Adding $80M To Your Practice In 7 Years By Providing Financial Education Through Local Seminars: #FASuccess Ep 450 With Ryan Morrissey

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Resources Featured In This Episode:

• Ryan Morrissey: Website | LinkedIn
• Retirement Readiness Course Outline – Download (PDF)
• Retirement Readiness Review – Download (PDF)
• Seminar Client Tracking And Seminar Task List – Download (Excel)
• FMT Solutions
• P$YCLE Premier
• Retire with Ryan Podcast
• Retire with Ryan YouTube
• AmeriList
• Marketing Solutions Unlimited
• Fiduciary: How to Find, Hire, and Establish an Aligned and Trusted Partnership with a Fee-Only Financial Advisor by Ryan Morrissey
• #FASuccess Ep 186: Cost-Effective Seminar Marketing By Leveraging Facebook Digital Ads To Fill Local Events, with Samantha Bezar
• Simply Paraplanner
• Find My Fiduciary
• Setting Up An RIA And Starting A New Financial Planning Practice On Less Than $10,000
• AdvisorAssist
• RIA Registrar

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Full Transcript:

Michael: Welcome, Ryan Morrissey, to the "Financial Advisor Success" podcast.

Ryan: Hi, Michael. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Michael: I really appreciate you joining us today and getting to talk about marketing today and marketing by educating first, which I find really seems to be the natural inclination for a lot of us as advisors. We do this to help and serve other people. We all can see the need for more financial literacy and financial education out there.

I just find a lot of us advisors have a hunger and a drive to teach and educate, and help. And it also turns out that when you get in front of an audience and teach them, and then some of them decide they want more help, at that point, who better to ask for more support and service than the great instructor you now trust, who's just been teaching you for the past hour or few?

And even in that vein, notwithstanding just the huge growth in all sorts of digital approaches to content and educating through content, or blogging and podcasts and videos and the like, we even still see in our marketing research studies that we do on the platform that seminar marketing, dare I say it, good old-fashioned financial education marketing seminar classes, just getting up in front of an audience in person, teaching them something useful, and then asking some of them for their business is still remarkably effective and actually shows up as more cost-effective than a lot of the digital strategies that we track for advisors in the aggregate.

And I know you have spent the better part of your career building with that approach. So I'm excited to get to talk about, nerd out a little bit on why, in an increasingly digital world, seminar marketing with financial education classes is still so remarkably alive and well.

Pursuing Independence To Be Able To Hold Paid Seminars [04:34]

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. That's how I've been building my business for the last 15 years. To just take a step back, I started in the industry in 2001. I started right out of college with Morgan Stanley. And I had had an internship one summer between my junior and senior year, and I realized I really wanted to be a financial advisor. The person I interned for said, "Well, I would suggest trying to get a job with Morgan Stanley or Merrill Lynch." This person was an independent advisor because they had good training programs. So I went there, and what did they do? They literally slammed a phone book down on my desk and said, "Start calling."

Michael: Yes. This was cold call. This is literally before the do-not-call list.

Ryan: Exactly.

Michael: This was, I guess, the tail end of the cold calling era, not quite the peak, but it was legit how we started our businesses then.

Ryan: It was.

Michael: It was a phone book in a cubicle.

Ryan: Exactly. And then, well, eventually, I found out about the reverse directory, which is where you could target a neighborhood. If you knew, oh, this neighborhood has nice houses, maybe these people could be good clients, you could get that street and get all the phone numbers. It was a reverse directory. So we got a little smarter about who we were reaching out to. And we got some clients, and it worked, but then the do-not-call list came about, and now, right, you can't really call anymore.

And I had a friend who was teaching adult education classes, and he was telling me how well he was doing. He had worked with me at Morgan Stanley, and he had left to join a small firm. And they're teaching these adult education classes, and they're getting these clients. And I went to Morgan Stanley, and they told me I couldn't do it because the people were paying to come to them. They're like, "Well, you can't charge people to come. You can do it for free." That takes away from some of what we'll talk about. So that was part of the...

Michael: I guess, particularly then, I'm assuming we're still in the 2000s.

Ryan: Yeah, this was in 2008, 2009. Yeah.

Michael: Yeah, so that era, right? Just I'm thinking contextually, the hybrid broker-dealer movement has not really gotten underway yet. So almost everyone who's had a broker-dealer is "just a broker." You've got your Series 7 license and a lot of 7 and 63s. And so there's no IAR registration, right? So you literally have no mechanism to charge a fee. You can't in a pure broker world. There's just no way. And if you even try, the firm would be terrified that you're going to be deemed an RIA when you're not registered as an RIA, and then you're going to get slapped by the regulators for practicing as an unregistered advisor. So it was like you shall not charge for anything that isn't a commission. That was the mindset of the era.

Ryan: That makes sense. I didn't know why at the time. I just know that I was told I couldn't do it. I guess I had my 65. Well, I think I took my 66 originally, my 7, and my 66.

Michael: Yeah. Some of us did 7 and 66, but you weren't actually typically set up as an IAR of their corporate RIA. You were only doing brokerage business. So they just didn't have a mechanism for you to do the fees.

Ryan: That's right. So part of the reason why I left and became an independent advisor because then I could actually charge people to come to these classes, which I think is very important, because if you give something for free, people don't really see a lot of value in it. Even if you charge a small nominal amount, like I'm charging $60, $70 to people to come to these events I put on, people have some skin in the game, so to speak. So they're more likely to show up. They're more likely to really value the content that you're giving them, because it's not just some free dinner seminar that you're doing.

Michael: So I'm curious, just further in that context, was it literally down to, I really want to do seminar marketing? I don't want to do it unless I can charge. And if the firm won't let me charge, that is going to be my catalyst to say, "I think I need to go independent." Was it that tightly linked for you?

Ryan: It was that, and also changes that they were making in the comp structure. They had decided advisors that were there so many years were going to take a 10% commission or payout cut. So I was going to go from 40% to 30% payout. It was already low. And so that, combined with the ability that I couldn't market my business and was really struggling to get new clients, was the reason why I left, and I first went to LPL, because I had checked with LPL, and they were like, "Oh, yeah, you want to do seminars? You want to charge for them? No problem." They had no issue with it at all. So it seemed to me like the writing was on the wall.

I'm definitely a late-stage adopter. That's my personality. So I probably would have stayed at Morgan Stanley longer if these things hadn't happened. But in hindsight, it's probably the best thing that ever happened to me in my business was this push to leave and allow me to get to where I am today.

Michael: Interesting. And it sounds like and all indirectly catalyzed by the rollout of the do-not-call list that started you away from cold calling towards other marketing strategies, and then struggling with, "But I want to charge for them."

Ryan: That's right. I was taught to cold call. And I don't know, I guess I was okay at it because I got some clients, and they were just really soft calls, like, "We're calling to help you review your portfolio, plan for your retirement." It wasn't like, "Hey, I've got this hot stock that I want to sell you." It was really just to meet people. And I got clients, but I would definitely say in the last year, the year and a half that I was at Morgan Stanley, it was a struggle to get new clients other than from referrals, because you couldn't really call anybody. And here I had a friend, as I said, who had left and was doing really well, and I wanted to do what he was doing, but couldn't, so it was time to move on.

Early Lessons Learned Putting On Educational Seminars [10:48]

Michael: So did you get to try some seminars that at least were free and get a feel for it, and then say, "Oh, this isn't good if... I need to charge them to get the buy-in?" Was there a, "I did free and really found that I needed to charge for it," or were you just of the mindset from day one like, "I need to be able to charge for these, or I'm just not going to get the engagement that I want?"

Ryan: I had done some free seminars. I had done other events while at Morgan Stanley. I had done some... I had set up an event somewhere and do it over a lunch or a dinner. And I'd do a mailer, and I'd do some calling as well, and I just had poor results. I remember I did one event, and I had 15 people that confirmed they would be there. It was at a nice restaurant for lunch, and literally nobody showed up. Not a single person came. And so I remember the waiter taking sympathy on me, being like, "Oh, I feel sorry for you. Enjoy your lunch. And by the way, here's your bill for, I don't know, $600" or whatever it was.

