Navigating Accelerated Succession When Cancer Forces An Early Retirement: #FASuccess Ep 468 With Kay Dee Cole

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Resources Featured In This Episode:

• KayDee Cole: Website | LinkedIn
• "Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business" by Gino Wickman
• FP Transitions
• New Planner Recruiting
• Insider's Forum
• EOS Worldwide
• Kolbe
• Hubspot
• Herbers & Company

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Full Transcript:

Michael: Welcome, Kay Dee Cole, to the "Financial Advisor Success" podcast.

Kay Dee: Hello, Michael.

Michael: I really appreciate you joining us today, and the opportunity to get to talk a bit about succession planning. I feel like this has become a very hot topic in the industry, especially with Cerulli's estimate now, as many as about a third of advisors are supposed to retire in the next ten years. And many or most don't have a formal succession plan in place. But on the other hand, I do find there are a growing number of advisors that have been making the case that when the industry has so many large firms willing to acquire, that maybe succession plans are less necessary than they used to be. You can decide you're ready to retire, call up an aggregator, and they will buy your practice for a fair market value in probably less than six months if you really need to get the deal done fast.

But for some of us, we want more control over the outcomes and what happens, whether that's for clients or for team, which drives us more towards internal succession plans than external…in the hopes of harvesting the value, and being able to steer more who's actually going to be running the firm in the future and how clients are going to be served. Which I find, ultimately, that's not only important for the expected, the planned retirements, but also when health events trigger unplanned retirements.

And I know you have been navigating some of this in your own circumstance, including what happens when the succession plan is triggered, not by the proactive plan to retire, but when health events occur and we need to change the timeline. I think just, today, I appreciate your willingness to talk about the realities of what happens when we've set up a succession plan, and then we have to navigate it on a different timeline than we'd originally planned.

Kay Dee: Yeah.

What Clarity Wealth Development Looks Like Today [4:56]

Michael: I think to kick us off here, tell us a little bit about the advisory firm as it exists today, just so we have some context for the business. And then we can understand a little bit further of what's going on in the context of succession planning.

Kay Dee: Yeah. We, right now, are a staff of seven. We have recently hired people in the last few years just to grow our staff to handle the client load we have. We're around 220 plus households, and we're nearing the $200 million mark in assets under management.

Michael: And then can I ask where revenue is for the firm?

Kay Dee: Yeah. Right now we're projected to have around $1.4 million in revenue.

Michael: So, good, solid team, good client base. I can sort of do the napkin math…average client household is almost a million in assets, and you've got team depth to serve them. So is there a particular focus for the clientele and who you serve for those 220 households?

Kay Dee: Yeah. Our target market is late career professionals with a million in investable assets that are purpose driven, and looking for a guide along their path to retirement.

Michael: And then tell us a little bit more about the team. Who are these seven people? What are the seats of these seven people? How is the team structured?

Kay Dee: Right now, we have two people on our leadership team, myself and my partner, Kim. And then we have two front office staff, and three advisors at the associate level, and moving up into more the career paths of being lead advisors.

Michael: And so how does it work from a client management end right now? Is it you and Kim each have about half of these clients? Do the associate advisors have any of their own clients? How's the client load distributed?

Kay Dee: Well, everybody that works for us besides Kim and myself have only been hired recently since 2023. So we're kind of in this beginning, we had a plan and that got a little off track. And so we restarted with our current staff. And right now, I do have the majority of the load of clients, but we are trying to get to the point where I'm more the visionary and less working as a lead advisor for the clients I have. Kim is our integrator and chief of operations. And we are building up our whole staff too. We've been working a lot with Traction and trying to get a better career path, as well as roles assigned in, I guess, more efficient way. And clear processes and procedures, which I think we all have them, but sometimes they get a little off track. And we're trying to really hone in on how to work more efficiently. And as you kind of mentioned too about my career path and some health issues, it has sped up that process a lot more.

How An Initial Succession Plan Went Off Track [8:46]

Michael: I very much want to come back to how health issues have changed this. But I'm curious to hear a little bit more that you said all of this team besides you and Kim has come on since 2023, after I think you said original plan got off track. So can you tell us a little bit more about what the original plan was, and what got off track? That sounds like a lot of stuff there.

Kay Dee: Yeah, there's a lot there. We were growing fast. The interesting thing is our number of households hasn't really changed a lot from 2016 till now. But what has happened is we are getting a much better clientele in the sense that they really do fit kind of what our core focus, core values, and our target market is. So we realized that I was handling a lot of those households and I loved it. I absolutely love working with clients. It was just something that kind of evolved. And not really thinking ahead of, "Oh, yeah, you should probably be hiring other advisors." And we kind of would take people who were interested, and didn't do a really good, thorough job of vetting through. It's not like we've hired a lot of advisors. We've got one person from college, another person asked to come work here. And we realized that, yeah, we need to have some kind of plan where you don't have all these new employees at once, and trying to train them all and get them on a good path.

We've had some struggles the last couple of years, but I think through just really having open, honest dialogue in the last year has really kind of shifted our thinking about, "Yeah, who do we need to hire? What do we need?" And you're just going to have employees who work out and don't work out. So, it's just a constantly evolving thing of making sure we have the career paths. We've worked with different people on getting consulting to build that up and make it better. And I think we are on a good path. It's just that I wish we had done that a lot sooner.

Michael: So, I'm curious just to understand more. It sounds like you got behind the curve as it were for how many clients you had in capacity. Felt like you needed advisors. Hired young advisors or multiple young advisors, but then found you didn't necessarily get people who were really a good fit or ready to stick in long run. Am I understanding that well?

Kay Dee: Yeah.

Michael: I guess tell us more about what that hiring process looked like, and what's changed since? What did you do? What actually happened? What are you doing different as a result? Help us understand more how that played out for you.

Kay Dee: I think when Kim joined my firm back in 2017, she actually was a...and everybody's been career changers at some point. We had one person who was right out of college, but everybody else has been career changers. And she came here. At the time I couldn't afford to pay...I didn't think I could afford to pay someone. And she wanted to just shadow me and learn the business. But I saw something in her that I thought, "Oh, my gosh, I cannot let this person go." So I figured it out. You have this mental thing, "Oh, I can't do that right now." But that's kind of short-term thinking. So long-term thinking, I realized that I needed to figure out how to hire this girl, and get her up to speed. And I'm so glad I did because that was one of my best hires ever. And then we kind of grew the business together. We brought on a couple of interns.

