
<v Speaker 2>all the advisors over the years that had called us,

0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:40.680
<v Speaker 2>and the acquisitions began. But organically, we've actually, excluding acquisitions,

0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:44.240
<v Speaker 2>grown more in the last five years than the previous ten.

0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:44.880
<v Speaker 1>Wow.

0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:48.520
<v Speaker 2>So the organic growth is accelerated, but the acquisitions have

0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:50.360
<v Speaker 2>been a nice way to complement it. With our goal

0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:53.840
<v Speaker 2>being to become more localized to clients. Basically in every

0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:54.840
<v Speaker 2>major market.

0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:57.560
<v Speaker 1>So tell us about the four toh one K acquisition

0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:02.680
<v Speaker 1>did that was a substantial purchase one hundred plus billion

0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:04.760
<v Speaker 1>dollars in four one K assets.

0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:06.720
<v Speaker 2>That's right. So you know, we on the on the

0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:08.960
<v Speaker 2>private well side, we work with the massive fluid, We

0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:10.480
<v Speaker 2>work with people that have ten million up and we

0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:13.840
<v Speaker 2>work with centi millionaires and billionaires. On the for one

0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:16.960
<v Speaker 2>K side, we were basically dealing with foreign K plans

0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:20.640
<v Speaker 2>that were from startup to one hundred or so million. Well,

0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:23.720
<v Speaker 2>we have sixty seventy thousand private clients, many of them

0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:27.680
<v Speaker 2>are CFOs CEOs of publicly traded companies, and they would say, well, hey,

0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:29.560
<v Speaker 2>before you talk to my team about the four and K,

0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.720
<v Speaker 2>how many one billion dollar four on K plans you have?

0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:34.920
<v Speaker 2>I would say, well, well none, and they're like, well

0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:36.280
<v Speaker 2>there's no way, you know what I mean, there's no

0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.480
<v Speaker 2>social proof there, right. And so what this acquisition did

0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.919
<v Speaker 2>was they were one of the three largest independent foreworn

0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:46.720
<v Speaker 2>K providers in the United States. A lot of publicly

0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.640
<v Speaker 2>traded companies multi billion dollar foreign K plans with tens

0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:54.600
<v Speaker 2>of thousands of participants. We bought, purchased that group, put

0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:56.800
<v Speaker 2>it in a creative They've grown quicker because they have

0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:01.080
<v Speaker 2>more of a wealth management backbone. They've got now financial wellness,

0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.520
<v Speaker 2>financial education. We're able to manage money, add new investments

0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.280
<v Speaker 2>at lower fees. We just have a lot of negotiating power,

0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:09.600
<v Speaker 2>so we've been able to do an enormous amount to

0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:12.480
<v Speaker 2>make the offering better. And they've grown quicker also from

0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.440
<v Speaker 2>referrals from our advisors and now those four K participants

0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.159
<v Speaker 2>are also learning about creative planning and coming over to

0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.080
<v Speaker 2>the private sizes. It's been a home run all the

0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:20.840
<v Speaker 2>way around for us.

0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.000
<v Speaker 1>Sounds like it. You were also very early in the

0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.600
<v Speaker 1>referral program with Schwab and you recently announced you were

0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:32.840
<v Speaker 1>joining the referral program with Fidelity. Both those companies have

0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:38.840
<v Speaker 1>notoriously loyal client basis. How do you get somebody who's

0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:45.400
<v Speaker 1>custodied with Schwab or custodied with Fidelity to put creative

0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:49.760
<v Speaker 1>planning first and not think of themselves as a custody client.

0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.280
<v Speaker 1>I know that sounds odd, but you know exactly what.

0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:54.520
<v Speaker 2>I'm saying, right Well, I think the thing about those

0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:58.080
<v Speaker 2>clients is, I mean, Schwab and Fidelity are the clear leader.

0:18:58.080 --> 0:18:59.680
<v Speaker 2>I don't you know, who's third. I don't know who

0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.919
<v Speaker 2>third is, right, which is now part of Schwab.

0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:03.240
<v Speaker 1>Right.

0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:07.680
<v Speaker 2>So these are enormous, incredible, and I think they're more

0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:09.920
<v Speaker 2>than custodians. And I think a lot of people just

0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:11.520
<v Speaker 2>want custody. They want to trade on their own. They're

0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:12.680
<v Speaker 2>never coming, you know, they're not going to come to

0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.720
<v Speaker 2>Creative planning. There's people that there are many solutions that

0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.280
<v Speaker 2>Shoab and Fideli offer their clients, and those people perfectly

0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:21.200
<v Speaker 2>satisfied with that. But Schwab and Fidelity give their their

0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:23.800
<v Speaker 2>teams this flexibility to say, look, if the client's best

0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.560
<v Speaker 2>served with another advisor, go ahead and refer them. And

0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:30.880
<v Speaker 2>I think that, you know, Schwab and Fidelity when they

0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:32.600
<v Speaker 2>find that to be the case, I think they find

0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:35.959
<v Speaker 2>Creative to be pretty unique in our offering and our expertise.

0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:39.679
<v Speaker 2>And the client also doesn't lose anything, Right, They're still

0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:41.959
<v Speaker 2>at Schwab, they are Fidelity. They've still got the same

0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:43.760
<v Speaker 2>account number, they still have their website, they still got

0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:46.159
<v Speaker 2>their financial consultant in the branch. They just have an

0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:47.680
<v Speaker 2>advisor advising them on the account.

0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:51.359
<v Speaker 1>Now, true story. When we launched, we were using TD

0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:54.520
<v Speaker 1>as our custodian and we would go on like you do.

0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:56.560
<v Speaker 1>We'd go on road trips, we'd meet people, we'd meet

0:19:56.600 --> 0:20:00.439
<v Speaker 1>existing clients, we'd meet prospective clients. And after like the

0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:04.960
<v Speaker 1>twelfth time, someone said, hey, I'm with Schwab. There there's

0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:06.879
<v Speaker 1>where my money is held. Love to hire you as

0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:10.119
<v Speaker 1>an advisor, but it can only be on on Schwab,

0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:12.840
<v Speaker 1>Like you hear that a dozen times, and oh maybe

0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:16.000
<v Speaker 1>there's maybe we should add Schwab as a custodian. Now

0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:17.960
<v Speaker 1>we got a couple of billion dollars with them. But

0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:20.680
<v Speaker 1>to get to that point, like it was like, wait,

0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:24.800
<v Speaker 1>it's a custodian. Where is this intense loyalty coming from

0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:29.960
<v Speaker 1>Fidelity and especially Schwab, It's it's like nothing else I've

0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:30.360
<v Speaker 1>ever seen.

0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:34.040
<v Speaker 2>Well, there's a I think, a very intense feeling of

0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:38.720
<v Speaker 2>safety and security and the brand carry both those brands

0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:41.919
<v Speaker 2>carry such you know, equity and you know what they should.

0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:43.560
<v Speaker 2>I mean, they've really delivered.

0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:46.119
<v Speaker 1>They've been around for half a century and done a

0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:48.520
<v Speaker 1>really good job. That's right, all right, So you mentioned

0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:52.280
<v Speaker 1>all the various services you offer, but when you began,

0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:56.320
<v Speaker 1>that wasn't the place you started from, right, You were

0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.639
<v Speaker 1>doing some estate planning and other legal services. Tell us

0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:05.280
<v Speaker 1>about the timeline that you went through adding these different services, Like,

0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:09.800
<v Speaker 1>when was that aha moment, Hey, let's just wrap everything

0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:12.800
<v Speaker 1>up in one nice package, put a bow on it,

0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:15.879
<v Speaker 1>and not have the client have to worry about any

0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:17.000
<v Speaker 1>financial issues.

0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:19.439
<v Speaker 2>Well, I mean the six years prior to Creative Planning

0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:21.800
<v Speaker 2>that I was doing you know, legal advice at one place,

0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.400
<v Speaker 2>tax another, planning and investments in another. So day one

0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:27.680
<v Speaker 2>of owning Creative that was the first day. Like that,

0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:29.920
<v Speaker 2>that first day we were like, okay, we're doing wills

0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:32.119
<v Speaker 2>and trust we're doing financial plans, we're going to manage

0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:34.239
<v Speaker 2>your money. Will be the trustee if you need us

0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:36.159
<v Speaker 2>to be. Now we was me and one other person.

0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:39.520
<v Speaker 2>But that's that's what we were on day one doing

0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:42.240
<v Speaker 2>those things. And what's really changed from then is this

0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:44.600
<v Speaker 2>the scale. You know, the number of people. I think

0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:47.000
<v Speaker 2>our tax group might be seven hundred people and the

0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:49.919
<v Speaker 2>law groups well over one hundred people. And so the

0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:53.800
<v Speaker 2>breadth and depth of expertise and the credentials and experience

0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:55.879
<v Speaker 2>and all of all of that. The special level of

0:21:55.880 --> 0:22:01.600
<v Speaker 2>specialization is you know, far beyond my wildest imagination back then.

0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.240
<v Speaker 2>But the offering itself, the core offering. That was day one.

0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:08.000
<v Speaker 1>So when did you first add ahead of tax? When

0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:10.760
<v Speaker 1>did you first add ahead of trust in the states

0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:15.200
<v Speaker 1>or insurance? Because when two people are doing everything right,

0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:19.560
<v Speaker 1>you know, it's such a challenge. But once you institutionalize

0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:23.200
<v Speaker 1>it with those hires, I would imagine everything began to explode.

0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:25.480
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. The first the first hire was someone to take

0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:27.840
<v Speaker 2>over you know, the day to day investing. The second

0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:31.480
<v Speaker 2>one was someone to take over the legal the next

0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:35.520
<v Speaker 2>was someone to take over insurance, then trust, and then

0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:38.440
<v Speaker 2>lastly you know, tax, and so that over time, each

0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:40.760
<v Speaker 2>of those and of course when you get the right person,

0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:42.080
<v Speaker 2>the growth explodes.

0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:44.560
<v Speaker 1>You know, how how long did that process take before

0:22:44.600 --> 0:22:47.480
<v Speaker 1>you had those six key people in place?

0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:51.440
<v Speaker 2>In the first few years, we had certain people in place,

0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:52.960
<v Speaker 2>but they just weren't the right people right, So we

0:22:53.000 --> 0:22:54.320
<v Speaker 2>had to get we had to get through to get

0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:56.159
<v Speaker 2>to the right leader of each over time, and that,

0:22:56.240 --> 0:22:59.440
<v Speaker 2>you know, really finishing it all out was only very recently.

0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:02.080
<v Speaker 2>We've added services along the way, but really getting it

0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:04.920
<v Speaker 2>stabilized and going about two thousand and nine.

0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:08.080
<v Speaker 1>And you even offer m and a consulting, I mean,

0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:11.600
<v Speaker 1>tell us about that you have that many clients that

0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:14.639
<v Speaker 1>are thinking about selling a business and need some help.

0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:17.080
<v Speaker 2>Well, this is the advantage of scale. So I think

0:23:17.080 --> 0:23:21.359
<v Speaker 2>about like with a number of clients, we have thousands

0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:25.640
<v Speaker 2>and thousands of them are business owners. So now you're

0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:29.640
<v Speaker 2>talking about consulting, but we also do outsourced CFO, outsourced HR,

0:23:29.800 --> 0:23:35.399
<v Speaker 2>we do bill pay, payroll, M and A managed it

0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:40.080
<v Speaker 2>four oh and K cybersecurity testing. So that business owner

0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:43.600
<v Speaker 2>client all those things that they care about protecting and

0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:46.480
<v Speaker 2>that are dollars sign related, they can look to the

0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:49.120
<v Speaker 2>Creative Planning Business Services Unit to help them with that. Yeah,

0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:52.400
<v Speaker 2>we definitely have enough clients to keep all those groups very,

0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:53.000
<v Speaker 2>very busy.

0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:56.280
<v Speaker 1>What about one of the hot new things is the

0:23:56.480 --> 0:24:01.440
<v Speaker 1>concier services for the ultra high net worth where you're

0:24:01.560 --> 0:24:06.120
<v Speaker 1>essentially taking over all of their bill pay and everything

0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:10.480
<v Speaker 1>from you know, buying a car to looking at real estate.

0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:12.200
<v Speaker 1>How far do you go down that path?

