Only Fee-Only
This podcast interviews fee-only financial planners to learn about how they are helping their clients and serving their specific niches.
Only Fee-Only
#106 - 4X Your Revenue with Hyper Focus on Exceptional Service - Tim and Alexis Woodward
Explore the journey of Tim and Alexis Woodward of Blend Wealth, where financial planning meets bookkeeping and accounting. Originally focused on blended families, they’ve expanded to support business owners by streamlining essential services into one integrated offering. In this episode, Tim and Alexis discuss how strategic partnerships and innovative thinking helped them turn challenges into opportunities for smoother client experiences.
Hear how they evolved from a lifestyle practice to a thriving boutique firm, driven by consistency and a strong focus on customer experience. They’ve built a network of loyal clients, embedding exceptional service into their daily operations—minimizing the need for constant prospecting and setting the foundation for sustainable growth.
Tim and Alexis also share the importance of personal development and building authentic relationships in the industry. Their story highlights the value of learning from experts and creative mentorships to overcome early obstacles. Plus, don’t miss insights into Blend Wealth’s latest marketing campaign and follow their journey on Instagram for more updates.
How's it going? Everyone, welcome back. This is the Only Fee Only podcast and we're excited to be welcoming back Tim and Alexis Woodward of Blend Wealth. They're a husband-wife duo who have created a planning practice and brought on bookkeeping and accounting services and have seen their revenue skyrocket. So this is a really cool conversation. They have so many great insights. Enjoy this episode with Tim and Alexis Woodward on the Only Fee Only podcast.
Speaker 2:How's it going everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Only Fee Only podcast. I'm Peter Chiravolo. I'm here with my co-host, brock Buckles. How's it going today, brock?
Speaker 1:Oh man, I feel like I'm dreaming. I don't want to wake up, I love it.
Speaker 2:I love it, and today we're very excited to have Alexis and Tim Woodward back on the show. They were on episode five and really happy to have them back on and see how much growth they've had. So, tim and Alexis, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thanks for having us back.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's such an honor to be here.
Speaker 2:Likewise so for those who don't know who you are.
Speaker 3:you want to give a quick overview of who you both are and who Blend Wealth serves. Sure yeah, tim Woodward, my wife, alexis Woodward. We started out just the two of us. Three years into business, we have four of us now, so we've added two other team members and we specialize in wealth management and accounting services, with the goal of helping everyone increase their profits and decrease their taxes by working together on an ongoing basis.
Speaker 1:That's a very good summary, tim. You have that down. That's really cool. I mean, it was cool because when we were starting, you guys were starting, you had this concentration on blended families and that's kind of evolved over time, which has been really cool to watch. I know we actually personally work with you guys, but what are some of the things that have changed and what are you guys still kind of doing as well?
Speaker 4:things that have changed, and what are you guys still kind of doing as well? Yeah, so when we started out working with blended families, what we really loved about blended families is that their situations were a little bit more complex, and as we started working with them, we got some blended families that were business owners, and they really started asking us for accounting services, bookkeeping services, and at the time, we were just referring out to a CPA, and the CPA was never meeting our expected level of service. Either their response times were slow or they were getting too full, and so we really wanted to bring that in house and focus on managing a business owner's entire financial life on the business and personal side.
Speaker 2:A business owner's entire financial life on the business and personal side. Yeah, yeah, that's so key. I mean what we're? Because a lot of financial coaches or business coaches teaching RIAs. There's some hesitation maybe to crossing into tax prep, tax planning. You know we're just financial planners. You know you guys want to touch on that a little bit and now, being on the other side, having added that service, what it's done for your business.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think those are reasonable responses. I mean, you do have a fiduciary duty and you do need to kind of stick in your lane of knowledge and if that's not your expertise, you need to raise your hand and say so. I think Alexis and I have always took the position like if we start hearing clients ask the same question over and over, maybe just like ignoring that is almost like swimming against the current. You know, like obviously that's a need they want and so let's not swim against the current, let's swim with it, let's find a way to do it. And in the early days we did try to seek out CPA partnerships to kind of fill that void for our clients. And things were just getting missed. And at the end of the day you have two firms with two objectives, right.