Michael: Right, because you get a minimum to hold the room.

Ryan: Exactly. I had already prepaid for the room and for the food, and here nobody shows up, and I'm like, "This has got to be a sign that this is not the right way to do it."

Michael: So I got to ask, did they box up the food and let you take home all the food that you ordered?

Ryan: Well, they did, but what was I going to do with it? I'm single, a 27-year-old guy. I think I took it back to the office and gave it to some of my fellow advisors.

Michael: And so I'm assuming it's moments like that, like, "I did a free seminar and everybody ghosted," that got you to the "I'm not doing these for free anymore because people aren't really engaged."

Ryan: That's right. I knew that I knew someone else doing it and was having success. So I went to the University of Delaware, that's my alma mater, and my friend was actually doing these classes at the University of Delaware. And he didn't even go there. I was jealous. I'm like, "Wait a minute, you're teaching adult education classes." And he told me they did a class over a weekend. They had 40 people come to it. And they had all these potential clients they were going to be meeting with. And I'm like, "Wow, I'm really jealous on multiple fronts. You're getting in front of bodies that I want to get in front of, and you're doing it at my alma mater." So it was time for me to try it on my own.

Michael: I can see how that confluence of events comes together. "He's doing it, 40 people came. I did the dinner seminar and paid $600 for take-home food. And he even gets to do it at the school that I went to, where I'm an alma mater and he's running the seminars."

Ryan: That's right. I even paid for a mailer. I have no idea what that cost was. I would guess $1,000, probably sent out 1,000 mailers for the lunch seminar.

Michael: Okay. So then what comes next in this journey of trying to figure out seminars and what they are and how to do them?

Ryan: Yeah. So I leave Morgan Stanley. I go to LPL. At the time, I brought over, I don't know, $18 million of assets under management. I don't remember exactly how many clients, maybe 60 or 70. And so I had a good base with me. I was initially working out of my house for three to four months before I could find an office, and then I got an office. I have an office space. So now I'm ready to do these seminars. And the initial company I was using, I've heard some of your guests talk about them before. They're still around, FMT.

And so I sign up with FMT. That's who my friend was using. And Jeff Franz was the guy that was the owner of FMT. Really great guy. He spent some time on the phone with me talking about it. So I make the investment to buy the license. And I think it was $7,000. And so he coaches me on getting my first seminar set up. And so I ended up renting a room at a local college. And so I rent a room and I do my mailer. They recommended a 10,000-piece mailer. I could talk more about that.

But I do the first class, and I get... I don't know, I offered it over two different nights. So I did a Tuesday, and it was a two-night seminar. So people came consecutive Tuesdays, and then I offered a Thursday date. So they came consecutive Tuesdays or consecutive Thursdays. So I had come to that class. I actually still have the data in front of me. So that class, I had 13 people come to it. And so now I've gotten in front of 13 people. I end up getting one client from that first class. So in my mind, it's success because I've gotten one client. So now I start to schedule the next one.

Michael: So what did it cost for you to do that the first time?

Ryan: So that initial class was the $7,000 initial license. And then the mailer, I think, was $6,000. And so it was $13,000 initial investment to do that class.

Michael: And I don't know if you know or remember, it's how big was the client? Did one client pay for itself or...?

Ryan: Yeah, one client brought in around $600,000. So it didn't quite pay for itself initially, but that client ended up working with me for...

Michael: For the mailer, at least, you had to buy the entry fee, but 1% on $600 grand. Okay, $6,000 of revenue covers the $6,000 mailer, and clients are recurring revenues. And then they work with us for another 10, 20, 30 years.

Ryan: That's right. And the other thing, too, when I went over to LPL, is that when I was at Morgan Stanley, they were initially allowing you to charge for financial planning like a fee. They had gone that route, but it was based on the net worth of the client. So I think if the client's net worth was under a million dollars, you could only charge $1,500 to do a comprehensive financial plan, which was really, I didn't think, enough money. You might spend 10, 15 hours with somebody, and you're not really making a whole lot per hour in that sense compared to what people are charging today. I also charged, I think, at LPL when I went there, I think I charged this client $3,000 to first do the financial plan. And then they decided after that they wanted me to then manage their assets at the end of the process.

Michael: Okay. So that picks up revenue a little bit…

Ryan: Picks up the revenue a little bit.

Michael: So the financial outcome of, right, just we're trying to build a business. It costs money to market, and I need to get paid for my service...

Ryan: It does. Yeah.

Michael: ...to be able to do this and survive. So when you did the first one, because I'm always fascinated by where these things start, so what did you present?

Ryan: So yeah, they had a lot of material. FMT did at the time. So it starts out talking about goals and then tax savings options, like contributing to a 401(k) or the tax deductions and then IRAs and Medicare, Social Security, estate planning, investing, the whole gamut of...as much as you could talk about within six hours and to give people a broad overview on financial planning, on retirement planning.

Michael: Okay. So this is meant to be, it sounds like, pretty broad-based financial education for people who are accumulating towards retirement.

Ryan: That's right. The mailer targeted people like 50 to 65. So the mailer would say, "Are you planning for retirement? Do you want to learn about this or that?" And would show what was going to be presented in the class. So yes, it was education. There's no sales. I didn't even really talk about how I could help people. It was really more just, "If you're interested in getting more help, you can sit down with me for an hour and we'll talk about your situation. And if at the end of it, you want more help, we can talk about those options. If not, at least I can give you some general guidance in that hour to help direct you in the right way."

Michael: Okay. And that's really how you would set it up, at least at the time, just a statement that gets made at the end of the class, like, "If you're interested in getting more help than the six hours we've just been here, I can meet with you and sit down for an hour. If you want more help than that, then we can talk about the options of how we might work together."

Ryan: That's right. I would talk about it twice. Once, when people first come or came to the class, because I would collect an evaluation form at the end of the class. And in it, it would say, "Do you want to schedule a financial consultation?" So I would talk to people about how the class was going to go, and also letting them know that there's an optional third part of the class, and that's a one-to-one consultation. And I'll be collecting this form at the end of the class. And if you want to sit down with me, we'll review your situation and just check yes, and we'll reach out to you. If not, no big deal. We're not going to contact you.

Michael: Oh, that's a fascinating angle. There's a third part of this class. Because again, you said you're two sessions over two nights already. So you get three hours on the first Tuesday, follow up three hours on the second Tuesday, because it's a six-hour program. And there's a third part of the class, which is an optional one-on-one consultation, if you wish, which I guess has the... It's not, "Right, I'm not giving away my time for free. This is part of what you paid for, because you paid for this financial education class."

Ryan: That's right. Yeah.

Michael: I guess I can see it's a very different mindset shift than calling or meeting strangers and saying, "Would you like me to do a complimentary review of your portfolio?" as you did in cold calling, and a lot of us have done in cold prospecting. To me, it's got a whole different connotation when, no, no, no, you paid for this financial education class, and that's just...it's just the third part of the class is you can avail yourself of a one-on-one consultation to get a little bit more specific to your circumstances, if you want.

Ryan: That's right. Most advisors in today's competitive environment offer free consultation anyway, right? So why not make it part of the class, which it is, and they then...like you said, they paid for it, there's value in it, and they can take advantage of it if they want to. If not, they don't have to.

Michael: And you mentioned earlier charging things like $60 for the class. Was that actually the price, or at least the neighborhood of what you were charging for this? Was that the rate that you were setting for these six hours over two nights?

Ryan: Yes. Yeah, I think it was low. Might have been $40 initially. It was in the $40 to $60 range. I don't remember, but that was where it was.

How Holding Multi-Hour Seminars Leads To New Client Acquisition [21:53]

Michael: Okay. So share with us a little bit more. I'm just trying to process, I don't know, the mindset, the framework of we're reaching out to people and asking them to pay money, $40 to $60, and we're inviting them to come to a 6-hour program. So on the one hand, I'm like, "Six hours is a lot."

