Adding Hard-Dollar Value For HNW Executives By Guiding Them In Negotiating For More (Equity) Compensation: #FASuccess Ep 455 With Emily Shacklett

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Resources Featured In This Episode:

• Emily Shacklett: Website | LinkedIn
• Pay, Perks, & Parachutes

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Full Transcript:

Michael: Welcome, Emily Shacklett, to the "Financial Advisor Success" Podcast.

Emily: Hi, Michael. Happy to be here. And quite honestly, a little bit starstruck. So, thank you for having me.

Michael: My pleasure. I'm excited to have you on and get to talk today about, because I view it broadly, just new ways that as advisory firms, we're continuing to get more and more holistic with clients and the planning work that we do. In the industry, we've had this conversation for probably the better part of a decade now, that fee compression is coming. Fee compression is everywhere. Fee compression is inevitable. And then, being the nerd that I am, I go and pull out the industry data and fees just aren't compressing at all. There's zero evidence of any kind of fee compression for the past decade or more. There were a couple of folks that charged really, really high fees that had to come down to a little close to the average. But the average revenue yield of advisory firms has basically not moved a basis point in a decade or two.

But what has happened is there's service inflation. We have to do more for clients than we used to for the proverbial 1% fee. And so, for some, that's been going deeper in the investment side of the business, and we see the rise of alts and more types of managed portfolios. For others, it's going deeper in the financial planning side, and so we're hiring more CFPs and doing plans for everyone. For some firms, it's getting into the adjacent services, so by offering tax preparation to clients, or partnering with one of the providers like EncorEstate, Wealth.com, Trust & Will to do estate documents for clients. But I know you've gone a slightly different route in helping clients negotiate employment agreements and compensation packages, which particularly when you're working with executives, can be hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars of earnings on the table over the next many years if they negotiate well.

I'm excited to talk about this whole realm of compensation planning for clients as a way to try to add meaningful value beyond 'just' the portfolio, beyond even 'just' traditional financial planning, I guess, and just how you came to the point that this became a part of your services to clients.

How Emily's Experience As A CPA Led Her To Serve Executives [05:15]

Emily: Absolutely. Well, I'll tell you, my background is what brought me here. I'm a CPA. I started out in public accounting and was fortunate to work for a firm that was very heavily involved in executive compensation in, and I'm aging myself, the '90s, when there was a lot of bank mergers, and golden parachutes, and bank executives being displaced. Furthermore, there was a lot of people being displaced in industry in general. So, I started out my career as just a young woman doing a lot of advisory and coaching on people losing their jobs. And that is what has brought me to this comfort level with providing this kind of advice today.

Michael: So, can you actually just take us back to a little bit more context for what was going on back then? Who did you work for? What was the thing or the service they were doing that just were...we're talking about this as a new expanded service for advisory firms in 2025, and you're like, "Yeah, I was doing this 25 to 30 years ago. That's how I started." So, help us understand a little more who were you working for, or what were they doing that this was a part of the picture then?

Emily: Yeah. So, I was working in public accounting for KPMG in Cleveland. I've been here my entire life. And I worked for a practice that had a unique expertise in focusing on executive compensation, and on the completely other side of the spectrum, insurance as well. And so, two particular engagements or situations resonate in my memory. One of them was, we were an outsource partner to Ford. Ford would actually outsource their outplacement counseling to us at KPMG. And my colleague and I at the time, ironically, we worked with each other back around 30 years ago, and we are working together again here at Fairport right now. She and I would meet as 20-something-year-old women with these executives and professionals that were being counseled out. They were being asked to retire early or to leave the job, and Ford was helping them to position themself, either number one, to enter into retirement gracefully, and/or number two, to actually go out and find another career, an encore career, something to help them to be ready for retirement.

So, that was a big one. And then I'll just say the other one is the banking industry. Like I said, at the time, the banking industry, there was a lot of mergers. This was on the opposite side of the spectrum from the Ford executives that we worked with. But these were people that their banks were merging, their positions were no longer needed, but they had amassed a lot of wealth and were being offered very large packages. And we were helping them maneuver the finances of that and into the next phase of their careers or lives, or both, actually.

Michael: Interesting. So, you're working at, I was going to say a Big Four accounting firm. It wasn't four then, maybe it was eight.

Emily: It was six then. Again, aging myself.

Michael: However many there were. So, you're working one of the big accounting firms that nominally, the bulk of their work is the traditional public accounting realm. But you've got this advisory-related work in mergers and outplacements as a subset or a division in a firm that's mostly doing audit and accounting work for giant corporations.

Emily: Yeah. It was a very unique circumstance. I started out in the tax department at Arthur Anderson, and then moved into what I thought was tax work for individuals. I knew I didn't get too jazzed up about doing tax work for corporations, but I was really enjoying working with individuals on their tax planning. And so, a colleague from Arthur Anderson, who had left, invited me to go to KPMG. She said, "I work for this cool practice, it's called PFP," which stood for Personal Financial Planning. "And we only focus on individuals, and we get into the nitty gritty as much as we can in public accounting. And I think you'd really like it." And that is what brought me there. And it was, Michael, to your point, extremely unique practice even just within that firm.

Michael: Interesting. Nominally, this is an advisory firm, it sounds not dissimilar to the kind of things that we would do today, but this isn't a broker dealer or an RIA practice, this is an accounting firm doing the tax and other advice work.

Emily: Yeah. Now, the challenge with it was, obviously, when you work for an accounting firm, and particularly, when they're doing auditing, there's certain types of advice you just can't give. So, you could take the clients right to the precipice, but it was the implementation piece that always became difficult. It was the "I can tell you all the things that we would recommend that you do, but I can't help you implement on that," because again, we had to follow those lines that were drawn for firms that also practiced in audit and tax for large corporations. And ultimately, that's actually what led to my departure. I loved that job. I loved the people that I did it with. I actually maintain contact with a number of them and have some common clients with them. But I felt the yearning to, "Okay, I like the fact I can tell people my recommendations, and please go do this." But we all know corporate executives are swamped. They don't have time to take care of themselves in a lot of cases. So, if I could take this a step further and actually help you implement and give you recommendations on how to implement, I'll be even better at what I'm trying to do.

Michael: So, for those who just don't come from the accounting world at all, can you explain a little bit more of what the blocking points were? Why couldn't you help clients implement?

Emily: Sure. I think that probably some of those things have changed because a lot of things have come into place since I was at KPMG. But in general, I think recommending specific investment and investment strategies was not something that the accounting firms did at that time, and particularly not the public accounting firms that were doing auditing.

Michael: Failing anything else at that point, you have to actually be a registered investment advisor to get compensated for specific investment advice. And at some point, a large public accounting firm just doesn't really want to invite yet another regulator into their business to say, "Yeah, let's spin up an RIA and have the SEC on with us on top of everything we do with the rest of our regulation."

Emily: Yeah.

Michael: Okay. And so, you said that actually led you to make shifts in where you worked because you wanted to get deeper with clients, you wanted to help them do the implementation?

