Ep 511: Outsourcing And Managing Client Headcount To Stay Lean As A Two-Founder, $150M Firm with Ashlee deSteiger

0:00Hey everyone, Michael Kitsis here. I'm jumping ahead of this week's Practice Management Podcast just to let all of you know that we have an upcoming Practice Management virtual event hosted on Kitsis.com. At our December 10th Financial Planning Value Summit, you'll get a chance to see real best practices and financial planning deliverables screen shared directly from fellow advisors, including some former guests of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. Check out more about what you can learn and bring back to your practice at Kitsis.com slash value26. Again, that's kitsis.com slash value26.

0:57Ashlee deSteiger: host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone. Welcome to the 511th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest on today's podcast is Ashley DeSteiger. Ashley is the co-owner of Gunder Wealth Management, an RIA based in Birmingham, Michigan, that oversees approximately $150 million in assets under management for 100 client households. What's unique about Ashley, though, is how she made the decision to use an outsourcing platform for back office services and later para-planning support to support her goals of growing her client base while maintaining her desired lifestyle. In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Ashley decided to seek out a virtual assistant platform after reaching approximately 50 clients to be able to better focus on client growth and service while freeing up mental capacity and time for higher value tasks, why Ashley sought a provider that not only could take on administrative tasks such as processing account paperwork but also could handle client requests such as cash transfers when she's out of office, and why Ashley has decided to stick with her virtual assistant service, which she uses for 60 hours per month, rather than hire a full-time staff member for a similar cost.

2:05We also talk about how Ashley decided to pause new client onboarding for nine months in order to get a better handle on her firm's key performance metrics, how engaging in this exercise led Ashley to move on from 5 % of her client relationships each year, selecting clients based on both the revenue they generate and their engagement level with the firm, and how Ashley adjusted her approach to producing and charging for one-time plans based on the findings of this exercise. And be certain to listen to the end, where Ashley shares how she's been able to generate new clients by posting graphics on Instagram as it makes her top of mind for personal connections when they decide it's time to work with a financial planner, how Ashley has balanced her approach to building a business with that of her business partner and husband, and how Ashley has ultimately found success by creating a business that gives her the freedom to be able to work around her life instead of asking her family to build around her work.

2:56And so with that introduction, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast with Ashley DeSteiger.

3:07Welcome, Ashley DeSteiger, to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. Thanks, Michael. I'm pumped to be here. I'm really excited to have you on today and get to talk about, I guess, like virtues and opportunities of outsourcing administrative and paraplanner support as we grow our firms and try to keep them really lean and efficient. Because we've found over the years in our research studies that one of the biggest blocking points for firms growing and scaling is that you can just only get so much efficiency from tech alone. It only helps so much to get faster with tech before you just need staff support and someone to delegate to so you just don't have to do the thing at all fast with tech or otherwise.

3:50And that transition is hard for a lot of us because most of us didn't get into the profession to be managers of staff members. We got into this to serve clients and give them advice and help them achieve their goals. It's a service profession. And so I feel like over the years, this creates a binary outcome for a lot of firms. Either you expand team and deal with the managing stuff to try to get more leveraged and productive, or you don't and you end up with a ceiling on what you can earn and generate in the business. Agreed, yes. Before you get one out of time. But the reality is there is a third option, which is to outsource.

4:28And our industry has corporate RIA platforms and TAMPs for a long time. Now we publish a services map that just has this growing number of fractional virtual admin, fractional paraplanner services whose time you just purchase by the hour for whatever you need at your current stage of the business. And I know, Ashley, you have gone down this third road. So keeping the firm lean, no in-house staff support, leveraging, outsourcing, scaling the business to more than a million dollars of revenue. And so I'm excited to get to talk about the path, like how you've navigated these growth phases and balancing standing capacity, but not necessarily wanting or needing to hire staff in-house that you then have to manage yourself and just the lessons along the way as you've gone through this journey.

5:18Yeah, I mean, it's such a great question. In my prior experience, I really enjoyed managing a team. I loved it. I didn't feel as though bringing someone on to a husband and wife team where we offered little to no trajectory was a very compelling proposition for anyone, though. So at that point, I felt like we really needed to think about outsourcing. That's an interesting framing out of the gate. So your firm, it's you and your husband, you are the advisors, founders, owners. And I guess just inferring from what you said, like the goal is not necessarily to have a huge firm with lots and lots of people.

6:12It's you two doing your awesome thing for clients, which means any staff role doesn't necessarily have a lot of upside because you two aren't going anywhere anytime soon. And so your concern was, I just don't even want to hire into a firm that doesn't necessarily have the career growth trajectory. Yes, agreed. That would be hard to find that kind of a unicorn to really fit that role. I'm sure they exist. He or she exists. But I thought that outsourcing this would initially be our best option. And I think as you go to uncover all the different options that are available to our space, they're all very different.

6:59You know, whether they want to bill you for some of the training involved or whether they're located onshore or offshore or whether you're working with a dedicated person or a team of individuals where any one of those individuals might ultimately intercept your request that's in their queue. They all operate a little bit differently. So it was eye-opening us to see all those different types of working with a VA and ultimately landing on who we did. So I think to understand this journey, as a starting point, just share with us the advisory firm as it exists today. If you can paint the picture of clients and assets and revenue and the structure of the firm, just so we have context of the business to then understand how has outsourcing support come into the picture.

8:00Sure. That makes sense. As you mentioned, our firm, Gunder Wealth Management, is myself and my husband, Joe. We are both CFP professionals and CPAs. And I also have my CFA charter holder. And when... I love this, like five designations, two people. Well, it's hard to compete with all of the letters you have after your name. But it seems as though collectively, we're all just gluttons for punishment. So now take me back. So the firm is you and Joe as the both advisors doing client things with all the cool education. Yes. What does the business look like in terms of clients, assets, revenue? Help us vision over it.

8:46Sure. Yeah. Let me address that initial question. So right now we have just over 100 households. Okay. The average age of our demographic is in their mid-40s. Okay. So it's the younger clientele. It is. By industry standards. Okay. Yes. And we have about$150 million in assets under management at Schwab and around$15 million in 401k plans. Okay. So that's where we stand today. And can I ask where revenue is for the business? Yes. Gross overall. Annualized this year, we're looking to be about$1.1 million. Okay. Okay. Very cool. So phenomenally healthy, great state of practice for you and Joe running.

9:32and I guess as noted earlier, and no dedicated staff in-house because the unicorn that is hard to find that wants the role with limited upside. So it's you and Joe and outsourcers, like there's no one else in between. Correct. Okay. Okay. So now help me understand how staff support works or how outsourcing support works. So like what, what have you done to fill in all the gaps of the things that need to be done when you've got a hundred clients that, you know, we can napkin math about$10 ,000 of revenue per client on average. So like they tend to have some stuff going on and reasonable expectations of good responsive service.

