The Advanced Financial Planner - Season 1 | Episode 2: David Miller Interviews Diane Dekanic

On today’s episode, we will be interviewing Diane Dekanic, fellow R.F.P. and owner of Financial Health Management, on why she became a Registered Financial Planner, the differences between a Financial Planner and a Financial Advisor, and the consequences the wrong choice may have for consumers, and the merits of having an R.F.P. designation.

Transcript

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David Miller  0:03  
Okay, thank you, Diane Dekanic for joining me today on a Friday afternoon. How are you doing today?

Diane Dekanic  0:09  
I'm doing well, thank you so much for inviting me to join you.

David Miller  0:13  
Absolutely. Very excited to have you on board. And very excited to hear your story. The first thing I'd obviously like to do is understand a little bit more about you your history. How and why did you become a financial planner, Diane?

Diane Dekanic  0:29  
Oh, we're going back Oh, when unicorns used to roam the earth. I used to work for a company called royal trust. And in the mid 80s, several organizations, including world trust started fee only financial planning groups. And I just found it really fascinating to see how everything knits together. So I've always seen financial planning very much as a chess game. Or, you know, one of those 1000 piece puzzles. And I really enjoyed the fact that we can look at an individual and really put their world together for them, find out what they were, you know, maybe missing in that sort of stuff. So I've been a financial planner, with my CFP longer than I hate to admit. Um, 

David Miller  1:26  
well, you've owned your company for 26 years. When did you start with royal trust? Obviously before that, and how did you fall into royal trust? What made you want to join the Trust Company?

Diane Dekanic  1:37  
It was more by accident than good planning. Like many people in the early 1980s we hopped in the car arrived in Calgary and found the first job I could get because there were really no jobs anywhere else. And I start with royal trust and their real estate division. Hmm. But I, I really found the the, at the time the branch network which looked like a bank, but really wasn't a bank. All the things that happen there and I found it really fascinating to work with people's personal finances. And so everything was really more by accident than good planning.

David Miller  2:23  
Yeah. So did you do your CFP through the bank? Or was that after you kind of fell 

Diane Dekanic  2:28  
No, I took my CFP, enter the old Canadian Institute of financial planners, I have to let everybody know I was six and a child prodigy when I started. started adding the numbers together. It's pretty scary. Um,

David Miller  2:44  
nobody's gonna do that.

Diane Dekanic  2:45  
But yeah, I mean, I started in the branch level mutual funds. You know, gic is all those kinds of things. And Len Rave had started a financial planning group here in in Calgary. And there were some openings, join them. And the rest is history. I've just I've, it's my passion. And I just adore.

David Miller  3:10  
Yeah, so you and Russell Todd have known each other for a long time. Right.

Diane Dekanic  3:13  
That's what I used to be in pensions at that time. And, and stuff. So yeah, we both go back to those original original days. So I think we had a fee only Financial Planning Department starting 1985. Wow. And I joined I think in 89 or 90, somewhere around there, right? But I did my CFP. And then of course, after that you were there was an absolute requirement to do the RFP. And that, again, was with the Canadian Association of financial planners. Then when, you know, the US designation of CFP was challenging the Canadian one for using the letters incorrectly. The new program came into being and by then I had, you know, they just grandfathered all of your, your courses and stuff. 

David Miller  4:12  
Yeah, and this is why I love doing this. I'm getting to know the history of the IAFP the CFP, I was born in 1983. So, the 1985 that use that rule just started when I was two years old. So now obviously I became an RFP just four years ago. So I'm new into this. So hearing the history is great. So thank you, Diane.

Diane Dekanic  4:35  
And, you know, then of course with that, with the litigation that happened, that's kind of where the financial planning Standards Council came in. Right. Um, and the designation of the RFP was spun off into the IAFP. The Institute for Advanced financial planning but before it was was all under kind of one roof, not because of the legislation, it had to be separated. So, yeah, I can't quite remember when I got my RFP, but I think it was around 1992. Right. Um, ish.

David Miller  5:18  
So when did you leave royal trust and what the cost

Diane Dekanic  5:21  
1995. Okay. So what had happened is Royal Bank acquired us, and they really didn't understand the role that financial planning played in terms of the marketplace. And their decision was we're not in the business of financial planning. So all of the groups across Canada, were given a severance package, or, you know, you had an opportunity to stay within the, within the bank. But I, I really, really wanted to do planning, so I thought this might be a good opportunity to head off on my own.

David Miller  5:59  
Yeah, to be fair, the bank still doesn't really understand the value of planning, I used to be a planner at a big bank, and I was just a salesperson, because I was just selling products.