Emily: Yeah. Yeah. That was actually one of the big reasons why I made the shift, is I just felt still like there was a bit of a distance between me and the client and how I could help them. And I knew. I talked to the partners that I worked with. They're phenomenal people. They helped me to grow in my career. And I said, "This is what I want to be able to do." And they were very clear to say, "We're going to have to keep some of these lines drawn and we're never going to be able to get here." So, we had really constructive, respectful conversations around where I wanted to be versus where I was, and that's how I ended up making a change.

Michael: Interesting. So, what was the business model and structure back then? Because I'm presuming as well that this is not an AUM arrangement because you weren't managing any portfolios because you couldn't do the specific investment advice. So, how did you all get compensated for this back then? How did it work?

Emily: Yeah. A lot of what we were doing was fee-based. And that is not unlike us now at Fairport, we have some fee-based work as well.

Michael: What does fee-based mean in your context?

Emily: Charging retainers. Oftentimes, for these clients, we were doing tax-related work, and so we were charging tax-type retainers or tax fees, hourly fees. We don't do hourly fees here, but we did hourly fees then. The planning work was all wrapped up in that.

Michael: Okay. So, nominally, you were engaged in a retainer agreement to do tax preparation, tax planning, dot, dot, dot, and related work?

Emily: Mm-hmm.

Michael: And so, you would have a comprehensive tax engagement that would include this kind of advice and planning, as contrasted with a lot of us in the RIA world where we might have an investment management, wealth management agreements, and then we do this as part of our comprehensive planning?

Emily: Exactly. It's really familiar, quite honestly. It's just slightly evolved version of what we do in the RIA world.

The Evolving World Of Executive Compensation Planning [15:04]

Michael: Interesting. Very interesting. So, I'm curious to hear a little bit more about what did executive compensation planning look like then? We'll maybe contrast soon with what does it look like now as you start doing this with clients in the current environment. But since it sounds like this was very formative for your roots to come to this path in the first place, I'd love to hear more about what it looks like and how it worked originally.

Emily: Sure. So, I'll say when we were working with the Ford professionals, it tended to be less about high-level compensation and more about just, number one, maximizing what is offered to you and available to you. Number two, just knowing what you have. My mom always likes to say "Knowledge is power." A lot of people operate in this world and don't really know, "Do I have enough yet? Can I retire? Do I have to go find another career?" So, it was helping them to build a vision of, okay, first of all, based on what you have now or what you're being offered, this is what your financial world would look like. And if you want it to look differently, here's some thoughts and ideas on things that you can do and careers that you can consider, etc., etc., to build to where you need to be.

So, it was less about fancy stuff. It wasn't stock options and unique equity incentive compensation, but it was more about digging deep and understanding what you have, which we don't do. I'm here to say, I don't even always dig very deeply into my own personal financial situation, but if someone can be there as your partner helping you to ask the right questions, even if they're basic ones, they maybe get you thinking about something that you wouldn't have otherwise thought about, for example, "Looking at my 401(k), what's my existing company matching versus what that match might look like down the road. Oh wow, I belong to these organizations that are important to my career, and my company pays for those. I need to make sure my new company is considering doing that for me as well." So, it's not rocket science. I hate to say it's looking at these basic things, but they live below the surface sometimes, and people don't think about them until they walk into a new job and realize they don't have them and kick themselves. So, that's what it looked like more with the Ford engagement.

Michael: Okay. So, then what about the bank merger environment? Is this similar? Are you mostly working with the people that are exiting out at this point as opposed to the people who are negotiating in?

Emily: It was definitely working more with the people that were exiting in the case of the bank engagements. And ultimately, that one was much more complicated. In today's terms, it was a lot of 409(a)-type considerations. It was executives who were receiving significant payouts. We often referred to them at the time, I don't hear the terminology as much these days, but as golden parachutes. Big old payouts that could create tax implications that were unpleasant. But there were ways to manage that and plan for that so that you could make the tax implications less unpleasant. And we were dealing with very high-level compensation programs that were unique to the specific banks that had offered them and were offering them. So, that was much more complex, but really at the end of the day, same thing, helping people to either decide, "I've amassed what I need to for the rest of my life to accomplish the goals I want to accomplish," or, "I'm going to take this and I'm going to help continue to build my retirement and I'm going to step into a new career. I'm going to step into an encore career where I'm ramping down, but I'm still building my wealth." So, doing the same thing just with different levels of complexity involved.

Michael: As memory serves, there was even more creativity of deferred comp arranges back then because, I want to say it was the early, mid-2000s that we got like the current 409(a) regs, which was basically cracking down on all the things that had been happening in the '80s to clean this stuff up. So, you were in the heyday of the very creative deferred comp arrangements that were out there before, I guess, they standardized a little bit more after the regs.

Emily: That is true.

What Emily's Practice Looks Like Today [20:08]

Michael: Okay. So now, bring us forward a little bit. And I think to talk about who you're serving today and how this kind of planning is showing up today. I think we probably just need a little bit of context on the advisory practice overall. So, can you take a few moments and just share with us, where do you work? Who so you work for? What does the practice look like today? And then we can dive a little bit more into, what does this planning look like in the modern era.

Emily: Sure. I work currently and have worked for the last 24-plus years at a practice called Fairport Wealth. And we are one of the teams of Hightower Advisors out of Chicago. I happen to work out of our office here in Cleveland. Hightower is a registered investment advisor serving clients all across the United States.

Michael: Help us understand then a little bit more of Fairport Wealth at the local level, as it were, for the practice that you're in, tell us more about Fairport Wealth.

Emily: Sure. So, Fairport is actually a merger of two businesses. It happened back in 2001. Ironically, it was three months after I started, Michael. So, I'll never forget hearing about the merger. I walked into my boss-at-the-time's office, he's one of my longtime mentors, and I adore him, and I said, "Oh my gosh, am I getting fired?" He laughed. He was just like, "Oh, Emily, are you kidding me? We've known about this merger for a really long time. You were hired on purpose."

Michael: I'm chuckling hearing this because you spent like five years literally in the job of helping people navigate layoffs after a merger, and then go to a new company and find out three months in, there's a merger

Emily: You know what, Michael, I never really thought about that, actually. Full circle. Yes.

Michael: Yeah. Like, "Oh, so I'm clearly getting laid off. I do this for a living. I can counsel myself."

Emily: I was scared. But yes, it was a great combination of practices because Ralston & Company, one of the sides of the merger, they were really involved in the investment side. And Hickory Group was the other side of the merger and the one I had joined three months prior, and we were really heavily involved in financial planning. And so, it was just the perfect marriage of complementary skill sets. Greg, my mentor, he had worked at one of the large public accounting firms as well and worked with a lot of corporate executives. So, he was obviously my senior, but we had very similar trajectories into this career at Fairport and very similar focus on who we had previously worked with. So, it was just perfect.

Michael: And I guess connecting the dots to the earlier conversation, you had come to Hickory because you wanted to leave the big accounting firm because you wanted to do more planning, implementation, investments, all the rest of the work with clients that you couldn't do because they weren't an RIA because they were a public accounting firm.