Ryan: Sure.

Michael: It's a lot to do just from a delivery end. It's a lot for just the consumer to absorb, right? Most folks I know that do things like webinars, like we do a 1-hour webinar, maybe you do a 40-minute webinar, heck if it’s video on YouTube, good luck getting longer than 15 minutes, or you can do Shorts at 30 seconds. So I'm just fascinated, six hours. So I don't know, just share with us more of...because I know you've just been doing this a long time now. I don't know, why does that work?

Ryan: So as I said, I had a license with FMT, and it was a seven-year license. And when the license came due, I decided to start my own course so that I could have more control over the content because I was limited to the content that they were providing. So I really wanted to customize the content a little bit more. It still is a similar structure, right? There's certain things you have to talk about when you're talking about financial planning that you're going to talk about. But I was able really to customize and create more case studies. That was something that I wanted to do is create more case studies rather than just lecturing, like, "An IRA limit is this, a 401(k) limit is this."

So I did keep the same two, three-hour sessions because there's a lot to talk about, first of all. And I think the comprehensive nature really sets it apart from other courses or events or seminars that people can go to. Usually, I'll get at least a couple of people that will straight up tell me when they're leaving that this was the best investment they ever made in their life because they have a hard time getting this other information in other seminar-type formats. So it is a long time...

Michael: Because everyone else is trying to soundbite it into 1 hour, 15 minutes, 5 minutes, 30 seconds.

Ryan: That's right. If you only have an hour, you really can't get very deep on financial planning. You could talk about one area, and you could get kind of deep. But for people that have never worked with a financial advisor, which is what I find a lot of people coming to my class, and some of them still never do, there's definitely a large amount of the DIY crowd that comes to my class, and they know a little bit, but I think their eyes are opened once they sit through this class that, "Man, I really don't know what I'm doing. And I'm either going to decide to hire somebody that does, or I've got to really even double down more on increasing my knowledge base."

So it works. I've experimented with some other classes where I do just do an hour and a half or two hours and only talk about Social Security or Medicare, a more specific topic. But I just have found that I don't build as good of a relationship with those people.

I just think...as you said, when you talk to somebody for six hours...and also, there's a couple of breaks. So I do talk to people in between. They might come up with a question they have, or during the presentation, they might interject with what they're going through or what their parent or friend went through. It becomes more personal. And I think building that relationship is critical. And you could even do three three-hour sessions, right? You could make this even more expansive to build maybe even a deeper bond. But that would obviously require more time on both your part and the attendees' part.

Michael: Well, you make an interesting point about who's coming to this. In general, who raises their hand and then goes to a six-hour seminar, they've got to have at least some DIY layer to them, perhaps, or they're just probably not putting themselves through a six-hour program. But if you're motivated enough to go to a six-hour program, you're pretty motivated, right?

Something's coming down the pike on retirement that's got you concerned enough that you're willing to make that investment, which means you're probably a lot more motivated to getting to some knowledge or other outcome, which to me just says it's a good base for prospects, right? People who aren't more invested than spending 30 seconds watching a video short, probably not people who are very motivated to make a change or hire an advisor for the first time. People who will pay money for a six-hour program, just there's a self-selection bias to that.

If I just think about people who are most likely to actually be getting to the point that they've realized they need to hire an advisor because this stuff's getting too complex, it's got to disproportionately be from people who are already feeling so much pain in that regard that they're willing to go to six-hour seminars to learn things, only to then go through the six hours and go, "Oh, jeez, I still have to know so much more than I do. Maybe I just need to hire an advisor."

Ryan: Yeah, and because I was able to create my own course as I've gone through this, I certainly don't want to just give people information and leave them in a position where they feel helpless. Going through these case studies and also laying out how you can determine if you have enough to retire and really showing people how to do it, I think, has helped to at least leave people with if they really do want to do it, they certainly can. I don't leave people at the end of this thinking, "The only way forward is if you hire me, or another financial advisor." No, definitely for some people that really like this and really want to spend the time, you certainly can do it yourself. But if you don't want to do that, that's where a financial advisor can really help you. But I give people the tools to go either direction.

Michael: Okay. Because I guess it's in that vein, I'm not here to try to sell and convert all the people because I know if I just do a good job for them, some percentage of them, of their own free will volition are just going to come forward and say, "I've realized that this is more than I can or want to handle. And I know you, and I like you, and I trust you because we spent the better part of six hours together already. Tell me more about your services."

Ryan: That's right. Yeah. And look, if this was a slam dunk, seminars were, right, then everybody would be doing it, right? You'd go to a seminar, you'd get ten clients, right, you'd keep doing it, and all of a sudden, you wouldn't even be able to do anymore because you'd have too many clients. So it's a good enough way to meet clients that it works, but there's no marketing strategy out there that's going to bring you so many clients. And if it was, everybody would be doing it, it'd probably get watered down.

Connecting With Local Adult Education Programs To Handle Seminar Logistics [29:03]

Michael: Right. So then, talk to us a little bit more about, I guess, just metrics and how this typically works for you now. I guess I'm even just thinking through the funnel, what does it look like to you? What do you pay to get people in the room? How many people show up? How many of them come through and set appointments, and eventually become clients, and bring some revenue? What does that formula look like for you at this point?

Ryan: Sure. So the first step to doing one of these is getting a location that would be preferably at a school or college, because I think people are more comfortable going somewhere like that, versus if you do it at a hotel. And I've experimented with doing some at hotels. They just don't work as well. So because I've been doing this a while, I have relationships with a couple of places. I have two locations that I presently teach at, and I teach there twice a year. So once in the spring and once in the fall.

So both are adult education components that local towns have. So most towns have some type of adult education curriculum, at least in Connecticut, where I live, where they can teach you how to do a cooking class or learn a language. But many of them also have money matters or some type of money classes. So that's where this would fall into. So I already have these relationships, but if you didn't have them, you'd need to get one, and we can talk about that in a little bit.

So first thing is setting the date. So I set the date about three to four months in advance. So I already have my dates set for my fall classes. So we have the dates, and I teach the full class on two different nights. So as I said before, there's a Tuesday option and a Thursday option. And usually, I have one start before the other. So the Tuesday might start that week, and then the following week, the Thursday would start, just in case somebody was away, to give people more options to come.

Michael: Okay. So this is the multiple nights, staggered week start. That's all built around, "I'm just trying to give people more options so that when I pay the money to do the mailer, because that's got real cost up front, there's an increased likelihood that they can do at least one of the things that I'm offering and putting forward."

Ryan: That's right. And I even have people sometimes will ask me, "Well, I can come to the Tuesday, but I can't come to the following Tuesday. Can I come to the Thursday class?" Sure. Whatever works for you. I'm going to...

Michael: If you're that motivated, I'm going to figure out how to make it work.

Ryan: Every class I start, like the Tuesday, that first night is the first half, the following Tuesday is the second half. So they can mix and match.

Michael: And where did you end up location-wise? Just where in practice are you actually doing this?

Ryan: So my office, one location I have, is about 25 minutes away, and the other location is about 15 minutes away. So they're pretty close to my office, so that people can then come to my office after. I used to do in-home meetings, but I haven't done those in ten years. So everyone is either, for the optional third part of the class, going to come in person to my office or we can do it over Zoom if it's easier for them.

Michael: Okay. And just what's the actual venue set up? Because you said you're not doing hotels. So what have you found?

Ryan: So one town I use, they actually have an adult education building or center. So it's in that location. So it's in a downtown area of a town, and people can park in back, there's plenty of parking, and they just come in the building and they go into a...it's not a classroom, it's a meeting room. There's a couple tables and chairs. And if I do...when that venue...sometimes I do get a lot of registrations. They'll move me to a bigger room where they set up tables and chairs. You need a table and a chair because part of what the people get is they get all the slides for the presentation so that they can take notes. They need somewhere to write rather than just writing on their lap.