10:19Yes, most definitely. It was interesting. You know, I listened to your podcast recently where Adam was interviewing you and I loved your analogy of the car. If you want to drive the car fast or get in big accidents or drive it slow and maybe, maybe just get in a fender bender. I'm more of the mindset where I want to drive the car fast and clean up a big accident. Okay. Joe's more the flip side of that where he wants to be a little bit more cautious. and I'm not sure if you can infer maybe a little bit slower to make a decision. Okay. So I was very hot to trot on we need support sooner. And it was harder for Joe to come around to that.

11:09And so that was a tough conversation for us. When was that conversation kicking in in practice? I guess like by revenue or by client count, when did it start to feel busy? where you're saying, we need support. We need to get someone in here. Well, the ultimate hire date was almost exactly at Gunder's three-year mark. Okay. But as you can imagine, the conversation started before then. Yeah. I was probably ready just shy of the two-year mark. And to be honest, I don't know that revenue-wise it would have made as much sense when I wanted to bring that team on, but my mental capacity really needed it.

11:59So do you recall, I guess, like where client count or revenue was at that point that you're feeling mentally stressed already with the volume? That's a good question. I would say it was probably closer to somewhere around the 60 to 75 million mark. Okay. Okay. Because with the demographic we're working with, as you can imagine, they don't necessarily, generally speaking, have high net worth, but they have high income. Right. And so the, the account size, the household AUM, it's, it doesn't always, you know, it doesn't start, it doesn't start at a certain level necessarily that you would see at a lot of firms.

12:51So I think you alluded this a little bit with that demographic, you, you're still busy though. There's still quite a bit going on. So. And I guess by your average, I mean, today, I think you said 100 households, 165 million, so 1.6-ish on average, if it was something similar then. So you're like 50-plus clients at this point where there's – does it sound right? Yeah. A volume of work because they call. And it was probably – They need things. candidly the ratio was probably even more extreme where we had more households with less assets because because you were still growing we were a little more flexible right early years to get going a hundred percent and working with mid-40s individuals a lot of times you know their careers are accelerating to a point where sometimes they don't even realize it they may come across a liquidity event that they never thought was going to come to fruition.

13:58And candidly, we were never planning for to be conservative. So a lot of those households have, you know, grown organically in a way that I think, you know, was a surprise. So we definitely had a lot of households, a high number of accounts, and probably a low asset ratio when we said we needed to bring the VA on. And I wanted to bring the VA on long before we were with TD Ameritrade, long before the transition to Schwab. Okay. Like specifically because Schwab deal had been announced and you wanted the person in place to help with the transition long enough in advance to know the business and be able to help with the transition.

14:47Yes. I came from a background where I thrived on data and, you know, being able to run reports on making sure, you know, beneficiaries were all coming over correctly and, you know, all of that type of thing. I wanted to make sure that we had someone that was really buttoning up all those details. And as much as I wanted to rely on that transition to be perfect, I just wanted to be prepared. Okay. Okay. So then it sounds like there were sort of two forcing mechanisms here. We're climbing through 50, 60, 70 clients, and there's just like a sheer volume of work that has to be done for that segment of clients.

15:31I find that very commonly that somewhere in the 40 to 70 client range for most firms, the admin level work just starts to get really, really busy and you want help or need help. And then somewhere in 80 to 100, the paraplanner work becomes busy and you want to delegate that as well. So you're feeling those pain points by client count and the looming were on TD. They're being acquired by Schwab. There's going to be a transition. It would be nice to have someone to help. And then the debate with Joe was, but do we have enough revenue to afford this? Right. And to his point, it probably wasn't the best time.

16:15But, you know. Why is that? Joe ended up, I started Gunder in 2019 and Joe ended up coming over around two years later. And with him coming to join me, he brought over around 25 million from his prior firm. Okay. And I was still very much, you know, pounding on doors, trying to meet people very heavily, having a high volume of prospect meetings, really trying to build my own book as well at that time. So I think the combination of all of those things, just having the extra support, I wanted to bring that on just to lighten our load, just to make sure we could focus on growing the business. And if we really were committed to that, then I knew the numbers would end up working out.

17:22Okay. So I guess I'm trying to put sort of state of mind. So Joe's just come over, probably slightly freaked out about whatever he's walked away from at prior firm. For sure. Hey, at least there's a stable base of revenue. Let's just like hold on to this and get oriented. Yes. But you're in growth mode and prospecting mode. And so I've got all these clients of service and I'm still out there prospecting and all the stuff's going on. and my brain is overloaded and I need another human being to help. Yeah, you just kind of recreated that scenario. Yes. Okay. Okay. And so does that mean – was the compromise when you hired or was the compromise the fact that you decided to do a fractional VA service instead of hiring a full-time team member?

18:16We were always in agreement to do the VA route. I think to answer your question, it was the when. And so we started out, as you can probably imagine, with a lower number of hours. We committed per month what we anticipated using. And that's grown over time and we're very much so at a steady state now. Do you recall where that was at least the time? Where did you start? Is this 10 hours a month, 20 hours a month kind of thing to get going? Yeah, exactly. I believe if I look back at our initial agreement, it was likely 20 hours a month. Okay. It's basically five hours a week to do some stuff. Yes.

19:05Okay. And then anything over that, the per hour increment would be slightly higher, which we knew. But we were locked into that minimum hours, through those minimum hours. And that has grown over time to we're now at 60 hours a month. And we've been at that fairly consistently. Okay. And can I ask, what was the cost? What is the hourly rate? We're paying our service provider around$75 ,000 a year currently. So it's about$105 ,000 an hour. Okay. So then I've got to ask, at the point you're at$75 ,000 a year, you really start getting into the neighborhood of a little bit of variability by – geographic cost of living, but for a lot of areas, I can hire a full-time person for 75.

20:09I might be able to hire a full-time admin for less than 75. I get all their time, not only 15, 20 hours a week. I guess just talk to us. You're here and you seem very happy you're here and very confident you're here. That's awesome. I know all my naysayers who are listening who are like, Ashley,$105 an hour for admin? I've probably heard it. Yep. So just talk us through the logic. How do you process this? How do you arrive at this as the business decision? Well, first off, we don't have to provide any benefits. Okay. Okay. Just fair. So if I put payroll taxes and employee benefits and all the other stuff on top, even though slightly lower salary might actually be pretty close with all the benefits.

21:06You could be true. Could be true. Okay. Second of all, the team that we're working with is fully licensed. So in the odd chance where we're unable to execute a trade, they're allowed to with our discretion. Okay. So they're fully licensed from that standpoint. The second thing is that they've had turnover on their side, but we've never had a break in service. Okay. We didn't have to retrain that individual or bring them up to speed on any of our processes because all of the workflows on their end are built and they remain in place. Okay. So they can hand the baton off at any time and it looks virtually seamless to us.