Emily: Yeah. I had a little jaunt along the way between KPMG and Hickory, and appreciate every moment of that as well. But yeah, I was ready to exit the public accounting world to be able to get deeper into the implementation, and I reached out to a recruiter to help me find a role. And boy, did Sal do me right. I was a little scared in the beginning. I thought, "Are they going to push me into this very heavy sales position? I'm not sales, I'm a technician, for crying out loud." I've come to learn, we need to be all of those things to be successful. But it was really a lovely entree into this role, and it was the perfect balance of developing relationships, not sales, and being able to be a technician as well.

Michael: So, what was the role as you came to it originally?

Emily: I was thinking a little bit about that, actually, just recently. And I would almost suggest that I came in as an administrative personnel with high level technical skill sets on the tax side. I knew nothing about the investment business. I was there to learn, soak it up. So, in the first part of my career, I would do anything and everything that needed to be done. We were, at the time, more of a small practice, not a significant enterprise like we are now. So, I was like doing Charles Schwab paperwork or Fidelity paperwork, and scheduling meetings, and anything I could do to make myself valuable to the team. So, I would say I started out doing a lot of administrative stuff.

Michael: Okay. So, what does Fairport look like today of, I don't know, number of clients, or assets, or however you frame up the scope of the practice?

Emily: Sure. So, if you look at the Fairport team within Hightower, we actually have six offices in, we'll call it Midwest to Northeast. We have about $4.8 billion under management. And we've got about 2,000 households.

Michael: Okay. How many people are part of the Fairport team?

Emily: Yeah. It's evolving a little bit, so I'm not going to get this number exactly right. So, nobody would call and yell at me because I got this number wrong.

Michael: Approximating.

Emily: I would say it's about 50 within the Fairport team.

Michael: Okay. And so then, within the Fairport team, you've got a book of clients, some portion of the 2,000 households and $4.8 billion that are yours that you're directly responsible for?

Emily: I do. I do. I am the primary advisor on just about 90 households within the Fairport team. It equates to, call it about $3 million of revenue per year.

Michael: Okay. Well, I guess is it traditional-ish advisory fees? So, is that like $300 million-ish AUM as well? Or do you still have a lot of retainers and other fee structures?

Emily: What I shared with you, Michael, was just the advisory fees based on AUM. So, yeah, the AUM is about the $300 [million] mark. We do also, just as I mentioned and as in my previous life, we have some retainer-based relationships outside of that, separate from that as well.

Michael: And what does support team look like for you, just managing this very sizable revenue base? Three million is a lot of revenue to be responsible for. So, what does team support look like for you?

Emily: Yeah. Well, at Fairport, team support generally it's really based on the client. And that's one of the things I love so much about our practice, is we can still build our teams to suit our clients. And so, a typical team would be a primary advisor, I'll call it, and then a secondary advisor who helps, attends the meetings, helps build the plans, and build the deliverables, I'll call them. And then a client service manager who is the direct interface with the custodians. They are quite honestly the person who probably talks to the client as much as anyone, because when the client needs money, they call in the CSM.

Michael: They actually get things done.

Emily: Exactly. They're really, really, really important and integral. And they are just so deeply engaged in the clients and with their families. And so they're doing a lot of the day-to-day contact. Some clients, they've got two to three different advisors on the relationship and a CSM. Some clients don't require quite so many advisors. So, we really just look at, what's important to the client, what are we trying to accomplish for them, and how can we build a team that will support them and their families? And then of course, importantly, we have a lot of people that may not be directly client-facing all the time but are an integral part of the relationship. We have an investment strategy team here locally that interfaces with the clients about their portfolios and makes important investment strategy decisions on behalf of the clients. And they are very client-facing. They are not the man behind the curtain, so to speak. They talk with our clients. They have long-time, 20-plus-year relationships with our clients as well. So, they're an integral part of the team. As well as all the people that are here to support us with operations, etc..

Michael: So, my infer, you've talked about teams as being more client-based. So, does that mean of the 90 clients that you're supporting, it's not one standard second chair advisor and one standard CSM for all of them because different clients could have a different CSM and secondary advisor attached to be supporting you for that particular client?

Emily: Yes, Michael, that is how it works right now. But you just brought up a topic where I have an aspiration, and aspirationally speaking, I would like to see us, and we will be trying to simplify that a little bit and create some more consistency within the teams.

Michael: Because as it's grown, now you have to interface with all these different people?

Emily: Yeah. I don't worry so much for myself about having to interface with different people. The more people I interface with, the more I learn from them. And I'm fine with that. But I think it does in some way impede our ability to efficiently serve a client or their ability to understand like, "Okay, this is how an Emily Shacklett client happens to operate." But then they have to know that for a number of different advisors. So, I would like to see us, and I think we as a practice would like to evolve to create a little more simplicity on our teaming.

Serving Two Niches With Complementary Planning Needs [31:11]

Michael: Okay. Very cool. So now, tell us about the clientele. Who are you serving? What does a typical client look like for you?

Emily: Yeah. So, something that we've been doing for a really long time, and it really works in well with my skill sets, but I have to give credit to our previous leaders for having the vision to do this. We're very focused on some niches or practice areas within the client community. And we are particularly good at serving those practice areas. One of them might not surprise you based on what we've talked about, corporate executives and professionals. One of them, family business owners, widows, and divorcees. Those are our sweet spot in terms of types of clients that we work with. Not to say we don't work with lots of other types of clients, but I just feel like we have some unique talents and skill sets that we offer to these target markets, these practice areas, so to speak.

Michael: Well, I'm struck by the language, although it makes sense given the roots. Practice areas is usually a label I hear from accounting firms.

Emily: We have a lot of CPAs here.

Michael: Well, I was going to say, I'm assuming like the roots of the practice coming out of big accounting, I'm like, "Oh, okay. That kind of checks out. That language crosses over." It's interesting. I don't know, I feel like a lot in our advisor community still, "niche" feels scary or limiting sometimes, but practice areas have been a common thing in, I guess actually both accounting firms and law firms, they do it as well for a long, long time.

Emily: Yeah. I know "niche" can be a scary word and I know it can seem like you're really pigeonholing yourself or limiting yourself. I'll give an example of why I actually don't think that's the case. So, I, since the beginning of my career, have been working in the corporate executive practice area. And so, one would look at me and say, "Okay, she works with a lot of high-powered CFOs and CEOs," and I do. But I also happen, my second largest group of clients within the practice, I work with a lot of widows, and I work with a number of divorcees. And the fact is, when you are working with corporate executives, and sometimes they widow their spouses, and their spouses need to step in and be able to manage the financial pieces that they were used to managing. Or hopefully, their spouse is already involved and engaged and in the know, and these issues are familiar to that spouse. But ultimately, I think working with executives or working with a business owner, for example, it can lead you to inheritors. It can lead you to divorcees and widows, and being able to provide that expertise that's important to an executive or a business owner, to the widows and the divorcees that find themselves having to make those decisions.

Michael: I guess because it's literally like an extension of the original specialization. If you specialize with enough of corporate executives long enough, eventually, you're going to end out with a subspecialty in "widows and divorcees" of corporate executives.

