Million Dollar Producer Show
The Million Dollar Producer Show™ interviews highly successful financial professionals, thought leaders and organizations in the financial services and life insurance industries. This podcast is here to help answer the key question: “What are the insider secrets to stand out in a noisy marketplace and consistently attract and convert high value clients?” To get answers each week, subscribe to the Million Dollar Producer Show.
Million Dollar Producer Show
062: From $200K to $2.2M: Evan Mayer's Recipe for Advisory Growth
In this podcast episode, I welcome Evan Mayer, CEO and founder of Fortuna Wealth Management and host of the "For Advisors by Advisors" podcast.
Evan shares his journey from the bank channel to independent financial advising, and offers insights on podcasting, advisor success, and the value of continuous improvement in the financial services industry.
Evan's Journey: From Bank Channel to Independence
- Career Beginnings: Evan spent 16 years in the bank channel before going independent in 2019.
- Transition to Independence: He discusses the benefits and challenges of moving from an employee model to an independent advisor model.
- Growth and Expansion: Evan's firm has grown from 2-3 people to 12 in the last two years.
The Power of Podcasting for Financial Advisors
- Podcast Origins: Evan started "For Advisors by Advisors" about three years ago, inspired by a chance conversation.
- Content Strategy: Focuses on creating dialogue between advisors rather than just Q&A.
- Value for Listeners: Serves as a platform for advisors considering independence or exploring different options.
Key Takeaways for Financial Advisors
- The Importance of a Process: Evan emphasizes having a defined process as crucial for growth and success.
- Continuous Improvement: Regularly reassessing and improving one's skills and knowledge.
- Client Education: The value of teaching clients something new in every meeting.
- Referral Generation: Focusing on providing excellent service rather than directly asking for referrals.
Evan's Advice for Advisors Considering Independence
- Consider Your Business Model: The best channel depends on your specific business and goals.
- Evaluate Compliance Restrictions: Independent channels often offer more flexibility in marketing and client communication.
- Assess Your Passion: Independence may be worth it for those who view their work as a hobby and passion.
About our Guest: Evan Mayer, CEO and founder of Fortuna Wealth Management and host of "For Advisors by Advisors" podcast.
You can learn more about his work at:
https://www.raymondjames.com/fortunawealth/about-us/bio?_=evan
About Your Host: Paul G. McManus is an accomplished author and expert in helping financial professionals grow their businesses. With over eight years of experience working exclusively with financial professionals, Paul has helped his clients generate tens of millions of dollars in fees and commissions.
Claim your free audiobook copy at: www.theshortbookformula.com
Welcome to another episode of the Million Dollar Producer Show. I am your host, paul G McManus. Today, my guest is Evan Mayer. Evan is the CEO and founder of a wealth management firm called Fortuna Wealth Management and he's also the host of a podcast for advisors by advisors. I got to know Evan because I was recently featured on his podcast and so of course, I said, hey, you should come on mine and let's have my audience learn more about you and your story and the value that you bring to advisors. So welcome, evan, to the podcast. Thanks so much. Appreciate you having me Give us a high level overview of who you are and just maybe your background in terms of being an advisor.
Speaker 2:I'm an awesome person and I consider myself to be a great golfer sometimes and then a horrible golfer in other times, and I'm a good dad. No, I'm an independent financial advisor. I went independent in 2019, so our five-year anniversary is coming up in about a month, and I was in the bank channel for 16 years prior and we started a podcast, as you mentioned, called For Advisors by Advisors a little playoff of FUBU, if you remember FUBU back in the day For Us, by Us, the thought being for advisors and us mostly talking to other financial advisors or people in our business that can help us get to become more successful and started that as some fun about two and a half three years ago now, and we've done I don't know over a hundred episodes what initially got you into podcasting.
Speaker 1:I think increasingly it's something that is seen as popular. I would also say that I started my podcast originally, I want to say, back in 2018 or so. It's a lot of work, or it can be. What was the impetus to get you to start your podcast and tell us a bit more about just the value that your podcast brings to its audience?