Michael: When was this with Kim? When did Kim start?

Kay Dee: Late 2017. And I guess I should throw also in, at the time, I had been talking to another advisor in Portland about joining forces. And we started kind of working together without a true formal agreement yet. We were just trying to gauge what was going to happen. That ended badly in 2018. Kim came in around that same time. And I realized what the kind of partner I was really looking for, and who I needed to have build this business. One of the things FP Transitions was helping me with this. And they bluntly told me that, "You can't have someone under your tent and they're not making the tent bigger." And so that was a big eye opener.

And when Kim came on, she was picking up things fast. We were able to move pretty quickly to get over that big hump, because that was a loss. We had kind of combined our businesses, but hadn't done it really through any kind of coaching or legal. It was more of a desperation move because that's the second time I had been re-diagnosed with cancer too. So it was kind of one of those things. I was just going with the desperation part of, "I need help, I need help, I don't know where to get it." And then we did hire an intern who became an advisor, and that worked out really well. But he was anxious to start his own firm. And I jokingly talk about XYPN is great until they talk your employees into opening their own firm. But that's just the way it goes. He had different ideas of how he wanted to build something and we wished him well with that. And he left us around 2023. And I think he worked for us for a few years. A great guy. We really enjoyed working with him.

And then, in '23, we did hire an advisor or two advisors and two front office people. I went through a lot of front office people over the years. And we really took our time a little bit more to talk to people. Neither one of them had any experience, but they had the same values, and they were eager, and they wanted to learn. And those turned out to be great hires as well.

Using EOS To Better Structure The Firm And Create Open Dialogue [16:12]

Michael: What was different in how you started hiring more recently versus what you were doing earlier that doesn't seem to have been working as well for you? What actually changed? The prospects of the system?

Kay Dee: Yeah. We went out and actually had New Planner Recruiting recruit somebody for us, the latest hire. Being in a smaller town, it's very difficult to find people who have some experience and want to move from where they are. Unless you're recruiting yourself, but we didn't really have that time. So we just hired a few back in July. We recruited someone from a local firm here that was more broker style and she really wanted to do more of how we do our financial planning. And that was an excellent hire. That process was great. They vetted. They gave us some candidates. And we thought for sure they weren't going to find anybody in our town. And sure enough they did and it worked out. It was well worth the money to help us do that.

Michael: And where are you that is smaller town and potentially harder to recruit?

Kay Dee: Corvallis, Oregon. It's a college town, and we've got great access to interns, but they don't necessarily stick around.

Michael: So the college gives you young people, but not necessarily long-term people. It is the challenge.

Kay Dee: Yeah.

Michael: It sounds like through this environment, you found EOS as well. I heard visionary integrator labels for you and Kim, which is usually a Traction EOS language. So when did that come into the picture?

Kay Dee: That was about 2022, late 2022. When we had gone to, I think it was Insiders Forum. And they have a operations track that kind of introduced us to the EOS system and XYPN too. It was at a conference there. And we knew we needed some guidance in how we were conducting our meetings, because we were not consistent of having leadership meetings and setting these goals as clearly as Traction kind of guides you to. We had goals, and we had our eyesight on a certain percentage of profit, and where we wanted to be, and how we could afford getting good people. So we really started digging into it in late '22. And then the last couple of years, we've really finally feel like we're understanding the process, and sticking to the rules. And not just kind of, "Oh, well, we'll use this piece and this piece."

We hired an EOS coach. He really has brought us full circle around too, where our last meeting was just a few weeks ago. And we had our yearly strategic two-day meeting. We all walked out of there feeling like, "Yes, this is where we want to go. This is our plan. We're going to stick to this." We're not going to go back to the way we kind of would set a goal and, "Well, we didn't quite get there, but we're not sure why." So I think we're so much more focused. And I think the biggest thing that happened is this open and honest dialogue, which keeps getting repeated when we're in those meetings with our coach. And I think that was really missing, especially on my end. I will get to it probably, but my struggles in being an owner and letting control go, and being a founder on top of that, it really opened our eyes to, "Hey, we need to say when we're not happy, when things aren't going well. We need to talk more about are we doing with our core values the way we say we do? And are we being open and honest?" So that's been good for us.

Michael: So what was blocking those conversations previously?

Kay Dee: Me.

Michael: Okay.

Kay Dee: Yeah. I think it had to do...I've had a rough couple years. I've been through quite a few different things with losing my mom, and my father-in-law aging. He's going to be 98 here in December. Just a lot of personal things were happening. And I was getting angry, and I wasn't showing up at our meetings in a good way. And I didn't really realize it until I started talking to someone outside the organization. She wasn't really a licensed therapist. She called herself a bodyologist, which was doing some stretches and things, but also talking about how communication, and how I was feeling, and frustrated. And [what] she really helped me walk through, is people aren't going to know when I'm upset about something unless I constructively break down a conversation and then participate in it. So I really started rethinking how I was reacting to things.

And then other things happened, and it was a big eye opener for me is that you can't control everything. The way you did it ten years ago isn't the way it's done now. And people have good ideas, and they want to have some say and take over certain aspects of things. I'm definitely a quick start in the Kolbe world, and I don't need as much information to make decisions. But I was making decisions without really thinking about the fact finders I worked with, and trying to communicate better that way as well. It was kind of a personal journey for me to try to really step back and say, "It's okay to let go of some of this stuff. It's okay. They are going to do it differently than you are and that's fine." And sometimes it's so much better than the way we were doing it. And that's been a two-year journey for me as far as just, "Okay, let's get down. Let's have this open, honest dialogue."

And I'll keep repeating that because that is just in my head right now, is how I catch myself sometimes, "Are you being open? Are you being honest about where you're at?" This last couple of years has been rough for everybody in our office dealing with my health, and also just not having the right team together in a way that we were being cohesive and working towards goals. And I think we're there now and it feels really good.

Going Into Growth Mode Amidst Capacity Challenges [24:00]

Michael: I think you said through all of this, there was still a lot of growth happening with the firm as well. So where was all the growth coming from? Or what changed that you went into growth mode amidst all the challenges that you've highlighted here around team, staff, and capacity?

Kay Dee: Yeah. It took ten years to get to $100 million. And then in the last five years, we're going to be close to that $200 million. And a part of that is just, I think Traction really did help us with that. The whole system of having regular meetings with a structure, and time, and rating the meetings, and getting people's input. That had a lot to do with our growth. And then I also realized as you're more established, we'll be celebrating 15 years here next month. When I opened this firm is...we have a reputation in the town too. CPAs, attorneys. That time in the business also is a big key because just in the last year, we were averaging a million. We've brought on some multimillion dollar clients just in this last year.