Emily: Yes.

Michael: That's how it evolves. And they still kind of have a similar unique need because widows and divorcees of people who have a bunch of options and restricted units and deferred comp and the rest have a corporate executive widow or divorcee specialization that's a little bit different than just a general scenario of a widow or a divorcee.

Emily: Yeah. I would say number one of most importance when you're working with a widow or a divorcee is the empathy piece. It's the understanding what they're dealing with and helping to calm the fear. There's a fear of, "Am I going to be okay? Will I run out of money? How am I ever going to understand all of this stuff that I'm left with?" And so, it's that empathy piece. But then simultaneously, behind the scenes, you've got to be also looking at the financial aspects. And it's the, okay, there's these stock options that are still out there, but they may have a shortened timeframe to exercise because they're ISOs. There's a lot of complexity that exists that you need to be looking at on the side and bringing to the widow or divorce's attention when they have the capacity to hear it and in a way that they have the capacity to hear it.

The Key Levers Where Emily Can Add Value For Executive Clients [36:24]

Michael: So now, bringing it full circle, you've continued in this corporate executives practice area throughout. So, when we talk today about helping clients with compensation planning and employment agreements and the rest, so now bring us up to speed. How does that work today? What do you actually do? What are you involved in? Tell us more about this element of the planning offering.

Emily: Sure. So, I'll tell you, one important thing we try to do is just advice and education for all of our clients, their families and our community in general. So, a big piece of this is, I don't have clients every day getting offered retirement packages or deciding to change careers, but a big piece of this is just we try to spend time educating the people around us so that they can make good decisions. Honestly, I didn't make good decisions. Coming out of school, I was just super happy to get a job in public accounting, yay me. I took my base salary, and I ran. And I never thought that I could say, "Hmm, maybe I should ask for $5,000 more, or maybe I should ask if they'll pay for this accreditation." I didn't leverage. And so, I think a big piece of this now is we have an education program that we've created to share with anybody who's willing to listen. And we team up with an attorney because I will say, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not giving legal advice on how to negotiate someone's compensation. That's where our lawyers that we team up with, that's where they come in. But we do this program...

Michael: When you just literally get to the legal fine print of exactly, how is this agreement written?

Emily: Absolutely. Absolutely. But what we're trying to do is just remind people of all of the things that they should be thinking about when they are, not only moving from one job to the next or losing a job, but really ultimately, the best time to plan is when you are starting out, when you're taking a new job, it's when you've got the most leverage. So, it is, let's educate people all along the way, regardless of where they are in their career. Because you never know when you're going to go start at a new company and they're going to tell you they're merging in three months and you may lose your job. And so, it's, what are the things you need to be thinking about? It is, what should your team look like if you find yourself in a situation? How do you build a team around you to ask the right questions and to ask for what you deserve?

And then it's, keep this in your back pocket for when you need it, for when your child needs it, for when your friend needs it. So, that's a big piece of how we leverage the executive compensation now in our practice, is just education.

Michael: So, can you explain a little bit more than what the educational program is? Is this a seminar? Is this a webinar? Is this a course? Is it an hour? Is it four hours? What's the thing? What's the educational program itself?

Emily: Yeah. So, it can be a little bit of all of those things. I did share with you and your team just recently, we have a link to a program we did actually for Crain's Cleveland, a takeaway piece where we just highlighted some things to consider or questions to answer. We do a program, it's called Pay, Perks & Parachutes. And essentially what it is we condense information that could be four hours, Michael, it could probably be a whole day, but we try to condense that into an hour where we're just highlighting things that you should consider, anything from how to look at your base salary, how to consider bonuses like retention bonuses or signing bonuses that you're offered, wow to look at equity based compensation, which is...

Michael: So, can you explain a little bit more of just, what do you actually cover in this Pay, Perks & Parachutes program?

Emily: Absolutely. So, I'll say first of all that my favorite pay-perks programs that we do is when we're teaming up with an attorney. And we've teamed up with multiple different employment attorneys. And so, we can take two different perspectives. I think you probably know this, Michael, that when you're giving advice, it's really valuable to have a team around you and people that can offer differing skill sets and differing perspectives. So, we actually take people through all of the aspects of a compensation package and things that they should be thinking about and looking for. And then we talk about some of the softer stuff as well. I'll say first of all, we encourage people that the best possible time to negotiate for yourself is always on your way in. You never have more leverage than on your way in. They want you, they're excited to hire you. They're willing, I think, to make some decisions to help you with your compensation. So that's the best time.

And again, also why I think talking about executive compensation is important throughout someone's lifecycle because they need to be ready for when the time comes to have these discussions. But we touch on everything from how to build a team to support you, because you need it. You can be a really smart CFO who understands all of the finances and is really deeply ingrained in all of the company's plans and knows them like the back of their hand, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be comfortable challenging or asking for what you deserve, or asking a question about one of the plans or something that you were offered.

I'll give an example. I work with a CFO, now retired, and this person was moving from job to job, and was about six months away from a restricted share vesting at the current company. And was looking at a new career, was offered a job. But in replacement for that, was offered a four-year cliff vest restricted share grant. And I just simply asked the question, "What happens if you go work there and you don't do anything wrong, but you and your boss just don't see eye to eye and you're not there in four years?" Well, poof, this restricted share vest is gone and, poof, the four-year cliff vest didn't vest, so it's gone too. And I got the, "Ooh gosh, I don't even know if I can negotiate that. I don't know." And I just felt it worth asking the question. And this person asked the question, and they actually built...this was a specific compensation grant that was being given upon acceptance of the employment, so it wasn't a normal grant. It was able to be negotiated. They did put a clause in case this person and the boss didn't see eye to eye two, three, four years down the road. And by the way, they didn't. And by the way, it was about $700,000 that this person would've lost had they not just asked the question. And that's really all it took.

Not that she wasn't smart enough, it was just fear. It was just, "Should I ask for this? Am I going to look greedy? Can I even ask for this?" But I think having a team around you that can be objective, even take one for the team, say, "Hey, if you're not comfortable asking, do you want to get me involved? I can ask the question."

Michael: I'm a neutral party. You can just say, "I was the aggravating financial advisor," if that conversation doesn't go well.

Emily: Exactly. Michael, I love being the aggravating financial advisor. Always throw me in those crosshairs. So, yeah, it worked out really well. And I think again, it's because there were objective people sitting in the table able to help her to make the right asks and ask the right questions. And as we dig deeper into the program, we literally go through just any and every type of compensation you could possibly consider. What does your base salary look like? There's not, generally, a lot of negotiation there, it's salary bands. But things like retention bonuses, how are they structured? When do you get them? Things like signing bonuses. "Ooh, we could use a signing bonus to replace that restricted share vest that you're giving up." So, there's some wiggle room and bonuses.