Speaker 2:I guess there's different levels of success for a financial advisor. And I always say this there's some advisors that they get to that half a million dollar mark of production and they're happy and they're coasting, and now it's about the other activities they have. Or maybe that's a million dollars, maybe that's a million and a half, maybe that's 2 million, I don't know what the number is for me. I haven't gotten to that number yet where I just want to stop going, but I did want to start giving back and so I actually went out and got the name and number and email address of every principal in my county. I live in Palm Beach County, florida, which is a pretty big county, and I wanted to go and do financial literacy seminars, not to get my name out there, not to get my company name out there, simply to promote the fact that most people coming out of high school they're taught algebra which they're never going to use, but they're not really taught how to save money or how to invest money or what to do with it. And, specifically starting as early as elementary and middle school, how powerful that would have been for me to be given that kind of lesson when I was in school and, funny enough, every single one of them rejected me, said if you want to support the students, you can donate. Bottom line is we don't want you in here and, by essence, they didn't want me in there promoting a brand.
Speaker 2:Fast forward six months a year. I'm in my pool and my wife is having a little bit of a like a get together sorority sister party, like from her old sorority friends. And I'm talking to one of the husbands in the pool and what do you do? What sorority friends? And I'm talking to one of the husbands in the pool and what do you do? What do you do? Not that you really care, but you're out there, you're having some cocktails and one of them goes.
Speaker 2:I have people create podcasts and I go. What does that entail? And he goes. I go. Do I need 10 grand to do that? He goes. No, you need about 500 bucks to 2000. Just depends on what kind of equipment you want. And I help you build that and I said that's excellent, I'll take you up on it. And he literally sat down with me. We did a few hours of conversation and told me about Buzzsprout and all the little things you need to get yourself out there, and I found out how easy it was. It's hard when you don't know what you're doing, but if you're given somebody that kind of teaches you, it became somewhat easy and we started doing it and until I got to a point about a year and a half two years later I'd interviewed a ton of people and I was like I don't there's much more to talk about, I'll wait for people to come out and ask me if they want to.
Speaker 1:We also use Buzzsprout on my podcast and I don't know if that was maybe popular, but it sounds like we both got into it around the same time, so maybe that was like the popular thing to do. Here's my hypothesis. Tell me what you think For many advisors.
Speaker 1:Generally, they want a platform to talk about their story and the value that they bring to their clients, and in most podcasts, as the host, your job is to be the interviewer and really make it all about the other person, and so it takes a certain person who's willing to do that, and so I enjoy doing it, with the right guests and whatnot. So I genuinely enjoy doing it because I learn things as I go. But what I find for a lot of advisors, what they probably should be thinking about doing, is not necessarily hosting their own podcast, although it has its place but they should be focused more on guest podcasting, and what I mean by that is that if they have a specific, maybe niche, audience that they want to create more awareness for, they want to build more authority, they want to do those things you leverage as a guest, you get to leapfrog into this great relationship that the host has already established with their audience and share the value that you bring.
Speaker 2:Your thought process is that's what would get the advisor more business, and I 100% agree with you. My goal of the podcast was never for that. They're an underlier that I want to be a voice for other financial advisors that maybe are considering going independent or thinking different options as a sounding board. Yeah, and funny enough, I take two to three calls a week from advisors that called me on the podcast and said, hey, I was thinking of going independent. Or I heard your podcast on Riskalyze, or I heard Paul McManus talk about this book idea. This is a great idea. What are your actual thoughts on it?