Diane Dekanic  6:09  
And that's, and that's the unfortunate part, I think, um, and, you know, I, I, personally, have always found that planning is so radically different from financial advising. And unfortunately, most people don't really understand the fact that it is very, very different. It's about how everything hangs together. Once you get everything hanging together properly, then you can do the implementation. And that's where the products come in, whether it's, you know, investment products, insurance, those kinds of things. So, you know, I've, I've always enjoyed putting the puzzle together for every client I have.

David Miller  6:57  
And so you started your own firm, I said about 26 years ago. Yeah, how did that come to be?

Diane Dekanic  7:06  
Um, I think go a long I wanted to, when the opportunity provided itself, I really wanted to go out on my own at some point. So I tried to prepare for that, you know, making sure I had my CFP, my RFP, I started my MBA, completed that just about 20 years ago, which doesn't seem like it's that long ago. And just got myself ready to go out on my own. And, you know, when you kind of get tapped on the shoulder, and they tell you, thank you for the good time, but we no longer require your services and here's a check. That was really kind of the buffer to say, Okay, let's give it a try. Right. And my family was incredibly supportive of it. And, you know, 26 years later, worse, I'm still in business. 

David Miller  8:06  
That's incredible. So what was the one big thing you'd say that helped you along your career to become a 26 year success story?

Diane Dekanic  8:16  
Oh, perseverance. You know, if anybody kind of knows me intimately. One of my friends calls me a pit bull with lipstick. So when I really, really, really want to do something, I can be really, really focused. And I loved every minute of everything I was doing. Right. So it's not been difficult. Yeah. Um, and I really kind of don't know what else to say is that it was my passion.

David Miller  8:58  
Okay, so there's not one specific person that pushed you along? Oh, no, there was no different this is all yours all

Diane Dekanic  9:04  
internal. Yeah, no, this is internal. I wanted to have an opportunity to see what I could do. on my own. I knew that I always had the opportunity. If I wanted to go back into you know, the, the normal financial world, I could. But I wanted to start something different and something new. Gotcha.

David Miller  9:30  
And so, can you tell me a little bit more about your current business and how did it grow and into becoming a success?

Diane Dekanic  9:38  
So as much as when you talk about planning, a lot of my life is more luck than get planning. Um, so when we left royal trust, we used to do a lot of downsizing work, you know, running workshops and those sorts of things. Yeah. And when that department shut down, there were a few clients who had approached me and said, you know, you knew that I had gone out on my own, if I wanted to take on the business that royal trust, no longer was doing. And so that was really I had some pre existing relationships. And it would have been, you know, just just a few and then had developed the self confidence to go out and market myself, which was really, really, really tough. Scary. But, you know, you got there, and the worst they can tell you is no. And so my clientele base it, you know, evolved completely differently from, from those first few years after royal trust. I would say probably until about 2005. My apologies. Well, that can be edited. Just, um, yeah, until about 2005. I would say that 70, maybe even as high as 80%. In some years, 90% of my income was derived from corporate corporations that paid me to work with, you know, conducting education courses, but predominantly people who got laid off, right. So there was one of our colleagues who used to call me the Sovereign of severance. And, yeah, today I stopped counting years ago, and that's well over 30,000 people I've worked with on the downsizing part

David Miller  11:50  
so it's an important field,

Diane Dekanic  11:53  
it is and should know what the interesting thing or the sad part is, that is not taught in our CFP course, no, it's a very highly specialized area in terms of understanding how things work, because the financial planning associated with that is about 180 degree turnaround from normal long term planning. So there were a few of us in Calgary, and I do have a couple of consultants now across the country that because of zoom, we no longer have to be resident in the same city. So what has happened as as a result of seeing all these people, it might be two years, it might be five years, it might be 10 years, all of a sudden, I'll get a call from somebody I'd worked with, and now they're ready for retirement or a new stage in their life. And so it's just kind of self perpetuated. You know, clientele coming in that I really don't advertise. And I haven't for, for well over a decade and a half. I'm sure.

David Miller  13:01  
That's incredible that you didn't, I wouldn't call it luck. It's about who you knew, through your royal trust days, and going forward into the various webinars and seminars, when not webinars back in the day seminars that you did that vaulted you to the severance programs. It's just incredible story. 

Diane Dekanic  13:23  
Yeah, and, you know, even even today, now, that, you know, I still we still do projects of 50 or 100. People easily, you know, delivering webinars, prior to COVID, of course, in person, seminars, workshops. And so I have such a wide variety of, of clients to work with. And so a lot of my work is kind of one off because of that, which is different than most relationships with that financial planners are looking at is that long term relationship. Yeah. But it comes back in a different way when people are ready for it, because they now know what fee for service is all about, as opposed to you know, how do you compare to other planners? Yeah, it's growing field, right? Oh, yeah, it is. Yeah. 