0:24:12.680 --> 0:24:14.720
<v Speaker 2>I would say that there's you know, it kind of

0:24:14.720 --> 0:24:16.720
<v Speaker 2>reminds me of the saying about family offices. If you've

0:24:16.720 --> 0:24:19.679
<v Speaker 2>seen one family office, you've seen one family office. Like

0:24:20.000 --> 0:24:23.239
<v Speaker 2>some family offices they're doing tax for their family, some

0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:25.320
<v Speaker 2>are doing just the investments, some are only doing the

0:24:25.359 --> 0:24:28.520
<v Speaker 2>private investments. Some are actually doing the private investments in house,

0:24:28.720 --> 0:24:31.560
<v Speaker 2>kind of creating their own venture capital fund versus buying others.

0:24:32.880 --> 0:24:34.880
<v Speaker 2>But most of them don't practice law, most of them

0:24:34.880 --> 0:24:36.960
<v Speaker 2>don't practice tax. They keep track of the real estate,

0:24:36.960 --> 0:24:40.399
<v Speaker 2>they handle some private investments. The capitol calls. Everybody's different.

0:24:40.800 --> 0:24:43.440
<v Speaker 2>You know, the line for us is concierge services. I mean,

0:24:43.640 --> 0:24:47.920
<v Speaker 2>that's a total nightmare. We remember talking to Oh my God,

0:24:48.000 --> 0:24:50.879
<v Speaker 2>like this walk my dog and I need to take

0:24:50.960 --> 0:24:53.000
<v Speaker 2>us to this show and whatever, to this restaurant. I mean,

0:24:53.040 --> 0:24:56.320
<v Speaker 2>that's like a full blown nightmare, right, And I have

0:24:56.440 --> 0:24:58.399
<v Speaker 2>yet to see anyone do it successfully. I've talked to

0:24:58.440 --> 0:25:01.560
<v Speaker 2>some outfits that do it for athletes, and everyone's disappointed

0:25:01.640 --> 0:25:03.840
<v Speaker 2>all the time. Right, I mean, it's it's a very

0:25:03.920 --> 0:25:06.679
<v Speaker 2>very difficult thing. That's not something I'm really interested in

0:25:06.720 --> 0:25:09.840
<v Speaker 2>doing for us. From the family office standpoint. We can

0:25:09.880 --> 0:25:12.320
<v Speaker 2>handle someone's real estate, we can handle their oil and gas,

0:25:12.400 --> 0:25:15.840
<v Speaker 2>we can handle their bill, pay for them all. We

0:25:15.880 --> 0:25:18.840
<v Speaker 2>can help them as consulting on their business, but we're

0:25:18.920 --> 0:25:20.400
<v Speaker 2>not going to like be walking the dog.

0:25:20.760 --> 0:25:24.000
<v Speaker 1>Right. The closest I ever get to that is people

0:25:24.040 --> 0:25:25.920
<v Speaker 1>know I'm a car guy. Every now and then someone

0:25:25.920 --> 0:25:28.879
<v Speaker 1>has a really interesting car. Hey, the dealer offered me

0:25:29.119 --> 0:25:31.800
<v Speaker 1>x on this. No, no, no, that's way too low.

0:25:31.960 --> 0:25:34.360
<v Speaker 1>So let's bring it to bring a trailer. We'll get

0:25:34.400 --> 0:25:37.520
<v Speaker 1>you fifty grand more than that. And I've helped people

0:25:37.680 --> 0:25:40.880
<v Speaker 1>actually sell cars that way and they've been thrilled that

0:25:41.000 --> 0:25:44.160
<v Speaker 1>they're not getting a low bull offer from somebody, especially

0:25:44.160 --> 0:25:47.000
<v Speaker 1>if it's something kind of interesting. But I don't want

0:25:47.040 --> 0:25:52.080
<v Speaker 1>to negotiate anybody's car leies for them, right, right, So

0:25:52.600 --> 0:25:54.800
<v Speaker 1>let's talk a little bit about some of the m

0:25:54.840 --> 0:25:57.600
<v Speaker 1>and a you've done, you've acquired. Is it more than

0:25:57.640 --> 0:25:58.480
<v Speaker 1>forty farms? Now?

0:25:58.520 --> 0:25:59.000
<v Speaker 2>Is that's right?

0:25:59.080 --> 0:26:02.600
<v Speaker 1>Right? Yes, we've talked a little bit about culture. Let

0:26:02.600 --> 0:26:07.760
<v Speaker 1>me ask the inverse question, what's the non negotiables when

0:26:07.800 --> 0:26:10.760
<v Speaker 1>it comes to acquisition? What is like, sorry, we're gonna

0:26:10.880 --> 0:26:13.679
<v Speaker 1>we're not gonna go beyond this line.

0:26:13.800 --> 0:26:16.919
<v Speaker 2>So you know, there's basically four investment bankers in our

0:26:16.960 --> 0:26:19.520
<v Speaker 2>space that control maybe eighty ninety percent of the deals

0:26:19.560 --> 0:26:22.160
<v Speaker 2>that are done, and I think they all know that.

0:26:22.359 --> 0:26:24.920
<v Speaker 2>You know, we'll start out with a zoom with another firm.

0:26:24.960 --> 0:26:27.840
<v Speaker 2>It will usually be short, and it will often end

0:26:27.840 --> 0:26:30.040
<v Speaker 2>short because there's not a connection. It's not gonna work.

0:26:30.320 --> 0:26:33.159
<v Speaker 2>What I have found is that the leader of the

0:26:33.200 --> 0:26:36.520
<v Speaker 2>firm usually is indicative of the whole firm, Like very

0:26:36.640 --> 0:26:39.320
<v Speaker 2>rarely do you meet a jerk, and then the firm

0:26:39.359 --> 0:26:42.560
<v Speaker 2>is a bunch of like wonderful people. Right, it's usually like,

0:26:43.040 --> 0:26:46.600
<v Speaker 2>really does emanate you know, from the leadership, And so

0:26:47.240 --> 0:26:49.840
<v Speaker 2>I am very focused on who these people are, what

0:26:49.960 --> 0:26:52.639
<v Speaker 2>is their attitude, how do they communicate, and all of

0:26:52.680 --> 0:26:55.080
<v Speaker 2>those things, and so I'm looking for some sort of

0:26:55.080 --> 0:27:00.200
<v Speaker 2>indication of servant leadership or collaboration, a consultative nature, kindness

0:27:00.240 --> 0:27:02.720
<v Speaker 2>you know about them. I think that's the type of

0:27:02.760 --> 0:27:06.000
<v Speaker 2>business where we're in, like that consultative business. It's very different.

0:27:06.600 --> 0:27:09.200
<v Speaker 2>Finances is very very broad, but there's hedge funds, mutual

0:27:09.200 --> 0:27:11.760
<v Speaker 2>funds estimated. Then they're dealing with people, right, So that's one,

0:27:12.480 --> 0:27:14.600
<v Speaker 2>very very big part of it. The other part is

0:27:15.160 --> 0:27:16.800
<v Speaker 2>they have to want to do what we do. Right,

0:27:16.800 --> 0:27:18.720
<v Speaker 2>We're not doing deals just to do deals. They have

0:27:18.760 --> 0:27:20.679
<v Speaker 2>to be planning, lad, they have to want to provide

0:27:20.720 --> 0:27:23.000
<v Speaker 2>all of these services to clients. They have to be

0:27:23.000 --> 0:27:24.719
<v Speaker 2>able to go that extra mile of Okay, now I'm

0:27:24.720 --> 0:27:25.960
<v Speaker 2>going to help you with your legal and now I'm

0:27:25.960 --> 0:27:27.800
<v Speaker 2>going to do this tax question. It's not just going

0:27:27.840 --> 0:27:30.719
<v Speaker 2>to be talking about investments. They have to adopt our

0:27:30.760 --> 0:27:34.119
<v Speaker 2>investment philosophy, right, So they've got to be following the

0:27:34.160 --> 0:27:36.520
<v Speaker 2>path that we believe is the absolute best way for

0:27:36.520 --> 0:27:38.880
<v Speaker 2>a high net worth investor to invest. So you do that,

0:27:38.880 --> 0:27:41.639
<v Speaker 2>that eliminates I mean ninety five percent, right, And so

0:27:41.800 --> 0:27:44.040
<v Speaker 2>for us, we're left with a very small group. But

0:27:44.080 --> 0:27:46.800
<v Speaker 2>I think that's why our acquisitions tend to be so successful,

0:27:47.359 --> 0:27:50.879
<v Speaker 2>is that small group we're left with. They really really

0:27:50.920 --> 0:27:53.080
<v Speaker 2>want to be at creative planning, and we really really

0:27:53.119 --> 0:27:55.520
<v Speaker 2>want them to be at creative planning. And when we

0:27:55.560 --> 0:27:57.320
<v Speaker 2>see a firm come in, we see their growth on

0:27:57.440 --> 0:28:01.199
<v Speaker 2>average grow two to three hundred percent more, ninety nine

0:28:01.440 --> 0:28:03.960
<v Speaker 2>hundred percent of their clients come over, their teams stay,

0:28:04.080 --> 0:28:07.240
<v Speaker 2>people are happy, and and it's a big win for everybody.

0:28:07.280 --> 0:28:09.840
<v Speaker 1>It certainly sounds like it. So the firm has been

0:28:09.840 --> 0:28:13.159
<v Speaker 1>a little more focused on creating content lately. That's something

0:28:13.560 --> 0:28:15.919
<v Speaker 1>I've noticed over the past couple of years. You have

0:28:15.960 --> 0:28:20.280
<v Speaker 1>a number of different employees posting, sending out market focused content.

0:28:20.680 --> 0:28:22.720
<v Speaker 1>Tell us a little bit about how that became part

0:28:22.760 --> 0:28:26.200
<v Speaker 1>of the firm's growth strategy and brand identity.

0:28:26.400 --> 0:28:28.600
<v Speaker 2>You know, well, there's this very inspiring guy, know that's

0:28:29.320 --> 0:28:31.159
<v Speaker 2>that's built this brand around.

0:28:31.240 --> 0:28:33.800
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but I stumbled backwards into that. It was never

0:28:34.880 --> 0:28:37.960
<v Speaker 1>It began as just an itch. I had a scratch,

0:28:38.520 --> 0:28:41.120
<v Speaker 1>and then you know, multiplied.

0:28:40.560 --> 0:28:42.880
<v Speaker 2>From Yeah, you and Josh have been incredible. But you know,

0:28:42.880 --> 0:28:45.080
<v Speaker 2>I will say that for the longest time, I wrote

0:28:45.120 --> 0:28:48.800
<v Speaker 2>every single newsletter, right, and I enjoy writing, and maybe

0:28:48.840 --> 0:28:51.640
<v Speaker 2>did that for the first seventeen or eighteen years. A

0:28:51.680 --> 0:28:53.840
<v Speaker 2>lot of work eighteen years, but it's a lot of work,

0:28:53.880 --> 0:28:57.080
<v Speaker 2>and it's a lot of you. As you more and

0:28:57.120 --> 0:28:59.320
<v Speaker 2>more things occupy your attention as a CEO, you've got

0:28:59.360 --> 0:29:00.880
<v Speaker 2>to decide, well, what I don't want to do it

0:29:00.920 --> 0:29:02.320
<v Speaker 2>not do well. It turns out there's a lot of

0:29:02.320 --> 0:29:05.160
<v Speaker 2>people that are smarter than me, right at creative planning, right, or.

0:29:05.120 --> 0:29:06.080
<v Speaker 1>At least better writers.

0:29:06.720 --> 0:29:09.479
<v Speaker 2>I'm sure somebody. Yeah. So so basically I said, I'm

0:29:09.480 --> 0:29:11.120
<v Speaker 2>going to focus my attention on the books, which I

0:29:11.840 --> 0:29:14.680
<v Speaker 2>really like writing and like the one that just came out,

0:29:14.800 --> 0:29:17.280
<v Speaker 2>and then and the podcast So I've added more podcasts.

0:29:17.360 --> 0:29:20.240
<v Speaker 2>I do a podcast every month with my friend Jonathan Clements.

0:29:20.280 --> 0:29:22.760
<v Speaker 2>I do one every week with my friend Charlie Blello,

0:29:22.800 --> 0:29:24.000
<v Speaker 2>who he's unbelievable.

0:29:24.280 --> 0:29:27.200
<v Speaker 1>So Jonathan clements with the Wall Street Journal for decades.