And then the other location is a high school. So the other town, they just do their adult education classes at a high school. Plenty of parking. People are familiar with the location. It is, unfortunately, high school desks. So some people will complain after two and a half hours that it hurts to sit there, and I don't blame them. That's the only drawback is some people bring a cushion the second night so they can sit on it, but yes.

Michael: What's saying youth is wasted on the young.

Ryan: That's right.

Michael: They can sit in those chairs all day.

Ryan: How did I ever sit in this desk all day back in the day? Not even care.

Michael: Okay. And so it sounds like one of the virtues of doing this through local towns' adult education offerings is it's basically they're actually figuring out the venue questions for you. They've procured space with the high school or the adult education center in the area. You "just" have to be an instructor with them to be able to run the class.

Ryan: Exactly. So that would be the ultimate goal of anyone doing adult education, from my perspective, is to get in with an adult education program so that they're handling the registrations and the room and any problems people have. When I first started doing this, I just rented a room at a local college that rents rooms. Many colleges and even some towns will rent you a room that you can pay a fee and rent the room, but you would then be handling the registration. So the mailer that you send out would be coming back to you. They'd be making a check payable to you, or if you set up an LLC, however you do it, and then you would then have to send out confirmations and deal with a few other things that, at this point, I don't deal with because the two locations that I teach at, the adult education programs are handling all that.

Michael: Essentially, you get to leverage their infrastructure.

Ryan: That's right.

Michael: So is there a cost to work with adult education programs to get in with them and be able to use their infrastructure? How do you get this door open in the first place?

Ryan: So the cost really is that you're giving them all the revenue the class brings in. At least that's the way I do it. So the $60, they keep.

Michael: Oh, okay, so the $60 isn't you.

Ryan: Correct.

Michael: You don't get to keep that.

Ryan: I don't keep any of that. So if I get 20 people to sign up, I just brought them in revenue that probably a lot of other programs aren't bringing in. A lot of other programs might have 3 or 4 people that sign up, but you do the right thing with this type of program, you should be able to bring in around 20 people on average, 20 paying attendees.

Michael: Okay. And so that's a $1,000-plus class, I'm assuming, just for an adult education program, like 1,000 bucks every time Ryan shows up, 2,000 bucks when you do 2 of these. That's actually decent money and a decent program for them.

Ryan: That's right. Yeah.

Michael: Okay. So how do you...? I'm just still trying to understand, how do you get in with them? As it were, am I literally just googling adult education classes and the name of my town, and just cold emailing whatever website or person I find saying, "I'm a financial advisor, I'd like to teach financial education classes?" Is it that straightforward?

Ryan: Yeah, that's what you do. Because I created my own course and I now license it to other advisors, I teach them a little bit more about that. But I would say the way that you do it is you have to have some differentiator. And you might get lucky that they don't have a course like that already. So that's a much easier way to get in there. You could say, "Hey, here's what I'm going to do." I would try to get an in-person appointment and at least show them the material and talk about how you run the class, and they're going to keep the revenue from the class. And talk about how you market the class, how you're going to send out a mailer to bring people in, also, and it helps.

So you're doing that extra marketing that they're not doing because their mailer, as I said, probably, from my experience, might get like two to three to four people to actually show up. If you didn't do the 10,000-piece mailer that we're going to talk about, then you probably would just have similar results that other programs do, like 2 to 3 people.

Michael: Okay. So again, that's part of what makes it compelling for them is most things they do, they're just going to send it to their mailing lists and their catalog, and they'll get literally a handful of people. You're going to spend thousands of dollars doing a mailer trying to drive the turnout. And so from their end, it's like, "Oh, so you're actually going to be a $1,000 program because most others, we just put it in our catalog and it's a $100 program for us.

Ryan: That's right. Yeah. That's the big differentiator. And also just the content. From what I see, a lot of other programs are just one particular topic that they're talking about. They're just going to talk about Social Security, or Medicare, or long-term care, but you're going to do a comprehensive course and really give people a lot more information that's really good for the community.

Michael: Okay. So when you talk about be differentiated, that's part of the differentiation is, again, getting back to the six hours seems like a long time. No, no. Six hours is a depth of financial literacy education for the community. That's a plus that differentiates you.

Ryan: That's right.

Michael: And I don't know if this is an issue or just things that we can get stuck on in our head. How concerned are the adult education folks that, at the end of the day, you're doing this to market your practice and get clients. I'm just wondering if that comes up or not.

Ryan: It definitely does. You have to be transparent in letting them know that the only thing you're going to offer to people is that if they want a complimentary review of their financial plan done, you'll do that for them, but they can choose to sign up or not. And that's very transparent. That's what you're doing.

Most people have no issue with that. I occasionally have run into where a director changes at one of these places, a new person comes in, and they then have an issue with it. But what I found is that when I explained to them what I'm offering, that the issue was resolved. But you certainly have to be transparent if you're going to do that, because you wouldn't want to go through all this effort, and then you find out you can't do it because they said, "Well, you're soliciting business." Well, you are and you aren't. It's a very soft solicitation.

Using Mailers To Drive Attendance At The Seminars [40:23]

Michael: Okay. And so now take me through what's next. So I've gotten a relationship with my adult education offering. I've set a date, I guess I communicated to them, they're going to get my room. They're going to set up my registration process, I guess, as basically I'm going to send people to their website to register. So I even get a little shared credibility, right? It's through them. It's not just a call by solicitation. So what happens next? Now am I getting ready to do my mailers and figuring out how to actually get a turnout here?

Ryan: That's right. You're getting ready to do your mailer. And so I have a mailer I've been using. And so the minor tweaks that we make to that mailer are the dates. Obviously, we have to update the dates, and then just run it by the school to make sure nothing on their end changed, make sure the website didn't change, make sure the forms of payment didn't change. And then once all that's ready, once we've got that proofed, then we send that to the printer, and then we have to get the mailing list.

So I use a mailing house that are a list broker, you could say, to help get the list of 10,000 people. And I mail usually to age like 50 to 65 within 7 to 10 miles of the location. And I also use some other clarifier or qualifiers to help me. I only mail to homeowners, I mail to some other income-producing assets to try to mail to a higher net worth client.

Michael: People who have other income-producing assets?

Ryan: Yes. There's this qualifier I found years ago. It's called Claritas Income Producing Assets. It's actually a thing that you can build a mailing list around, and I don't even know where they're getting this data. It's probably sold by credit agencies, but it's supposed to rank people based on who has the most assets to the least. And as a firm that manages assets, you're trying to mail to the higher-end part of that. Yeah, so that depends on the list, but we would try to get 10,000 that focused more towards the top of that end.

Michael: And just geographically, where are you? What is your metropolitan area that you're sending out 10,000 at a time?

Ryan: You mean how many people live in that area?

Michael: Yeah. And it's like, where are you? I don't know if you're in a metropolitan area that has 7 million people, in which case you can do 10,000 and literally never run out or...

Ryan: On one street?

Michael: Yeah, or some of us are in more rural areas where it's like, "Great, if I send 10,000, I'm literally hitting the entire town, and I can only do that so many times before they stop telling me to mail it to them."

Ryan: Great question.

Michael: So where are you?

Ryan: So where I am in Connecticut, I'm not in a rural area. I don't have data to give you, but it's not hard to get 10,000 names within 7 miles in the demographics I'm listing. So it's not a problem. It depends where you do the class. If you did it somewhere that was in a more remote location, it could be more difficult to get 10,000 names within 7 miles. But for me, to get within that age demographic and to get within 7 miles, usually we'll come up with 25,000 names within where we're mailing. So we're not even mailing to all the people that we could just in that demographic.

Michael: Okay. And I guess for this advice, how does this work over time? And you said you've been doing this for a decade, and I'm assuming you haven't moved. So is there some point where you're mailing the houses that you might have mailed three, five, ten times before over time?

Ryan: Oh, definitely. And I used to...

Michael: Because there's only so many within 7 miles of a particular location before you've just saturated the area.

Ryan: Definitely. And I think that's a good thing. I used to think it was a bad thing, but people will actually tell me, "Well, I've been getting this mailer for a while, and I finally decided it was time to come." And so yes.