Speaker 3:And so we happened on this opportunity with Andrew Couch, who's our CPA, who he was launching his own firm, and we were looking to partner together. And when we realized we had the same worldview on how to serve clients, we're like, hey, I think one plus one is not two here, I think one plus one is like five. You know, there's some synergies here. Would you like to explore it? And we did, and that really allowed us to bring those services in-house to where we could have more control over the client experience, and it's really a win for us, it's a win, it's a win for the client. So now we can kind of quarterback that in-house. But I think you just have to start asking what, what, what would it look like if you said yes to this, instead of saying I don't have that competency, okay, great, I don't have to have that competency, I'm not a CPA, but how can we, how can we best address that for the client, so that next time that question gets asked we can say yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think that's a good point and I think that's something that Peter and I talked about when we were talking about bringing on the PNC stuff, because I was always the Peter has a lot of ideas right, he's the idea guy, like brings stuff to the table, which I love because it challenges me. I'm like wait, let 's really think about this before we implement it. But sometimes I need that push right. So it's a good balance. But you know, at first I'm like well, that's not what we do, that's not the service we bring, that's not the, and in the beginning we were like holy cow, this is a lot to learn. But then you start to slowly integrate it into your process and you're like, okay, this can actually work and we can create a service offering to where everything blends together and you know everything makes sense and it's just people like working with one individual and just like you guys. One of the things that we found, I think, when we were trying to refer it out, is number one no one's doing it nationwide for the most part, that we could find that was doing a really good job and kind of had good carriers everywhere, and then, if they were, it was like you just send them somebody and I don't hear back, or the client's. Like you know, we got an email once and we never, so there's no follow-up. So there really is something to bring in and really making sure that it fits the expectations that you guys hold at your REA as well as as in the bookkeeping kind of the tax base.
Speaker 3:Yep, absolutely. I mean, you've went through all this hard work to build a trusting relationship with your clients and they become raving fans. So if they want more out of you, just figure out, figure out how to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and let's talk a little bit about the adaptation of what you guys niche started as and how it's like moved too, because I think that's fascinating. The blended families was the big idea and I know that my wife and I actually got to celebrate with you guys the first night that we found out you guys are doing it, which was super cool, but you were like I remember having the conversation I think we might've been on the Modan or something doing a bike ride and you're like it's actually becoming more of a business owner thing. So congrats for picking a name that's very versatile and can be used for anything. Um, but how did that evolution kind of naturally happen and what's that been like? Kind of you know deciding to focus on that now.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think back to our first XYPN conference and we were really encouraged to just pick a niche, and that doesn't have to be your niche forever. I think it's really important like to pivot when you need to pivot. And it's not that blended families wasn't working, it was. It was just that we started to really love getting deep into the business owner situation. I think we were solving some of the same challenges for ourself and we were like wow, like it is really really fun to service these business owners who are like literally in our exact same situation as a business owner. And so we kind of just evolved and as soon as we started marketing our accounting services for business owners, we have 4x'd our firm within the last year, which has just been amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's been a huge blessing.
Speaker 2:Yeah not even 2x'd, 4x'd. We love it. So, on top of just additional services, I really want to pick your brain actually, Alexis, because I know you're the marketing wizard. How has marketing evolved since you started? I mean, you've been in business now over two years. How has that started? How's it going and like what are your thoughts on marketing?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we. We just hired a fractional CMO who we're going to be partnering with, so you're going to see a lot more changes, yeah hopefully a lot more changes from us, but really our goal has just been to be consistent and post every day whether it's a tweet that we're sharing on our social media, a video, a reel, whatever it is just pick one thing and do it every day and just keep staying top of mind to our network. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 3:Oh, go ahead. Brock, if you had something.
Speaker 1:No, you're good man. I was just going to say I feel like that's the biggest thing, because in the beginning I started putting out videos very early on in the BC brokerage and then it got to the point to where it was like now it feels like weird if I don't. It feels like I missed a workout or I didn't eat a meal or something Like. If I don't post that content, it almost feels weird. But but I think the biggest thing in the beginning is getting the momentum and the wherewithal to be like all right, I have to do this every day and it's like a habit, it's like anything else right. Once you get used to it, it's a lot easier to do.