0:29:27.280 --> 0:29:31.560
<v Speaker 1>That's right, great, great background. And Charlie Blello does some

0:29:31.600 --> 0:29:33.240
<v Speaker 1>great chart work. I see his stuff on.

0:29:33.200 --> 0:29:34.640
<v Speaker 2>Twitter, one of the kings of Twitter.

0:29:34.720 --> 0:29:38.720
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, let's talk about the most recent book, Money Simplified.

0:29:39.920 --> 0:29:42.160
<v Speaker 1>First of all, is Money all that complicated? Why does

0:29:42.200 --> 0:29:45.480
<v Speaker 1>it need to be simplified? And second, tell us what

0:29:45.600 --> 0:29:46.880
<v Speaker 1>else the book is about.

0:29:47.000 --> 0:29:48.720
<v Speaker 2>Well, I think it is incredible. I think it's more

0:29:48.720 --> 0:29:50.320
<v Speaker 2>complicated it needs to be. I think there are a

0:29:50.320 --> 0:29:52.200
<v Speaker 2>lot of people that don't understand it desperately want to

0:29:52.240 --> 0:29:53.800
<v Speaker 2>understand it better, and I think there are a lot

0:29:53.880 --> 0:29:56.640
<v Speaker 2>of people that are too embarrassed to admit they don't

0:29:56.680 --> 0:29:58.440
<v Speaker 2>understand it. And so I wanted to write a book

0:29:58.440 --> 0:30:00.920
<v Speaker 2>that basically, if you were teenager, you could pick it

0:30:00.960 --> 0:30:02.600
<v Speaker 2>up and you could grasp most of the concepts and

0:30:02.680 --> 0:30:04.720
<v Speaker 2>understand it. If you were a beginner, you have a

0:30:04.720 --> 0:30:06.719
<v Speaker 2>book that would really say, Okay, this is really going

0:30:06.800 --> 0:30:09.320
<v Speaker 2>to help me. And if you're a very sophisticated person,

0:30:09.360 --> 0:30:11.520
<v Speaker 2>but this just isn't your day job, that you could

0:30:11.560 --> 0:30:13.360
<v Speaker 2>get through this book in thirty minutes and go you

0:30:13.360 --> 0:30:15.880
<v Speaker 2>know what, I learned four or five things in here,

0:30:15.920 --> 0:30:18.400
<v Speaker 2>and so I basically took all what I thought were

0:30:18.440 --> 0:30:21.560
<v Speaker 2>the top like fifty sixty concepts of money and said,

0:30:21.560 --> 0:30:24.480
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to explain this as simple as possible and

0:30:24.560 --> 0:30:27.600
<v Speaker 2>with pictures you know as well. And it's it's been

0:30:27.640 --> 0:30:28.920
<v Speaker 2>well received. I've be happy with it.

0:30:29.000 --> 0:30:31.840
<v Speaker 1>Oh, that's great. Let's talk a little bit about the

0:30:32.040 --> 0:30:36.440
<v Speaker 1>RIA industry. You always seem to describe it as a

0:30:36.640 --> 0:30:39.560
<v Speaker 1>messy industry. Explain what you mean by that.

0:30:40.080 --> 0:30:41.800
<v Speaker 2>Oh, I think it's missing on so many different levels

0:30:41.840 --> 0:30:44.200
<v Speaker 2>because a lot of people you think broker or RIA,

0:30:44.360 --> 0:30:47.240
<v Speaker 2>so that all the independent advisors, their fiduciaries, all their

0:30:47.240 --> 0:30:51.120
<v Speaker 2>firms are pretty similar. The firms couldn't be any more different.

0:30:51.160 --> 0:30:54.320
<v Speaker 2>There are so many different offerings within the space, so

0:30:54.400 --> 0:30:57.920
<v Speaker 2>many different ways of delivering, and the lines have gotten

0:30:57.920 --> 0:31:00.240
<v Speaker 2>you know, very very muddied. And also now with so

0:31:00.320 --> 0:31:02.640
<v Speaker 2>much institutional money in the space, we see a lot

0:31:02.720 --> 0:31:05.960
<v Speaker 2>of you know, the frank and firm concepts has really

0:31:06.000 --> 0:31:07.640
<v Speaker 2>taken off in a big way too, so that you

0:31:07.680 --> 0:31:10.840
<v Speaker 2>see some of the biggest rias are really no different

0:31:10.920 --> 0:31:12.920
<v Speaker 2>than Morgan Stanley at this point. I mean, they have

0:31:13.000 --> 0:31:16.480
<v Speaker 2>their own products, they have their duly registered and they're

0:31:16.480 --> 0:31:18.720
<v Speaker 2>they're making money on commission. I mean literally to me,

0:31:18.880 --> 0:31:21.760
<v Speaker 2>it may as well be Morgan Stanley. They's there's no

0:31:21.840 --> 0:31:25.600
<v Speaker 2>difference from from what you experience. And then some arias

0:31:25.600 --> 0:31:28.240
<v Speaker 2>are just pure money managers, which is which is wonderful.

0:31:28.240 --> 0:31:30.280
<v Speaker 2>We need money managers. Some of them are wealth management

0:31:30.280 --> 0:31:35.240
<v Speaker 2>firms like Creative Planning, and some have multiple services, some don't.

0:31:35.280 --> 0:31:37.760
<v Speaker 2>Some are roll ups, some aren't. Some share their brands,

0:31:37.840 --> 0:31:41.480
<v Speaker 2>some don't. It's it's very very messy as when you

0:31:41.520 --> 0:31:43.280
<v Speaker 2>come into the space, you really have to spend some

0:31:43.400 --> 0:31:46.720
<v Speaker 2>time if you're a client perspective client really trying to

0:31:46.800 --> 0:31:48.960
<v Speaker 2>understand what you're looking for and who fits your needs.

0:31:49.200 --> 0:31:51.120
<v Speaker 2>And if you're a firm and you're looking to sell,

0:31:51.400 --> 0:31:55.000
<v Speaker 2>I mean when you look at the main buyers, most

0:31:55.080 --> 0:31:57.800
<v Speaker 2>of them could not be any more different in their offering.

0:31:58.200 --> 0:32:01.480
<v Speaker 1>So you mentioned the phrase Frank is firm. I know

0:32:01.600 --> 0:32:04.600
<v Speaker 1>exactly what you mean, but why don't you define what

0:32:04.640 --> 0:32:07.480
<v Speaker 1>that is to the layperson who may not be so

0:32:07.600 --> 0:32:08.600
<v Speaker 1>familiar with that phrase.

0:32:08.680 --> 0:32:10.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So to me, a Frank and firm is just

0:32:10.480 --> 0:32:12.480
<v Speaker 2>you know, you look, I look at Creative Planning. We

0:32:12.480 --> 0:32:15.640
<v Speaker 2>spent fifteen years building something from scratch, right, so we

0:32:15.720 --> 0:32:18.760
<v Speaker 2>built a very strong tree trunk. We knew what kind

0:32:18.800 --> 0:32:21.400
<v Speaker 2>of tree it was, right, had branches, and then when

0:32:21.440 --> 0:32:24.360
<v Speaker 2>we made acquisitions, we put branches on the tree that

0:32:24.400 --> 0:32:26.680
<v Speaker 2>fit the tree right, and the people that were coming

0:32:26.760 --> 0:32:28.360
<v Speaker 2>knew where they fit on that tree, and we knew

0:32:28.400 --> 0:32:31.400
<v Speaker 2>where they fit on that tree. But most of the

0:32:31.480 --> 0:32:35.080
<v Speaker 2>large RaaS are really all acquisitions, right, from a very

0:32:35.120 --> 0:32:38.240
<v Speaker 2>small they're very small firms, they started to acquisitions. So

0:32:38.280 --> 0:32:40.680
<v Speaker 2>if you go to their fifty offices across the country,

0:32:41.120 --> 0:32:43.959
<v Speaker 2>all fifty of them were acquisitions. So what do you get?

0:32:44.000 --> 0:32:46.800
<v Speaker 2>You get fifty different leaders with fifty different ways of

0:32:46.840 --> 0:32:50.560
<v Speaker 2>doing things, fifty different cultures, sometimes even different money management approaches.

0:32:51.000 --> 0:32:53.320
<v Speaker 2>It's an absolute mess, you know what I mean. I

0:32:53.320 --> 0:32:56.200
<v Speaker 2>think because the industry has grown so much and so

0:32:56.240 --> 0:32:58.720
<v Speaker 2>many people have made so much money in this industry

0:32:58.760 --> 0:33:01.000
<v Speaker 2>that hasn't really been punished yet. But you know, in

0:33:01.040 --> 0:33:05.520
<v Speaker 2>what industries it's punished eventually, all of them, right, Eventually,

0:33:06.520 --> 0:33:09.600
<v Speaker 2>Eventually the Franken firms don't work out. Eventually the arms

0:33:09.640 --> 0:33:11.840
<v Speaker 2>come falling off and the legs come falling off, and

0:33:12.280 --> 0:33:14.080
<v Speaker 2>you just can't fix them when they get too big.

0:33:14.200 --> 0:33:17.720
<v Speaker 1>So let's talk about the genesis of that. Back in

0:33:17.760 --> 0:33:22.720
<v Speaker 1>the twenty tens, not that far ago, in time when

0:33:22.760 --> 0:33:25.840
<v Speaker 1>the ten year was yielding one and a half percent,

0:33:26.160 --> 0:33:28.680
<v Speaker 1>when there was just no yield on any sort of

0:33:28.720 --> 0:33:33.160
<v Speaker 1>fixed income rias were thrown off seven nine twelve percent

0:33:33.200 --> 0:33:36.440
<v Speaker 1>a year. Three four times a week, I would get

0:33:36.440 --> 0:33:39.240
<v Speaker 1>a phone call from some private equity shop. Hey, listen,

0:33:39.320 --> 0:33:41.040
<v Speaker 1>we want to take a chunky We're looking to buy

0:33:41.080 --> 0:33:43.240
<v Speaker 1>ten percent, We're looking to buy twenty percent. What's your

0:33:43.240 --> 0:33:46.520
<v Speaker 1>profit margin? We see your growth how much? And we're like,

0:33:46.840 --> 0:33:49.280
<v Speaker 1>we're still really growing. We're not looking to sell anything yet,

0:33:49.320 --> 0:33:52.680
<v Speaker 1>but call back in ten years, right. And I wonder,

0:33:53.400 --> 0:33:55.800
<v Speaker 1>given the fact that we had zero interest rates for

0:33:55.840 --> 0:34:00.680
<v Speaker 1>so long, I wonder how much those circumstances and all

0:34:00.720 --> 0:34:04.360
<v Speaker 1>the private equity cash sloshing around led to the rise

0:34:04.400 --> 0:34:05.560
<v Speaker 1>of all these francin firms.

0:34:05.640 --> 0:34:06.840
<v Speaker 2>Well, I think that's part of it, but I think

0:34:07.480 --> 0:34:10.319
<v Speaker 2>it's way beyond that. It's a perfect storm of factors

0:34:10.360 --> 0:34:13.560
<v Speaker 2>that really benefited the ra space. So number one, private

0:34:13.600 --> 0:34:15.960
<v Speaker 2>equity likes to go where money is moving, right, and

0:34:16.000 --> 0:34:18.080
<v Speaker 2>we've got money going from brokers to independence.

0:34:18.200 --> 0:34:20.719
<v Speaker 1>I mean that's been going off of fifteen to twenty years, and.