Now, is it because we changed our leadership style and what we were doing? Well, maybe. But I think we've been here long enough that...and a small town, it's another lovely thing about small towns, people talk, and people know you. And we've seen some retirements happening. And that's been boosting our business as far as some other advisors in town too.

Michael: And I think you said through this growth phase, the number of client households has been similar. You've, I guess, averaged up on the typical client that you're working with as more million-plus dollar clients come in for all the time to get known reasons that you highlighted. What happened to clients who left, who netted against them to keep client count the same? Was that a natural attrition thing, or was that a proactive strategy of, "As we take some of these new folks on, we're going to ask a few people to transition out."

Kay Dee: Yeah, both. One of the things is segmentation. We talked about it, but we never really got into the details and the statistics behind it all. We didn't truly start that until about 2020, somewhere in there, that we started segmenting clients and realizing who...we were really taking on a lot of clients that we probably shouldn't have, just because they didn't really fit what our target market, and what we were really trying to do. And our level of service went up a lot in the last few years. And that's just having good people who like processes, and like to have more of a definition of who we're working with. I think a lot of us, when we first started, we took every client that would sign the contract. And a lot of those were not good fits. And we've kind of moved some of those away.

And then just encouraging people and being honest with them about, "Hey, we really have enjoyed working with you, but here's what you're paying us. You're not really using our full service line. Here are some options." And some people took those options. Others decided that, "Oh, yeah, I guess I'm not using what I should be using in talking to you more about financial planning." Because I did start out with an AUM-style model and kind of evolved into the financial planning. We now do still take a few smaller clients with some one-time financial plans. And they get what they need out of that. But we're not taking them on as AUM clients.

We looked at that as kind of a training process too for the younger advisors. But we are focused more on really sticking to people that do fit our values, and give us joy, and aren't really, I guess, dragging us down in a way in the sense that they take a lot but don't really have a lot of assets. And making sure that our service levels are consistent with the level of fees people are paying as well.

Michael: What did you do in practice for this? Did you just go out to some folks and say, "We can't work with you anymore?" Did you implement minimum assets or minimum fees? What did you actually do to trigger some of these changes?

Kay Dee: The biggest one was making sure that we were screening and taking on new clients that really did fit what our minimums were. Kim has taken over kind of those prospect calls, and screening those, and coming up with ways to find other people for them when we knew they weren't a good fit for us. We joked...

Michael: Wait, I was curious. Reading between the lines, because Kim's better at saying no to them than you are?

Kay Dee: No necessarily. We both...just our heartstrings, we're like, "Oh, we can help this person." And both of us realized, "No, this isn't going to get us where we need to go. We have to be a little bit..." So we needed ways to feel better about shifting them out of the firm, or not bringing them on.

Michael: What was your path to feel better?

Kay Dee: Well, we joke about that we're the nice people, and that we just can't say no. But we've realized, yes, we do need to say no because the health of the business relies on that. If you have too many clients that are taking a lot of your time, and the revenue is not there, you can't really hire people and pay them well in the future. So we came up with a plan to screen them out better in the beginning. And that was just having them fill out a form, which some people don't want to do that. So, obviously, they're not going to get in to have a call. And others, we just really looked at, and this goes back to the Traction again, our core target and our core focus. Who do we want to work with? And just having a resource for where we send these people. And Kim has gotten really good at doing that because it was hard for both of us for years to say no.

Michael: Where do you send them now?

Kay Dee: Well, we have a resource list of other advisors. We encourage them to go, if they're just looking for some financial planning as one of our advisors actually works a little bit with Nectarine on the side because she likes talking about budgets, and we really don't do that here. And so we'll send some clients that way, or other advisors we know. So, yeah, we try to spread the well that make it easier for the client too, because we know it's hard for them to call. And they want help. And if we can give them some avenues to go to, that's all the better. And we feel good about that in not taking them on as new clients.

Michael: So how did you create the resource list, or how did you find the names to go on the resource list?

Kay Dee: I belong to a couple of mastermind groups that have a list. We'll look up XYPN members. We'll look up CFP. We've got a couple of advisors that we have kind of identified as this is their target market. We've created this list, even NAPFA, some of the local, we know, "Oh, this person would be a better fit for you." That's how we've just, over time, kind of created that.

Michael: And so now you've got a list you're comfortable with where when someone's not a fit, you can say, "Here are some folks that really would be a fit for you." Do you just give them a list of names and encourage them to reach out and wish them well? Or do you stay more involved from there?

Kay Dee: Yeah, usually we don't stay too much involved past giving them a couple of ideas of where to get help. And a lot of times just talking to them, we get a better sense of what they really do need. So that's been helpful.

Michael: Okay. And where did you set the minimum threshold for yourselves of where it needs to be to actually work for your business now? I'm wondering where did you set the threshold and how did you set the threshold?

Kay Dee: Funny story there. We set it quite a while ago at a million, but didn't stick to that. We used to have it at $500,000, and then we've raised it to a million just in the last two or three years. And I honestly can't tell you when we actually started sticking to it, but it's been in the last year or two.

Segmenting Clients To Better Link Service Levels With Revenue [34:16]

Michael: And so you've talked about what you did, how you handled for new clients to get clear on the threshold, and create the resource list. Now, help us learn further. What did you do with existing clients who were below $500,000 or now below a million? Are you trying to do transitions of existing clients, or are you just making it a more stringent line for new clients?

Kay Dee: A little bit of both. We're not going back, and all the clients don't meet that threshold. But the conversation is, especially since a lot of those clients were mine originally, and they've been with me for a long time, it's more of a conversation about, "Hey, this is what we do. This is what you're paying in fees. Are you comfortable being here and wanting to stay here?" The other factor was people we liked. We've had some difficult clients that demand a lot. And when they become hard to work with, we've been letting them go and transitioning them out.

I had a couple of smaller clients I've had for a very long time, had the conversation, but they said, "I want to pay your fees, and I want to stay with you as long as I can because I just don't know where else to go." So the service level drops for those. We came up with different tiers. We have four different tiers of clients. And some we meet with annually. Our higher tier clients have quarterly meetings. And then we just kind of adjust it down depending on where people are at. They always know that they can call us if something comes up. And then we're not doing tax analysis on smaller clients. So we've kind of adjusted our service levels so they don't take as much time. And we can still service them for as long as they want us to do that. Because I just can't kick people out and say, "Oh, sorry, you're on your own."