Speaker 1:But in the beginning it's like well, what am I going to say? What am I going to post? How do I want to post? Do I copyright or am I going to do? Really well, no one watches or cares about. It seems like right, based on the impressions. And then the stuff that I'm like well, that's stupid, but that's my content for today. It's like oh, it got 50 or 60 likes, so you never known it. The consistency, I feel like, is really the piece that a lot of people don't nail down on, so good for you guys on that.
Speaker 4:Right. It's such a long-term play to building a brand and you guys have done such a good job at that. Even just the improvement on your videos since you first started has been really, really amazing to watch. So kudos to you guys.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Thank you. So going forward. What do you see BlendWealth turning into right? I mean, you always hear Michael Kitsis talk about a solo firm. I guess solo being you too, it would always kind of be more than solo. But if you will, a small firm Growing into now like a boutique-sized firm where you guys have brought on accounting and more team members, when do you guys see BlendWealth going?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we have failed as a lifestyle practice.
Speaker 3:um, I have to, I have to confess, like that that was the dream and we failed at it, and that's okay. Um, because we are having so much fun that, um, when we just started growing and growing growing, I kind of said to alexis like hey, we're at the fork in the road, like we need to make a decision left, we stay, lifestyle practice, right, we keep going. Um, what do we want to do? There's no right or wrong answers and we just decided we would go right, we would, we would just keep growing. And so we've added two more team members. We will probably add another two team members here in 2025. And I don't know, the goal on the goal on the whiteboard right now is 10 million in revenue. So we just kind of pegged a high mark. I don't know if we'll get there, I don't know when we'll get there, but that's the mark right now is 10 million in revenue.
Speaker 1:Well, I'd say that's a great mark, tim. I think you're going to be very happy and potentially pursue a passion in flying and some other things you want to do if you hit that 10 million in revenue mark. Tim is an aspiring pilot for all of you listening. But, yeah, no, that's so cool and I mean, I think that you have to do that and I think the big thing is it's just like, what are you doing on a daily basis to slowly move your way forward? Right, pete and I were just talking about that the other day and goals.
Speaker 1:When you break it down, it's not like you're not going to hit 10 million tomorrow, right, but what do I have to do today to win the day? And then, if I win the day seven days in a row, I win the week 52 weeks a year. I win the year, right, but people don't understand how much that compounds and I think it's so easy for new advisors to not understand that it does compound and eventually you're going to get there. Like I know, right now it feels like you're beating your head off of a desk and you're just like, where are my clients going to come from? But like, people talk, people do good work. I'm sure there's been experiences where you guys work with someone and then they tell their friends about you and then now you work with their friends too, right? So how have you felt that kind of compounding effect being being that you guys 4X literally in the last year?
Speaker 3:Right, I don't think I'm a good content creator. I'll just say like that's, that's a weakness for me. I'm, I'm, I'm very binary. It's ones and zeros, like that's. That's how my engineering brain works.
Speaker 3:And so there is a hundred different ways to be successful at marketing, and one of the things I knew I was passionate about was client service from the get go, and it is a slow marketing play, but we are at the point, three years in, we've got so many clients and we have serviced them so well that we now have raving fans and I probably have not done any legitimate prospecting for 12 months. Like every week, I'm getting appointments automatically booked. I woke up this morning. There's two more appointments on the calendar. I had no idea who these people are. I haven't talked to them. So, like you can build the engine however you want. Like you could cold call, you can blog. You can build the engine however you want. You can cold call, you can blog, you can vlog, you can podcast. But we have just found excellence in customer service is paying very big dividends for us right now.