Michael: Oh, interesting.

Ryan: Yeah. Because if you think about how the mailing list works...so I get a new mailing list every time I do a class, even if I just did it six months before. Because a lot of people will move, people will retire somewhere else, they'll pass away. So if you don't refresh your mailing list...and I did this once. I used a mailing list that was a year old. I ran it through some screen that I was able to find, it paid $50. And they somehow checked to see what was accurate, and 1,000 names were not accurate of 10,000, just a year later.

Michael: Oh, interesting.

Ryan: So those would have just gone in the garbage if I had mailed to those with the type of postage that I use.

Michael: Well, and I guess the added dynamic that goes with that is when you've got an age-based targeting because you're going 50 to 65, there's a certain number of people who turn 50 and hit your age demographic every year that are new. So you're going to have some steady influx of new just because people either move to the area, they age into your age filtering, or maybe they finally get enough income-producing assets to hit the income-producing trigger for the first time.

Ryan: That's right. Yeah. So they might be in this...as I said, I've been doing this for a long time. They might have been getting my mailer for ten years plus, and they might decide to come. Sometimes I've even had people reach out to my office to meet with me that can't even come to the class. They just have read the brochure and maybe done some research on me and decided they want to meet with me, and they become a client. So it is another form of marketing in that sense.

I have a podcast also, a retirement podcast for people 50 and older. In the brochure, I actually highlight that. There's just a small paragraph that says, "If you want further education and you can't make it, consider checking out the 'Retire With Ryan' podcast." So if you have some other thing like that, you could put that in there, too. It is another way just to get the word out about what you're doing.

Michael: And so, just as someone who's experienced in the space, who do you use to get the mailing list, do the printing and mailing, and send all this stuff out? Because it sounds like it was FMT who did all that, and it's not FMT anymore.

Ryan: That's right. So I've used different companies. Right now, I get my list from a company called AmeriList. I'll get the mailing list, and the mailing list is running around $600. It's around 6 cents a name to get a mailing list. So that's one part.

And then I use another company. They went through a name change, but I think they're called Marketing Solutions Unlimited, and they're in Connecticut, and they actually do the mailer. So they print all the brochures, and they put the addresses on them and the postage, and then they bring it to the post office. They do bulk pre-sorted mail. So they get all that to the post office.

Michael: Okay. So from your end, you just give them, I guess, a digital file of the list of names that you bought from AmeriList, the digital copy of the brochure, and they print and envelope and postage, and bulk mail, all that.

Ryan: That's right. It's not even an envelope. So it's an eight-page brochure, and I don't remember the dimensions, but it's essentially two pieces of paper that are folded to make eight pages. And they just do a wafer seal, they call it. So they fold it in half. They fold it a few times. And so on the outside of it, it actually has the printed name and address of the person getting it and the postage. Yeah. So not even an envelope. So I think it's even better because then people can see what it is before they decide to throw in the trash, maybe.

Michael: And so what's the cost?

Ryan: So the cost of the mailer, all in, I just did a couple of classes this past spring, were about $8,000 each. That's including the postage, the printing, and the mailing list.

Michael: Okay. I guess that's just striking to me, processing that it's $8,000 for the mailer, of which less than 10% is actually getting the list of names and the other 90% is making the physical mailer and getting the postage and printing, and sending it to them. So most of the cost is that production.

Ryan: It is, yeah. The names are only about 6 cents. If you break it down, if you just say $8,000, so it's 80 cents per piece. I think the postage is around 30 cents or 32 cents right now. I forget what it is, but it's bulk pre-sorted mail. And so you take that out, that leaves 50 cents. So it's about 43 cents to actually print the brochure, to procure the paper, and print the brochure.

Michael: Okay.

Ryan: So the mailer's gone out. I try to get the mailer to be in people's physical homes about four to five weeks before the date of the first session, first class. That way, it gives people time to sign up. And so the signups start coming in. And usually, about a week before the class, most of the people have already signed up. Occasionally, some people might sign up last minute, but that's when the signup's usually coming in.

Michael: Okay. And so what is typical for signups for you? Help me with my expectations. What kind of turnout?

Ryan: Yeah. I've averaged around a little over 20 signups since I've been doing the classes.

Michael: Okay. And that's between the two or for each of the two?

Ryan: Between the two nights. Yes.

Michael: Okay. So I'm going to have ten-ish people in each class, in each night. Okay.

Ryan: Occasionally, I've had it where almost everyone signed up for one night, and I've actually reached out or had the school reach out to the other people to see if they could come to the other night, and just taught it once. So that sometimes happens, but usually it's fairly spread out. It's about half in each night.

Michael: Okay. So at the end of the day, I'm $8,000 in to get in front of 20 people.

Ryan: That's right.

Encouraging Class Attendees To Schedule A One-On-One Consultation [50:56]

Michael: Okay. So now keep me moving forward here. So what comes next?

Ryan: So next... I have done this presentation hundreds of times, so I don't really practice it. But if you were new to doing this, you definitely would need to be practicing the presentation so that you can present it. You're not just reading the slides. You can share some stories, some insights, things you've gone through with clients.

And so I show up about 45 minutes before the class starts to make sure that everything's working, to make sure...the school provides the audio-visual equipment. These classrooms already have a projector in them. So I'm just bringing my thumb drive to plug in because my thumb drive has the slides, has the PowerPoint presentation. So I'm just making sure the computers work, there's no problem with the rooms.

Sometimes, because these are shared rooms, maybe another group was in there, and the desks are positioned wrong, not facing the front of the room, I might have to put my janitorial skills into play and start moving desks around. I'm hoping that doesn't happen, but I've had to do that. Sometimes we've had to set up tables. They forgot to do the tables.

So I want to make sure everything's right so that when people come in, I can greet them, I can get them checked in. I have a list of all the people that are signed up, so I'll check them in, and I'll let them know that they should have gotten slides emailed to them. They used to print out the slides, but the schools I work with don't want to print them anymore. They used to print them and put them in a three-ring binder for me so people would have all the slides. Now they just email them. So I want to make sure people have gotten the material emailed to them, so they know they have the material.

Michael: Okay. And you're doing all this solo, on your own? You're not staffing this with other people in your office. This is you.

Ryan: No, I am the presenter, yeah.

Michael: Okay. And so then you get underway. So what time does this start?

Ryan: So it depends on the school. So one school closes at 9:00. So that one, I start at 5:30, and that will go to... They generally goes mostly to three hours. If I don't have a lot of questions, I can be done in 2 hours and 40 minutes. And that includes a ten-minute break. So it's about two and a half hours of material. But if I start getting questions, a more interactive audience, which I actually prefer than me just talking for two and a half hours, it'll go closer to the three-hour mark.

And I've sometimes had to let people know I'm just going to ask for no more questions because we're a little bit behind. I want to get everyone out on time. Yeah, so I do the presentation. I usually hang around for a few minutes after. Sometimes people might come up to me and have questions about stuff, or they might come up to me and say, "Tell me more about how you work with clients. I'm interested in working with you. Let me understand that." And when I'm done, then I head home. The other location, they actually close at 9:30. So that one, I start at 6:15 because I think that's a little better, because then it gives people some time to get home from work or maybe get something to eat before coming to the class.

Michael: Right. Okay. And so I guess just talk me through a little bit more now, how this process works as you get to the end, right? Just ultimately, there's a business purpose to this of trying to get people through. So what are we ultimately building up to? How does this work?

Ryan: So, as I said, at the beginning of the class, I mention the optional consultation, and then I'll mention it again at the break, the second night. I'll mention that, "In case you weren't here or you weren't clear, the optional third part of the class is where we'll review your financial situation. And we ask you to provide us some material in advance so we can be prepared for a more thorough discussion."

We'll ask for your Social Security statement, your investment statements, your tax return, ask you to fill out the budget that we went over, fill out your net worth statement so that we can prepare and show you in our planning software how retirement looks for you. So we use eMoney, and my team and I will spend about an hour or hour and a half getting some of the initial data put into eMoney so that we can at least show the attendee what their retirement projections look like in a rough fashion, right? It might not be 100% accurate if we don't have all the data, and also, what their asset allocation is. Some people don't even know their allocation.