21:55And so that's a function of, I guess, not just outsourcing in general, but a provider who's large enough to have their own staff redundancies and that's managed well enough that just they have good workflows and processes in place that they can hand off. Because I'm sure that's not necessarily universally true, but there are providers that do this well. Correct. Okay. And they have all of their own cybersecurity and other privacy policy protocols where, you know, we don't have to provide any sort of equipment. They have their own, you know, requirements on password protection and other things like that as well.

22:38So that was really important to us, equally important to us, just to make sure that we knew that someone working remotely had the same protocols in place that we would expect. Because I was going to ask, how do you handle the compliance dynamics of outside people with access to your client data? So I guess the answer is they run the same cybersecurity protocols you would expect or run in your firm. So they're mirroring your policies. Yes, and we'll get their updated policy each year. Occasionally, a client will have a couple additional questions along the same vein and we'll inquire and they'll come up with a thoughtful response or we'll hop on the phone and get through that.

23:27But yeah, they have all of the policies and procedures in place without us having to really train that individual or set anything up. And I guess in that spirit, if you've had a client question, do clients know that you outsource this? Do they ask? Do they care? Do they notice? So the service we use, I would say 90 % of what we utilize them for is Schwab paperwork. It breathes and lives in Schwab Alliance Center. Okay.

24:08So oftentimes the client is, to answer your question, is really, it doesn't, they don't know that individual. They're very much so behind the scenes. Okay. Right. It's less please talk to my client and more please don't make me call Schwab. Right. Exactly. Yes. So they are sometimes client facing and we do make sure clients know this is who you're going to be getting an email from. Or if we do have an out of office up, We say our response time may be delayed. If you need immediate assistance, please contact this individual at this email address or this number. So that rarely happens, but they do know that that team of individuals is there.

25:01And so in the context of if we're out of office, our response time may be delayed. If you need any assistance, please contact and out to the firm. So I know for many of us in solo stage, there's just the infamous, I can't take a vacation ever because I have to be around to answer the phone or the email if the client needs a trade, the client needs money. So I take it they are actually covering for you at this level because they are licensed. They can do that trade and free up cash if necessary so you and Joe can go on a vacation. Yes. And yeah, because that happens, right? Because the firm is the two of us.

25:50Yeah. And we're known to the last few vacations to have clients make all cash offers on a house while we're gone. So we need someone there. Bless those clients. We cannot have that break of service. Could you not have warned us like a few weeks earlier before you need the money to settle? Right. So we need to make sure that that can be seamless for them. Yep. So either we don't put up an out of office and, you know, we get that email and we still relay it over to the VA team or, or sometimes, you know, we will put it up the out of office and then that end of it, that client will call the VA service.

26:35Okay. But regardless, we want to make sure to your point that we can go on vacation and there is no break in service. Right. Right. And so as you go down this path, I guess just the, what's the value prop relative to the dollars? It's this combo of, well, maybe it's not quite as expensive because I don't have the employee benefits I've otherwise got to pay internally. I don't have to deal with turnover. It's not my problem. It's their problem. They're up to speed on the licensing and the cyber protocols that I need, which just costs money to get someone at the level that can do that. And I don't have to call Schwab and I can take vacations.

27:28And let's be honest, I mean, without a trajectory for growth or a clear path to become an advisor, I don't know that this is that easy of a position to fill. I mean, Ashley, I think you have a really good point there. I do see a number of advisory firms out there that express frustration at how hard it is to hire, how hard it is to find good people. and if I ask we start having a conversation, it basically comes down to I'm really happy in my practice but there's just too much admin and stuff to do and I really need someone to delegate to so that I can have a little more free time and get my time back and get control of my schedule and all the things that otherwise happen when we get buried in our practices.

28:17There's just this underlying context to it that they don't necessarily acknowledge which is, so you need someone who's just going to be there in your admin support role forever and never grow and move up.

28:31Ashlee deSteiger: Because you're not trying to grow. You're trying to hire someone to get time back to take more vacations and spend more time with your kids and do lots of cool stuff. I mean, totally appropriate you get to do that as the founder, but you got to be clear, that is a no progression job for whoever you're hiring. So either you find the magic person that is really just totally cool with the role exactly as it is. They are out there, but they're harder to find. A lot of really good people just want growth and upside, and that's not necessarily what you're offering in that position. At the least, be clear and own that, and then try to find the person anyways, or look for other solutions that don't require offering them a growth path, which to me is where you ended up.

29:19Correct. So I guess it's part of the benefit of the role is I have permission to not offer a growth path. Yes. Okay. Yes. And so then can I ask, who did you use? Who do you use? I don't know if it's changed over time. Sure. It's been the same throughout the four years we've been utilizing a VA and we use Total Office out of Akron, Ohio. And so are they specific to advisors or are they one of the generalist VA provider to lots of industries? They are specific to REAs. Okay. And when we first onboarded with them, they were fairly exclusive to TD and Schwab. Okay. I believe they've since added Altruist and may have a couple other REAs that are dual custodian with a couple other firms.

30:23But I believe that they do the vast majority of their work on Schwab. Okay. Well, I mean by headcount and firm counts, Schwab is literally the overwhelming majority of firms. And if you add Altruist, you get a lot of the new fast-growing ones. Right. They could go get Fidelity if they want, then they've got almost everyone, but probably enough market and Schwab and Altruist alone. I get it. Yes. So how did you pick them? I guess I'm very – because you mentioned earlier all these different factors you consider of like are they onshore and are they offshore and are they dedicated people or not. So I'd love to hear more about the vetting, search, hiring process.

31:13How did you pick them? Who else did you look at? What were the criteria that mattered as you were trying to pick what was right for you? Well, just like everything else, as we select our tech stacks collectively as financial advisors, I mean, you can have analysis by paralysis. you could just keep going keep interviewing keep asking other individuals keep keep submitting questions on forums for feedback and like I said I like to drive the car fast and clean it up later so I was it was one of those things where I got the best feeling based on what we had discussed they were on the higher end of the price range but I felt the most comfortable and I was like, let's just dive in.

32:04We're not going to know until we do it. So I think the service being onshore was important to us. I think the specialization at TD initially and then Schwab was also important to us. I think, you know, I would love to have a VA to say, hey, can you upload all of my CE from CFP to NAPFA? But that's something they'll say no to. They stay in their lane. Oh, interesting. So it is not a just generalize whatever VA things you want to hand us. We do. They're like their focus and they're in their lane, which I guess is, as I would frame it, all the investment operations things. Sure. Yep. Is it right?