Michael: I was wondering, that's difficult for a lot of us. Can you explain more what the four tiers of client segments are, and how they work now?

Kay Dee: Yeah. We have it set up based on their assets managed. Tier four is anyone over a million. Tier three is $500,000 plus. Tier two is $250,000 plus. And then tier one is anyone under $250,000.

Michael: It sounds like, going forward, you're trying to only accept tier four clients, but for existing folks, you're still...

Kay Dee: Oops, I said that backwards. I said it backwards.

Michael: I guess one is the highest, four is the lowest?

Kay Dee: Yes.

Michael: Okay. So you're only taking tier ones or trying to only take tier ones going forward, but for the twos, threes, and fours, it sounds like for many of them, you haven't necessarily transitioned them out. You've just tried to segment what the service model is to make it manageable to hold onto them.

Kay Dee: Yes.

Michael: What do you distinguish between what tier one folks get that comes out at tiers two, three, or four? It sounds like number of meetings is one big one. What else changes?

Kay Dee: The other thing is we also make sure that we're doing a tax analysis with them. We're usually doing a lot more of higher-net-worth client issues, estate planning. One thing I've done for a couple of my clients too is bringing the CPA in a group meeting with the clients when we can, and just doing more proactive work with their CPA. The other thing is we do some events that are geared towards those people. We don't exclude our other tiers, but we do try to come up with events that are interesting to people with a higher net worth. And then as you go down the tiers, it's a little less meetings. We may not do a full tax analysis every year, only if there's something going on, like they want to do a Roth conversion or some capital gains issues.

And then the tier three and four is more of maybe, a minimum, at least one meeting a year, and possibly a second one, just depending on if there's something going on at the time. Which a lot of years, there's not always events that are happening in their lives that need a little extra meeting. They are serviced more by our associate advisors than lead advisors. And that is just also good training as well. So that's kind of how we've looked at that. And we're always coming up with other things too, "Should we be doing this for these clients?" Because we gave full service to everybody for a long time, and that just was not sustainable.

Kay Dee's Succession Planning Journey [39:48]

Michael: Now, bringing full circle to where some of the conversations started. Where does succession planning layer into all of this for you? What is the succession planning environment for you?

Kay Dee: Well, I did start with FP Transitions way back in 2016. They have helped. Kim is a 49% owner. I'm 51%. So we've been doing five-year tranches of she's been buying into the business. I've been carrying the loan, and that's worked great. Our profit margins have been healthy throughout these years. So that's worked really, really well. And our next phase is my earlier retirement than I ever planned. And trying to figure out, "How does this next step go?" None of our advisors have been with us for three-plus years. They've all been less than three years. So how do we do that in making sure I am selling the business to the people here, which is what we would like to do. But with a sped-up retirement for me, it's been challenging to try to figure that out.

Michael: So I want to come back to that in a moment. But first, I just want to understand how you even got as far as Kim now owns 49% and you own 51%? You've transitioned almost half the ownership already. Can you share more? What did you do? How did that work? What's the structure? What's the terms? What's the valuation? How did you do it to get that far?

Kay Dee: Yeah. Well, I realized Kim was a partner I wanted to keep here. I didn't want to lose her. She was filling these roles that I had been running the business myself for years. She started taking on more more and more of that. And I thought there is no way I want to be that owner that waits till the last minute to figure out, "Okay," or her coming to me saying, "Hey, I'm not getting...this isn't working for me. I'm doing all this. I need to get some kind of equity in business." I mean, she never really asked that, but it was, "Yeah, I need to do something."

So, again, FP Transitions came back in. In late 2019, we did our first tranche of her buying 25% of the business. And then five years, just this last year in 2025, January 1, she then bought another 24%. So that's how we got to where we are now and discussing…and the plan was to go another five years where I would be no longer the majority owner, and she would. And then I would probably sell my last bit of shares out to whoever on our staff we decided or wanted to buy into the equity portion.

Michael: How did you structure the first 25% tranche to make this manageable, affordable for somebody coming in?

Kay Dee: So we did a valuation. There's a little bit of a discount there. And then I carried the loan, and had a lower interest rate, I think, at that time in 2020. I was getting paid 3%. I wasn't really wanting to make money off the loan. It was more of, I thought, "This is a great opportunity for someone to take that if we grow this business together, I'm going to get paid back more in the long run than if I charged her a higher interest rate."

Michael: One, and rates were lower.

Kay Dee: Yeah, they were much lower.

Michael: Still pre-COVID, and Fed-keeping-rates-very-low environment.

Kay Dee: Exactly. And it worked well. Every quarter when we do our profit sharing bonus, she would pay half that back. And that went towards paying off the loan and the interest. And that's worked really, really well for us over these years.

Michael: Interesting. And can I ask how much of a discount were you comfortable to apply to this?

Kay Dee: That's a good question. I don't remember the exact number, but it was a good discount.

Michael: So FP Transitions did a baseline valuation, then you discounted that back a little bit. And then it was seller financed. I mean, was it a five-year loan? Or was it like a longer one, and she's still paying off the first tranche even though she's adding a second?

Kay Dee: Yeah, it was a longer loan, and she's been still paying off the first tranche. Yeah.

Michael: But now imagine it's paid down a bit, you've had a lot of growth. So the first tranche probably has a lot of free cashflow now, which is what makes it manageable for her to kind of roll the profitability into the second tranche as well.

Kay Dee: Yeah, yeah.

Michael: I guess the master plan, as it were, was three tranches to Kim over the span of...it was effectively 15 years or 10 year, like first tranche immediately, second tranche after five, third tranche after five. And then other team members would buy the last quarter tranche then or at some point.

Kay Dee: Yeah. Yep.

Michael: So now, what's changed?

Kay Dee: I had cancer for the third time.

Michael: For the third time? When was the first?

Kay Dee: The first was just two years after I opened this business in 2012. I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in a stage three situation, which is not always good, but I was able to have surgery and chemotherapy, which I worked that entire time. One of my funniest stories, I guess, is I have a client couple who had called...I was still coming into the office. I had no hair, no color to my skin. I was coming in as I could. And they wanted to meet with me. And I told them, I said, "Well, I need to tell you something." I said, I have cancer and I've been going through chemotherapy." I was just getting out of the stage of the worst of it. And I said, "I have no hair. And I just wanted to warn you before you came in or give you a chance to say, 'No, that's okay. I'll find someone else.'" And they said, "No, we'll come in."