So those are the two things that we want them to leave the meeting with. And then we give them a printout of eMoney, a report we've created. It's about 30 pages of different reports within there that show them their retirement projections.

Michael: Okay. And so from a sale, just thinking of from a sales process, so you're in the we're giving them a lightweight initial plan as a part of the consultation. And then ultimately the ask is, "If you want to go deeper or you need help implementing this, then we'd love to work with you."

Ryan: Exactly. So we offer two options for the people that want investment management and maybe have assets that they could move or made sense to move. We offer an AUM relationship we call ongoing wealth management. And then for people that just want planning, if they either don't want somebody to manage their assets, or maybe they can't, we offer them a flat fee financial plan to go through everything we would do on the ongoing wealth management, but just as a fee.

Michael: Okay. And the driver to get them to the consultation is what you said earlier. Either you set up at the beginning of the class, right? This isn't a two-part class, this is a three-parter. There's an optional consultation as part of the class if you want it, and when you do the evaluation form, you invite them to schedule on the form as well.

Ryan: That's right. They check. And I even tell them, I say, "Listen, if you don't want us to contact you, don't worry, I will not. You'll never hear from me again. Just check no. If you want to hear from me again, check yes."

Michael: Okay. And so I guess I'm just trying to visualize, what does that form say?

Ryan: Yeah, it literally just says, "I would like to schedule a consultation with Ryan," and check yes. And then I have a little time block, Monday through Friday, of preset appointment times that people can check off that are a fit for them. And then when I get back to my office the next day, I give it to a member of my team to reach out to them, to call, to schedule that appointment.

Michael: What if a whole bunch of them pick this, ask for the same time? Is that a...?

Ryan: That's okay. They're not date-specific. I don't have dates on there. It's just like, "Oh, Tuesdays at 9:00 work for me." Okay. We'll try to find a Tuesday at 9:00.

Michael: Okay. So they say Tuesdays at 9:00, just great. Then, if the team gets several of them, then apparently I'm going to have 9 a.m. meetings on Tuesday for the next three Tuesdays.

Ryan: That's right. Yes.

Michael: Okay. So it's just like days of the week and times of the day and you just say which days and times in general work for you.

Ryan: Yeah. I thought about putting my Calendly link on there because I use Calendly, but I just wonder if people would procrastinate and never do anything with it. So I still use the form and have them fill that out, and then we do the follow-up call. And if after two or three calls we haven't reached them, my team will send an email to reach back out to us, or a link to my calendar right there. So they can use the calendar to schedule their appointment.

The Financial And Business Metrics Of Holding In-Person Seminars [58:51]

Michael: So now keep taking us through, I guess, just the numbers of this. So an average event has 20 signups, or it has 20 people that come to the educational session as well. So how many of those say they're interested in a consultation?

Ryan: It's about a little more than 60%. So let's just say 12, right, 12 people say yes to a consultation.

Michael: Okay. And how many of the 12 actually schedule a consultation?

Ryan: About 80% actually come in, and we'll have the consultation. So it's a pretty high percentage.

Michael: Okay. So probably getting 10 out of 12 or something.

Ryan: That's right. Will physically come in. Some of them will just schedule or cancel, or then never reschedule. So about ten will physically come in or have a Zoom meeting with me within a month or two after the class.

Michael: And then how many...I'm assuming next step is essentially how many become a client, either planning only or ongoing wealth management.

Ryan: It averages two. So sometimes it's higher. I might have a class where I got four clients. Sometimes it could be zero. So it's in that two to two and a half range.

Michael: Okay. Two to two and a half on average. Okay. So I'm just processing through. So basically, of 20 people who come, 2 of them end out actually really becoming clients.

Ryan: That's right.

Michael: So of the 20 who come, 2 end up becoming clients.

Ryan: Yeah.

Michael: And you were $8 grand in.

Ryan: That's right.

Michael: So this is...plus some of your time, it's a couple of evenings out, we got to be fair, but you're basically $4,000 plus a couple of hours of your teaching time per new client.

Ryan: That's right. Right along your average of client acquisition costs. I think they come out in your studies, right, $3,000 to $4,000.

Michael: Yeah. We see most advisory firms if you put in the cost of their time and the financial costs, and all of it are right in a $3,000 to $5,000 range. Technically, our referrals are much lower because I spend almost no time on them, and they just show up, and the math is good, but I have to offset that against other marketing things that I do that don't work so well. So the average ends out right in there.

Ryan: That's right. And so I've been tracking since I've been doing these, which is crazy. So I average about $1.7 million of new client assets from each class. And because I've done 53 classes since I've been doing them, I brought in $80 million in that timeframe, roughly in 15 years.

Michael: Across how many classes? Fifty...

Ryan: Fifty-three.

Michael: Fifty-three.

Ryan: It's a little... Yeah, it's $1.7 million I think is what it averages. Yeah.

Michael: Interesting. So 2 to 2.5 clients that are averaging right around $750,000 to a million.

Ryan: That's right.

Michael: Because I was going to ask in that regard, right? I may be carrying all inappropriate biases or mental models here, but there is a part of me that's like, do "good" clients sign up for local adult education seminars? Is that really where I find client opportunities? It sounds like the answer is, yeah, it really is. They really are coming.

Ryan: For sure. My clients, I'm very fortunate, are wonderful people. There's obviously always the jerk client, right, that will come to this, and you can tell even at the class. So this is someone I don't want to work with, but a lot of wonderful people come to these classes and are very enjoyable to work with. And I've been with clients for years that I have... Some of my original clients from my first classes are still with me.

Michael: Interesting. So the dollars really hold up fine for you. Do you have, I don't know, just asset minimums or something similar?

Ryan: I do. It's $500,000 is our minimum for a new client. So yeah, I have some relationships from these classes that are in the $5 million, $6 million range, and some that are right at the $500,000. So it's a range of people that come to it, as far as net worth and net worth level.

Michael: Okay. Interesting. And so I'm presuming since you've now done 50-something of these over the years, just the math works for you, just to be $8 grand in for 2 clients and $1.7 million coming out. Just I can napkin math that pretty straightforward, right? On average, $1.7 million is $15,000-plus of AUM fees, depending on where your break points are. So your $8 grand plus your teaching time in and $15 grand plus coming out, so it's $2 out for every $1 in.

Ryan: Exactly. Yeah. I had calculated, it was a 193% return essentially. And I'm only counting one year in. So as I said, a lot of these clients I'm still working with, so that revenue is still coming in. It's building on itself. So this has helped me. I started my own RIA in 2018, and presently I have about... I started with $30 million, and now we're at $140 million, 7 years later, roughly. And a lot of that growth has come from the classes, from clients that we have brought aboard from classes.

Michael: Interesting. And so I guess then my questions from here. So what's changed or iterated, or evolved over time? I'm assuming there are some parts of how you do this that are different than what it was originally.

Ryan: I think the focus on moving to a fee-only advisor has been the biggest change. So back in 2016 or '17, thanks to my wife, she's really technologically savvy, she found you on Twitter and said, "Hey, there's this guy, this Kitces guy, you should follow." So I started following you on Twitter, and then I started following your blog, and then obviously you launched this podcast that I'm now on. And so I didn't even know what a fee-only advisor was back then, even being at LPL. And so that definitely opened my eyes. You talking about that also, and Alan Moore, and it really gave me the push to be a fee-only advisor.

And so I was at LPL, and some changes that happened at LPL, I wanted to start my own RIA, and they originally told me I could do it on their platform, but they went through some changes, and then decided I couldn't. So I ended up moving over to TD Ameritrade, and I kept my broker-dealer license with a company called PKS, which is a RIA-friendly broker-dealer, but my plan was to go fee-only.