32:57Custodian and accounts and all the things that touch custodians and accounts. All that paperwork. Okay. Yes. So, you know, we'll give them a couple other projects and they'll say yes or no. So they're really upfront, I think, about, you know, what's an appropriate ask and what isn't. And I like that about them. Yeah, I can very much respect that. Hey, that sounds like a great thing, but that's not really in our lane of specialization. So we're going to respectfully not take that on and make sure we keep doing well what we do well. Full respect for that. Sure. Yeah. I like that. And the individuals that have been running it have been doing it for a long time.

33:42And so it's just like doing due diligence on an investment. You know, they had a lot of the criteria we were looking for. And I said, let's get the ball rolling. And so were there any other factors in the evaluation that drove you to them versus others? I mean, I heard being on shore was important. Having real specialization in your then current custodian of TD was really important. Were there other factors that drove?

34:19Candidly, I think those were some of our top requests. I also was interested, I guess, to your point, to understand better how much training was necessary and what kind of workflows they build on their end. Okay. to ultimately, you know, do they want us to build a workflow in our CRM for them to follow? Or, you know, how does all of that work? And they were very much of the mindset that either, you know, they can use one of our workflows or they're happy to build it. You know, I like that proactiveness of, well, if you know how to do it and you're doing this for other clients, then by all means, like this is part of the outsourcing I want you to do.

35:10Yeah. If I was really good at building my own workflows, I probably would have done, I probably would have done that already and not be talking to you. Like, please figure this out for me. And I might have this perfect workflow bill, but like I'm, I'm too underwater to even follow it. So yes, please, please go ahead and do all of that. So I was very much so, I think too, on how to just communicate was another important thing that I probably take for granted. We submit all of our tasks through Wealthbox. So we have a Wealthbox license for them. Okay. And we have weekly calls. And even though the calls are sometimes only five minutes a week, I think it's great just to see the team in person over Zoom, at least I mean, and then talk about some of the outstanding tasks or talk about what's in the pipeline.

36:05I just think it creates more of a relationship and a little bit of rapport. And I like that about them. It makes me feel like they're truly an extension of our team. As opposed to the providers that say, like, send us the tickets, we'll process the tickets and do the thing. But, you know, we got a lot of these. We can't hop onto a lot of phone calls unless it's really necessary. Right. And that counts towards our hours. I'm not naive to that. But I think it goes a long way. And so I guess, so mechanically, they have a license to your wealth box so they can log in. Yes. And access client info they need to do things for which they've got the cyber protocols about how they manage their access.

36:47Yes. They've got access to your Schwab Alliance because you give them permission through Schwab to be able to log in and do things. uh what what else shows up from i guess just the like the compliance access end of how it works we live in a microsoft office environment so they have an out we have an email address for them and they access it through outlook okay okay and so i guess from their end just they they have to manage effectively the fact that they have multiple logins to multiple advisors with multiple different client segments and have to keep their own protocols to keep all that separate.

37:29Yes. Okay. Yes. Which is why they send you their annual security packet. I guess like you're not connecting the dots to what you said earlier. Yes. So how has this evolved as you've used them over the years? I guess some I'm curious how this showed up or how it's changed as you get used to using them and all the ways that you can and cannot leverage them. When Joe and I will sit down to have one of our level 10 meetings, we're always looking into the future and we're like, we don't have that much for them this month. And, you know, what are some projects we can give them or what can we front load?

38:14And we're always finding that we're underestimating the number, the amount of client activity that occurs during any given month. And we're never short on hours. If anything, we're over. Okay. We're never short. But we're almost always right at where we're, you know, right at the 60-hour mark, even on the months where we look at each other and we're like, what is the next month going to look like? How are we going to fully utilize them? There's just, with the volume of client activity and just the busy nature of the lives that everybody's currently in, you know, like I gave that example of an all-cash offer in a house that wasn't anticipated or, you know, right now we're repapering direct indexing providers.

39:04You know, there's just never a shortage of ways to utilize them. I'm always finding that I don't think that, you know, we may have on our, one of our rocks might be to decrease their hours by 5 % next year. But I mean, that's going to fall, that's going to end up falling off because we're utilizing them to that full capacity. And I, and I find that there's, we appreciate having them for the unexpected. did.

39:34So what expanded their time from 20 to 60 hours? Is that sheerly just client growth? There's more clients to service, so there's more hours that's needed? Or was there some progression? Do you give them more things now than you did then, so you had to expand their hours as you got deeper? I think both. Okay. To answer your question, since they live in Schwab Alliance, you know, we're able to give them a couple more tasks that I would need, that we collectively would need for compliance, whether that's running a monthly trade blotter or

40:13downloading all the invoices, you know, on a quarterly basis, we bill quarterly or, you know, just a couple of, we have been giving them a couple other of the admin type roles that they can easily do from the logins that they already have. Essentially fulfilling some of the compliance support tasks, the things you need to capture or output or record and have in the file to demonstrate your compliance. Yes. Some of the more routine things that I didn't realize we were doing that really wouldn't be too much extra for them since it's all within the same universe that they're living in for us. Okay.

40:54So then how has this evolved with other outsourcing solutions? We do have an outsource pair planning service as well. I will say we don't utilize them nearly as much as we utilize the VA. Right now we use delegated planning for around 6 to 12 hours a month. So it's not a real meaningful amount, but we 100 % see value in being able to send things to someone else, take a look at them, or even get a second set, or I guess in our case, what would be a third set of eyes on a certain scenario for a client. We still find a lot of value in that. So help us understand what delegated planning actually does for you.

41:53What stuff do they do? Which clients are they involved with? Sure. So they just have access to Right Capital and HolistaPlan. Okay. So, you know, it's just more delegation. It's just more things to get off of our plate and into someone else's queue so that we can take more of a review approach. You know, whether that means modeling some equity compensation that just came through for a client, or whether that's getting a couple additional items uploaded into HolistaPlan for a tax scenario for year-end. You know, we'll give them like four or five things that we want changed this year compared to prior year's return, and they'll get that set up for us.

42:43Another situation would be we'll take retirees on really a referral basis only. and so a lot of times they're not they don't want to get into the tech or into write capital as much linking accounts or anything so you know we'll get a traditional data dump and you know we'll put all of that into a shared folder for delegated planning and they'll get all of that up to speed although I know that write capital is also building out their own functionality to be able at some point to kind of look at those docs as well from an AI perspective but I given that we're not totally there yet. I appreciate having delegated planning get in there and go through the details and highlight questions that maybe I wouldn't have seen.