So they came in, and we talked, had a great conversation. And I thought for sure, "There's no way they're going to want me as their advisor." And sure enough, they're like, "No, yeah, we want to work with you." And I was floored. And to this day, they have been following me through my journey this whole time, and have been the best people. And in fact, when I sent a recent letter out saying that I was looking at an early retirement in the next couple of years, they were like, "Well, we still want to stay in touch. How do we do that?" So they've been fantastic. It just goes to show you, sometimes it's not how you look, but how you talk to people. And reassuring them at the time that I did have a backup plan, and that was just a loose agreement that I came up with on a continuity, a piece of paper that said, "If something happens to me, please contact this person, and they will help you find another advisor."

So it's been quite a journey because that was in 2012. I had lost my dad in 2010. And so that's two years where...and I'm just opening this business. It was fun. It was hard. I did as much as I could. I worked as hard as I could. I did bring people over from my previous job at Edward Jones. It's where I transferred from. And it really opened my eyes to the ability to really listen to people and not just assume a bunch of stuff.

And then I went into remission, which was great, but it only lasted until 2018. So that time was another little stressful section. Kim had come on. I had just broken up with another advisor who I thought was going to be a kind of a plan. And again, that was a surgery. And I didn't have to do strong chemotherapy. So a lot of people really didn't know what was going on because I was able to still continue working, and had six years of remission, and then it's come back.

Michael: Oh, man. Can I ask what is the outlook for this round?

Kay Dee: This round, not as good as the past rounds. Just because it's...I can never say this word, metastasized. And as my doctor says, I need to lower my stress levels. I'm getting close to a point where I thought I do want to live. I've done well. I'm not hurting for income or anything like that. My husband and I have both been entrepreneurs, and we've invested a lot in different things. But I decided that I just can't continue to be at the level I am. So I have a kind of two-year plan to slowly move out, where we've been working on a transition plan for the advisors here, and what's going to happen, and how that's going to look. That's probably my biggest project right now is making sure there is a smooth transition.

Clients have been notified about my current status. I don't know how long I'm going into a... I had a failed treatment this last quarter, and so I'm trying a new one here coming up. And we'll see how that goes. And of course, I've asked that, "How much time do I have left?" And they can't tell you anything. It could be five years. It could be ten years. It just really depends on...there's a lot of advancements in new therapies. So I'm going to try them. I know energy levels and things like that are harder. And so, I do need to lower my client load.

I didn't want to be the boss that stuck around forever, and just would come in the office and create havoc, "Why aren't you doing it this way? I didn't ever did it that way." I love these clients, and it's been a big part of my growth too. Transitioning them to young advisors, we kind had a rough patch there with an advisor that left us in not a good way. So I've been rebuilding that trust with some of my clients. But I think I've come up with a pretty good plan to do a transition over the next year or two to get it to where I'm not in charge, or in that lead advisor, senior advisor position as much with ultimately retiring completely here shortly.

Creating A Two-Year Transition Plan To Move Clients To Other Advisors On The Team [52:29]

Michael: Can you give us more detail on what is the transition plan over the next two years?

Kay Dee: Yeah. I've learned a lot in transitioning clients to newer, younger advisors. Since I've been here so long, they really rely on me. They trust me. They know me. So what we do is we came up with a chair one, chair two system, which means that the chair one is the leading advisor on the relationship. Chair two is the support advisor, and then we have a service advisor. And a lot of times our staff isn't big enough, but the support advisor and the chair two are the same person. And then we have a client service rep, CSR, for clients, and that's just kind of their go-to person. They share that role. It just makes it so we can assign tasks to that CSR for specific clients. And we track all that through HubSpot, which makes it very easy to do. And that's a technology I know a lot of advisors, some use it, but it's not very common. But we found it very helpful in doing this tracking system.

Michael: So, HubSpot effectively serves as the CRM for the business?

Kay Dee: Yep.

Michael: And just curious, how did you land with HubSpot as opposed to one of the more industry-specific folks, your Wealthbox, Redtail, etc.?

Kay Dee: It was a conference I went to and somebody mentioned it. Looked into it and thought, "Hmm." Shiny object syndrome. "That looks so much better than what we're doing right now." We had Redtail. Then we went to Wealthbox. But tracking workflows and tasks was getting to the point…and the number of households we had was getting out of hand. So, we made the leap. It was a tough transition. It takes time to really work that out. And I am not a computer person. Luckily, younger staff is, that's where it really helps to have younger people. Because they just caught onto it. And we've got one person in the office who has really kind of taken the lead. We call them the champions of our software. So she's a champion of HubSpot.

And we've created workflows so we can keep on top of tasks when a client dies, or when we're onboarding, or scheduling. Those kinds of things. It's been very helpful. But the chair two is, I came up with a formal process. That's probably one thing people... I kind of wing it sometimes, and then, "Nope, I guess I do need a process for this."

Michael: So what's the problem then? Yeah.

Kay Dee: The idea is that as chair one, I have one-on-ones with each advisor over. And we are starting a new system where we have an agenda on those one-on-ones where we talk about the last month's clients, if there's any leftover follow-up or problems. The next month, who we're meeting with, a little bit of background on them, what the issues are, what do we need to pre-prep for that? And then any questions or things they have about how I'm assigning these clients to them. And some of them felt strongly about working with certain people. I felt strongly the other way. So I've created these little one-on-ones to make sure we're all on the same page. We understand why. And how that's going to move forward.

And then after each meeting with the clients, since we sometimes don't meet with clients more than twice a year, it does take a while to do that. But then the second meeting, they'll actually lead part of the meeting, or have some issue, like capital gains harvesting or Roth conversion that they'll talk to the client about. The third meeting, I actually have them usually lead the meeting. And then I'm still sitting on it. And then the fourth meeting, depending on where the client's at, and what's going on with that client, more complex ones, I'm staying as a lead until we feel up to speed. And the advisors really take over that lead chair one.

And then I've moved myself down to chair two until I feel comfortable knowing that they're connecting with the clients. The clients are good. And then I'm only coming in on those meetings later as complex things come up, or maybe popping my head in for a little bit, say hi, and that's it. And I did communicate this to the clients as well. So in the beginning, they know this is what the process is. We did also notify all the clients of my condition, and where I'm at, and what's happening. And I think that open communication with clients has been very, very good. We did lose a couple. And I kind of think they had one foot out the door anyway, so it wasn't a big surprise.