And then of course, we get into equity-based compensation and the uniqueness of those programs and what to look out for and what to consider. But then, really important and important for everybody, even people who aren't offered a stock option or restricted share, it's, what are those non-financial or not-as-obvious financial matters to consider? I'll never forget, I talked to a woman, I don't remember when it was, I just remember the conversation. And she was talking about the fact that in order to be in the profession she was in, she had to belong to a professional organization that cost her $80,000 a year. I was like, "Holy cow." Can you imagine how meaningful it is to make sure that your company is willing and able to support your move into their company with a designation that's going to cost you that much money, or an organization that's going to cost you that much money? So, it's thinking about all of those aspects. It's, "Hey, in order to be successful in your job, should you belong to a professional organization or a club or a business organization? And will the company step up and help you with that? Oh, and by the way, they probably have more leeway to step up and help you with that than they do to give you more base salary than the salary bans would offer." So, it's helping people to think through what seems like very basic things, but that they might not consider until it's too late. Until it's like, "Oh gosh, I made a jump and my health premium has cost way more, and my 401(k) match is a lot less. And dang it, they don't pay for my continuing ed."

Michael: I think it's an interesting point that...overgeneralizing a little, I find most clients, most people in general, if there's any level of, "I would like to negotiate for this new opportunity," the first thing most people look at is the salary. And as you've aptly noted, often that's the thing that companies have the least wiggle room on because they've got some salary brands, corporate structure that's very hard for them to navigate around. But signing bonuses, retention bonuses often have a lot more flexibility. Equity comp may or may not, depending on how standardized their grants are, but even just helping people understand the levers that your hiring manager can likely pull and the levers that are probably DOA, so you ask for things that there's a decent chance they can accommodate, is quite material in the discussion.

Emily: Absolutely.

Michael: So, is this the core of the advice work that you give here, and then, when a client has a particular situation with a particular employment agreement, that's when the attorney comes in to do the legal work? Or is there a layer of this that happens at the individual client level when a client has a specific planning circumstance? Because it sounds like this Pay Perks & Parachutes program is much more educational for people who may have the problem in the future, not, "Emily, I just got this offer and I literally need to hire you right now to figure this out?"

Emily: The bottom line is usually when someone gets an offer, it's a decision that needs to be made fast. And so, yes, you have to pretty quickly get a team in place to help you if you want, for example, to review, and you should, to review a contract that you're signing or a non-competition agreement that you're being asked to sign, etc. But I think it is typically then when the attorneys get involved, we have the good fortune of being involved all along the way and being more on the front end as financial advisors. But that's why I think bringing the attorney into the education part of it is so important because the client is having to make a quick decision. Am I going to hire an attorney? If so, who am I going to hire? What questions am I going to ask?

So, I love the fact that these attorneys have been willing to get involved in the educational side of it. Because I do think that long term, it's setting them up to have future client opportunity. And it's also setting our clients up to have someone they've met that they're confident in, that they can bring in, in a highly sensitive time in their life when they are making a decision and they have to do it quickly.

How Emily Approaches Serving A Client With A New Job Offer On The Table [50:02]

Michael: So, I don't know if you can give me an example. How does this play out when you've got a client in one of these situations in the moment? What do you do? Who does what? How deep do you get? What is too deep beyond scope for advisor? Can you just share more with us? How does this actually work when you get one of these opportunities?

Emily: Absolutely. So, just giving an example, we actually do have a client now who had come to one of our programs. It was before it was even called Pay Perks because it was called something else completely. But we've been doing this for a while, and she was making the decision to move into a different career and she just reached out and said, "I need some help and I need some advice." So, the first thing we did was just very basically and simply asked, "Can you please provide just any information that you have relative to the compensation you're receiving from your current job?" And we laundry list it out, "Here's all the things we want to know." It's a one-page list, very basic in Excel and it says, "What is your base salary? What is your annual bonus, etc.," and on down the line.

Michael: Can you take me through the details down the line? What are all the things that you asked for that some of us probably forget to ask for? Because we don't do this as regularly as you do.

Emily: Absolutely. I'm not looking at it at the moment, so I may miss some, but I'll give you the basics. It is base salary, it's bonus, it is what equity compensation do you have? Stock options, restricted shares. How do those vest? It is what is your 401(k) match? What benefits is your company providing in terms of education, continuing education, childcare, parking? What do your healthcare benefits cost? What do they look like? Do you have an HSA offered to you? So, you get the idea.

Michael: Yeah.

Emily: We're literally just going through every possible thing that could be a part of a compensation package for someone. And we're learning that, both for the old company, and that would all be readily accessible, and then for the new company, they may get just a very basic offer letter. So, then it's, "Okay, let's talk about the questions you're going to ask and how you're going to ask them? What information are you looking for? What specific questions do you have, and how do you position it in a way. And oh, by the way, when do you position it? When's the right time to be asking for this information?" And we literally do a side-by-side. The bottom line is, in the financial planning world, you're not always going for the most optimal financial decision in every case.

In some cases, there's emotional aspects, there's cultural aspects in terms of cultures of a company, for example. There's family aspects that need to be considered. And so, we want to look at, on paper, what are these financial aspects? And it becomes very clear and very apparent, which is the better financial package. And then you start to dig in a little bit and you start to think about those non-financial considerations. It's, "You're a rockstar at this existing company, you have lots of upside potential. You're willing to give this up. So, let's make sure that you have exponential growth potential on the other side." It's, "You've got all this family flexibility," or these days, a hybrid work schedule, "And in this new company, do you have that?"

So, then we're digging into the non-financial. Now, if at any point in the course of this, there's employment agreements, some cases there are, some cases there aren't. If there's non-competition agreements, non-solicit agreements, that's when I generally say, "I really think that we should have an attorney look at these. I am not an attorney. I'm not going to review these for the legalese and be able to make those kinds of recommendations, nor should I." So, if we're getting into some of that nitty-gritty as it relates to agreements, that's when I recommend, "Let's bring an attorney in." And whether they know one or not, we have enough really trusted employment attorney contacts. We know their personalities, we know how they do business. We have any number of people we can reach out to say, "We need you to step in." And they all know, on quick notice, "And talk with this client, review this document, be a part of..."

Michael: I'm assuming if you're an attorney that's used to helping people negotiate those, you're used to the fact, like, "I'm calling you on a Tuesday because I need to respond to my client..."

Emily: Tuesday night at 9:00.

Michael: Yeah.

Emily: Exactly. Yes.

Using Retainer-Based Fees For New Executive Clients In Transition [55:09]

Michael: Then a couple of questions I'm trying to clarify further how this fits the big picture. So, do you charge separately for doing an engagement around this? Or is it part and parcel for existing clients? How do you get compensated for the time and expertise in this?

Emily: So, we only charge essentially with two different types of approaches at Fairport. We either charge an annual retainer, billed quarterly, or a percentage of assets under management billed quarterly. In the case where we have an existing client and we're providing this kind of advice, I'm not going to say, "I'm on the clock. I'm going to charge you hourly for this extra or different advice that I'm giving you." I really look at this as, I've got with existing clients, a long-term trusted relationship with this client, and they need me most in these times of transition, whatever they might be, losing a spouse or getting a promotion, which you should negotiate or retiring, which you should also review and negotiate. They need us, and we offer that advice as a part of our engagements.