0:34:21.080 --> 0:34:23.960
<v Speaker 2>They love massive trends. Right, Hey, this is happening, It's

0:34:23.960 --> 0:34:25.960
<v Speaker 2>going to continue to happen. This is a big thing

0:34:25.960 --> 0:34:27.720
<v Speaker 2>in my favor. I can make a lot of mistakes

0:34:27.760 --> 0:34:29.640
<v Speaker 2>in this will work out. You've actually seen that payoff

0:34:30.440 --> 0:34:32.400
<v Speaker 2>with some private equity firms is they've made some of

0:34:32.400 --> 0:34:36.560
<v Speaker 2>them made monumental mistakes. But even bad RaaS have done

0:34:36.560 --> 0:34:39.960
<v Speaker 2>well because of that mega trend. The second mega trend

0:34:40.080 --> 0:34:43.040
<v Speaker 2>is the transfer of wealth, the massive amount of wealth

0:34:43.200 --> 0:34:47.520
<v Speaker 2>you know that's moving hands. Now that's also betting been

0:34:47.560 --> 0:34:50.760
<v Speaker 2>helping the RA space. A third trend is worth seeing

0:34:50.800 --> 0:34:52.920
<v Speaker 2>consolidation in the space. So they like to be in

0:34:52.960 --> 0:34:56.960
<v Speaker 2>the early innings of consolidation of every single industry. If

0:34:57.000 --> 0:35:00.719
<v Speaker 2>you've got dentists consolidating, or HVAC company can sell. You know,

0:35:00.719 --> 0:35:02.960
<v Speaker 2>if you've got one little company, it's worth you certain

0:35:03.040 --> 0:35:05.600
<v Speaker 2>multiple of earnings, but if it's ten of those put together,

0:35:05.680 --> 0:35:07.879
<v Speaker 2>it's worth more because the earnings are more diversified, they're

0:35:07.880 --> 0:35:10.920
<v Speaker 2>more reliable. You only need one CFO, one hr person

0:35:11.080 --> 0:35:14.160
<v Speaker 2>all that stuff. So the RA space is highly fragmented,

0:35:14.280 --> 0:35:16.320
<v Speaker 2>so they see a future if you look at the

0:35:16.320 --> 0:35:19.000
<v Speaker 2>custodians it's not highly fragmented. There's two and a few others.

0:35:19.360 --> 0:35:22.400
<v Speaker 2>Investment banks there's two and a few others. Brokerage houses

0:35:22.440 --> 0:35:24.879
<v Speaker 2>there's a few, and then no one else. Right, they

0:35:24.920 --> 0:35:27.920
<v Speaker 2>see the RA space is going to go through massive consolidation,

0:35:27.960 --> 0:35:30.319
<v Speaker 2>and they're right, and we're seeing that now. And then

0:35:30.320 --> 0:35:32.920
<v Speaker 2>you also see this massive trend of money moving from

0:35:33.000 --> 0:35:35.920
<v Speaker 2>smaller RaaS to the multi billion dollar ras. People going, look,

0:35:35.960 --> 0:35:38.600
<v Speaker 2>I want to feel safe. So all of these trends

0:35:38.680 --> 0:35:41.320
<v Speaker 2>are mega trends. On top of that, you put private

0:35:41.360 --> 0:35:44.440
<v Speaker 2>equity loves recurring revenue, right, I'd rather buy Netflix and

0:35:44.480 --> 0:35:46.719
<v Speaker 2>Apple where people are paying every month. And the money

0:35:46.719 --> 0:35:49.360
<v Speaker 2>management business is a recurring revenue business, and every aspect

0:35:49.400 --> 0:35:51.360
<v Speaker 2>of it is we do taxes, that's recurring revenue. You

0:35:51.400 --> 0:35:53.319
<v Speaker 2>have to file your taxes every year. We do bill

0:35:53.320 --> 0:35:55.640
<v Speaker 2>pay that's recurring revenue if you pay bills every year.

0:35:55.960 --> 0:35:58.719
<v Speaker 2>So they love that recurring revenue business. And then there's

0:35:58.760 --> 0:36:02.279
<v Speaker 2>an inflation hedge right built in just magically. So you

0:36:02.360 --> 0:36:05.560
<v Speaker 2>have all of these incredible trends that, look, you and

0:36:05.600 --> 0:36:08.759
<v Speaker 2>I were not thinking about at all when we started, right,

0:36:08.800 --> 0:36:10.360
<v Speaker 2>I was just saying, hey, how do I do this

0:36:10.440 --> 0:36:13.080
<v Speaker 2>in a better way tell clients. It was probably a

0:36:13.080 --> 0:36:16.279
<v Speaker 2>good maybe twelve thirteen years before I got a call

0:36:16.320 --> 0:36:19.480
<v Speaker 2>from anybody it even knew I had anything with any

0:36:19.560 --> 0:36:23.239
<v Speaker 2>enterprise value whatsoever. I just thought, Hey, this is a

0:36:23.280 --> 0:36:24.799
<v Speaker 2>great way to make, you know, make a living. I

0:36:24.840 --> 0:36:26.759
<v Speaker 2>love what I'm doing all day. I've created this thing

0:36:26.760 --> 0:36:29.640
<v Speaker 2>that seems to be going over very well. But PE

0:36:29.760 --> 0:36:33.319
<v Speaker 2>has really flooded this space, particularly in the last seven

0:36:33.400 --> 0:36:35.120
<v Speaker 2>or eight years, and they've been right.

0:36:36.040 --> 0:36:38.280
<v Speaker 1>So I wanted to come back to PE in a minute.

0:36:38.320 --> 0:36:42.360
<v Speaker 1>But before we do that, let's talk about the solo

0:36:42.440 --> 0:36:46.240
<v Speaker 1>practitioners or the small two, three, four, five person shop.

0:36:46.760 --> 0:36:49.719
<v Speaker 1>You know, even with the wave of consolidation we saw

0:36:49.800 --> 0:36:53.360
<v Speaker 1>in the twenty tens, there's still tens of thousands of

0:36:53.400 --> 0:36:58.240
<v Speaker 1>small shops. I've heard some folks say they're all going away.

0:36:58.360 --> 0:37:01.320
<v Speaker 1>That seems a little extreme. I've heard other people say

0:37:01.840 --> 0:37:06.360
<v Speaker 1>this space is ripe for consolidation, mergers, acquisitions, et cetera.

0:37:06.880 --> 0:37:09.160
<v Speaker 1>How do you see the either the small firm or

0:37:09.200 --> 0:37:11.560
<v Speaker 1>the solo practitioner over the next decade.

0:37:11.680 --> 0:37:13.279
<v Speaker 2>Well, I think there are some people in our in

0:37:13.320 --> 0:37:15.960
<v Speaker 2>our space that love to say that everyone's going to

0:37:16.000 --> 0:37:18.080
<v Speaker 2>get crushed and go away. And it's very self surveying.

0:37:18.200 --> 0:37:21.480
<v Speaker 1>Send us your mind, Yeah, exactly, come to us.

0:37:22.080 --> 0:37:24.479
<v Speaker 2>That's right. If you don't sell to us or hire

0:37:24.520 --> 0:37:26.239
<v Speaker 2>me as you're a consultant or whatever, you're gonna die.

0:37:26.640 --> 0:37:31.319
<v Speaker 2>That's ridiculous. There's room. You're gonna have to be better though, right,

0:37:31.400 --> 0:37:33.399
<v Speaker 2>Like I think that, like you know, ten years ago,

0:37:33.480 --> 0:37:36.840
<v Speaker 2>anybody could open a shop and do whatever. That world

0:37:36.880 --> 0:37:38.640
<v Speaker 2>is going away, right, So I think what we're going

0:37:38.680 --> 0:37:42.200
<v Speaker 2>to have is you're going to have my best guess

0:37:42.200 --> 0:37:44.000
<v Speaker 2>on how this turns Out's like the tax world. Right,

0:37:44.000 --> 0:37:47.720
<v Speaker 2>You're going to have one to four mega mega firms,

0:37:47.800 --> 0:37:51.040
<v Speaker 2>you'll have ten to twenty regional firms. You'll have a

0:37:51.239 --> 0:37:56.400
<v Speaker 2>thousand smaller firms that either specialize in equestrian wealth management

0:37:56.640 --> 0:38:00.480
<v Speaker 2>or dental wealth management, or they cost less than others,

0:38:00.600 --> 0:38:03.360
<v Speaker 2>or it's a very very premium service, or you're just

0:38:03.560 --> 0:38:06.920
<v Speaker 2>really really personable person and you're able to maintain a

0:38:06.960 --> 0:38:09.680
<v Speaker 2>practice that way. But it will be harder, and I

0:38:09.719 --> 0:38:11.480
<v Speaker 2>think that it's going to be harder and harder to

0:38:11.520 --> 0:38:15.160
<v Speaker 2>compete with the firm that's lowering their fees, providing more services,

0:38:15.200 --> 0:38:17.799
<v Speaker 2>has access to investments that maybe you can't get, maybe

0:38:17.840 --> 0:38:20.480
<v Speaker 2>can negotiate something with a third party, you can't negotiate,

0:38:20.760 --> 0:38:23.000
<v Speaker 2>but there will be a home. It's just that the

0:38:23.040 --> 0:38:25.440
<v Speaker 2>bar is going to rise, just as with bigger firms.

0:38:25.840 --> 0:38:28.120
<v Speaker 2>For those big firms to thrive, the bar is going

0:38:28.200 --> 0:38:30.040
<v Speaker 2>to have to be higher. It's not going to just

0:38:30.120 --> 0:38:32.200
<v Speaker 2>be as simple as buy a bunch of firms in

0:38:32.239 --> 0:38:34.279
<v Speaker 2>the market goes up. I think that world's coming to

0:38:34.280 --> 0:38:34.799
<v Speaker 2>an end too.

0:38:35.560 --> 0:38:38.600
<v Speaker 1>Really interesting. So you made the decision to work with

0:38:38.640 --> 0:38:43.000
<v Speaker 1>a private equity shop to help fuel your acquisitions. Tell

0:38:43.040 --> 0:38:44.880
<v Speaker 1>us a little bit about what that experience was.

0:38:45.160 --> 0:38:48.000
<v Speaker 2>Well, I mean, for us, we've never so General Atlantic

0:38:48.080 --> 0:38:51.279
<v Speaker 2>is our minority owner. They own about seventeen percent of

0:38:51.280 --> 0:38:53.680
<v Speaker 2>Creative Planning. They've been wonderful partners, but we've never used

0:38:53.680 --> 0:38:55.759
<v Speaker 2>any money from them to do an acquisition. And the

0:38:55.800 --> 0:38:58.719
<v Speaker 2>reality is, you know, we're the fastest growing area in

0:38:58.800 --> 0:39:01.600
<v Speaker 2>the country, one of the large just ras in the country,

0:39:01.760 --> 0:39:03.920
<v Speaker 2>and you know, that's a lot of eggs in one

0:39:03.960 --> 0:39:06.279
<v Speaker 2>person's basket. So the decision was basically made, Hey, we

0:39:06.320 --> 0:39:09.600
<v Speaker 2>need to institutionalize this place and we need to reward

0:39:09.640 --> 0:39:11.680
<v Speaker 2>the people that have come along on this journey. And

0:39:11.719 --> 0:39:13.960
<v Speaker 2>so we brought in about five hundred employees are now

0:39:14.000 --> 0:39:15.040
<v Speaker 2>partners and that's.

0:39:14.840 --> 0:39:17.799
<v Speaker 1>Oh really, I remember the last time you and I

0:39:17.880 --> 0:39:21.000
<v Speaker 1>sat down, you were literally one hundred percent owner.

0:39:21.040 --> 0:39:21.399
<v Speaker 2>That's right.

0:39:21.440 --> 0:39:24.560
<v Speaker 1>There was no outside investment, that's right, No employees. You're

0:39:24.640 --> 0:39:27.080
<v Speaker 1>morphing into something a little more employee owned.

0:39:27.400 --> 0:39:30.680
<v Speaker 2>Yes, five hundred, yea five hundred and many of them

0:39:30.840 --> 0:39:33.560
<v Speaker 2>very very substantively. And then and then you've got General

0:39:33.600 --> 0:39:36.600
<v Speaker 2>Anak in there. And then we brought in an institutional

0:39:36.680 --> 0:39:39.480
<v Speaker 2>level CFO. We brought in Ernst and Young and and

0:39:39.600 --> 0:39:41.759
<v Speaker 2>KPMG wanted to do our audit, wanted to do our tech.

0:39:41.800 --> 0:39:45.239
<v Speaker 2>Basically just said, hey, look, we wanted the regulators to see, Look,

0:39:45.280 --> 0:39:47.759
<v Speaker 2>we're taking this very seriously. We want our clients to

0:39:47.800 --> 0:39:50.000
<v Speaker 2>see we're taking this very seriously. We were doing acquisitions.

0:39:50.000 --> 0:39:53.160
<v Speaker 2>We want somebody we're acquiring to see that as well.