Michael: Not the surprise losses, the, "Oh, yeah, you were probably looking for an excuse to leave anyways. So I just gave you an excuse."

Kay Dee: Yeah. And I've been doing exit interviews with everyone, just making sure there wasn't something that was wrong. And sure enough, that's what I'm finding out is they were already, for different reasons, different needs, family, whatever it was. And it's been good conversations for me to have with these clients as they leave. Because I do want to find out if there's something wrong that we can fix. There's some things we can't fix. We can't fix me, but it's one of those things that I feel really good about having those conversations. And they're tough calls sometimes to make because you are wondering, "Oh, my gosh, what did we do?" But the clients have really appreciated that. And they've really been thankful that I've been open about what's happening, and not trying to hide it.

Michael: I guess practically speaking, when you communicate to clients, "There's been a health event, I'm going to be making a transition in the next few years." At this point, they're kind of motivated to figure out how to connect with the next advisor as opposed to, like for some firms, you can start the transition, but if they know you're going to be around, often they still try to sort of cling to or stay connected to the original founding advisor they came in with. When it gets communicated as, "No, really, unfortunately, I've had a change in health, I will be leaving. We're trying to make this as positive for you, Mr. and Mrs. Client, with the new advisor that you're going to be working with." They kind of have a very clear motivation to, "No, really, let's figure out how to make this work with your new advisor." "You can't cling to me. I'm not going to be here. I will retire."

Kay Dee: Yeah. That's been a big difference in how this has gone in the past. Since I started this thing, I'm the one that's trying to move clients to other advisors. And I stopped taking new clients last year, just cut that off and just can't. Because we would get referrals and they'll be, "Well, we referred to Kay Dee." And I'd say, "Oh, okay." And I love working with widows, and that was kind of my niche. A widow would call and everybody says, "Well, that's who Kay Dee works with." And I realized, "No, I got to stop. I can't take new clients." Because that's a fun part is bringing on a new client. The onboarding is, I think, exciting and fun.

So, I've stopped that. And I'm good with that. But the clients I do have, yeah, they...and I tell them they do have a say. I've had little conversations with them privately about, "Hey, if you're not feeling it with this person, I can make some adjustments." But the nice thing is Kim has been here a long time, so they know she's a part owner and been here. So that's been great because that gives some stability to the firm. As far as, if I'm gone, there's still someone here that's been here for a while.

Michael: Because it sounds like you've had associate and service advisors that you've transitioned to before. Is it showing up differently when you're doing this transition versus the prior ones?

Kay Dee: Yes, definitely. Because I was fighting it. I was like, "Well, I really like this client. I don't want to lose relationship with this client." Not looking at, "Oh, yeah. Kay Dee, you're running a business, and you're meeting all of these clients. I think you need to start figuring out a way to balance that out better." And it used to be I'd have people, associate advisors sit with me, but there was no real clear path to them actually becoming the lead advisor. And we have that now. So they know what their expectations are. They know exactly where they are in the process of being someday taking over that client relationship completely. And I was never prepared to do that because I always felt like I was admitting that, "I can't handle all these clients." Where I was like, "I can handle them. That's no problem."

Michael: So you had the internal tension of, "I brought on an associate to transition these clients, but deep down, I didn't really actually want to transition these clients." So then that didn't always go well.

Kay Dee: No, especially because it was the clients that I absolutely adored and loved, which is quite a few of them, versus the ones that, when I'd walk out of the meeting, I'd shake my head and think, "Ugh." Those are the ones I was eager to get passed on. But a majority of the clients that I had, I really, really enjoyed talking to them. So, it was this denial of, "I'll get to having these people work with someone else eventually." I can have someone taking notes. That helps me. I can handle more people if I have someone taking notes and doing all the follow-up tasks. And I kept maintaining a large amount of clients. I think I still have over 100 households that are mine in the sense that I'm lead on.

But my goals this next couple years is to lower that number. And we've set it very strictly so that I can't just say, "I can just work with this person a little bit longer." It's, "No, now I have a reason why this needs to transition over time, and get the clients used to that." And it's working really well. It should have been done probably five years ago.

Michael: And so that's where this sort of multi-step meeting process comes in. Now, I just want to reflect back. So one-on-ones with each advisor every month to talk about last month's clients, what we learned, any follow ups, next month's clients, and "Who's coming in, and what do we need to learn and be aware of to be ready for the transition?" So, you're like systematically prepping. And then it sounds like effectively a three meeting process of meeting number one, you're chair one and doing all the talking, and they're observing. Meeting number two, you're leading the meeting, but you're finding a thing for them to talk about and present, tax analysis or Roth conversion analysis, whatever it is. Meeting number three, now they're leading the meeting and you're trying to sit second chair.

Kay Dee: Yeah. And sometimes it's a couple more meetings before they're leading it completely. But yeah, it just depends on the client.

Michael: So, depending on client and complexity. I guess the fast ones, they're leading the third meeting, and you might be out by the fourth. More complex clients, it may need more meetings, but ironically, I guess the good news is more complex clients with your segmentation are meeting more often. So it takes more meetings, but it might not actually take more time because you're having meetings faster. It sounds like all of these, you basically end up transitioned somewhere in 12 to 24 months because that's how long it takes to get through the number of meetings on your meeting schedule.

Kay Dee: Correct. Yeah.

Michael: And the goal is to effectively transition all of them, because the doctor says you need the reduced stress of being out.

Kay Dee: Yeah. They didn't tell me I had to quit my job, but they don't really ask those kind of questions. It's not their job. But yeah, I've kind of interpreted that as, yeah, I need to take some time. The goal is for another year, as I'm transitioning clients over, is getting down to 20 hours a week. I think my biggest concern right now is making sure Kim has the support she needs to continue running this business after I do officially retire. And whether that's retiring and just reducing hours and helping as much as I can until I'm completely 100% retired. That's kind of what the goal is. And it really depends on how my treatments go, and how my health is, and how I feel.

Transitioning Equity In The Business During The Two-Year Transition [1:06:50]

Michael: So, you've talked about transitioning clients. Is this changing the plan for transitioning equity as well?

Kay Dee: Yeah, that's this next phase I'm just starting, is how do I do this when I've got employees that are young? I mean in sense that they haven't been here very long. That is that next phase of trying to figure that part out.

Michael: Kim just started on the second tranche already, because that was just the original plan, and you're executing to plan. And so it sounds like you haven't quite decided yet what's our method or timeline for transitioning the remaining 51% on the equity end.