So about a year and a half later, once I had transitioned enough of my clients over to the fee-only relationship, I relinquished my broker-dealer license and also my insurance license. And so as part of that process, I think my process to work with clients got a lot easier because I also simplified my investment management offering. We have six different models that we offer to clients, and there's some customization that goes on with that, but it's not like we're selling hundreds of different investment strategies.

So simplifying that, and then also making it one of two choices, either you work with me for a financial plan, or you become an ongoing wealth management client as a percentage of AUM. So I think simplifying that offering also helped me to scale faster and to make these classes a little more effective as well.

How Ryan Balances Seminars With Other Marketing Strategies [1:07:07]

Michael: So now I've got to ask, relative to the obsession with digital, modern age, or just the steady drumbeat of the future, is blogging, podcasting, video, etc. And you've got this, what's it called, distinctly analog approach, where it's like I get in a room with other human beings and we talk. I'm really curious for how someone like you thinks about digital, if you've experimented with digital channels, and just your digital versus in-person balance here.

Ryan: Yeah, so I have other marketing. I do have the podcast that I do every week. I've had for about five and a half years, the "Retire With Ryan" podcast. About a year and a half ago, when I was recording those podcasts, I started using video also. So I have a YouTube channel, the "Retire With Ryan" podcast YouTube channel. And I also do some other videos just for YouTube and some Shorts. And so that has gotten me a client here or there. And I don't put a lot of money into that. I don't market it. I just pay for a little bit of editing that's being done. But I still go back to this, that these analog classes are still getting me the majority of new clients and prospective client opportunities. That the podcast and the YouTube video, and I wrote a book, too. Those things are good, but really, this mailer and these physical classes still seem to be the biggest driver of growth and opportunity for my firm.

Michael: Interesting. And so it sounds like even in that regard, your experiments with digital aren't like, "Hey, can we do digital ads to fill those," like the in-person seminar room. Digital for you is, I'm an educator. I teach, I make content, I teach things. So instead of only teaching the seminars, hey, I can do a podcast. I can do something online. I can do video. I can get my educational stuff out there in other digital channels, in addition to the in-person channel.

Ryan: No, I would say recently, that's what I've been doing, but I have experimented with marketing this over Facebook, so like other advisors. I think I heard another advisor on your podcast years ago, and they were doing a similar type seminar.

Michael: Yeah, Samantha Bezar was doing a similar thing. They had an in-person seminar that they've been doing for a long time, as memory serves. They did it in libraries, but their angle was Facebook ads to fill the room instead of print mailers to fill the room because she would...similar in style to what you're saying, or Facebook has creepy amounts of data with on us. So it would be like age 50 to 65, reasonable affluence within 7 miles of the library, because Facebook knows where you are. So they were doing it in a digital manner, but they weren't doing webinars. They were doing in-person seminars. The Facebook ads were just the alternative to the print mailers, basically.

Ryan: That's right. So I think I might have heard that or read somewhere else. So I experimented with that, and I just found very poor results. So I would do a class and I would do a mailer. I never... I did one where I only did digital, but let's say I spent $2,000. I would get 2 people that came to the class from that $2,000. So it didn't really seem like it was working for me. I did one class where I think I just tried to do digital, and I spent $5,000 or $6,000, and 2 people showed up. So I just was never able to figure out the formula, and I hired different agencies and people to help me, and it just didn't seem to work for me.

Michael: Agencies are not inexpensive. So I'm envisioning that was a not-inexpensive series of experiments to just come back to it turns out good old-fashioned physical mail that shows up in people's mailboxes actually really does still get read.

Ryan: Yeah, and I was hoping for a better return. I was hoping I could spend $2,000 and get 20 people to show up. Well, then this would be great. I'm saving $5,000, $6,000 on the cost of the marketing of the course, but I was never able to do that, and then I just decided, you know what, this is not working, and I totally stopped doing the Facebook and just kept doing the mailer.

Michael: The numbers you're sharing, right, essentially digital-wise, it was costing you $1,000 or $2,000 to get each person in the class and the mailer at the end of the day, like if it's $8 grand and 20 people show up, it's $400 per person per prospect in the class instead of $1,000 or $2,000 per prospect in the class.

Ryan: That's right.

Michael: So the print was just a better cost per attendee for putting people in the seats.

Ryan: Yes, yeah, and it continues to be.

What Morrissey Wealth Management Looks Like Today [1:12:19]

Michael: So then, what is all this head up to today? Just help us understand the advisory firm now as it exists today and what it's grown to with a decade-plus of seminar marketing.

Ryan: Yeah, so as I was saying, it's about $140 million of AUM. I have roughly 150 clients, and I have a full-time administrative front desk staff member, and I also have a part-time paraplanner who works about 30 hours a week. And so that was my staff for a long time. For about five years, that was my staffing model to build to where I am.

Michael: So you added these people when you were on 80 to 100 clients, and you've just added clients incrementally, and that gave you enough capacity to keep adding clients.

Ryan: That's right. So my first hire, like most, was a front desk admin person, paperwork, client cashiering requests. And then I was just getting so busy with existing clients and also prospective clients that I really needed a paraplanner, somebody who could help me do more detailed analysis.

So I had a virtual paraplanner that I found through that Simply Paraplanner website. That worked well for a while. Was working 20, 25 hours a week. But then I just decided, after a couple of years of that, I really wanted a physical, in-person paraplanner so that I could collaborate with them more easily.

So I hired a full-time person who was with me for about a year and a half, but he just wasn't really passionate about the business, so he wanted to move on to another opportunity. But now I found someone else who had industry experience who has younger children and wants to be able to work part-time. And it's a great balance that we have for that.

Michael: So what does revenue add up to for you guys now?

Ryan: Revenue is this year projected about $1.2 million, $1.25 million.

Michael: Okay. So you really are right in the typical clients, just shy of a million, typical advisory fees, a little under 1%, with break points and householding and all the things that we do. Those are really solid, dead-on numbers. Your revenue yield relative to AUM is actually a little higher than a lot of advisors.

Ryan: Yeah, less than a million, our fee is 1.25%. And then at a million, it goes down to 1%, and then at $2 million, it goes down to 0.85%. And that's on everything.

Michael: So if I get to $2 million, it's 0.85% retroactive back to dollar one?

Ryan: Exactly, yeah.

Michael: Okay. And I guess just I'm curious, how are you feeling about capacity at this point? As you're sitting at $1.2 million of revenue and 150 clients with full-time admin, I guess you're three-quarter time paraplanner, how is capacity for you? What comes next for you?

Ryan: Yeah, I still have capacity. Some of these other interests, the podcast, YouTube channel, they do take up some of my time. As I said, I wrote a book on how to find and hire a fee-only financial planner. So that took some time. And then recently, I've started a website. I found from writing the book that it was hard for people, consumers, I think, to find fee-only financial planners.

So I started a website called findmyfiduciary.com, where other fee-only financial planners can list themselves for a small annual fee so that... My hope is that I can get thousands, or the majority of fee-only financial planners, to sign up for this. We verify that they're a fee-only financial planner by checking their ADV and making sure, as best we can, that they're fee-only. So some the projects like that, I'm spending a little bit of time on.

Michael: So what's the cost for Find My Fiduciary?

Ryan: It's $39.95 a year to sign up, yeah, to be listed on there and have us verify that you're fee-only and maintain the website.

Michael: And then the goal is to market it out there over time?

Ryan: That's right, yeah.

Michael: Probably to market the platform.

Ryan: To market to as many fee-only financial planners, advisors, as I could, get the word out about that so that hopefully there's one directory that the only barrier to entry is that you're fee-only. There's no other requirement of any other membership.

What Surprised Ryan The Most Building His Advisory Business [1:16:57]

Michael: Okay. So as you reflect on this journey, just what's surprised you the most about building your own advisory business?

Ryan: I guess the timeframe that it took me, I think, to really gain momentum. As I said, I had been doing this for a while. And when I launched my own RIA, I had been doing this for 17 years and was at about $30 million of AUM. I would have thought, at that point, I would have been further along with more clients and more assets under management. And so there's definitely a period where there's a lot of stagnation. And I think it was because I was trying to be too many things to too many people.