0:39:53.200 --> 0:39:56.800
<v Speaker 2>And it allowed for more easier internal succession in the

0:39:56.800 --> 0:39:58.919
<v Speaker 2>event that something happens to me. And so there was

0:39:58.920 --> 0:40:02.400
<v Speaker 2>was not motivated at all by using the capital at

0:40:02.400 --> 0:40:04.399
<v Speaker 2>a third party to do anything, because they've never given

0:40:04.520 --> 0:40:06.239
<v Speaker 2>us a dollar to do anything. They just bought into

0:40:06.239 --> 0:40:07.200
<v Speaker 2>the company and that was it.

0:40:08.360 --> 0:40:10.680
<v Speaker 1>Any So it sounds like when you bring in an

0:40:10.840 --> 0:40:15.840
<v Speaker 1>ian yan a KPMG that often is a predecessor step

0:40:15.880 --> 0:40:18.600
<v Speaker 1>to going public. I don't get the sense that's the

0:40:18.640 --> 0:40:21.200
<v Speaker 1>top of your list to become publicly traded.

0:40:21.320 --> 0:40:23.600
<v Speaker 2>No, it's not. I think that when you went in

0:40:23.719 --> 0:40:27.279
<v Speaker 2>our scale, when we're negotiating with third parties to bring

0:40:27.320 --> 0:40:29.480
<v Speaker 2>an investment to a client or to get something for

0:40:29.520 --> 0:40:33.520
<v Speaker 2>a client, you know, sometimes the partner wants to see

0:40:33.520 --> 0:40:37.080
<v Speaker 2>some information and that information coming from one of the

0:40:37.120 --> 0:40:39.560
<v Speaker 2>Big four is a much bigger deal than if it's

0:40:39.600 --> 0:40:42.400
<v Speaker 2>coming for like my buddy across town that does my taxes,

0:40:42.440 --> 0:40:45.279
<v Speaker 2>do you know what I mean? So that's really you know,

0:40:45.560 --> 0:40:49.000
<v Speaker 2>institutionalizing so many things made it easier to do a

0:40:49.000 --> 0:40:51.640
<v Speaker 2>lot of things, give a lot of people a lot

0:40:51.640 --> 0:40:53.680
<v Speaker 2>of comfort, and that was a very very good decision.

0:40:53.760 --> 0:40:55.960
<v Speaker 2>I have a lot of clients that I personally work

0:40:56.000 --> 0:40:59.920
<v Speaker 2>with that are CEOs or CFOs of publicly traded company

0:41:00.200 --> 0:41:03.080
<v Speaker 2>and I will never do that. I mean, if I

0:41:03.080 --> 0:41:04.680
<v Speaker 2>if we had to go public, you know, for the

0:41:04.719 --> 0:41:06.759
<v Speaker 2>best interest of our partners and whatever, we had to

0:41:06.800 --> 0:41:08.880
<v Speaker 2>go public, I mean, I would do what I had

0:41:08.920 --> 0:41:10.600
<v Speaker 2>to do, but I would not be in that seat

0:41:10.680 --> 0:41:12.320
<v Speaker 2>for you know, ten years. I wouldn't be able to

0:41:12.360 --> 0:41:17.520
<v Speaker 2>do it pick chairman to a sacrifice.

0:41:17.600 --> 0:41:20.960
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I could certainly see that being a challenge. So

0:41:21.160 --> 0:41:24.040
<v Speaker 1>given where you are today, what are you looking at

0:41:24.360 --> 0:41:27.480
<v Speaker 1>as the next leg of growth for creative planning?

0:41:27.920 --> 0:41:30.480
<v Speaker 2>Well, I think today like we are very strong with

0:41:30.560 --> 0:41:33.080
<v Speaker 2>the very wealthy and with the mass affluent. We've got

0:41:33.080 --> 0:41:35.479
<v Speaker 2>an emerging wealth division. We're strong in the phone case space,

0:41:35.520 --> 0:41:38.839
<v Speaker 2>and we're strong with business owners. We're working towards getting

0:41:38.840 --> 0:41:42.120
<v Speaker 2>stronger in the foundation uh space. And I think for

0:41:42.239 --> 0:41:46.160
<v Speaker 2>us now, it's a question of just getting bigger locally,

0:41:46.440 --> 0:41:48.520
<v Speaker 2>like where most of the places in the United States

0:41:48.560 --> 0:41:51.120
<v Speaker 2>where you see a major sports team will have an office.

0:41:51.640 --> 0:41:54.200
<v Speaker 2>But we're still relatively small. I mean, the reality is

0:41:54.360 --> 0:41:57.880
<v Speaker 2>we're small, So we only sound big when you compare

0:41:57.920 --> 0:42:01.160
<v Speaker 2>us to RAS. But the brokerage houses you know, Morgan

0:42:01.200 --> 0:42:04.000
<v Speaker 2>and Merrill and the investment ult Trillion Goldman, JP Morgan,

0:42:04.000 --> 0:42:07.600
<v Speaker 2>the Custodian Schwabatfela, these are trillions and trillionah, They're all

0:42:07.640 --> 0:42:10.799
<v Speaker 2>two to twelve billion, trillion trillion with a T right,

0:42:11.480 --> 0:42:14.279
<v Speaker 2>So we are a tiny, tiny fraction of that. We

0:42:14.320 --> 0:42:16.520
<v Speaker 2>employ the same number of people as the high school

0:42:16.560 --> 0:42:19.880
<v Speaker 2>close to my office, right, So in the ria space.

0:42:19.920 --> 0:42:23.040
<v Speaker 2>It's significant, but it's not significant enough for the average

0:42:23.080 --> 0:42:25.640
<v Speaker 2>American to know who creative planning is. And I think

0:42:25.640 --> 0:42:27.439
<v Speaker 2>that's our objective is we want to be the gold

0:42:27.520 --> 0:42:31.600
<v Speaker 2>standard nationally for the mass affluent and ultrafluent clients looking

0:42:31.640 --> 0:42:32.800
<v Speaker 2>for an independent wealth manager.

0:42:33.200 --> 0:42:37.000
<v Speaker 1>So you rather famously you're known for not going to conferences.

0:42:37.840 --> 0:42:41.719
<v Speaker 1>I have to ask, why is that? I really had

0:42:41.719 --> 0:42:44.319
<v Speaker 1>to twist your arm to get you to go to

0:42:44.600 --> 0:42:47.840
<v Speaker 1>the conference we did back in twenty nineteen. And I

0:42:47.920 --> 0:42:51.400
<v Speaker 1>know you're coming to future Proof twenty twenty four in

0:42:51.880 --> 0:42:56.479
<v Speaker 1>Huntington Beach in September, But why are you so down

0:42:56.520 --> 0:42:57.800
<v Speaker 1>on conferences generally?

0:42:58.239 --> 0:43:01.160
<v Speaker 2>So I've really I kind of got this repeat from

0:43:01.640 --> 0:43:04.480
<v Speaker 2>I can't maybe as Investment News or somebody did a

0:43:04.480 --> 0:43:07.759
<v Speaker 2>story about this and they were asking competitors about me,

0:43:07.800 --> 0:43:09.880
<v Speaker 2>and it was it was kind of like, well, they

0:43:09.880 --> 0:43:11.680
<v Speaker 2>didn't say Peter is a jerk, it was, but it

0:43:11.719 --> 0:43:13.920
<v Speaker 2>came across like, well, Peter's just like too big of

0:43:13.960 --> 0:43:16.239
<v Speaker 2>a jerk to go to these conferences or something like that.

0:43:16.520 --> 0:43:19.520
<v Speaker 2>But really, the I learned very early on from my clients.

0:43:19.560 --> 0:43:21.400
<v Speaker 2>I learned so much from my clients that you know,

0:43:21.400 --> 0:43:24.600
<v Speaker 2>a yes to something is a note of something else. Right,

0:43:24.719 --> 0:43:27.000
<v Speaker 2>So when you're committing to a conference, you're you're not

0:43:27.160 --> 0:43:30.400
<v Speaker 2>usually committing like two days in advance, right, you're committing

0:43:30.680 --> 0:43:33.080
<v Speaker 2>six months in advance. Right, That's right, And that's a

0:43:33.080 --> 0:43:35.440
<v Speaker 2>big deal if you if you have kids, like I

0:43:35.480 --> 0:43:37.440
<v Speaker 2>don't like to commit to things that are far in

0:43:37.480 --> 0:43:41.200
<v Speaker 2>the future that I cannot move, right, And so I

0:43:41.560 --> 0:43:43.200
<v Speaker 2>made that. That's part one of the decisions. The other

0:43:43.239 --> 0:43:45.319
<v Speaker 2>part of the decision is I think and look, I

0:43:45.320 --> 0:43:48.319
<v Speaker 2>know you put on conferences. Yours are wonderful. Most of

0:43:48.360 --> 0:43:50.160
<v Speaker 2>them suck, you know what I mean, Like most of

0:43:50.160 --> 0:43:53.120
<v Speaker 2>the time you're going and everyone just really wants to

0:43:53.120 --> 0:43:55.319
<v Speaker 2>get away from home and drink and hang out and

0:43:55.320 --> 0:43:57.719
<v Speaker 2>go for a hike or go golfing or whatever. And

0:43:57.800 --> 0:43:59.600
<v Speaker 2>I look at that, like two days or three days

0:43:59.640 --> 0:44:01.879
<v Speaker 2>or four day and go, Man if I spent that

0:44:02.120 --> 0:44:05.480
<v Speaker 2>twenty or thirty hours, uh, you know at night with

0:44:05.600 --> 0:44:09.120
<v Speaker 2>my family and during the day with actual clients and

0:44:09.120 --> 0:44:11.080
<v Speaker 2>employees one on one, where am I going to get

0:44:11.120 --> 0:44:13.120
<v Speaker 2>more value? I'm going to learn more, not not just

0:44:13.239 --> 0:44:15.520
<v Speaker 2>serve people more. I'm going to learn more being present.

0:44:15.920 --> 0:44:18.000
<v Speaker 2>So I have that attitude too. Now my youngest start

0:44:18.000 --> 0:44:20.279
<v Speaker 2>graduating from high school. So I'm you know, I think

0:44:20.320 --> 0:44:22.160
<v Speaker 2>the last what I agreed to do, I think was

0:44:22.239 --> 0:44:24.480
<v Speaker 2>with you five years ago. That's right, And the next

0:44:24.480 --> 0:44:27.399
<v Speaker 2>thing I'm about to do is with your colleague Josh here,

0:44:27.440 --> 0:44:27.799
<v Speaker 2>with with.

0:44:27.840 --> 0:44:31.160
<v Speaker 1>Your with your right. The fun part about that, the

0:44:31.200 --> 0:44:33.080
<v Speaker 1>whole thing is out doing Yeah, no, that looks that

0:44:33.120 --> 0:44:33.640
<v Speaker 1>looks cool.

0:44:33.680 --> 0:44:35.359
<v Speaker 2>And you have I mean, that's the lineup of all

0:44:35.400 --> 0:44:37.080
<v Speaker 2>lineups right that you have. So that's going to be

0:44:37.239 --> 0:44:40.040
<v Speaker 2>very very interesting one and it's obviously a very different

0:44:40.080 --> 0:44:42.200
<v Speaker 2>spin than everybody else. But I also know, you know,

0:44:42.320 --> 0:44:44.239
<v Speaker 2>my kids aren't going to be home, right, so it's

0:44:44.280 --> 0:44:46.879
<v Speaker 2>a much easier, easier thing to do for a couple

0:44:46.920 --> 0:44:47.320
<v Speaker 2>of days.

0:44:47.400 --> 0:44:51.800
<v Speaker 1>So the secret is to plan conferences when Peter's children

0:44:52.200 --> 0:44:55.520
<v Speaker 1>are otherwise occupied. Otherwise you get no shot. We did

0:44:55.520 --> 0:44:58.200
<v Speaker 1>that very much on purpose, So I know I only

0:44:58.239 --> 0:45:01.719
<v Speaker 1>have you for so much time. Before I get to

0:45:01.800 --> 0:45:04.680
<v Speaker 1>my favorite questions I ask all my guests, I have

0:45:04.719 --> 0:45:09.080
<v Speaker 1>to throw you a curveball question. You're a minority owner

0:45:09.120 --> 0:45:12.239
<v Speaker 1>of the Kansas City Royals. I have to ask how

0:45:12.280 --> 0:45:15.879
<v Speaker 1>that came about, because I know your background with them.

0:45:16.120 --> 0:45:18.759
<v Speaker 1>How did you end up as a minority owner of

0:45:18.800 --> 0:45:20.000
<v Speaker 1>a Major League Baseball team.