David Miller  14:21  
And so maybe just take me through a day in the life of Diane Dekanic. What do you what are you doing today? Is it the servicing one on ones that you're really passionate about? Are you closer to retiring? Are you closer to you wherever you want to be through a day?

Diane Dekanic  14:40  
Well, the interesting thing about doing or working downsizing projects is that you will get a call one or two weeks before it actually happens. And the call is we've got 200 people coming out on "x" day, right? So it's like okay, What do I have to say are the people that are coming that I need to put in place? Generally, if it's large groups like that we do webinars, because it's impossible to see that many people in, you know, a week to two weeks when most of them have to sign off their packages. So I have multiple kinds of, of typical days. Yeah, you know, if there's projects, it's you drop everything. And, um, you know, years ago, when I was a tad younger, I can easily do 12 hours a day meetings, one after another for clients. Sometimes right now, it's about eight to 10 hours of zoom calls, when we're really, really busy, but it's project oriented. So you know that there's a finite time of working those 12 14 hour days. So that's kind of one kind of typical day or month. The other would be tax season, because I do tax prep. And so March and April are a little bit different. And I typically don't take on private clients during that time. I will take on any career transition person because they have an immediate need to make some decisions. And then if I'm kind of looking at where I have a smattering of private clients coming through as some downsizing outside of their really busy tax season or project season, I would say my week is usually about half and half private clients. Yeah, the other half downsizing. So you know, every client is a huge surprise for me, because I have no idea. You know, what I'm really walking into? Yeah, well, it

David Miller  17:03  
sounds really almost fun in a way that you have a different day on a regular basis. But it does remind me of the regular financial planning planner problem, where the business does ebb and flow. We're in the middle of summer. So it is naturally a little slower with holidays and vacations that clients take. But it sounds like you've been filling your time, not with downtime, but working for the next project or waiting for the next thing to come through your door and you sound like you're still very, very busy. Are you gonna get some downtime? or? 

Diane Dekanic  17:38  
Yeah, I've learned, something I've learned is that when you're really really really busy, enjoy every minute, because it's not gonna last. And when you have downtime, enjoy it, because it's not going to last. And I think I've just been in the business long enough that, you know, what, if I don't have any bookings for the next week to 10 days, or you know, I have one or two, I no longer get bent out of shape and worried. And I've learned to take advantage of that downtime. Certainly, you know, in the earlier days of my business, I mean, that would just terrify me. Right. Um, but what I've learned is I can have a blank slate for the next two weeks and magically fills up. Yeah, no. 

David Miller  18:27  
So what your business cycle? How many years did it take to get to that point, would you say? When did you start feeling comfortable?

Diane Dekanic  18:37  
Before I would sleep at night, not worry, but I was talking about what I was missing? Mmm hmm. I would say get 10 or 15 years to be perfectly honest because I you know, I had my daughter, we had a young daughter going to, you know, high school University and that sort of stuff. So, um, lots of people that, you know, we're counting on me sort of thing. And, you know, when you have less responsibilities to other people or other things, it's easier to take the quiet time.

David Miller  19:21  
Right? Yeah, the stress of staying busy is something we as planners don't talk about, maybe enough. That's the mental aspect. I know. You're very thoughtful in that area. So what would ... I'm gonna switch gears a little bit here, but what would your best advice for a new planner coming up through the ranks? What would your best advice for them be? Oh, um,

Diane Dekanic  19:53  
have to think about that because the market has changed so much. But I I think people have to start being really, really comfortable with networking. Right? Right. Network, network, network. Um, and you know, if you have to do a few freebies fine. If you No, you have to come in with you know lower hourly cost to be attractive. I mean, there's a lot of things, but I think it's the networking that's most important to anybody.  I don't think even to this day, I don't start networking,

David Miller  20:37  
right. It's Yeah, it's all who you know, in this business in any business, really, that leads to you, you could call it luck. But things come down the pipeline, and it happens.

Diane Dekanic  20:51  
And it rains, when it rains. Of course. I think the thing that i a lot of self employed people who, you know, like, I don't have an office of five or 10 people, I, you know, I try and be organic in terms of I have a project we bring people in, and they go on their own. Yes ... I lost my thought.