What I find with clients that are coming to us newly with these types of relationships, a lot of times we're jumping into it really quickly and saying, "Let's create an engagement. Let us help you and we'll build the fee based on what we're seeing." And so, it's this simultaneously, yes, I know we need to have an engagement in place. Yes, I know we need to start charging fees, but also most importantly, we need to be helping you and a part of your team. So, a retainer-based fee can sometimes really lend itself to that.

Michael: Because you're not quite sure what the scope and complexity is, but the time urgency is so high that saying "Well, send us all your stuff and let us review it and we'll come back to you with a quote in two weeks," that doesn't work because they don't have the time horizon.

Emily: Right. It's a simultaneous thing. It often does start with a retainer and may then evolve itself into an AUM relationship. If I'm talking to an executive that's making a transition decision, I am probably not going to say, "Well, before we do that, I need to look at all of your statements and I need to see what assets you have that we can manage." That's going to slow things down for them. It's taking the focus off of their main priority. So, being able to incorporate that retainer in and do this on a retainer-based fee, and then evolve the relationship over time as it makes sense, as you see what's out there, what they really need help with, what they value in terms of service, and then you can build your future fee from there.

Michael: So, what retainer fee... I'm just trying to understand neighborhood-wise, is this a $3,000 thing? Is this a $30,000 thing? What at least neighborhood of fee scope do you have to put in place to cover yourself to get fair value for your expertise?

Emily: I think it probably depends on the level of career that we're negotiating. If we're negotiating a high-level corporate executive career with lots of stock options and restricted shares and things like that to consider and focus on, it tends to be that, call it $10,000 to $12,000 annual fee billed quarterly as a place to start. We do work with emerging executives who their compensation plans maybe less complex. And so, those fees tend to range in the, call it $3,000 to $5,000 per year, billed quarterly. But again, this is shorter timeline. It's that negotiating it, getting them into the jobs, starting to familiarize with the benefits. And what we tend to find is once we dig in more deeply, then the fee evolves pretty quickly to looking different.

Michael: Either there's a whole bunch of other planning working complexity and now the fee adjusts accordingly, or it turns out there's a lot of assets and other things that they need help with, and this converts into an AUM relationship. It only takes so long to figure out where it's going next from there.

Emily: That is true.

Executive Compensation Planning As A Standalone Service And Prospecting Opportunity [59:45]

Michael: Okay. So, I guess I'm also just trying to visualize a little more broadly around, I don't know, the context here. So, would you characterize this, is this a service? Is this a value-added service for existing clients? Is this a primarily a prospecting opportunity at the end of the day? Because you get introduced to new clients at a moment of transition when they tend to need a lot of help and be open to new relationship. How do you think about it on that spectrum? Is this a value add to existing? Is this a new client prospecting? Is it some of each?

Emily: It's a little bit of both. And I think if you were to ask our marketing, for example, these programs are awesome for many reasons, because it does put us in front of new people. It puts us in front of hiring managers. It puts us in front of corporate executives that we don't already work with. And we're offering information. When we have these programs, we're not trying to sell people. We are truly saying, we want to educate the public because we want people to make good decisions. Decisions we may not have made for ourselves, by the way. But it can be a great marketing tool.

Michael: I guess they're not necessarily even at a time of decision. Presumably, they could at least be close-ish to one. Otherwise, you probably just don't go and hang out for an hour session on Pay and Perks if you're not maybe anticipating a negotiating moment at some point in your career. It sounds like they're not necessarily in their moment of transition. The whole context is, you're getting pre-educated because this may come up for you in the future.

Emily: For you, for your kids, for your sister. And that's the thing, we've gotten a number of referrals out of these programs because I went to this program and then a month later, a year later, this happened to my sister and I'm like, "Okay, here's the people you call." So, I think in that way, it is marketing. But I will say, my most profound and impactful stories that I have associated with this are clients. It's clients that we work with and they trust us already. It's like they don't have to necessarily get up to speed with us and decide, "Do I like you? Do I trust you? Am I going to tell you all my deepest, darkest secrets?" Because they already do. But it's when they're going through this transition and things get scary or uncertain, and I'm here to tell you, they can get scary and uncertain whether it's, "I'm losing my job," or, "I'm taking on this significant new role and I'm not sure I'm going to make it. How am I going to do this?" Or it's, "I'm going into retirement and I'm fearful because this is the beginning of the rest of my life where I'm not earning income."

For us to be there, be a part of that transition discussion, to help, to be able to put a picture in front of them, that just gives them confidence and comfort that they will be okay. It's such a cementing moment in a client relationship. So, personally, I consider it more of a client tool because I can be there when they need me the most?

Michael: And becomes another one of those deep value-add moments beyond, "I talked to you off the investment ledge when you were thinking about selling out." Obviously, as you've noted just the dollar impact, again, if you're working with folks at a certain level of executive in the first place, the dollar impacts are very sizable, like, I can cover years or a decade of advisory fees in one really helpful negotiating moment on a compensation package.

Emily: There's no question about that. And I know from the program, because I did this math, even the little stuff is a big deal, especially when you're younger. I think I did the math that if you just negotiated $5,000 more in salary to start when you were in your 20s or 30s, by the time you're in your 60s, that amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional compensation. And so, it is financially very meaningful and it is, I think, relationally very meaningful. There's a lot of fear associated with these kinds of decisions, whether they're made by you or for you. So, having someone who's a sounding board who can even just listen and be empathetic, it's really important.

Michael: It's interesting to me as well when I think about it in the context of specializations that we can craft that...there's a subset of specializations that work well because the people have an ongoing specialized need. I know my friend whose niche is Chick-fil-A franchise owner. He can look at the P&L [Profit and Loss statement] of your franchise for 30 seconds and find a whole bunch of financial opportunity to run your franchise more effectively. And every year, he can review the books of his franchise clients and give them meaningful business advice. And then they run more profitable businesses and they accumulate more wealth and they become very good advisory clients. But it's a very ongoing continuous thing for him.

What fascinates me about this is that the moments that it crops up, it could literally be once every three, five, seven years that this crops up for a client. But it's so high impact when it does, it's still got a body of specialized knowledge and capabilities that it's very, very meaningful and not everybody necessarily has the depth or capacity to do it well, or the network of employment attorneys that I can introduce you to who are really good and can help you solve this in 48 hours because your offer letter is due Friday. It's very infrequent when it comes up, but it's so high impact when it does that it works very well even though the other 99% of the time it's "normal" financial planning for normal clients to just have all the normal stuff that we help them with as clients.

Emily: Yeah. And keeping in mind that even though maybe someone losing their job isn't as common in a client base, all of the points of transition, and this is what we try to encourage clients to remember, they're all pivot points to be thoughtful and considerate and looking at your compensation and the emotional aspects of a change. And so, that we do see a lot more frequently. We'll see people as they enter into retirement, you have these kinds of discussions in an evolved way, as they get a promotion or take a sideways, lateral move in a job, you're considering all these things, you're still tackling this maybe just in a slightly different way.