Kay Dee: Right.

Michael: With the asterisk, it sounds like the goal is some blend of Kim and other advisors.

Kay Dee: Yes.

Michael: Okay. And so how do you tackle that? Do you have a plan about how you're trying to formulate the plan? Or is that all up in the air for you at this point?

Kay Dee: No, I'm still trying to figure that out. I have just went through another valuation here. I haven't gotten the results from that. And I am reaching out to a couple people as far as, "Hey, what are some other ideas about being able to sell?" Because there's this part of me that doesn't mind carrying the loan for a while after I'm gone, but it's still that tie and feeling, "What are they doing? Do I want to be completely out, or do I want to extend the loans to people to buy in? And what happens if I can't find enough people to buy in, then what do we need to think about doing?" I'd hate to sell out to an aggregator or someone larger, just because I think we have a very unique business. And two, with the software we use, it would be hard to do that. But that's one of those things that would be the Hail Mary at the end if I really needed to.

But I feel comfortable financially, so it's not going to be a burden. I just want to make sure my husband's taken care of. And know we've got a good understanding, and I'm not feeling anxious or worried by not being a part of the business anymore. There's just those funky emotional things in there too.

Michael: Seller financing, where you're out of the business, but it doesn't fully feel like you're out because technically, the repayment of that loan is still tied to the business that you're not really in anymore. That still potentially gets unsettling.

Kay Dee: Yeah. And it's not that I don't think that they can carry this on and do well with it. I think they can. But there's market forces. I went through 2008. And those kind of things add stress on top. I've worked hard to build this and I do want to get paid well for what I did, but I also realized that there are some things that are kind of unknown. I am just trying to go through this emotional struggle of, "Do I let go completely, or is it okay for me to still have these loans out?" And it may be. And will people want to? Like I said, our advisors are a little bit younger, and they're going through lives and looking at buying homes and having children. And that debt on top, but they have to decide if they want to take on that equity position. Which, as a financial planner, I think they see the value in that. And we'll see.

Michael: Because it sounds like, part of driving question is just are there enough people to buy in and/or do they have enough buying power to take down the 51% that's remaining?

Kay Dee: Correct.

Michael: Okay. But I guess the flip side is, but the fact that you are already 25%/49% in means at least...it feels like this has been in more striking distance for you having already had the roadmap you were executing on to have 49% transition than if you were coming at it cold and starting the transition, where Kim had not already done one tranche and started the second.

Kay Dee: Correct. Yeah. I am so glad that we did. But I've known I've had this cancer kind of in the outlying periphery of what could happen in the future. So it did spur me to really look at that. And I think sometimes we just have to get over our own selves and realize, "Yeah, we need partners." And that equity is so powerful in having people stick around, and get really involved in how well the business is doing as well.

Michael: I guess I was going to ask in that context, how much of the original plan that you started five years ago was, I guess, impacted by first or second cancer diagnosis, or the, I think you said the perspective partnership you had with the advisor in Portland that didn't work out? Are these all things that have cropped up because there was a concern that the cancer might return?

Kay Dee: Yeah, it was kind of in the background of my mind. But also, I realized if I really wanted to grow this and be a strong firm and be in existence for a while, we all know that we're not going to stick around forever. It just was powerful to me to know that there was somebody that I could rely on to carry on if something should happen. But also, I think there's clients that really...they don't really say a lot about it, but I think the growth, and having people here, and having that structure. So when I did send out this letter about my condition, I could say, "Kim is part owner of this business. She is here. We've been working together for a long time. And the advisors, we've been taking our time trying to find that right mix of advisors that are just really wanting to do better, and take care of clients."

I tell people I feel very comfortable about where the trajectory of the business is going with or without me. I think that gives clients also a sense of relief. When I was at [Edward] Jones, one thing is when an advisor was retiring, or as they brought new people in, they'd carve off of the bottom of their book, and give it to the new advisor. Well, those people, they never had any say or anything in it. They were just all of sudden assigned a new advisor. And I've worked with those people in the beginning, and they would say, "What happened? Why am I not working with so-and-so?" And it was, "Well, I'm new and he thought maybe I could help you better since he's so busy." And those conversations with those clients, it was unsettling to them to, all of a sudden, bam, have a new advisor. So I knew in the beginning that I wanted to set this up where I had this vision of a continuum of this business well after I'm gone.

Michael: I guess as you reflect on it, what made the Portland advisor not work out that Kim is working out? What was the difference?

Kay Dee: It had more to do with, I think, at the time, they were looking for someone to partner with to help them, but not really. They weren't growing their business. Nice person, again, nice being nice. But we just had different goals of where we really wanted to go. I mean, a lot of people talk about wanting growth and doing things, but they're not willing to do the things to make that happen. And that was a big difference in between the two. And I could see in Kim that she wanted it. She wanted it to grow. She had some great ideas. She was the fact finder process person, which is not me. And I do have a higher fact finder, but my quick start is much higher. And so it was just a good fit. She took over the operations part, which was fantastic because it wasn't my favorite part. And the visionary, and that's what I loved. So it just was the perfect fit together.

What Surprised Kay Dee The Most Building Her Advisory Business [1:16:54]

Michael: So as you, I guess, reflect on this overall journey over 15 years as you come up on anniversary for the business, what surprised you the most about this journey of building the advisory business?

Kay Dee: I think it goes back to, I couldn't figure out why people couldn't read my mind. And in seriousness, it's being that quick start making fast decisions, and why nobody else was like that. I grew up on a farm and my father was...we didn't have cell phones, we didn't have anything at that time. He says, "If you have a problem, you need to figure out and fix it." So I was used to just figuring it out on my own, and doing it, and making decisions and moving quickly. And I think I had to realize, "Oh, yeah, everybody's not like that. I need to step back and make sure they have the things, and the facts they need, and the decisions. And we're making this work together." Rather than me just being the owner and founder and saying, "This is the way it's going to go."

So it's been a huge learning process for me. And I never really understood myself until I've really realized, "Oh, yeah, when I grew up working on my dad's farm, that's what we did. We just made quick decisions and move forward." I've been an entrepreneur, I've started a few businesses and never really got anywhere. But when I started this and realized that having partners that really are aligned in the same values, and have skill sets you aren't good at and you can admit that, that surprised me, but it was the best lesson I learned.

The Low Point On Kay Dee's Journey [1:18:46]

Michael: What was the low point for you on the journey of building the business?