Speaker 4:That and, I think, honing in our service offerings too and not being afraid to invest in personal development. So we have spent over $25,000 this year on paid courses, certifications, different things to really dial in our knowledge and expand our knowledge and to therefore dial in our service offerings to really serve the business owners that we want to target typically between one and 5 million of revenue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean let's let's, let's dig down on that though. Like, let's think about that. So a lot of people like, if you're on LinkedIn, everybody's coming at you every left, every left and right, like we could 10 extra revenue next year. Like, how are you guys Cause I know that when people, when you say that people are automatically thinking who are the right people to pay $25,000 to, or like what are the? How should we divvy it up? So what kind of like personal growth or business growth places have you decided to kind of pursue and get use out of those?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can tell you, this idea started with, actually, the photographer and videographer for our wedding and we were just talking to them because we got married in the Rocky Mountains, so we were hiking with them and doing these adventure sessions. Like how did you guys get so good at this? And they're like I'm a paramedic, you know, was the husband kind of saying that? And he's like I just really had a passion for this and I found someone online who was the best videographer and photographer I could find. They were in California. I contacted them and I said how much is it to like I come out there for X amount of days and you teach me everything you know, tell me what camera to buy and everything? And that person put it, put a dollar amount to it and it was I won't say it here cause I don't have their permission but like it was not cheap and the guy paid it and he, if you go on his website, he's one of the best video. The guy that did our wedding is one of the best videographers.
Speaker 3:So we had a couple of challenges with business owners when people were starting to ask for these services that we didn't know and Andrew, our CPA partner, did not know, and so I went to some people. So this strategy will work for you, regardless of who it is. But I found some people that I thought were killing at this game and I called them. It's like, what is it for your service? And it was not cheap Like we're talking 10,000 plus for some of the people I spoke with and I paid it and I got concise knowledge very quickly and I immediately rolled it into new business. I had one particular prospect who's our largest client now? And that's exactly the strategy I did is I paid someone to teach it to me in a very concise way and then I went out and executed on it, and so I think you know, think about these creative ways. It doesn't need to be a conference or a webinar, of course, like there are people who would love to mentor you and if you can make it a win, win for them.
Speaker 2:All the better for everyone. Yeah, investing yourself is huge, and I think that's such a hesitation that people have. Is investing in themselves, right? They think they want to spend money on paid advertising. Well, it's like how about look in the mirror, take an audit of your skills and then refine those skills?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think Elon Musk said you are paid in proportion to the problems you solve, and the more problems you can solve for people, the more money you will make.
Speaker 1:And that guy's going to send people to Mars, so we should probably listen to him.
Speaker 3:He's solving some big problems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's true, it is true. And I mean like, yeah, I mean it's crazy to think that people are hesitant to do it because, like well, I'm like I got to keep my money in my chest, I got to do this. It's like okay this. It's like okay, fine, like, if you're happy being where you are, then continue to do the things that you're doing now. If you want to grow, then invest in that and see what it looks like.
Speaker 1:And you know a lot of a lot of people to that point will sit down with you for 30 minutes, like I know a really top level financial planners that will. They even open up their calendar once a week. So, if you don't have the money to do it right now, reach out to somebody and ask you to do it right now. Reach out to somebody and ask you know, the worst thing that can happen is if you ask and they don't want to do it, as they tell you no, and it's like it might hurt your ego for a second. But if they say yes, think about what you can get in 30 minutes from somebody that's amazing at this and what they do Right.
Speaker 3:So that's, I love that you guys said that that's really cool, it is, and if so, like if you're in that community, I mean you're. I don't want to say you're guaranteed yes, but you're almost guaranteed yes. Someone will, either for paid engagement or for free, help you along the way. Like everyone wants to share the knowledge and the speed bumps they've had to go over so you can get over them quicker and faster.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Not to mention quite a bit. Yeah, you guys do, and I was getting Not to mention if you just sit in the Facebook group for long enough, like someone would be like I have a client I'm trying to give away.
Speaker 4:Like you just have to be vigilant.
Speaker 1:I mean, it really is that simple. So what advice would you guys have for an advisor that's just now starting? They have no idea how they're going to build this thing. They're just like you know. Obviously, you guys come from a financial planning background. This is not the first thing that you did.
Speaker 1:You had a knowledge about financial planning before you started your firm Right, but say that somebody just left Charles Schwab or a company like that, and they're like I'm going to start my REA, I'm signing up with XYPN, you know my firm's going to be up in a month or two. What, what would you say to them?