Speaker 2:Like little things, I'm a big fan of Joe Rogan. I don't know if you ever get to listen to his podcast, what I like about his podcasts and sometimes I don't like this about his podcast because I want to hear more from the guest but you get to hear from his point of view on the subject. So he'll ask somebody a question or they'll start talking about a topic and then he'll go off on a five 10 minute rant on his opinion on said topic, and to me I think sometimes podcasts are too Q&A and not more dialogue. And so even if you look at my little graphic for my podcast. It's the Joe Rogan face. I basically stole it. He can sue me, I don't make any money on it. The concept of the show was like let's just have it be conversational between two advisors, or an advisor and somebody trying to help advisors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree with that. I watched Joe Rogan's podcast not a lot because it's darn long, so I need to like be really interested in the guest and the conversation in order to invest the time. But once I am three hours later, hey, where'd the time go? You and I were just chatting, before we went live, about who listens to a podcast, and so again, whether it's as a guest, for the reasons that we talked about, or it's being a host and there's a lot of good reasons to be a host of a podcast I get almost all of my information from a combination of books and podcasts. I think it really is the driver of a lot of people discovering new things and getting interested in new ideas. What's your perspective?
Speaker 2:I agree with you, but I also think that's our generation right. I think Generation X is, and we said this earlier. There are people older than us that are listening to podcasts and there are people, I'm sure, that are in their 60s, 70s and 80s listening to podcasts, but most of them that I know are not right. Like most of them that I know, don't like that long format, and I agree with you three hours is a little long and I think I was listening to Terrence Howard completely talk about how the chemical charts are completely different than what science has been teaching us all along and I felt like I was on mushrooms with them during that episode.
Speaker 2:But I guess my theory is that podcasts to me are the greatest way to hear from other people and uninterrupted and not in five to seven minute clip. So having even Bernie Sanders was on Joe Rogan once and he was on there for two hours and I don't agree with 90 percent of his policies, but I listened to the whole thing and I found him interesting. And then we'll have Tulsi Gabbard on and you can hear her policies. So I think podcasts are the future Now, as well as I know, everybody and their mom has a podcast. You got to siphon through all of them and find the ones that are going to actually add value for you.
Speaker 1:The technology is simple.
Speaker 1:If someone shows you, it's very simple and it can be very inexpensive.
Speaker 1:I think where it might get hard for some people is that when I started doing it, what I did not like was a forced schedule where I need to publish a podcast once a week and now I'm like looking for guests that I'm not really interested in just so I can meet this schedule of what I'm supposed to do, and so after about 15 episodes, I stopped for a couple of years just because I didn't like it.
Speaker 1:Currently I'm doing podcasts, maybe once or twice a week now, but it's because I'm genuinely interested in the people that are being introduced to me, and for me it's like the go-to thing. If I'm meeting someone, do I want to have a private conversation, or if I think that they have value in my audience and my clients could benefit from it, hey, let's do a podcast, let's have a public conversation, and then it's not only getting to know the person that much better, and I find it's a great way to get to know people. But suddenly I have marketing now and this is something that I can put out to the world so I can attract new people. It's something I can give to my existing client base and my email list, et cetera, so there's enormous value to it if you have the right mindset.
Speaker 2:In your business. If you don't have a podcast, something's wrong with you. You need a podcast in your business. Does every financial advisor should they have a podcast? You got enough business that you don't need a podcast and don't want to grow. No, you don't need no podcast, but for you, I 100% think it's a humongous thing for you to not only be out there doing your own but, as you said, to be a guest, and you, being a guest on mine and maybe one or two other advisors, had this book idea and have heard of it and now go. Oh my God, I know the guy that can actually do it. I got to hear from him for about 30 minutes and him not give me some spiel, but actually get Q and A from somebody that didn't know anything about him. I think there's huge value in that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent. So let me ask you a question. You have an independent wealth management firm that's associated or part of Raymond James Is that correct, it's not a part of it, it's affiliated, so we're really with it.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, as you probably know, there's employee channels, there's independent channels and there's RIA channels, and the independent channels normally have to affiliate with a broker dealer, and so our broker dealer we affiliate with is Raymond James. So we're affiliated with them, but we're not W2 through them, we're 1099.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if I understand you correctly, one of the topics that you discuss and that you have discussed at some length in your podcast is potentially some of the benefits, or maybe pitfalls, of going from being more in that employee channel to that more independent channel. What is your take on it? What are some of the things that you've discovered from yourself, from the people you've talked to for an advisor? That's what's the best channel for me to be in.