0:45:20.080 --> 0:45:21.719
<v Speaker 2>I mean this sounds cliche, but I mean when I

0:45:21.760 --> 0:45:23.520
<v Speaker 2>was a little kid, I would literally listen to them

0:45:23.520 --> 0:45:25.640
<v Speaker 2>to the radio while I was falling asleep. They used

0:45:25.640 --> 0:45:27.440
<v Speaker 2>to start at seven thirty five PM all the time.

0:45:27.480 --> 0:45:29.759
<v Speaker 2>There was none of this three o'clock game and weekdays

0:45:29.840 --> 0:45:32.239
<v Speaker 2>or six o'clock GA. It was seven thirty five and

0:45:32.280 --> 0:45:35.080
<v Speaker 2>they played till usually eleven. The games were really long.

0:45:35.400 --> 0:45:37.360
<v Speaker 2>I'd listen to them every night. The Royals were amazing

0:45:37.400 --> 0:45:40.200
<v Speaker 2>back then, George Brett, Frank White, Willie Wilson playing the

0:45:40.280 --> 0:45:43.600
<v Speaker 2>Yankees every year in the playoffs. Huge, huge, huge fan.

0:45:43.960 --> 0:45:47.960
<v Speaker 2>And then in high school I wound up I talk

0:45:48.000 --> 0:45:49.720
<v Speaker 2>to my dad and taking me out there to interview

0:45:49.719 --> 0:45:51.800
<v Speaker 2>for a job. And I was interviewing. They're like, what

0:45:51.840 --> 0:45:52.719
<v Speaker 2>do you want to do. I'm like, I want to

0:45:52.719 --> 0:45:54.080
<v Speaker 2>be a bat boy for the Royals. I think I

0:45:54.120 --> 0:45:56.000
<v Speaker 2>just started laughing, right. He's like, no, I thought You're interviewing,

0:45:56.160 --> 0:45:57.279
<v Speaker 2>like do you want to sell peanuts or do you

0:45:57.320 --> 0:45:59.560
<v Speaker 2>want to sell you know, strawberries? But what are you

0:45:59.560 --> 0:46:01.960
<v Speaker 2>going to the aisles and sell? It's like I don't

0:46:01.960 --> 0:46:03.200
<v Speaker 2>want to do that. We're walking out and the guy

0:46:03.239 --> 0:46:05.359
<v Speaker 2>yells he goes, Hey, I call the clubhouse and they

0:46:05.360 --> 0:46:07.160
<v Speaker 2>have an opening for a clubby. I didn't know what

0:46:07.160 --> 0:46:09.160
<v Speaker 2>a clubb he was. But the club he's the guys,

0:46:09.200 --> 0:46:11.720
<v Speaker 2>like what cleans the shines the shoes for the players,

0:46:11.760 --> 0:46:13.120
<v Speaker 2>does their lot. There's this whole route.

0:46:13.120 --> 0:46:14.400
<v Speaker 1>You literally do their laundry.

0:46:14.480 --> 0:46:16.759
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, literally do it. It's this is fascinating.

0:46:16.760 --> 0:46:21.399
<v Speaker 1>I delivered fried chicken at City Royal players. Was out

0:46:21.640 --> 0:46:22.960
<v Speaker 1>during a game sitting on the bench.

0:46:23.160 --> 0:46:24.879
<v Speaker 2>That was That was Wade Bogs. That was the way

0:46:24.960 --> 0:46:27.200
<v Speaker 2>Bogs they did that for but they Bruce It was.

0:46:27.239 --> 0:46:30.400
<v Speaker 2>It's crazy and so but I was upset because the

0:46:30.440 --> 0:46:32.319
<v Speaker 2>clubby job wasn't for the Royals, it was for the

0:46:32.400 --> 0:46:34.279
<v Speaker 2>visiting clubhouse, and I was upset about that. But then

0:46:34.320 --> 0:46:36.160
<v Speaker 2>I took the job, and it turns out you get

0:46:36.200 --> 0:46:37.719
<v Speaker 2>to know all the Royals. Plus you get to meet

0:46:37.760 --> 0:46:40.000
<v Speaker 2>all the players in the American League because you're playing

0:46:40.000 --> 0:46:41.799
<v Speaker 2>every team in the American League and you were getting

0:46:41.840 --> 0:46:44.640
<v Speaker 2>tipped every series. So I was making a fortune, I

0:46:44.680 --> 0:46:47.360
<v Speaker 2>mean a fortunate it's getting all these autographs, got to

0:46:47.400 --> 0:46:49.799
<v Speaker 2>know all these players. But the routine before the game

0:46:49.840 --> 0:46:51.520
<v Speaker 2>is nuts. I mean, they show up way earlier than

0:46:51.560 --> 0:46:54.319
<v Speaker 2>most people. Think and hours hours hours ahead of time,

0:46:54.360 --> 0:46:56.960
<v Speaker 2>and then they go and they you know, head and

0:46:57.000 --> 0:46:59.120
<v Speaker 2>field or whatever. Then they come in and they they

0:46:59.200 --> 0:47:01.200
<v Speaker 2>drop all their law on the floor and they change

0:47:01.239 --> 0:47:04.239
<v Speaker 2>their their cleats and then they get into their new

0:47:04.440 --> 0:47:06.440
<v Speaker 2>you know, jerseys and new cleats, and then they go

0:47:06.480 --> 0:47:08.520
<v Speaker 2>out and play the game, and you're shining their old

0:47:08.520 --> 0:47:12.720
<v Speaker 2>cleats and washing their old jerseys, and then you're getting

0:47:12.719 --> 0:47:15.120
<v Speaker 2>their lockers organized. Then you've got like the third eighty

0:47:15.160 --> 0:47:16.640
<v Speaker 2>of the sixth inning to walk around the stadium. Then

0:47:16.640 --> 0:47:18.880
<v Speaker 2>you're going and getting dinner ready for them and their beers.

0:47:19.320 --> 0:47:21.279
<v Speaker 2>Then after the game they all drink and eat and

0:47:21.320 --> 0:47:23.399
<v Speaker 2>take their showers, do their interviews, and then they leave,

0:47:23.440 --> 0:47:25.680
<v Speaker 2>and then you wash their clothes and shine their shoes,

0:47:25.680 --> 0:47:28.200
<v Speaker 2>and organize their lockers and put the food away and

0:47:28.280 --> 0:47:30.160
<v Speaker 2>drive the ones home that were you know, hammered and

0:47:30.200 --> 0:47:32.200
<v Speaker 2>stayed late, and you take them to the Adams Mark

0:47:32.239 --> 0:47:35.160
<v Speaker 2>Hotel across the streets. So when the Royals came for sale,

0:47:35.160 --> 0:47:37.200
<v Speaker 2>they were putting together a conglomerate in Kansas City. And

0:47:37.239 --> 0:47:40.719
<v Speaker 2>I remember when John Sherman, who's the primary owner, he's

0:47:41.000 --> 0:47:43.600
<v Speaker 2>the greatest guy, and he's like giving a walk you

0:47:43.680 --> 0:47:45.359
<v Speaker 2>through I'm like, John, I don't need you to walk

0:47:45.360 --> 0:47:47.279
<v Speaker 2>me through this deck, and he's like, I'm gonna walk you.

0:47:47.400 --> 0:47:50.040
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, I'm one hundred percent in, Like I'm just

0:47:50.600 --> 0:47:53.080
<v Speaker 2>Kansas City through and through, Royals through and through, and

0:47:53.120 --> 0:47:55.600
<v Speaker 2>I just it was like a not even a thought

0:47:55.640 --> 0:47:56.040
<v Speaker 2>about it.

0:47:56.160 --> 0:47:58.239
<v Speaker 1>All right, So let's jump to our favorite questions that

0:47:58.280 --> 0:48:00.800
<v Speaker 1>we ask all our guests. Yeah, except I'm going to

0:48:00.920 --> 0:48:04.200
<v Speaker 1>modify this because I know some things about you and

0:48:04.239 --> 0:48:07.959
<v Speaker 1>two of these questions won't work for you. But let's

0:48:08.000 --> 0:48:11.760
<v Speaker 1>start with who are your mentors who helped shape your career?

0:48:11.960 --> 0:48:15.160
<v Speaker 2>You know my mentors aren't you know, famous people. I

0:48:15.239 --> 0:48:18.680
<v Speaker 2>really just early on got to work with somebody who

0:48:18.719 --> 0:48:20.880
<v Speaker 2>has just had the most positive attitude in the world,

0:48:21.040 --> 0:48:23.439
<v Speaker 2>and he was just so gracious with everybody around him.

0:48:23.880 --> 0:48:27.760
<v Speaker 2>And I saw the impact that that had on everybody

0:48:27.760 --> 0:48:29.440
<v Speaker 2>around him all the time, you know, with his with

0:48:29.520 --> 0:48:31.680
<v Speaker 2>his family, as friends, his colleagues at work, and it

0:48:31.719 --> 0:48:35.480
<v Speaker 2>really showed me, you know, how important that piece is

0:48:35.520 --> 0:48:39.600
<v Speaker 2>to the puzzle. He was not brilliant from a finance perspective,

0:48:39.880 --> 0:48:41.480
<v Speaker 2>and I also worked with someone who was brilliant from

0:48:41.480 --> 0:48:44.720
<v Speaker 2>a finance perspective but was not positive with the people

0:48:44.760 --> 0:48:47.160
<v Speaker 2>around him, and the combination of the two was really

0:48:47.200 --> 0:48:51.400
<v Speaker 2>the ultimate, you know, lesson. And I just combined that

0:48:51.400 --> 0:48:54.520
<v Speaker 2>with my parents kind of that classic immigrant you know,

0:48:54.600 --> 0:48:58.040
<v Speaker 2>work like crazy, love everything about your country all the time,

0:48:58.120 --> 0:49:01.720
<v Speaker 2>no matter what I think, just that the positive attitude

0:49:01.760 --> 0:49:04.080
<v Speaker 2>my parents. Every wedding they left was always the best

0:49:04.080 --> 0:49:06.320
<v Speaker 2>wedding they'd ever been to, right. And so I remember,

0:49:06.360 --> 0:49:09.440
<v Speaker 2>right a girlfriend in college who were driving home and

0:49:09.680 --> 0:49:11.839
<v Speaker 2>her parents were like making fun of something from some

0:49:11.880 --> 0:49:13.879
<v Speaker 2>wedding we were out of. I've never heard anything like it,

0:49:14.000 --> 0:49:15.960
<v Speaker 2>but that's like, turns out that's kind of normal, right,

0:49:16.040 --> 0:49:19.000
<v Speaker 2>But just being around people that were so positive and

0:49:19.080 --> 0:49:21.440
<v Speaker 2>so negative, so hyper both as the spectrum. I think

0:49:21.480 --> 0:49:23.239
<v Speaker 2>that was probably the biggest lesson for me. I don't

0:49:23.280 --> 0:49:25.799
<v Speaker 2>think people need to have People always think they have

0:49:25.840 --> 0:49:27.680
<v Speaker 2>to have a mentor. That's like I get calls all

0:49:27.680 --> 0:49:30.239
<v Speaker 2>the time, well like you mentor me, Like, and I go,

0:49:30.320 --> 0:49:30.879
<v Speaker 2>what does that mean?

0:49:31.040 --> 0:49:31.160
<v Speaker 1>Oh?

0:49:31.160 --> 0:49:32.880
<v Speaker 2>Well get a lunch every month? And you know you

0:49:32.920 --> 0:49:35.120
<v Speaker 2>can't do that with everybody, right, right, But in the

0:49:35.160 --> 0:49:38.080
<v Speaker 2>world you're we're in today, I mean a mentor could

0:49:38.080 --> 0:49:39.160
<v Speaker 2>be on Twitter, do.

0:49:39.080 --> 0:49:42.080
<v Speaker 1>You mean right? Oh, you can absolutely have remote mens

0:49:42.160 --> 0:49:43.960
<v Speaker 1>they don't have to they don't even have to know

0:49:44.000 --> 0:49:44.600
<v Speaker 1>they're mentoring.

0:49:44.800 --> 0:49:46.640
<v Speaker 2>That's exactly correct, that's correctly.