43:31So how much of this is supporting planning for existing clients versus supporting planning for new clients? Oh, that's a good question. So that is a, you know, I think it's probably a 50-50 split right now. Okay. between new renewal clients and, and new clients where you have new planning work to do. Yep. I would say, um, I mean, we don't, we're not bringing on as many new clients as we were. Um, we brought on a coach in, uh, late 2024 and early 2025, and we made a commitment to the coach that we wouldn't bring on any new clients for nine months just because of the growth we had and just taking a minute to step back and making sure we were staying really true to who we currently had.

44:25All right. Tell me more about that. Why did you have to make a commitment for new clients for nine months? And how did that feel when you'd been in growth-y phase? Well, one of the things our coach wanted us to do was come up with metrics and KPIs and a more comprehensive, you know, tracking our revenue and EBOC. And she wanted us to have better details, more granular, just more granular metrics than we were tracking ourselves. I felt as though I knew she was right. I didn't want to do it though. And I needed her to ultimately tell us you have to do this because I think you know when you're starting a firm from scratch you're so caught up in all the other things that I didn't really want to look at them I can't really didn't want to look at the metrics because you were afraid it was gonna tell you things you didn't want to hear

45:32uh I guess because I thought that I would continue operating at the same clip regardless of what it told me. Okay. I didn't think I was going to change my day-to-day or our pursuit, you know, of, well, it's more conservative growth now. I didn't think that was going to change. We were, we grew quickly over, over, I guess the market certainly helped. But, you know, when you look at number of new households and AUM growth, the numbers were higher than I thought. And I think the coach highlighted to us, why don't we pause for a little bit and make sure that you're delivering the excellent service that you think you are.

46:24And, you know, are there other ways to get the feedback? You know, do they, do clients like the tax letter you're preparing? Do the clients like the one-page plan you're preparing? You're doing all this work, but is the value perceived the same? So how did you figure that out? Well, we created an advisory board, although not in the very traditional sense. We've had just a handful of meetings so far. We've started doing them twice a year. But we're not asking the same clients to commit to every meeting. We've rotated the invitations a little bit. Okay. And we're, you know, I'm really interested and motivated to get that feedback.

47:18And it has been eye-opening. It's been helpful. So what have you heard surprising or otherwise? I think a lot of our clients, at the end of the day, they're maybe not looking at everything we're delivering. They just want to know that there's someone there if they can pick up the phone and we're going to answer it and we're going to be there to help them through it. they're so fixated on life events and careers and being in that messy middle of figuring out maybe parents might be coming into the picture or, you know, the career is taking a different direction or just raising their families and building wealth.

48:02I think they're in this, this what we say is this messy middle and they may not have the time to necessarily devote to all of the outputs that we're delivering they just want to know when we touch base twice a year we send meeting invites out in May and November they just want to know that we're there and they have the option to schedule with us and if not they can defer to the next meeting cycle and that we're keeping everything organized for them. So have you actually changed any of the deliverables you produce or things that you create based on the feedback and the comments? A lot of the feedback has been just to keep things shorter, just more brief, just highlight to me how this impacts me and tell me.

49:04We have. We changed. On our one-page plan, we used the template from someone that you had on a blog post quite a few years ago. I think it was Jeremy Walter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jeremy's one-page plan template. Yes. Yes. So we did. We changed one of the quadrants on there to be I think, you know, before we had like a pie chart that said something around, here's your percentage of live, grow, owe, like where your dollars are going. And we changed that to be, you know, top three levers to highlight to you that would have the biggest impact on your future financial flexibility. Okay. So it's been, it's still, it's still ongoing.

50:02I think it was a good practice. It's a good practice for us to go through to get more feedback from clients, at least from those that are willing to participate in those meetings. And I think slowing the growth or not accepting as many new clients has been, has been a good thing for us. I think as part of that coaching process too, It's solidified that each year we continue to look at, we created a revenue metric and I guess you would say an engagement metric. And we score all of the household, all of our clients based on those two metrics. And the output will result in some sort of a four quadrants, if you will, kind of like a SWOT analysis might look like.

50:53Okay. And clients that fall into that lower left-hand quadrant where revenue's low and engagement's low, we take a look at those households and we try to figure out, is our value no longer exceeding the cost? Okay. And we will let, you know, around 5 % of households go, and we've been doing that consistently now for the last three to four years. Okay. Oh, so how does that conversation work? What do you do when you have to break the news to someone they – well, they did make the cut, although I'm assuming you don't explain it to them that way. Well, right. I think it's important for us just to be really honest.

51:45This is what you're paying us and our fee seems to be detracting from your ability to accumulate assets. And given where you are in your stage of life, that's a primary goal of ours to make sure that you can continue doing that. And we don't necessarily find them a new home because, I mean, let's be honest, even if you're just starting out as a new advisor, you don't want a client that can't commit to some of the core things that would help improve their financial trajectory. So we just say, let's put it on a pause. Because you're tending to do this. So low engaged clients in your world are essentially people who aren't acting on the advice and implementing the recommendations.

52:30Correct. Which means they won't necessarily help them send to another advisor whose advice they won't take either. Correct. If they're not implementing. So we say, you know, are we planning to the right, are we planning to the right set of goals? First off, you know, because if, if execution and action is difficult, maybe the motivation is coming from the wrong place. but if we're if we are on the same page about where we're trying to go then I think it's time to take a pause and then we'll offer that we'll sunset our AUM engagement and say why don't we revisit this in a year or two and we can work hourly until you're able to meet a couple of these thresholds that we think would improve your financial health.

53:24But let's just, you know, maintain the relationship if you want to from that perspective. But we're not going to reach out to you proactively unless, because within hourly engagement, you know, we're reliant on them to reach out to us. They're not going to be on our typical service calendar anymore. But we don't want to leave them hanging either because we do have a financial plan that we have worked together on. So that's just an option that we'll give those individuals. So 5 % of clients, I guess, is four to six clients a year for you. So how have clients reacted when you brought this conversation and news?

54:07Well, I'm not sure if we'll actually know the answer to that. But when we're talking with them, I think the overall sense is that they're relieved. Okay. Because, you know, there's clearly a reason as to why, you know, maybe behind the scenes it isn't visible to us as to why meeting some of the targets are a challenge. And us continuing to charge them every quarter is not helping. so let's see if we can relinquish the relationship or you know let let let go of that relationship and uh connect on a less frequent cadence so that you know when they're getting our our surge meeting request you know maybe there's a lot of stress behind that or maybe there's a lot of apprehension behind that and you know we want to let a lot of that go we want them to feel more confident in where they're headed.

55:10And, you know, there must be something going on there that maybe it's just time for a break. So is it hard to part with clients after you're doing so much work to get them over the past five or six years? Well, of course, but then it allows us to continue swimming upstream also. Yeah. So talk to us a little bit more about how this, how these metrics that you score actually work? What do you actually metric or measure? What's the process to get all the clients scored? It's like mechanically, how do you actually do this across 100 clients with you and Joe? Well, we'll come up with an average revenue.