Speaker 2:I think at the end of the day, it depends on your business and your business model and also what you want to do. As an example, your service that you offer on the independent side, I can take advantage of that. On the RIA side, I can take advantage of that If I'm an employee side on Wells Fargo. No way compliance is going to. Let me get away with 99% of the things I could do to actually leverage LinkedIn and leverage writing a book and getting that kind of stuff in place. At the end of the day, I was at a part of my career and, again, I started in this business 20 years ago and really didn't start picking up my process and my business until probably 2012,. 2013 is when I started really turning it on and so, as my book continued to grow, I was in the bank channel and I was having to deal with compliance calls and a lot of nonsense. That was just pointless of my time. And as my book got big enough and my book got to a point of hey, why am I going to be a W-2 to a firm? I want to create my own content. I want to be able to speak to my clients directly If I want to shoot an email out about how the market looks to me or what the Fed's doing, or a great idea or a great strategy. I could never do that where I was. The compliance regulations were so tight you weren't able to send emails out to your clients. That's crazy talk. You can only send a sun trust compliance already approved piece out or this out. So I think there are different channels for different people. I don't know why. So I think there are different channels for different people. I don't know why anybody that is producing a million dollars or more in a wire house or in a bank setting would want to stay in there, unless they're getting massive amounts of business or they're comfortable where they're at.
Speaker 2:I talk about this on my podcast. I have friends that are at the old firm I was at. They work 15 hours a week maybe, and then they spend 20 hours a week doing whatever they want to do with their time and maybe. For them, going independent is just not worth it. It's not worth the time and the hassle and the stress of making that move. For me, I love this. This is my hobby, this is my passion. I get to play golf, like I said, twice a week. That's great If I have a choice of where I want to be. It's normally in my office.
Speaker 1:You focus primarily on your own wealth management firm. For someone that listens to your podcast, which is For Advisors, by Advisors, which is a great podcast, and is interested or attracted to the message that you talk about, what are some of the ways that they can potentially either learn from you or even affiliate with you? Email or call?
Speaker 2:us. We're here. We literally about two years ago there was two or three of us at our firm and there's 12 now, and so we've grown a lot in the last year and a half to two years and we are looking to help other financial advisors that want to go independent but are afraid of doing some of that stuff, or just don't want to do some of that stuff and just want to go independent but are afraid of doing some of that stuff, or just don't want to do some of that stuff and just want to focus on their practice. They want to walk into a turnkey situation but they want to own their clients, they want to own their book, they want to own their practice and they don't want to be told what to do.
Speaker 2:We're handling OSJ responsibilities and we're handling some of the turnkey stuff like rent and phones and keeping up with an office and assistance support things along those lines. If there's advisors out there that are looking for that or they want to go independent on their own, they don't need any of that. They just need some advice from us. The whole reason I started my podcast was to make our community of advisors better, and if that is talking to somebody on the phone for 30 minutes and 40 minutes and just sharing some of the ideas on how I got started. There's multiple advisors probably over a hundred that I've sat down with this year to just have those quick calls or those quick conversations with.
Speaker 1:Do you find that, since you have that affiliation with Raymond James, that the people that have that conversation with you are those typically existing Raymond James employees, or do you find it's a cross-section of advisors?
Speaker 2:Excellent question For Advisors by Advisors is an OBA, an outside business activity, so it is not affiliated with Raymond James in any capacity. So I am purely giving independent advice based upon nothing to do with Raymond James. Now, if an advisor is interested in Raymond James, I am a cheerleader to no end. I think their tools and their technologies and the ability to affiliate with them has been an amazing experience, but in no way am I only talking to advisors about that.