0:49:47.120 --> 0:49:49.440
<v Speaker 1>And I've heard some stories about people who have said

0:49:49.840 --> 0:49:52.239
<v Speaker 1>some people on the show have said, well, these three

0:49:52.239 --> 0:49:54.719
<v Speaker 1>people have been my mentors. They have no idea about it, right,

0:49:54.840 --> 0:49:58.279
<v Speaker 1>and it's really really interesting. So normally I would ask

0:49:58.360 --> 0:50:00.920
<v Speaker 1>you what's keeping you into taine, what are you reading,

0:50:00.960 --> 0:50:03.520
<v Speaker 1>what are you streaming? But with you, I want to

0:50:03.560 --> 0:50:06.120
<v Speaker 1>ask tell me about the music shows you've been going to.

0:50:06.200 --> 0:50:09.480
<v Speaker 1>What have you been doing in your evenings in your

0:50:09.560 --> 0:50:10.120
<v Speaker 1>spare time.

0:50:10.280 --> 0:50:12.359
<v Speaker 2>So following you on Twitter, I know you're a big

0:50:12.480 --> 0:50:15.000
<v Speaker 2>concert guy. It seems like your genre is like seventies

0:50:15.040 --> 0:50:15.640
<v Speaker 2>is that pretty?

0:50:16.200 --> 0:50:19.200
<v Speaker 1>So I have really broad taste. It's the great Sarah

0:50:19.239 --> 0:50:23.440
<v Speaker 1>McLaughlan too, like yeah, yeah, so so wow you really Yeah.

0:50:23.480 --> 0:50:26.120
<v Speaker 1>So it's the Great American Songbook and everybody from El

0:50:26.200 --> 0:50:30.000
<v Speaker 1>Fitzgerald to Frank Sinatra to classic rock to eighties and

0:50:30.120 --> 0:50:35.520
<v Speaker 1>nineties to jazz to classical to blues, like even hip

0:50:35.560 --> 0:50:38.759
<v Speaker 1>hop up until like my line in the sand is

0:50:39.239 --> 0:50:42.080
<v Speaker 1>the Beastie Boys pull polls boutique. That's kind of where

0:50:42.120 --> 0:50:46.160
<v Speaker 1>I stopped. But but I'll listen.

0:50:45.880 --> 0:50:48.520
<v Speaker 2>To Pope three years or something like that.

0:50:48.600 --> 0:50:51.240
<v Speaker 1>I'll listen to pop, I'll listen to Taylor Swift, any

0:50:51.280 --> 0:50:54.120
<v Speaker 1>of the big singers. Yeah, what's your musical genre?

0:50:54.239 --> 0:50:57.080
<v Speaker 2>So it's been great having you know. So I used

0:50:57.120 --> 0:50:59.040
<v Speaker 2>to own music stores in college, and I used to

0:50:59.160 --> 0:51:02.960
<v Speaker 2>DJ even after college, weddings, everything else. And one of

0:51:03.000 --> 0:51:04.279
<v Speaker 2>the things you do in a music story till the

0:51:04.280 --> 0:51:06.759
<v Speaker 2>times you would just play every album that ever came in, right,

0:51:07.160 --> 0:51:10.360
<v Speaker 2>So it became a very expansive list of things I

0:51:10.360 --> 0:51:12.080
<v Speaker 2>would be willing to go to. And really, really the

0:51:12.080 --> 0:51:13.719
<v Speaker 2>only genre I was not a big fan of that

0:51:13.800 --> 0:51:15.839
<v Speaker 2>was major was country, but my kids have changed that

0:51:15.880 --> 0:51:17.360
<v Speaker 2>for me. So now I've been to Luke Cobs and

0:51:17.840 --> 0:51:20.680
<v Speaker 2>Morgan Wallen, which would say we're the best concerts.

0:51:20.320 --> 0:51:22.239
<v Speaker 1>But those are very news.

0:51:22.600 --> 0:51:25.960
<v Speaker 2>That's not like that, not Hank Williams, right, right.

0:51:26.400 --> 0:51:28.480
<v Speaker 1>Very interesting. It's like country rock.

0:51:28.400 --> 0:51:30.440
<v Speaker 2>Right, David Allen Cob was pretty cool. But I mean

0:51:30.480 --> 0:51:32.400
<v Speaker 2>most of the old old stuff is not is not

0:51:32.520 --> 0:51:33.160
<v Speaker 2>for me, you.

0:51:33.560 --> 0:51:36.840
<v Speaker 1>Like, So when I think of Lennard Skinner to Woman

0:51:36.920 --> 0:51:42.759
<v Speaker 1>Brothers or Marshall Tucker, those are old rock with the country. Well,

0:51:42.800 --> 0:51:45.879
<v Speaker 1>you're describing his country with a rock influence correct, Yes,

0:51:46.200 --> 0:51:49.440
<v Speaker 1>very yeah, I mean I could correct genre.

0:51:49.280 --> 0:51:51.200
<v Speaker 2>That's right. I used. I've used my daughter as a

0:51:51.239 --> 0:51:53.400
<v Speaker 2>cover to go to the every Taylor swift concert that

0:51:53.480 --> 0:51:54.560
<v Speaker 2>she's you have. Yeah.

0:51:54.640 --> 0:51:57.960
<v Speaker 1>So my favorite thing I saw on Twitter last week

0:51:58.560 --> 0:52:00.760
<v Speaker 1>was and he told the story Home Breaks the Allans.

0:52:00.800 --> 0:52:05.440
<v Speaker 1>The other day, Mohammed Alarian got all the women and

0:52:05.480 --> 0:52:08.600
<v Speaker 1>the Swifties and his family in Paris to go see

0:52:08.600 --> 0:52:12.239
<v Speaker 1>a show. And it was his wife, his daughters and

0:52:12.239 --> 0:52:15.280
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of their friends. And the last minute, he said,

0:52:15.360 --> 0:52:19.439
<v Speaker 1>somebody canceled, so he puts on a pink Sure, and

0:52:19.560 --> 0:52:22.640
<v Speaker 1>he goes and somebody recognized him, took a photo of

0:52:24.080 --> 0:52:25.520
<v Speaker 1>and it went a little viral.

0:52:25.719 --> 0:52:28.600
<v Speaker 2>I saw that, Actually, hilario, that is hilarious.

0:52:28.600 --> 0:52:30.719
<v Speaker 1>How many? How many? I would never have picked you

0:52:30.760 --> 0:52:34.480
<v Speaker 1>for a Swiftie. Although I find her music fun and interesting.

0:52:34.600 --> 0:52:37.120
<v Speaker 2>Well, I think I think she's she's got to be

0:52:37.160 --> 0:52:39.920
<v Speaker 2>the best all around artist of this generation.

0:52:40.200 --> 0:52:40.439
<v Speaker 1>Sure.

0:52:40.760 --> 0:52:43.800
<v Speaker 2>And the first time I went and saw my daughter

0:52:43.880 --> 0:52:45.600
<v Speaker 2>was very very young, and it was her first tour,

0:52:46.040 --> 0:52:47.279
<v Speaker 2>and I remember that I was like, Oh, there's this

0:52:47.280 --> 0:52:49.520
<v Speaker 2>guy of guitar. He seems pretty interesting. That's opening. You know,

0:52:49.520 --> 0:52:52.680
<v Speaker 2>no one was paying attention, right, and it was edgeering,

0:52:52.800 --> 0:52:55.680
<v Speaker 2>it was was hilarious. Yeah, so, and so I got

0:52:55.680 --> 0:52:57.399
<v Speaker 2>to see that and then I'm you know, you get

0:52:57.400 --> 0:52:59.440
<v Speaker 2>a little nostalgic as you get older, so you start

0:52:59.480 --> 0:53:01.439
<v Speaker 2>going to com or she wouldn't even go to when

0:53:01.640 --> 0:53:04.239
<v Speaker 2>these bands were around. Absolutely, So I'm doing that all

0:53:04.560 --> 0:53:08.160
<v Speaker 2>the time too, Like Sarah Maclachlin's on my coundar the bleachers,

0:53:08.160 --> 0:53:10.520
<v Speaker 2>who are they rolled out of fun? I know the

0:53:10.520 --> 0:53:14.359
<v Speaker 2>bleacher you know. I'll go see Lionel Richie soon. Gotta

0:53:14.360 --> 0:53:15.960
<v Speaker 2>go see Bruce Springsteen again.

0:53:16.280 --> 0:53:18.799
<v Speaker 1>Right, So are you gonna catch the Rolling Stones on

0:53:18.840 --> 0:53:19.239
<v Speaker 1>this tour?

0:53:19.400 --> 0:53:21.000
<v Speaker 2>You know, I'm not a Rolling Stones.

0:53:21.120 --> 0:53:23.040
<v Speaker 1>I'm a Giant fan and I just don't want to

0:53:23.040 --> 0:53:23.799
<v Speaker 1>go to Giant state.

0:53:23.960 --> 0:53:26.360
<v Speaker 2>Oh I'd like to see them play Sympathy for the

0:53:26.400 --> 0:53:27.399
<v Speaker 2>Devil and then go home.

0:53:28.520 --> 0:53:30.920
<v Speaker 1>I saw them in Atlantic City on the Steel Wheels tour.

0:53:31.000 --> 0:53:33.440
<v Speaker 1>It's like an eight thousand seat hall and it was

0:53:33.600 --> 0:53:36.799
<v Speaker 1>it was awesome. But the bands that you might not

0:53:36.880 --> 0:53:40.400
<v Speaker 1>have seen. I have this discussion with people all the time.

0:53:41.000 --> 0:53:44.960
<v Speaker 1>Never hole an Oates fan. Yeah, we saw John Oates

0:53:45.000 --> 0:53:48.480
<v Speaker 1>in like a time, like a four hundred seat room.

0:53:49.120 --> 0:53:53.680
<v Speaker 1>He's like people who can fill stadiums. They are entertainers

0:53:53.719 --> 0:53:56.399
<v Speaker 1>and they know how to entertain and you're getting a

0:53:56.440 --> 0:53:58.719
<v Speaker 1>stadium show with five hundred people.

0:53:58.760 --> 0:53:59.560
<v Speaker 2>That's pretty awesome.

0:54:00.719 --> 0:54:02.600
<v Speaker 1>You know. We see Ricky Lee Jones every time she

0:54:02.680 --> 0:54:06.960
<v Speaker 1>comes through town. Yeah, also small venue, she's amazing, Amy

0:54:07.000 --> 0:54:08.240
<v Speaker 1>man Or go down the list.

0:54:08.360 --> 0:54:10.640
<v Speaker 2>So I love that. So Ario speedwack In it was touring.

0:54:10.640 --> 0:54:14.000
<v Speaker 2>They're doing like huge you know, stadium arenas whatever, and

0:54:14.360 --> 0:54:16.640
<v Speaker 2>but they most of these bands do like their opening

0:54:16.680 --> 0:54:19.640
<v Speaker 2>shows kind of like a quiet practice show. So the

0:54:20.000 --> 0:54:23.120
<v Speaker 2>beginning of their tour was in Salaina, Kansas, just like

0:54:23.160 --> 0:54:26.319
<v Speaker 2>a tiny town five hours away, and they did this

0:54:26.360 --> 0:54:29.200
<v Speaker 2>little arena that holds maybe I don't know, two thousand people,

0:54:29.960 --> 0:54:33.480
<v Speaker 2>like Tony's Pizza Arena or something. So I went there.

0:54:33.560 --> 0:54:35.319
<v Speaker 2>My friends are like, they're coming to can't see. I mean,

0:54:35.320 --> 0:54:36.879
<v Speaker 2>this is gonna be I was thinking, this is gonna

0:54:36.920 --> 0:54:39.120
<v Speaker 2>be awesome, you know, just and sure enough it was

0:54:39.239 --> 0:54:41.120
<v Speaker 2>just absolutely incredible.

0:54:40.800 --> 0:54:43.880
<v Speaker 1>Anytime you get to see a big name, yes in

0:54:43.920 --> 0:54:48.040
<v Speaker 1>a small or even though like so, I haven't seen Journey,

0:54:49.040 --> 0:54:51.719
<v Speaker 1>but I know they're but I'll tell you who. And again,

0:54:51.760 --> 0:54:54.919
<v Speaker 1>a lot of this is sixties, seventies, eighties, I've seen

0:54:54.920 --> 0:54:58.920
<v Speaker 1>Steve Miller a couple of times in small venues. He's amazing.