56:00What's the revenue target per household that we would like to see? and that one's that score is a little it's more quantitative as you can imagine so okay if you're you know at the average or above the scores results in a higher number but if you are below the average it'll result in a lower number okay and then the more qualitative go ahead sorry i'm just gonna check so that that's a like purely quantitative at the end of the day just where your revenue sits relative to average revenue per household? Yes. Okay. And are you ultimately translating these into some, it's like score, they get a one to five score or a one to 10 score or something like that?

56:49So what point scale do you put it on? Like how granular do you get here? It's one to 10. Okay. It could be simplified to your point. It could be short to go to one to five, but it's one to 10. If it works for you, it works for you. Don't change it if it's working. So, okay. So they get scored on revenue. That's essentially just quantitatively where does their revenue sit relative to the average. Yes. And then talk to us about the engagement metric. That one's much grayer, as you can probably imagine. Yeah. It's more so is it hard to get a call returned or is it hard to get a meeting on the calendar?

57:33with that individual or that household? Is it hard to get them to, you know, is it challenging for them to restart some sort of a monthly investment program into their accounts? Is it hard to get them to implement a tax strategy or obtain their tax return? You know, all the things that we feel like we would like to obtain to make sure we're doing our best work for that household. And that could be a multitude of reasons. So that's how that scoring will play out also on a scale of one to 10. And so now I follow the context you're going to end out with, if we want to chart this, there's a hundred dots that each have a one to 10 on revenue and a one subset of clients are going to show up in the lower left quadrant because they score very, very poorly on both of these.

58:37Right. And that becomes the group then that you have to have hard conversations about. Yes. So is there still a subjective or qualitative at that point? Do you look at the list of names and then still consider each one? Do we really want to let them go or not? Or is this a more quantitative. If your combination of scores is below a threshold of X, you just don't make the cut and it could be slightly more or fewer each year because it's just a quantitative threshold. It's more the former. I mean, if someone recently got laid off from a tech firm or whatever the reason may be, we definitely want to be sensitive to that.

59:25Okay. Okay. So it's more, we'll take a look at it and be subjective. Okay. And so then I guess what pulls you from the other direction is the goal with the coach is 5 % of clients go through this threshold. So we're eyeing roughly four to six at the bottom of this scoring and we'll look at four or six or eight or 10 or however many it takes to recently find a segment that is getting the least value from the practice. You got it. Okay. Okay. And you, and this is now an annual thing. You like do it in Q4 and break the news at the end of the year kind of process. Yes. Sometimes sooner. Your end can get messy.

1:00:13How so? uh part of our we do our surges in may and november so you know right before halloween and we want to make sure right before halloween and before thanksgiving we've met with all the clients we possibly can uh before year end hits just to make sure we've taken advantage of any tax planning opportunities that might be available or if there's anything else we should be aware of

1:00:45before 1231 actually hits. Okay. So that's important to us to make sure we're able to vet through all of, you know, all of those client questions or anything that has come to light or, you know, whether it's just looking at your quarterly tax estimates or whatever it may be as we're trying to button up the year. so I do feel like as much as you try to plan for year end clients will still wait until the 11th hour bless their clienty souls yes yes so I just want to make sure we're adequately time blocking for that and so knowing you've got an October November seasonal surge and have a heavy end of your planning process, you may try to pull the client separations earlier.

1:01:35Yes. Because I don't know what you – are they separations? Are they terminations? Are they graduations? Yeah. Do you have a label? I mean, from a compliance perspective, they're terminations. Fair enough. From our perspective, we like to use one of the more softer terms that you mentioned. just because we genuinely do love working with the demographic that we work with. They're oftentimes a reflection of our own lives. And I mean, a lot of times, you know, when we think about how, you know, where are our clients coming from? It's an interesting thing that we found when I first launched and then got my CFP and then COVID hit.

1:02:27I panicked and I remember having a call with as many XY individuals as I possibly could as to how what you know what is their best source of prospects when you can't meet anyone and although we everyone seemed to be in the same boat I'll never forget a call I had with I'll probably say her last name wrong Ariel Minicozzi who since found Sphinx Automation She told me to start posting on Instagram. Okay. And I was terrified. So what do you post on Instagram? Just like awesome pictures of financial planning feels challenging in a very visual medium like Instagram. And so I had no other real concrete item to action on except for what she mentioned.

1:03:23And so to your point, I just, I started to learn Canva and posted infographics twice a week. Okay. And one of the interesting things that I found is that I'm not necessarily smart enough or in tune enough to look at the engagement metrics. but it's interesting how individuals that we were professionally connected to or even personally connected to in a prior life on these social channels i'll post the same thing on three different channels they're not really strangers it might be former co-workers or college classmates or people we knew at different stages of our life that knew us before we launched gunder but they're just we're just passively appearing somehow in their feed and so when something happens in their financial life we end up being the phone call which is incredibly which is amazing but that's how we've really sourced a lot of our client base so so what What kind of infographics?

1:04:45What are you sharing? What's the sample infographic that you would be putting out? Well, my firm was approved in the state of Michigan. I was always told it was going to take 10 to 12 weeks for all the documentation to go through. Well, when I was in the hospital delivering my third, it had been six weeks and my firm was approved. and I was like oh great I'm not ready for this so very literally not ready right now yes other otherwise occupied yes so I'll never forget that first year I was with xy there was like a start your firm cohort I might have been the last class to do that where we had met consistently every month.

1:05:36Oh, like the launcher groups that XIPN together? Yes. And that had run into COVID. And I remember Arlene telling us, nobody wants to see gray-haired old individuals or lighthouses on your website or on social media. You don't want to look like what every other firm looks like. Yep. And I said, well, we're in the midst of expanding our family. I'm just going to post all infographics with kids. Not necessarily my kids, but stock photos of kids. Okay. okay so on canva i would find a stock photo um you know i would search you know kids doing this or toddlers doing that and then i would come up with some sort of a one-liner and then i would include more information in the copy so that i wouldn't you know my goal would not to be to overcrowd the graphic.

1:06:42I wanted it to be a quick read, a quick scroll and move on. And so that's what I kept doing. And I did it twice a week. And sometimes it's a thorn in my side, but I candidly also secretly really enjoy it. So I'm still doing it today. So can you give just like an example of one, one liners or tips, like what kinds of What kinds of things are you saying? I'm certainly happy to include a link to our social feed. I think I post on Tuesdays, generally on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Okay. So yesterday's feed would have been like two kids running on a beach with, you know, silly sunglasses on with their hands up in the air doing peace signs.