And because I was still working under the brokerage relationship, some people might want an annuity, or they might want a real estate fund, or they might want a mutual fund. There was too many things. I was trying to be too many things to too many people. And I think when I really simplified my offering and just more clarified what my core principles were and how I work with clients, it allowed me to scale at a faster rate.

Michael: So what changed? I don't know, what made that such an unlock? Because I'm really struck by it, right? You're 17 years to get to $30 million and then 7 more to get from $30 million to $140 million. It's like a proverbial hockey stick of change in growth trajectory. So I guess just help us understand more what changed when you said you want to get more focused. What did you actually do, and how did it show up?

Ryan: Well, I think part of it would be just discovering your content and other similar thought leaders on the fee-only movement. So I think that's a little bit of a differentiator. And it wasn't like I wasn't trying to grow before then. I just think that simplifying what I was doing allowed me to manage it more easily. And I think also the other thing, too, is starting my own RIA. I think that had a really large impact because even when I was at LPL, I was part of another RIA. I was still running my own business, but I was paying them about 25% of my revenue just to supervise me. And having that money to be able to then reinvest it back into my business for a nicer office, maybe some better technology, staff, marketing, I think that was really a key driver as well, as well as the simplification of the offering for clients.

Michael: So as you went through this focusing, simplifying of the offer, did you have to actually transition clients that had come to you through the various versions of the other things over the years? What happened to the people that you were serving back when you were more anything for everyone?

Ryan: Yeah, most of those clients came with me. As I moved to only having those six models, most of my clients I could transition over to those models. I was using some third-party investment managers in addition to some of LPL's managers and some of their platforms, some of my own. So I just slowly transitioned all that into one strategy or strategies that can more easily be managed. Some of the brokerage clients, I did end up just having to not be able to service those accounts directly anymore. If they had an annuity that had really good living benefit and it made no sense to get out of it, then I just advised the client where I can on that. I was added as an interested party where I could, because I didn't have a broker-dealer license anymore.

The Low Point On Ryan’s Journey [1:20:41]

Michael: Okay. And so what was the low point for you on this journey?

Ryan: I would say just the frustration, probably in 2015, '16, where just feeling like I was putting a lot of effort in and was just having a hard time growing. Looking back, saying, "I'm doing a good job, but I feel like I could be doing a better job," would probably be the low point.

Michael: And is that what then spurred the I'm going to simplify down to fewer models, I'm going to transition RIA? Is there a cause-effect linkage there?

Ryan: Yeah, I would say, on your website, there was an article that was titled, "How I Started My Own RIA For Less Than $10,000." So having read that and definitely some encouragement from my wife telling me, "You know what, you can do it. You can be your own RIA." And she knows nothing about this industry, but she just believed that I could do it. And doing some research, just really taking that next step, I think, was really what happened because, again, allowing me to control more of how things are being managed, to reinvest back into the business, is really what has helped me to get to where I am today.

Michael: Interesting. So the better margins that came from just not having a platform taking such a slice, so that you could reinvest staff and marketing and more control, those were your drivers.

Ryan: That's right, because there's less drama that you're dealing with, right, if it's just a smaller business. And there was some drama that happened at some of the previous places I was with. So keeping that out of the workplace is always helpful.

Ryan’s Advice For His Younger Self And For Newer Advisors [1:22:31]

Michael: So what else do you know now you wish you could go back and tell you from 10, 15 years ago, as you were starting down the seminar marketing route, and the building process that's gotten you here?

Ryan: It's easy to say that, "Oh, I should have gone RIA sooner." I didn't even know what an RIA was back then. That would be the only real thing I would have done differently is gone RIA sooner. And I definitely learned some things, like affiliating with the other firm that I was with at LPL. So there were some good things I got from that, but that would be the biggest thing that I would say to anybody listening that's thinking about starting their own RIA is that take the leap. The biggest thing why I didn't do it is that I thought the compliance burden was going to be really onerous and that I wouldn't be able to handle it, but I've been able to manage it. And I think that any person who is committed to doing it with...can definitely do it, and I would encourage people.

Michael: So how do you handle it, manage at this point?

Ryan: Initially, I had a firm, AdvisorAssist in Austin, helped me set up my firm. So they set up my firm, they got me state licensed initially, and they gave me the blueprint of how to operate, and with not really doing anything exotic, right? I'm just doing standard financial planning, investment management. There's not a whole lot I have to worry about as far as violating compliance requirements.

So I was able to manage that on my own for a number of years without any problem. But as I continued to grow...and now I've actually applied to become registered with the SEC because I just went over the threshold last year. And so I'm now working with another company where I'm paying them monthly…RIA Registrar out of... I think they're in Minnesota. And they've been helping me to become SEC registered and deal with all that comes with that. So I have more support now because I can reach out to them with issues, whereas before, I would just try to figure out on my own, or I would just pay ad hoc hourly for advice when I needed it.

Michael: And can I ask what you're paying monthly to them? Not to price them but just...

Ryan: Yeah, I think I pay...

Michael: ...as a business owner, how much money do you throw at this problem to get this problem to go away?

Ryan: Yes, I think I'm paying $300 or $350 a month. It's right in that range. So it's very reasonable.

Michael: It's probably $3 grand or $4 grand a year on $1.2 million. It's like, okay, the staff support that you need to help is costing you 0.3% of revenue.

Ryan: Yes, it's very minimal.

Michael: To cover compliance.

Ryan: You think about it, not to knock anybody that's paying somebody to supervise them, right? It's certainly out of sight, out of mind. I've gone through two audits, right? And it's not always fun to go through an audit. So there's definitely things that I've dealt with that if I was paying someone else, I wouldn't have had to deal with. But it's certainly if you're adding another 10% to 15% of your profits back into your business to reinvest, that can really help you to do some different things, versus paying someone else to supervise you.

Michael: Yeah. So what advice would you give younger, newer advisors looking to come into the industry today?

Ryan: I would tell them, definitely, if they were serious about the fee-only business, to seek out a fee-only firm where they could have some good mentorship and get some good experience, or even just working for non-fee-only firms, getting some good mentorship and experience. And then if they're entrepreneurial and they really love this business, then think about starting their own RIA after they've been in the business five to seven years and have the experience, and they can really call the shots with how they operate their business and how they choose to manage their business going forward.

Michael: So you're not necessarily like hang your RIA shingle from scratch day one, you're like go get experience and mentorship somewhere else, and then come back in five years.

Ryan: I think so. You certainly can do it with no experience, but there's just so much to learn in this business that probably at least three to five years you'd need interacting with clients, I think, to where you can now go hang your own RIA shingle. I know people do it with less, but that's what I would probably think is best.

What Success Means To Ryan [1:27:19]

Michael: So as we come to the end here, this is a podcast about success. And one of the themes that comes up is just that word success means very different things to different people. And so you've built the business now to this wonderful place, you're the proverbial million-plus-dollar practice, SEC registered. It's like the business seems to be in a wonderful place. How do you define success for yourself at this point?

Ryan: I would say I would define success in a couple of ways. One, continuing to bring attention to the fee-only movement to try to bring more people over to that, because I think in the long run, as I've heard you say, it really elevates this from an industry to a profession, where the consumer would have confidence, just like going to the doctor, that they're going to have somebody working in their best interest as a fiduciary, and continuing to promote that through my book and through the Find My Fiduciary website, but also trying to encourage more people to come into this business, because we do have a problem where it is a much older makeup, right, of financial advisors. The average age is up there because we're going to need that. We're going to need more people to be able to serve the clients that are looking for help and guidance.

Michael: So what about for you personally?

Ryan: Personally, it would be to just continue to...as I mentioned, I have a new advisor in my firm, to continue to mentor him and see him grow and flourish. And hopefully, as we grow, maybe even bring on other advisors that I can help mentor and be able to succeed in this industry and profession, and help other people along the way in the right way.

Michael: Very cool. Very cool. Thank you so much, Ryan, for joining us on the "Financial Advisor Success" podcast.

Ryan: Thank you, Michael.