Kay Dee: There's two times. One was just being diagnosed with cancer less than two years of opening this business and trying to figure out how I was going to do that. And hiring someone just to kind of help answer phones and things was a big, big piece of that. The other one was just a couple of years ago when, before I knew my cancer had returned, I was struggling big time with the changes, the new employees, how things were. I wasn't present in a good way. I was upset about it, but I had this illusion of control and that I was losing it and realizing, "Oh, yeah, that's why you have a partner, is to have them do what they're good at, and you do what you're good at. You have open and honest dialogue. And you don't need to control everything." And letting go. I think just letting people do their thing, and me letting go of that was a huge, huge thing for me in the last couple of years.

Michael: Give us more context, what was making it go not in a good way? What was making this a low point? Or what was going on that was causing it to be a low point?

Kay Dee: I wasn't being honest with my feelings of what was happening in the business and being open about that. Instead, I was getting angry and frustrated. I did seek out some professional help, and I did talk to someone about communication. And realizing that they don't understand what's going on in your head just as much as you sometimes don't understand what's going in their head. But if you have that open, honest dialogue, it really opens up a pathway to figuring out something I was upset about was really stupid. And that by talking to someone about it, we figured out what was that key problem. And just getting some outside help really helped me just kind of get my brain back into the game. Because if I'm showing up angry and mad, and not participating in our meetings as much, that was really starting to affect people here. And I didn't realize it because I thought it was all internal. Nobody could see that. But it wasn't because it was very, very clear to people that things weren't going well.

And was losing my mom. My father-in-law's issues. We had to move him. My husband lost his mom. And this all happened within two or three years. And there was a few other things that happened, but it was like, "Okay, no. You need to talk to staff. You need to talk to Kim. You need to talk to people about how you're feeling and why." And realizing that it was just losing this control piece that I thought I was losing control. I'm not, but it was decisions being made and wondering, "Why did you do that?" And by opening up, and talking about that, and getting past the control piece and past the anger really helped.

Kay Dee's Advice For Her Younger Self And For Newer Advisors [1:22:19]

Michael: What else do you know now you wish you could go back and tell you from 10 to 15 years ago?

Kay Dee: I think the biggest thing is stop comparing yourself to others. We all have different growth paths, whether it's slow or fast. You need to find out really what works best for you. And if you love what you do, either adjust and find your way, but never really giving up trying new things, taking risks. Hiring people that...you've talked about hiring, but maybe you've decided, "Well, I don't know if I should really hire someone." If you're going to be growing and adding services and stuff, you need to hire people. And you want to make sure you're doing it slow. Hire slow, fire fast. That's a good motto. And if it's not working, it's just kind of keep looking forward and trying to figure out ways and other people that can help you, coaches.

Traction has been a big part of our growth journey. We've had other few business coaches. We've worked with Herbers. We've worked with other people at different times. They were really helpful during those times, and we needed that extra person that's looking in because we're absorbed in what's happening here. And that's been extremely helpful.

Michael: It sounds like overall working with consultants has been a big thing for you throughout. I think I've heard you've gone through EOS coach, Herbers, FP Transitions, New Planner Recruiting. I think you talked about someone on career tracks and compensation. I don't know if that was Herbers or someone else. You've engaged consultants at a lot of different points on this journey.

Kay Dee: Yeah, yeah. And going to conferences. I meet people, learn new things, and I know a lot of people. It is expensive to do, but it's an investment in your business and yourself. And to get out of your business and listen to other people, I've always gotten a good nugget or two, and sometimes more. Somebody told me only take three things away from a conference so that you're not overwhelming yourself. And that's been helpful. We try to stay away from the shiny object syndrome, but it's good to put yourself out there. Talk to people, belong to NAPFA, XYPN, find colleagues and peers that have been where you want to be. But realizing that you don't want to compare yourself because they're going to have their way. And hopefully someone listens to this and hears something that they can take away. That's my hope.

I think a lot of us in the industry, we're out here, but we don't put ourselves out as consultants. But going to a conference, meeting people, talking to people, you can get some great nuggets from people throughout the year. And I've stolen many ideas growing this business. They're not all my original ideas for sure.

Michael: So what advice would you give younger, newer advisors looking to come into the profession and start a career today?

Kay Dee: Kind of a repeating what I just said too. Seeking out mentors, belonging to things, trying to go learn the masterminds. Those are always good places just to kind of realize that other people are kind of having the same problems or issues, and it's just reaching out first. Nobody's going to come to you and say, "Hey, listen, I see this, and you need to do this, this, and this." It's finding people that you align with that your values are the same. There's people who can grow fast. I never really connected with those because that's not how I was wired. But good for them. There's people out there who have done some fantastic things, but there's also a lot of people that maybe you may have more connection with as far as how you're growing your business.

Michael: I like how you framed that. It comes to taking the first step to reaching out to find mentors, masterminds, peers, whatever it is. No one's coming to you. You have to initiate it if you want to find that support system.

Kay Dee: Right. Yep.

What Success Means To Kay Dee [1:26:59]

Michael: As we come to the end here, this is a podcast about success. And just always one of the themes that comes up is that word success means very different things to different people. You've had this wonderfully successful business as you're coming in on $200 million under management, and looking at transitions and exits. And so it seems the business has been a wonderfully successful journey. How do you define success for yourself at this point?

Kay Dee: Right now, success is living a life that I can look back and acknowledge my regrets, but move forward with intention and purpose. That's what I'm trying to do is let go of some things, and really have an idea of what do I want for my personal life. And being able to do things with family and friends, and keeping those connections alive. It just goes back to that reaching out. When you're in a spot where things aren't going well, and you're feeling kind of down on yourself, reaching out to people to lift you up is huge. I highly recommend that.

Michael: What are you trying to let go of? You said you're trying to let go of some things.

Kay Dee: Yeah. I think it's letting go of the idea that people, we all kind of live in our worlds. And sometimes social media, I'm not a big fan on because that connection isn't the same as if you call someone and say, "Hey, let's get together and have coffee, or let's get together and have lunch." This year I've made more of an effort with all those people that I really do care about, "Hey, I'd love to have lunch with you, or see you, or go for a walk, or do something." I've done more of that than I ever have because I would wait, if somebody called and asked me to do something, "Oh, sure." But if I want something to happen, I have to make it happen.

Michael: I love that. I love that. Well, thank you, Kay Dee, for joining us on the "Financial Advisor Success" podcast.

Kay Dee: You're welcome. Thank you.