David Miller  21:21  
No worries. Are you? Are you looking to bring on more people to help you with projects right now? Do you? Do you enjoy the training aspect, um,

Diane Dekanic  21:33  
I've got two in the background and doing some training, they're actually in many ways, one of the things I was thinking about doing is I am looking at developing another company. And it's been kind of on the back burner for 10 years. On an educational perspective. But I think even offering course to advisor slash planners, in our profession, is something I've actually been looking at. Because no matter where in this country, you are, people are always getting laid off. And they're going to go to their advisors or their bankers. And those folks know nothing about the dynamics of being laid off. And so I think there's a huge gap. And, you know, most financial planners, education, on how to help a person through a transition,

David Miller  22:33  
any specific tidbit you can give to our listeners right now? Hmm. What's one thing that we just don't know as even advanced planners that through your 26 years, you really recognized

Diane Dekanic  22:47  
how things are taxed. First and foremost, how you know how it's going to manifest through through people's financial world. So when you have an employee, and that's all they've ever known, they get their, you know, severance package and taxes taken off, and they are really quite ignorant of the fact that severance payments are not taxed the same as payroll. And then they go file their taxes. And guess what they've got a 10 or 20, or $30,000 tax bill, the next year that they're totally unprepared for. So understanding how these things are taxed is is really important to explain to individuals, and to really have a good handle of what the marginal tax brackets are in your own province. And again, depending upon the province, not only these your salary, and you know what wages, bonuses and all that stuff with your company, but you also lose your medical benefits. Yeah. And there's a real tight time constraint in terms of replacing that. And a lot of people again, you know, when when people get the package, they read the first two pages to see the numbers, but they don't normally read the rest of the stuff because they're, the emotions are so high. Yeah. And they don't realize that they might miss an opportunity to transition on to a personal plan. Suddenly life insurance if they don't have life insurance outside the company. They do have some, you know, convertibility, but in almost all cases in Canada with the exception, I think of RBC insurance, and I'm not plugging anything. They bought a company called Geodon, which bought a company called provident which allows you to port your disability insurance with you when you left your job. Whereas right now, anybody who loses their job the day they're gone their disability Yeah, huge rescue is gone. Yeah. So, you know, there's a lot of really critical pieces outside of the financial component to try and keep these people safe through transition.

David Miller  25:13  
Yeah, knock on wood, our transitionary period that we just went through, has stopped. I know that in Calgary, we've been even worse hit than most of the provinces. So it

Diane Dekanic  25:24  
hasn't stopped. I hate to tell you. It's not the hundreds of people that we saw last year in in 2020. I mean, it was like, I was getting calls for 100 to 200 people a month. Right. And I, you know, I'm just one person and what has happened with a lot of companies is transitional services have been commoditized. Right. And to save money, they have eliminated the financial component. Right.  you know, wrongly, I think, assuming that, uh, well, you know, everybody has a financial advisor or a banker they can go to not understanding that those people have never been trained. Yeah. And, in how to deal with how to keep people safe from point A to point B. Yeah, with your severance package.

David Miller  26:22  
No, it's a huge, huge benefit that you provide. So I know that everybody's gone through service really appreciates that. I'll switch gears a little bit here, just because we're running out of time. But we know why you joined the RFP or became an RFP, why is it still important to you to be an active member today?

Diane Dekanic  26:41  
Absolutely. I think my saddest part about about the IAFP is somehow we do not have enough of a reach

David Miller  26:55  
correct

Diane Dekanic  26:56  
people to be able to recognize that this is an advanced planning designation. And, you know, it took took a lot of work to, to get it at least when I, I did my RFP and I think it's still a lot of work today. Um, but I am. The greatest thing I find is this family and group of people that if you've come across something you have never come across before, you can pop a question out there, and someone out there has got an answer. And, um, you know that. that's invaluable.

David Miller  27:44  
Yeah. If you don't have a network built up, already have existing financial planners, and you're just getting into the business, what better benefit? Could you ever imagine? then having 300 or so of just amazing people, number one, and some of the smartest people in the planning industry? I'd say, to provide answers for it's been a huge resource for me personally, so

Diane Dekanic  28:08  
Oh, yeah, I think that, you know, that's phenomenal. And, and, again, I haven't paid as much attention, you know, to say, whether Asociates, you know, can have access to this or not, but somehow, you know, whether, whether the IAFP combines their efforts with another organization to get it out there because with Ontario, moving to stipulate who can call themselves a financial planner. And hopefully, the professional now evolved to say, these are planners, and, you know, these are advisors. Right. Um, that that secondary designation to me would be hugely valuable.

David Miller  28:59  
Yeah, I absolutely agree. It's a huge fight. It's a huge issue throughout the country. And it's an ongoing fight.

Diane Dekanic  29:09  
Yeah, no, I would I there's no way I would ever give up my RFP.

David Miller  29:13  
Yeah. Yeah, it may, it would make no sense. Anything else you'd like to bring up today, Diane, before we let you go?

Diane Dekanic  29:20  
Oh, I just hope everybody who might be listening who are CFPs, and looking at advancing their career, do that RFP because, gosh, you learned so much through that. And you can learn from those of us who have really crazy experiences and a whole lot of different places.

David Miller  29:44  
That's great advice. Thank you very, very much, Diane. You've been wonderful. We'll talk again very soon. Okay. 

Diane Dekanic  29:54  
You bet. Thanks, David.