1:07:38and the concept was overwhelmed by the concept of long-term returns question mark and it's just these you know two kids just carefree on a beach because that's really the demographic we're looking for is those individuals that have families and yeah the concept of retirement seems archaic to a lot of times, to a lot of these individuals. So how can I lighten, how can I take a more technical topic or a very real concern or thought and lighten it? And if someone's interested in reading more, then they can click on it. But if not, they can move on. And so for folks that want to see this further, just if you're listening, this is episode 511.

1:08:34So if you go to kitsis.com slash 511 and scroll down to the show notes section, we'll have a link out to Ashley's Instagram page if you want to see more of what the flow of infographics looks like. I mean, we don't get a lot of likes or comments. And I would stop doing it if I saw the metrics because they're low. Except you feel like you're getting clients. I do. I do because, you know, someone that we would have never reconnected with that Joe and I went to the same college that we would have never come in contact with again will say, you know, we're the next person when they have a liquidity event or some sort of a life event or they need just financial advice.

1:09:23We get that phone call out of the blue. And, you know, it's always so shocking. And it's happened dozens and dozens of times. I would say 50 % of our new clients, of our clients are sourced from that way. And so they knew you in the past and had some connection, but you're not necessarily actively engaged with them. But this is keeping you visible and showing up in their feeds, so you're top of mind. And then when their life event happens, they quote unquote spontaneously reach out and call because you stayed at top of mind because they've been following the infographics for years now.

1:10:07Ashlee deSteiger: Yes. and so you do it twice a week yes indefinitely how long does it take you i'm assuming your process is fairly tight at this point i'll keep a one note you know um i'm i'm sure i can only imagine how you have to come up with content yourself but i'll just keep a running list of you know what might even be an unrelatable concept, you know, whether I'm, you know, sitting out in the sleeting sideways rain at a baseball game and I'll just think about how miserable I am. And I'm like, I need to turn this into an infographic about something financial related or, you know, so I'll just keep a running list of ideas that I feel like I'm thinking about given our day to day.

1:11:01And to your point, I'll have the month fairly scheduled out in advance on Canva. For the longest time though, I was too cheap to pay for the paid version, but I've gotten over that now. Oh, you know, as the business grows, we steadily make our reinvestments. Yes.

1:11:27So I'm curious to go back to one of your earlier comments for a moment. Just you said the the coach was pushing you to pause for a little while in part because

1:11:44you were supposed to get some better metrics and KPIs in place and see what you learned and glean from it. And you had said like, you didn't think it was going to change much in your day to day. It was just in practice, did it as you started seeing some of the metrics and business KPIs? How did it actually play out relative to expectations? Honestly, I don't think it did change our day-to-day. Okay. I'm able to recite the numbers now for anyone who asks, which is no one. Well, I love asking. What do you track? What do you track? What numbers are meaningful for you? We'll track revenue. We'll track EBOC.

1:12:33We'll look at AUM and new households. Much of how I got started out with Gunder, especially given that 2020 timeframe being my first year, I offered a lot of one-time plans. That's something that we still track today, although I do only a fraction of what we used to. It's just a very brief, as it sounds, and as a lot of our peers do. It's just, as of a point in time, we structure it as a four-meeting sequence. It typically takes two to three months to complete. And I used to do a lot of those when I first started out. Living in the suburb of Detroit, there is a plethora of auto engineers here.

1:13:24Yes. And when I launched, it was so interesting. I probably, I had dozens of that avatar come to me. And as a newly minted CFP, it was amazing. I was able to get so in the weeds for these individuals who, you know, really wanted to retain full control of their assets, never had any intention of giving that up. and they just wanted advice and that isn't something they could really get and so I had a lot of reps doing that my first two years um so like if I look and I guess practically just it gets revenue yes they may not be long-term clients by by definition of the profile but if we're trying to build our long-term client base we also just need revenue to get the practice going like it's, it's revenue.

1:14:19Right. I mean, I just wanted to be able to break even. Um, I mean, I was not, I didn't even break even that first year. Um, but the second year I was, it was much better just because of that. And to your point, they're not, they're not necessarily clients you want to work with long-term. I mean, that mindset, um, as it was amazing experience, but a lot of times some of those individuals are best. They can execute. So that's another metric we track because we just do a fraction of those now. Oftentimes it'll be a referral or a prospect that'll come to us that doesn't necessarily fit our niche. So we'll offer that to them.

1:15:04And we price it much differently now, as you can imagine. What changed in the pricing? I started out doing my first one-time plans at$2 ,500. Okay. And we've now changed that. We have more of a tiered schedule to try to measure some sort of complexity. And right now that'll range between five and$9 ,000.

1:15:31And then we do have a small, We do have a lot of small business owners. And as much as we don't really, we don't specialize in 401ks, but if we don't start the 401k, then someone else will. So we do do that for our small business owner clients. So we'll track that too. And who do you do that with or through? That's a great question. Some of our more established plans, we use nationwide. Okay. And then some of our smaller startup plans we'll do with American funds or capital group. So any other metrics that have become anchor points for you? I'm hearing like revenue, EBAC, AUM, new households, one-time plans.

1:16:20Anything else that shows up that you like to keep eyes on? Those are the core, I would say. And then we'll just measure year-over-year growth on all of those metrics. So, as much as I was resistant to creating such an Excel file, even though I do like the data, I just, I felt like my head was going to be down. I was going to be still driving forward as much as I was before. And we do predominantly work outside of our, we work in our home. Okay. So, our margin is, you know, our expenses are relatively low outside of our VA. Yep. I guess being from the greater Detroit area, we have client meetings at a luxury car garage storage facility here that's local to us.

1:17:12And that's where we'll do client meetings. At a luxury car garage storage space? Yes. That's where we do client meetings if they want to meet in person. I like the Detroit angle.

1:17:28Ashlee deSteiger: Yes. Very cool. So what has surprised you the most on this journey of building an advisory business? You're seven years in now after multiple career steps previously. Besides the whole thing. The whole thing working out. I mean, that's also been a surprise. If that's the thing, that's the thing. I would say I'm surprised that after listening to so much of your content, Michael, that the three-year mark actually had weight. That actually was a good turning point. I think when I was first starting out, I'm like, there's no way. Like three years of doing this. I think that actually came to some fruition.

1:18:18And then I think the other thing is that I'm surprised the social media, I'm surprised that individuals hire professionals on social media.

1:18:31Because with that, what I mentioned about our individuals that we were connected with from some part of our prior lives, that's resulted in about 40 % of our clients being out of state. Okay. Okay. So, you know, there would have been no other way for us to connect to those people. Right. Right. They're not in your local circle anymore. Right. So, what changed for you at the three-year mark? I mean, what shifted for you? What started showing up differently? I mean, just there was revenue. there wasn't as much of a concern about, is this going to work? It felt more like a business. I mean, it felt, there wasn't, it didn't feel like there was as wild of a goose chase to, you know, have conversations and network.