So, we see it not super infrequently, but you're right, it's not as common. I'm not seeing somebody making a job transition once a month. That is just not something we see. But then you can also just say, all of the things that we've learned along the way to help someone manage their compensation in a transition, well, we should be employing that and helping people manage their compensation just during normal life. And a lot of people, unless they're lucky enough to be retired, they have careers and it's, how can we be looking at your compensation package and making good decisions every day to get you to where you're ultimately trying to be?

Delivering Educational Content For Prospective Executive Clients And Partners [1:08:01]

Michael: Now, I am fascinated by this from the marketing perspective as well because it does sound like... I'm sure some clients show up if they're interested, but it sounds like the Pay Perks & Parachutes program that you're doing is more oriented towards people who don't already work with you than the ones who do. So, you're meeting executives, you're meeting HR people and so forth. So I guess I want to understand a little bit more of that program. Is this an in-person seminar? Is this a webinar? How do you deliver it?

Emily: We've done both. And especially if you think back to those COVID years when we had to do everything via webinar, we started to do this a lot more in a webinar form. We've done it for Crain's Cleveland in a webinar form. I will say I find that the in-person, it's just more high-touch with people. You get people in that room, to your point, oftentimes they're not clients. They may be hiring managers trying to make good decisions about how to build compensation programs, or they may be people just in their careers looking to make good decisions. You can really dig deep. People interrupt in the middle of the program and ask questions and we encourage it because they may take us down a completely different path than we would've normally gone down.

We have a program, we have slides, but we've done this enough that for us, when we see the audience in the room, if we know that it happens to be more people that are doing the hiring, we're going to tailor how we approach this topic to them, to what's important to them. If it's the people being hired and they're emerging executives, they're probably going to be more interested in some topics than others. They may not even be getting granted stock options or restricted shares yet. So, why dig too deeply on that? So, it is often a very diverse audience of different people at different levels of their career, and we try to focus the program to them. And if we're in person, they're more inclined to ask questions and take us down a cool path. And we want to follow people down those cool paths because it's those real-life experiences that may bring you to a point in discussion that you wouldn't have even thought of as you were flipping through your slides.

Michael: And how do you promote these? How do you promote the program to get people in the room or on the webinar if it's virtual? How do you promote it to get a turnout?

Emily: Michael, that is still a work in progress. I think something we giggle about in the practice. We do a lot of programming. We do a lot of what I think is extremely good programming, and butts in seats is what we call it.

But it's hard sometimes to get people to programs, I would say, especially post-COVID and people aren't as used to that. But we just try to make sure we're communicating through a lot of different channels, our existing clients, people that we know. For example, you can look at Crain's people on the move and see who's moving around in their career and say, "Hey, they might be really interested in this." We recently were a part of the Smart Business Dealmakers program and we met a lot of great people at that program and we made sure to let them know that we have upcoming events. So, we're just trying in our various channels to make sure that as many people as possible know about the programming we do. Because we really just want to educate our communities so that they can be better and do more in their careers and with their human capital.

Michael: So, what's a good turnout for you?

Emily: Actually, a smaller turnout. I really love it when we've got say 25 guests in the room, because it's less intimidating and you get more engagement, and you have more time for engagement. When we have a really big crowd, I think people tend to ask less questions. But I love the aspect where we can talk through specific examples and, "Hey, I went through this, how would you deal with it? Or, "Hey, my sister said that, how would you advise her?" So, I tend to small group environment. We usually put the tables in a circle so that everyone's looking at one another and can engage with one another, and make it more comfortable for people to share experiences and stories and fears and challenges.

Michael: Because it does strike me at the end of the day that from...you said a lot of the value here is for existing clients and their moments of need, but it does feel like a phenomenally good prospecting tool simply because it takes a lot to get someone to say, "Now's the point that I'm actually going to get a financial advisor." Lots of people are like, "I know I need an advisor, I'll get to it someday." And someday procrastinates indefinitely. Often, it takes some kind of transition or other events it does to get people off their backside and say "Okay, today's the day I'm going to get a financial advisor because dah, dah, dah," whatever the triggering event is. And this is a phenomenally powerful triggering event. This is, "I'm making a change and there's a whole bunch of compensation dollars at stake." That is very much the kind of thing that gets someone who has not gotten around to hiring an advisor to actually get in the room to work with you.

Emily: It is, and it's also one of the most formative times to actually build a relationship with someone and show them you're looking out for their best interests and the value-add that you provide. So, I'm not here to say it is... I think it is a very good prospecting tool. I think just for me, some of my most meaningful moments are, I have these people that I've grown up with and worked with for 25 years and I'm able to help them. That's a pretty awesome feeling.

What's Surprised Emily The Most On Her Advisor Journey [1:14:25]

Michael: So, as you now reflect on this journey, what surprised you the most about the path of building a practice that has so much focus around corporate executives? It sounds like you've been on a version of this path since the '90s in...

Emily: That's fair to think, though.

Michael: ...in various iterations.

Emily: I would say this much. The thing probably that surprises me the most is there's a lot of people out there that are really smart and cool. You and I talked about the iceberg illusion of success and you see all the stuff on the surface like, "Oh wow, this woman is a CFO of our large Fortune 500 company. She knows it all. She gets it." And then when you start to get to know these people, you realize, she started out working in back office, she's also had imposter syndrome in her career along the way. It's getting to know these clients that look so untouchable and you get to see the vulnerability that we all have lots of things below the surface. We have that fear, are we good enough? Are we smart enough? Are we going to make the right decision? And it's comforting to know that you're not the only one out there that questions whether or not you deserve the success you've had or you're going to keep having it.

The Low Point On Emily's Journey [1:15:57]

Michael: Interesting. So, what was the low point for you on this journey?

Emily: That's a tricky one. I can assure you, I've had many low points. Some of them are emotional, so I hope I don't get chokey about this. But I think for me, one of the low points, and it's going to sound weird, so I'm going to have to give you a little background on it, but it was probably about seven to ten years ago. I was invited to be a part of a team that explored EOS. I'm guessing you might be familiar with it, Michael.

Michael: Yeah.

Emily: Entrepreneurial operating system, and using EOS in our business. And I was like, "Cool, I'm jumping at this. This sounds super interesting." And it was. By way of that, I accidentally fell into a leadership role within my practice. And when I say accidentally, you know all the stuff I talked about where it's like negotiate for yourself, think about the path ahead, what does this look like for you? In EOS terms, do you get it, want it, have the capacity to do it? Well, I don't know that I got it. I told everyone I wasn't sure I wanted it. And I definitely knew I didn't have the capacity to do it, but I fell into it anyway. So, I did what I counsel people not to do. And I'll say this much, it was humbling.

I am a part of our management team. I'm excited to be a part of our leadership, but that was a painful point in my career because I was trying to juggle everything well, and I got to the point where I felt like I'm not doing anything well. It's just like falling apart. I don't feel like my client service is up to the status that it should be. I don't feel like I am doing enough, being strategic enough on the leadership side of things. And I kind of retired or I guess some might say I was booted. It depends on your vantage point and how you were looking at it. But I walked away feeling like maybe I had lost some respect that I had. Peers who I had worked with for a long time that were like, "Why would she ever take that? She was spread too thin." I felt like maybe I had clients who were like, "Wow, she was really distracted from the client service." So, that was a tough time.