Speaker 4:in a month or two, what would you say? To them 90% of your time needs to be spent getting clients and prospecting. I mean because you need an income so you're swimming as fast as you can to get clients, and then your focus needs. Once you get some clients, the focus needs to be to service them very, very, very well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think a lot of times people kind of lose it on the expenses. They think if I go, if I go buy the wardrobe, if I go buy the expensive website, if I go buy a business phone line or a 1-800 number, you know the fancy business cards like, then it will come and it doesn't like it. Really. There's no good way around it. You have to go business development and for me it's. It's not natural to me, but I'll share just testimony of faith. I think Jesus is the best marketing officer ever. One guy created a whole religion of billions of people. I mean that's successful marketing.
Speaker 3:And so my analogy for people when I kind of talk to younger advisors is hey, every time you meet with someone, do not try to close them. That is not your client. You just come off very salesy, it's very inauthentic. Do not try to go out and contact people and make clients, try to make disciples of them. Go out, be genuinely interested in what they're doing and see if there's something in your network that can help them succeed.
Speaker 3:And while you are asking them about their story and what you may be able to do for them, most people were reciprocating Now tell me your story, what can I do for you? And then that person walks away. They don't feel sold. They feel like they have a good understanding of what Tim and Alexis Woodward do, and you have a good understanding of, like, what Brock and Peter do. And we both walk away from the conversation having felt like we gained something like some knowledge about the other person.
Speaker 3:And now we go, live our lives and we bump into someone and I'm like hey, man, you need, you need life insurance. Hey, it's Brock and Peter. Like I know their story, like I've talked to them. I had, I had coffee with them a month ago. Let me send you over here. Oh, you need some financial help, you need some accounting help, tim. I talked to him like three months ago at the cafe, like let me send you to him and you'll just realize how that will expand by just having this discipleship conversations instead of, like ABC always be closing everyone. You know.
Speaker 4:That's really what we focused on when we were meeting with people, when we first launched just trying to tell people as many people as possible what we were doing. We were not focused on selling them, but focused on creating disciples. What we were doing, we were not focused on selling them but focused on creating disciples.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Just go make relationships, keep costs low and then, after you get to salary replacement, you can come back behind and spend whatever you want to redo that website, to get the business phone line, to get the better computer you know, to hire this out, to hire compliance out. Like you have time to do that later, but right now go make relationships.
Speaker 2:Yeah, stay afloat, stay afloat.
Speaker 3:Any other golden nuggets that you guys are thinking about sharing before you came on?
Speaker 3:here Any other golden nuggets. You shared a lot of gold. But if you have anything else, yeah, I'll say this and you can cut out the gap there. But I'll say this you have to be obsessed. Like, if you're going to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be obsessed with what you're doing. This is not despite the CFP board ads. This is not sitting in a bubble bath or eating a burrito or anything like that.
Speaker 3:Like, I say that jokingly, but I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression that entrepreneurship is easy. Those first few years, like, it's seven days a week and I have been obsessedly. But I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression that entrepreneurship is easy though for a few years it's seven days a week and I have been obsessed with hey, how can I make this workflow better? How can I, for the same price that the market charges, put more value into my service than some other big box advisory or CPA firm down the chain? Everything I'm micro-analyzing, I'm obsessed over it.
Speaker 3:And watching YouTube videos on, I don't know should I use ring central? Should I use open phone? Like you know, every decision I'm intentional about. I'm not just throwing money at things, uh, kind of willy nilly that you know, I just think I'll spend it in a come. Like I'm very focused, I'm very intentional on the problem I'm trying to solve and if you will just solve one problem a day or half a problem a day and keep making that forward progress by staying laser focused there, like you will succeed. You will.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. As, as Jessica Stelly once said, he's like you know what, when you get a bunch of clients, you're doing all that. You can kind of decide what you want to do, but in the beginning it's by all means necessary, and you better be ready to grind, or else you're going to be looking for a job um not owning a business so everyone that comes your way.
Speaker 3:You need to find a way to work with them.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Well, I don't want to say it, but I absolutely knew this was going to be a killer podcast. So, um, we appreciate you guys coming on. It's always great to talk to you too. For people that want to follow along with blends, blend wealth amazing new marketing campaign. How can they do that?
Speaker 4:Follow us at BlendWealth on.
Speaker 2:Instagram. I love it, we love it.
Speaker 1:Go ahead, pete, shut us down.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 4:Thank you guys, thank you guys.
Speaker 2:See you guys.