1:19:35In that timeframe, I was also the president of our local CFA society. And that was also very eye-opening too, just to realize that I wasn't part of that organization anymore to try to drum up business. I was just there to create relationships. And, you know, for so long, every single meeting I went to that I would have been with the family otherwise, it was to network. It was to try to do business generation. It was to have some sort of a business purpose. And I just felt like a lot of that subsided at that three-year mark. So what was the low point for you on this career journey overall? COVID was pretty low.

1:20:27I wasn't even a year old yet into my firm. That was tough. and then I would say shortly thereafter when then Joe ended up joining and us and me feeling the need to get the VA I think that was low also because what made that low I I personally wanted the additional help I wanted the ability to offload more

1:21:01I think there just felt like there was a strong need for delegation and just more I needed more hours in my day and that just wasn't going to happen any other way. And the tension was just but this costs real money and hiring is immediately a step backwards financially so it hurts at that point. Right. But I had been solo for a couple years prior to that and I just said, I'm going to make this work. And this is part of that trajectory to make this work.

1:21:45So as you can imagine, our coach that we had last year was very much so a marriage counselor as much as she was a financial advisor coach. Bless the coaches. Yes. Bless the coaches. so any other thing that like pearls of wisdom things you know now from experience you wish you could go back and educate you five ten years ago or earlier in the process like what do you what do you know now you wish you knew then or could go back and tell and teach you from then i think i was nervous to start gunder without a without a real mentor every other stage of my career, I either had a mentor or I knew who I didn't want to model behavior off of.

1:22:34And I felt like I was missing that when I launched Gundr and I was very much so nervous about it. I think if I were to tell my younger self that I, I think that there's, there were, I had had so many other experiences in my career that I just don't think that was necessary. I shouldn't have, I shouldn't have sweat that so much as much as I did. I think that so many of my prior experiences, even though they weren't directly the same, they were very much so relatable. And a lot of those non-technical skills, I ended up paying just as many dividends, if not more, that I had picked up along the way.

1:23:26And I think I didn't place enough weight on that. So what were the non-technical things that showed up more impactful than expected? My prior life in the big four. So I was on the audit side. And with that, there's just, even though you have to get into the weeds on all of those types of things, you still have to be able to talk to executives and you have to be able to ascertain information from earnings calls and be able to read, come up with how to read a 10K or a 10Q. What are these types of things end up meaning when we're doing private or alternative fund due diligence or even when I think about just interviewing someone about how a process is done and listening and that kind of thing.

1:24:25And even before I graduated, I worked at my parents' restaurant and I just think, shouldn't everyone have to wait tables at some point in their life? It is a powerful life experience to get some retail experience at some point in your in your life and see the wonderful array of human beings in the world. Yeah. I just think all of that ends up, you know, that's, that's an example of a, a non part of my non-professional career, but I just think all of those separate experiences end up shaping an individual into a great advisor because people remember how you made them feel. And I think, you know, more so than a lot of the details.

1:25:08And I think that's just in an AI world, I think that's really what we need to focus on. So any other advice you would give younger, newer advisors coming into the profession today? I think just try to keep getting the reps in. As nervous as I was to do my first, oh gosh, dozen of one-time plans with very astute individuals that were very technical. That was amazing experience. Just it got my feet wet. I got really into the details. It was some of, it was amazing, honestly. And not waiting, you know, for that perfect client to come by because those individuals weren't, you know, necessarily the perfect client for a long-term firm or what I was, what I was trying to grow.

1:26:03So I think just keep getting the reps in and not being afraid of fumbling through the process because to your point on your, on the iceberg analogy you frequently use, you know, it's, it's, it may not look pretty behind the scenes, but the presentation to the client, you know, is what ultimately matters. So I, you know, I can take back a lot of the questions and be really upfront and say, I need to look into this for you and just not being afraid to do that. Yeah, I spent some of my early school days in the theater world doing stage management and backstage work. And to me, it's another one of those ultimate, oh my Lord, there is so much messy stuff that happens behind the scenes in making a show or production go off.

1:26:52And we're privy to all of it when you're stage managing, but the audience only sees what they see through the proscenium arch. They only see the part that's right in front of them and the reality that's presented to them. And they just don't see the craziness that may be happening behind the scenes, nor does it really matter, nor do they care. Do what you got to do behind the scenes. As long as what they see is a good experience for them, the rest is just your interesting privy information about how messy it is to make the sausage. So true. So Ashley, as we come to the end here, this is a podcast about success.

1:27:30And just one of the themes that comes up is that that word success means different things to different people. It can evolve for us as we go through stages of career seasons of life. And so the business seems to be just like objectively very successful in a wonderful place as you're crossing a million dollars of revenue and continuing to grow. So the business seems to be in a good place now. How do you define success for yourself personally at this point? That's such a great question. If you would have asked me this out of college, it would have been, okay, first I have to get my CPA. Then I have to stay until I make an audit manager.

1:28:13Then I have to get my CFA and so on. But every few years, if I think back, there's another mountain to climb because that's just what I thought I was supposed to do. But then when I started my firm, it shifted. Okay, let's get Gunder off the ground. How do I get a new client? How do I keep the lights on? It was so different. But now, reflecting on where we are today, it seems to me as though success is having the freedom to build work around my life instead of constantly asking my family to fit around my work. That's an interesting juxtaposition. Having the freedom to build work around my life instead of asking my family to build around my work.

1:29:04because I mean as we as you mentioned to having three kids schedules seem to change by the hour and even if I try to have it perfectly planned to a tee it doesn't work that way uh yeah not with three there's always something and I genuinely love what I do but I also love being able to leave in the middle of the day to attend a sporting event or volunteer at school or whatever it may be and then I can finish work later that evening. Is that a traditional schedule? No, but I'm okay with it. And I know I'm still delivering exceptional service to my clients. It's ironic that I feel like I worked hard to build a career where I have more flexibility, but I don't want less responsibility.

1:29:49I don't want to work less. I just want more ownership over how I do it. And to me, that is how I define success. I assume years from now, who knows, five to 10 years from now, my answer will be different again. But I think that's healthy. I agree. I agree. Well, thank you, Ashley, for joining us on the Financial Advisor Success Podcast.

1:30:13Ashlee deSteiger: Thank you, Michael. Absolutely. Want even more ideas, tools, and resources on how to break through to the next level of success as a financial advisor? Check out the leading financial planning industry blog, Nerd's Eye View, at www.kitsis.com, where Michael covers the latest practice management trends and financial planning strategies. And by joining the members section, you can earn IMCA and CFP continuing education credits along with exclusive member content. Get it all now at www.kitsis.com.