I walked away pretty confidently saying, "I know I'm not doing this well and it's time for me to walk away." But then getting a year out or two years out, I realized I still had a lot of respect to rebuild. And I think it would've been very easy for me to just…head in the sand, sneak off, go find another advisory position at another practice so that people don't remember that I wasn't always the best and most focused in that position, but I didn't. I stuck it out, rebuilt relationships that I thought I needed to rebuild, built new relationships with people I just hadn't gotten to know well enough. And I'm here, and I feel really good again. I was like, "My star was rising going into that and I felt like my star fell a little bit and now I feel like my star is rising again." So, that was tough, but it was good learning experience, worth it.

Michael: I'm fascinated to hear more about what it was like to just come to the table or come to the people and say, "I took this expanded leadership role in the practice. Can we please undo that? I want to stay, but can I please not be in this seat anymore?" Because that's a really hard thing. I know a lot of folks that have gravitated in positions that weren't a good fit, and then it was so awkward or uncomfortable to have to go back on that. They stayed until they were miserable and left the firm because that was still a more desirable path for them than going back to leadership and saying, "Can I get out of this leadership seat that I don't actually want after all." So, how did that work? How did that conversation go? How did you get to the point that you could navigate away from it and keep grace and dignity within the firm to continue...

Emily: Well, I won't say I kept grace and dignity the whole time, but I'll say, you know in the EOS there's an integrator. And I went to who was our integrator at the time, and they're running all the logistics and the process and high-level decision maker. And I did what I guess any good CPA or analytic would do. I had a laundry list of all of the meetings and all of the time that I had spent conducting meetings and running meetings and non-client-facing activities in just the last month. And I said, "Look, look, I'm trying to serve significant group of clients and I'm doing this and I'm not doing either one of them well, and I'm guessing you wouldn't disagree with me. I think I want to take a step back and focus on clients. I feel like I've lost traction with clients." I hadn't lost clients interestingly, but I felt like I had lost traction with them. "And I feel like I've gotten too far away from it. I also feel like I'm not serving this role the justice that it deserves. I'm not doing the justice that this role deserves. So, I would like to take a step back and completely remove myself from leadership and be purely client-focused."

And he was graceful and gracious about it and said, "Okay, I hear you." And it was soon thereafter that I exited the leadership team. And again, I can't say it was graceful, smooth, easy, seamless. There were times when I felt bad about myself, where I felt like, "Ooh, these colleagues that I've worked with for 20 years look at me differently. They may think I got booted. I asked to be removed, but I wasn't doing that great anyway. So, I probably should have been booted." All these crazy things go through your mind. So, it was a difficult, probably two-year period where, as much as anything, all of the noise in my head was creating a lot of negative for me, but also I think I had work to do to rebuild. But I just decided, "I have colleagues that I just totally love here, worked with them forever. I have clients. The clients that I work with here, I adore." I wasn't ready to walk away.

Emily's Advice For Her Younger Self And For Newer Advisors [1:23:10]

Michael: As I guess you reflect on this, either for the leadership transition or maybe just for the career journey overall, what do you know now you wish you could go back and tell you 20-something years ago when you were earlier stage in the career and still building? What do you know now you wish you could go back and tell you from then?

Emily: So, I'm not one who often looks back and says, "I want to do something differently." I take all of these mistakes, stutter steps, things like that in stride, and I say, "This is part of my journey. It's made me who I am. It's okay that this happened because I'm actually probably better for it." So, I don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about what I wish I knew. But I would say this much, it's alignment with what I said earlier. I've spent most of my career just wondering, am I good enough? Am I smart enough? Wow, I'm surrounded by these people that are back then much older than me, much smarter than me, further along in their career. Why are they willing to listen to me?

And I think it's simply because at the end of the day, they recognize you have an expertise and you're willing to listen, and you may think about things differently than them. And just having someone sitting alongside of you that certainly couldn't come in and do your job, but can sit there and hear what you have to say and understand what's important to you, and maybe help you to make some better decisions around your finances or around your career. So, I am okay, I'm enough. Doesn't mean I need to be as smart as those people, but just offering them a different perspective is really valuable.

Michael: So, any other advice you would give younger, newer advisors looking to come into the profession today as they navigate this in present tense?

Emily: Yes. So, for me, and I think you probably recognize this from some of the things we were talking about earlier, but people that mentored me, people that I grew up with in this profession have a huge impact. Whether that's me learning from clients, me learning from colleagues, former colleagues, they've had so much power in my career. But I moved slowly. I came in and I was like, I'm willing to roll up my sleeves and I'm going to do that account paperwork. I am going to schedule those meetings, make those phone calls, make myself an invaluable resource to my mentor, Greg, who I mentioned earlier, or to this client who is a high-level CEO.

I would encourage newer advisors not to be too impatient. If you're fortunate enough to have an opportunity like this where you're walking into a large practice with lots of tenured people, take the time to get to know them, how they do business. Ask them if you can sit in non-client meetings, help them prepare, anticipate what they need. That's not you dumbing yourself down, it's you just soaking up the golden nuggets that you can soak up that they've learned over the course of their career. I'm so thankful for where I've come in my career and I have a lot more to do, and it's because I try to be patient and not get ahead of myself and just really savor those learning moments along the way.

What Success Means To Emily [1:26:59]

Michael: I like that. I like that, "Soaking up the golden nugget opportunities." Good way to frame it. So, as we come to the end here, this is a podcast about success, and one of themes that always comes up is that that word success means very different things to different people. Sometimes it changes for us as we go through stages of our career. And so, you built this wonderfully successful practice with clients with millions of dollars of revenue and a well-established expertise. The business seems to be going very well now. How do you define success for yourself personally at this point?

Emily: So, for me, people are just always the center of my focus. Call me an empath or whatever you want to call me, but my success I feel like always hinges on how I make people feel, how I motivate them, how I impact them in their lives. So, I would say, for me, it's the success of building these long-term relationships with clients and I'm their trusted advisor. Heck, by this point, I may be their child's trusted advisor or in some cases, recently their grandchild's trusted advisor, and they're calling me for advice. On the kids' side, I've got three kids. I have two that are actually following in my footsteps. I'm getting a little choked up and I'm like, "This is really cool." Because I've not always been present, but they see what I do, they see the impact and they want to be what I was when I grew up. So, for me it's that. And I'm sorry that I got choked up, Michael.

Michael: Well, that's amazing. So, two are looking now to come into the business?

Emily: Yeah. And a third may just end up as that employment attorney we talked about because she's going to go to law school.

Michael: Well, you'll have the entire family team in place at that point. That's amazing.

Emily: Yeah. I could have the whole financial advisory team for you, corporate executives, just wait.

Michael: Well, it's amazing. Amazing. Well, thank you Emily for joining us on the "Financial Advisor Success" Podcast.

Emily: Thank you for having me.