0:54:59.280 --> 0:55:03.239
<v Speaker 1>We saw Peter Frampton. I mean, Frampton Comes Alive was

0:55:03.280 --> 0:55:05.560
<v Speaker 1>the best selling live album for like, I don't know

0:55:05.600 --> 0:55:07.880
<v Speaker 1>how many decades it may still as far as I know,

0:55:07.920 --> 0:55:09.880
<v Speaker 1>that may still be the best selling live album of

0:55:09.880 --> 0:55:13.160
<v Speaker 1>all time. Seeing him in like with three thousand people,

0:55:13.719 --> 0:55:17.479
<v Speaker 1>he was feeling, you know, giant. Who else have you seen?

0:55:18.360 --> 0:55:20.000
<v Speaker 2>Oh god, I'm just trying to think. I saw The

0:55:20.080 --> 0:55:23.160
<v Speaker 2>Killers recently. That was one of my favorites for sure.

0:55:23.280 --> 0:55:28.640
<v Speaker 2>They were incredible. I just saw last week a band

0:55:28.680 --> 0:55:30.600
<v Speaker 2>called Cake, which is like.

0:55:30.560 --> 0:55:39.320
<v Speaker 1>A reluctantly crashed at the starting line. So comfort eagle.

0:55:41.040 --> 0:55:41.680
<v Speaker 2>They were amazing.

0:55:42.000 --> 0:55:44.200
<v Speaker 1>I have three or four albums of theirs, and they're

0:55:44.200 --> 0:55:48.319
<v Speaker 1>all spectacular. That's right, spectacular. Let me let me give

0:55:48.360 --> 0:55:51.840
<v Speaker 1>you the two that will make you jealous. John Fogerty

0:55:51.880 --> 0:55:54.839
<v Speaker 1>at Radio City his open tour. By the way, his

0:55:54.960 --> 0:55:57.120
<v Speaker 1>two sons are his backup band.

0:55:57.320 --> 0:55:59.840
<v Speaker 2>Oh that's cool. So I learned how old I was

0:56:00.040 --> 0:56:01.319
<v Speaker 2>ding when I went to a couple of concerts. I

0:56:01.320 --> 0:56:03.399
<v Speaker 2>saw Cheap Trick, who I think best rock and roll

0:56:03.440 --> 0:56:05.879
<v Speaker 2>song of all time is Surrender. I'll die on this hill.

0:56:06.000 --> 0:56:08.879
<v Speaker 2>But anyway, they were playing and the son, his son

0:56:09.640 --> 0:56:11.600
<v Speaker 2>was the guitarist. And then the next week I saw

0:56:11.640 --> 0:56:16.440
<v Speaker 2>the Eagles and as you know, Glenn Frey passed away,

0:56:16.480 --> 0:56:20.440
<v Speaker 2>but his son replaced him and sounds like, sounds exactly like,

0:56:20.800 --> 0:56:24.120
<v Speaker 2>plays the same guitar. And then, oh gosh, then I

0:56:24.160 --> 0:56:26.520
<v Speaker 2>saw the Food Fighters the next week and his daughter

0:56:26.640 --> 0:56:29.040
<v Speaker 2>comes on and say, you know, Dave Grohl's daughter comes

0:56:29.040 --> 0:56:30.920
<v Speaker 2>on and sings a song. I told my wife, I'm like,

0:56:31.120 --> 0:56:33.560
<v Speaker 2>we are I am so old you know that I'm

0:56:33.560 --> 0:56:37.000
<v Speaker 2>now watching like these bands kids play right there.

0:56:37.120 --> 0:56:39.959
<v Speaker 1>That's right. James Taylor brings his kids out to sing

0:56:39.960 --> 0:56:42.239
<v Speaker 1>with him. He's got a son and a daughter.

0:56:42.040 --> 0:56:44.200
<v Speaker 2>And him about two months.

0:56:44.239 --> 0:56:47.040
<v Speaker 1>His tour is always great, the one that might make

0:56:47.080 --> 0:56:48.960
<v Speaker 1>you jealous. I don't know if this is exactly you

0:56:48.960 --> 0:56:51.239
<v Speaker 1>a genre, and I don't even know how I got

0:56:51.280 --> 0:56:54.680
<v Speaker 1>these tickets. But at the Bowery Ballroom, which is like

0:56:54.760 --> 0:56:58.240
<v Speaker 1>a basement that holds two hundred people, I saw Chrissy

0:56:58.320 --> 0:56:59.240
<v Speaker 1>Hines and the Pretender.

0:56:59.360 --> 0:57:01.040
<v Speaker 2>Oh you know they're come and I can't say next month,

0:57:01.480 --> 0:57:01.839
<v Speaker 2>can I.

0:57:01.800 --> 0:57:05.480
<v Speaker 1>Tell you something? Go see the show? She is great.

0:57:05.640 --> 0:57:09.680
<v Speaker 1>The replacement musicians you got, They're just they're just really

0:57:10.719 --> 0:57:13.960
<v Speaker 1>really awesome. And I'll see I'll see Steely Dan every

0:57:14.000 --> 0:57:16.840
<v Speaker 1>time they come through town. Like, I'm definitely on the

0:57:16.960 --> 0:57:20.760
<v Speaker 1>verge of you know, the boomer music. We just saw it.

0:57:20.840 --> 0:57:24.720
<v Speaker 1>Neil Young at Forest Hills Outdoors always just great, what

0:57:24.800 --> 0:57:27.440
<v Speaker 1>a great show. Yeah, all right, so so much with

0:57:27.840 --> 0:57:31.280
<v Speaker 1>fun with music. Let's jump to our last two questions

0:57:32.080 --> 0:57:35.720
<v Speaker 1>that people seem to really like, which is what sort

0:57:35.760 --> 0:57:38.240
<v Speaker 1>of advice would you give to a recent college grad

0:57:38.800 --> 0:57:43.880
<v Speaker 1>interested in a career in either investment management or becoming

0:57:43.880 --> 0:57:44.520
<v Speaker 1>an advisor?

0:57:44.880 --> 0:57:47.640
<v Speaker 2>So I would tell them pick your starting place very carefully,

0:57:47.720 --> 0:57:49.280
<v Speaker 2>pick the firm that you're going to go to out

0:57:49.280 --> 0:57:51.800
<v Speaker 2>of the beginning, because that can really start to dictate

0:57:51.840 --> 0:57:53.600
<v Speaker 2>your destiny. Right, do you want to be in the

0:57:53.640 --> 0:57:55.640
<v Speaker 2>brokera's side, do you want to be on the independent side.

0:57:55.680 --> 0:57:59.479
<v Speaker 2>Do you enjoy sales? Do you enjoy advising? Really try

0:57:59.560 --> 0:58:02.160
<v Speaker 2>to get to the right place as close to the

0:58:02.200 --> 0:58:04.880
<v Speaker 2>right role as possible. If you're given a choice like, hey,

0:58:05.360 --> 0:58:08.160
<v Speaker 2>you can make X thousand dollars and be in this group,

0:58:08.240 --> 0:58:09.720
<v Speaker 2>or you can make more and be in that group,

0:58:09.840 --> 0:58:11.880
<v Speaker 2>choose the group that is more where you want to

0:58:11.880 --> 0:58:15.480
<v Speaker 2>be In the long run, I found that proximity is

0:58:15.520 --> 0:58:18.600
<v Speaker 2>a very big indicator of success. You know who y're around.

0:58:18.680 --> 0:58:20.240
<v Speaker 2>Are you in the right company? Are you around the

0:58:20.320 --> 0:58:22.440
<v Speaker 2>right people. If you're at the right company with the

0:58:22.480 --> 0:58:24.560
<v Speaker 2>right people and you do the right things, great things

0:58:24.560 --> 0:58:26.200
<v Speaker 2>are going to happen. But you can do the right thing,

0:58:26.720 --> 0:58:28.560
<v Speaker 2>be in the wrong company or not around the right people,

0:58:28.600 --> 0:58:30.640
<v Speaker 2>it's not going to work. So those first decisions are

0:58:30.640 --> 0:58:31.200
<v Speaker 2>really important.

0:58:31.240 --> 0:58:34.680
<v Speaker 1>Huh, really really interesting. And our final question, what do

0:58:34.680 --> 0:58:39.440
<v Speaker 1>you know about the world of investment management, financial planning,

0:58:39.800 --> 0:58:44.400
<v Speaker 1>building a firm entrepreneurship today that might have been helpful

0:58:44.680 --> 0:58:47.040
<v Speaker 1>twenty five thirty years ago when you were first getting started.

0:58:47.080 --> 0:58:48.960
<v Speaker 2>Well, I think when I you know, when we started

0:58:48.960 --> 0:58:51.760
<v Speaker 2>doing what we were doing twenty years ago, we were

0:58:51.800 --> 0:58:53.280
<v Speaker 2>doing I set it up that I want to do

0:58:53.320 --> 0:58:55.320
<v Speaker 2>all these things in one place now, this investment of lolosophy,

0:58:55.320 --> 0:58:56.560
<v Speaker 2>because I thought it was the right thing to do

0:58:56.600 --> 0:58:58.720
<v Speaker 2>for the client. I thought it was fun to give

0:58:58.760 --> 0:59:01.120
<v Speaker 2>advice that way. The people really benefited from it, got

0:59:01.120 --> 0:59:03.520
<v Speaker 2>a lot of positive feedback. But I didn't really think

0:59:03.560 --> 0:59:08.040
<v Speaker 2>about it being an enterprise that became accidental and really

0:59:08.080 --> 0:59:10.040
<v Speaker 2>the effort to go Hey, this is an enterprise. We

0:59:10.080 --> 0:59:13.720
<v Speaker 2>could really you know, grow this in that strategic way

0:59:13.920 --> 0:59:16.320
<v Speaker 2>probably came about ten years later. You know, if I

0:59:16.320 --> 0:59:18.480
<v Speaker 2>had a time machine, I would have made that light

0:59:18.520 --> 0:59:22.280
<v Speaker 2>bulb go off on day one and accelerated a lot

0:59:22.280 --> 0:59:22.640
<v Speaker 2>of things.

0:59:22.880 --> 0:59:25.440
<v Speaker 1>And I'm going to give you credit because you're the

0:59:25.480 --> 0:59:27.960
<v Speaker 1>person who first put that idea in my head a

0:59:28.000 --> 0:59:30.479
<v Speaker 1>couple of years ago, that you're not building a firm,

0:59:30.520 --> 0:59:32.720
<v Speaker 1>You're building an enterprise and that's a big difference. Yes,

0:59:33.440 --> 0:59:35.600
<v Speaker 1>thank you, Peter for being so generous with your time.

0:59:36.000 --> 0:59:39.440
<v Speaker 1>We have been speaking with Peter Maluke, CEO and president

0:59:39.960 --> 0:59:44.120
<v Speaker 1>of Creative Planning. If you enjoy this conversation, well check

0:59:44.160 --> 0:59:47.200
<v Speaker 1>out any of the previous five hundred or so we've

0:59:47.200 --> 0:59:50.080
<v Speaker 1>done over the past ten years. You can find those

0:59:50.120 --> 0:59:55.880
<v Speaker 1>at iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, Bloomberg, wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

0:59:56.280 --> 0:59:59.600
<v Speaker 1>And check out At the Money, my new podcast, short

0:59:59.680 --> 1:00:04.280
<v Speaker 1>ten minute conversations with experts about topics that affect you

1:00:04.520 --> 1:00:07.960
<v Speaker 1>and your money, earning it, spending it, and most importantly

1:00:08.160 --> 1:00:11.400
<v Speaker 1>investing it At the Money in the Masters in Business

1:00:11.840 --> 1:00:15.040
<v Speaker 1>podcast feed. I would be remiss if I do not

1:00:15.120 --> 1:00:17.720
<v Speaker 1>thank the Cracked team that helps put these conversations together

1:00:18.160 --> 1:00:22.440
<v Speaker 1>each week. Sarah Livesey is my audio engineer. Attika Valbrun

1:00:22.600 --> 1:00:26.360
<v Speaker 1>is my project manager. Anna Luke is my producer. The

1:00:26.440 --> 1:00:30.320
<v Speaker 1>head of Podcasts at Bloomberg is Sage Bauman. Sean Russo

1:00:30.560 --> 1:00:34.480
<v Speaker 1>is my researcher. I'm Barry Ridolts. You've been listening to

1:00:34.560 --> 1:00:50.120
<v Speaker 1>Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.