Speaker 2:A lot of times, you know, giving an example, in the last month I've talked to two or three advisors that are with Wells Fargo, that are looking to potentially go independent and their finite channel with Wells Fargo is a really good opportunity in some cases dependent upon what they're looking for, to go independent and still stay affiliated with Wells Fargo, even though that channel's gotten a little harder to get into and I think Wells had to shut the door because there was a little bit of a mass migration going that way. I'm a sounding board and I know growing up in this business there were advisors that I would call on. They knew they were helping me or not, I don't know, but I would call and I would ask them tons of questions and I was unapologetic about it because I just wanted to get better. And if there's advisors that now want to look upon me to answer some of those questions, I'm happy to do that.
Speaker 1:A couple of final questions. So you've established a successful practice. You're a leader in the field. You're guiding and coaching and mentoring other advisors. In terms of what you've accomplished for yourself, what do you think are some of the lessons that you've learned along the way in terms of what's gotten you to where you are today?
Speaker 2:That's such a loaded, open-ended question. I love it. I look back, I say this and I say this truthfully. I look back at the advisor I was every three to four months and I look back and I go that advisor sucked compared to who I am today. So I think the way to grow in our business is to constantly improve, and it can hurt people. There's always the Tiger Woods story of how many career majors he would have won if he never changed his swing. We sat with guys that couldn't swing. I agree with that.
Speaker 2:99% of the conversations I have with other advisors, even that are more successful than me, I don't get a lot, but every once in a while I'll pull that one idea or that one thought and I'll go. That is phenomenal. Let me include that in my practice. I also think it's important for your clients. I know many advisors that go Evan, my clients don't want to see me. How do you get your clients to come see you every 90 days? My clients are just like hey, go, do what you do for me.
Speaker 2:My goal for my clients are I want to teach them something new every time they walk in the door. I want them finding value in something I'm doing every time they're coming in the door, because the more times they come to see me, the more times I touch them, the more times they're likely to say to their friend hey, I just left my advisor's office, they just told me about a backdoor Roth conversion idea I didn't even think about. Oh really, I haven't spoke to my advisor in a year and a half. What's your advisor like? And I think the way. I think I've gotten the question before, like Evan, how do you get so many referrals from your existing clients? You must be asking them for business. I don't ask them for business. I think that's corny as hell. I think if you're good at what you do, you're going to get business from your existing clients. They're going to automatically refer if they're talking about you. So run your practice, learn, see your clients consistently, add something new to your practice consistently and keep growing. Is there any?
Speaker 1:question that I haven't asked you, that you'd like to touch upon.
Speaker 2:No, but there's always questions of how do you get better, what do you do and what's your process. And I do agree, if you want to be a great financial advisor in our business, you need to have a good team around you. But more importantly, you need to have a process and a process that you stick to with your clientele. And if you don't have that process or you don't even know what a process is, there's advisors. I'll talk to them about financial planning. They'll go oh, I do financial planning. I go tell me what you do and I go. There's literally no process and I think most advisors walk around without that. So the number one thing that took me from a guy that was doing 200,000 in production to 500,000 in production, to a million and a half, to this year we're going to be over 2.2 million and our branch alone is going to be over 3.3 million is there's just no stopping your ability to do what you do if you do have a process.
Speaker 1:Finally, where can people find you, reach out to you or learn more about you?
Speaker 2:For Advisors by Advisors is the podcast. I do, we're all over the place. For Advisors by Advisors is the podcast. I do, we're all over the place. And then LinkedIn. Look for Evan Mayer. If you type in Evan J Mayer, you're good. If you type in Evan Mayer, there's no serial killers Named Evan Mayer, we're good. So you could find me anywhere. Evan Mayer Financial Advisor on Google.
Speaker 1:You'll tend to be able to find me all over the place. All right, evan J Mayer. Thank you.