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
#118 - Tips for Building a Consistent Online Presence with Rachael Camp
Rachael Camp, founder of Camp Wealth and host of the Becoming Work Optional podcast, shares her journey from the corporate world to building a thriving financial planning practice. She reveals how she leveraged Twitter and LinkedIn to grow her brand and client base, emphasizing consistency, engagement, and staying authentic in a crowded space.
She also breaks down the business side of financial advising from lead generation to relationship-building and explores the path to a work-optional lifestyle. If you are looking for insights on entrepreneurship, social media strategy, and financial independence, this episode is packed with practical advice.
Rachael’s Social:
X: camp_wealth
How's it going everyone, welcome back. This is the Only Fee Only podcast and, as always, thank you for being here. In this episode, we talked to Rachel Camp, who is the founder of Camp Wealth. She is the co-host of Becoming Work Optional podcast. She's helping people create lives where they can be work optional. It was awesome to talk to Rachel. She has built an incredible brand and an incredible following. She's super consistent, but also talks about how sometimes ideas don't always come that naturally and it's okay to feel that way, so I really appreciated her perspective. She had amazing tips throughout this entire episode, so enjoy this episode with Rachel Camp on the Only Fee Only podcast.
Speaker 2:What's up everyone, welcome to an episode of the Only Fee Only podcast. I am Peter Travlo. I'm here with my co-host, brock Buckles, and today very excited to have Rachel Camp on. A lot of you guys have probably seen her on Twitter, linkedin. Really love her content and what she puts out into the universe, so really excited to have her on the show. So, rachel welcome.
Speaker 3:Thank you, guys. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Yes, likewise. So before we get into your background and how you became a fee-only planner and things like that, do you want to give just kind of a quick overview of your firm and what you're building?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I am. Actually I don't know if many people know this I'm actually an IAR under an RA, so I don't have my own RA, but I do have Camp Wealth, my own LLC. That's how I operate, so it's financial planning for business owners and high earners. I've worked with a lot of different client bases. Maybe we can get into that.
Speaker 3:But I started off at a huge firm working with ultra, ultra high net worth businesses. Families Left that firm in the pandemic. I actually ended up partnering with my dad, which is how I ended up under this RA. It's the one he uses, so we're both under it. We partnered up for a bit, worked with the retirees, but I really wanted to work with people a little bit closer to my age and business owners. It's just like where my natural interests lie. So I started posting on social media and it kind of took off from there, and so that's where my focus is now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. So I mean, let's start from the beginning. Like, where was your? Your dad did it right. So did a lot of the inspiration of wanting to get into this you know industry come from watching him growing up. Did you always have, like, were those the dinner conversations Like, where did that come from up? Did you always?
Speaker 3:have like. Were those the dinner conversations Like where did that come from? Kind of it's interesting, because he didn't talk that much about, like, his specific job. It was more about entrepreneurship. So I've always wanted, I've always known that I wanted to like have control over my time, my schedule, my the money I make. I always wanted that, and so a lot of the conversations were more centered around that. I always wanted that, and so a lot of the conversations were more centered around that.
Speaker 3:I was always aware that he was a financial planner, but I honestly didn't know what he did at all so when I went to school and I went to Indiana University in Bloomington, I think you guys, or Brock, at least you're in Indiana.
Speaker 3:Yeah, love it, went there no idea what I wanted to do. I'm a really kind of competitive person. That's thanks to my dad, and I saw a ton of people trying to get into the Kelly School of Business, so I decided to go for that and landed on finance and after that the whole time, though, I will say, my dad was kind of pushing me like you should really be a financial planner, you should go in this direction, we should work together, all of that. So he was a big influence there. But I, after I graduated, I went to that big firm in Chicago and I was there for about three years before we finally partnered up.
Speaker 2:Very cool. So I mean, when did you start creating content, right? I mean, when you first started at that big firm, I think content probably was not even remotely on your radar, so kind of what's been your development into being a content creator as well?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there was a lot of people who told me that being a financial advisor and being really successful in it was just not something you can do at my age. You know, at that time I was like early 20s, mid 20s and they're like, yeah, I definitely see you going in that direction, just not quite yet, especially with these types of clients, with these ultra high net worth. But I really wanted to get there as soon as possible because I knew that that's what I wanted to do, and so I was always a little bit skeptical. I was like I feel like I could do this, you know, even at this age. And so I saw other people doing it, like Thomas Copelman. We talked about him briefly, but I saw him doing it online. Like wait a minute, everyone is saying I can't do this yet, but he's doing it. He's like a year younger than me. If he can do it, I can do it.
Speaker 3:So once I saw him doing it and a few other people as well, because part of the inspiration was I just saw like personal financial coaches not even advisors doing really well in social media, and so I thought that was the perfect opportunity for some advisors to really jump into social media because a lot of these coaches were having so much success and not as many advisors were doing it. So I thought if that's kind of the way that I could enter the field, start to attract it from having this area or being seen as an expert on social media. Having that follower account kind of gives you the credibility when you don't have it yet at such a young age, because I understand it's scary for some people to want to hand over the wealth or the decision making to somebody really young. So one of the ways that I thought through is like how could I figure out this credibility? How could I give that to myself at this age? And social media having that following does help a lot with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:How much time do you spend on social media? Having that following does help a lot with it. Yeah, how much time do you spend on social media? Like, what's your screen time on your phone? I think that's also something that's interesting, you know, cause people are like well, this is how I prospect, this is how I bring a new client, this is how I get a thwart out there. When I was first getting started, you know, I would learn a lot, cause I'd have to be able to write about it.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:So what's the journey just been in general? When was the aha moment? When did you want to post all the time, and just how's that gone?
Speaker 3:Yeah, in the beginning it was way too much time on social media, but also I had the time in the very beginning. You don't have clients, you're just hustling to get clients, so you do have that on your side, where you have more time for that. So I put so much time into Twitter in the very beginning and that's where I started and it was on my phone and it was almost unhealthy. So it took a while, maybe about like six months, where I felt like I was able to strike a balance of, you know, keeping it to a lower time that I was spending every week on it. Today I don't even have it on my phone, which is shocking to a lot of people. I try to do everything with social media on a desktop, which is why I hate Instagram, because Instagram I can't do on a desktop.
Speaker 3:It's like a requirement for it to be on your phone, especially with stories. So I like Twitter for that. But yes, I try, I really really try not to spend too much time on social media, because I also believe your best ideas come outside of social media. I think you can kind of find yourself in an echo chamber on social media and lose perspective a bit. So for me, to one, just retain my sanity and also always retain perspective, I try to really limit my time that I'm actually scrolling. But creating is a different story and it really depends on the season. There are times where I have more time to create and I like to spend like one to two hours in the morning maybe just focused on that doing research, writing tweets, writing threads. But there are times, there are seasons, where I might not spend more than like two hours a week on social media or on creating for it, because I just don't have the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have you experienced the burnout too? Like I've always, cause I've experienced that a little bit where it's like, yeah, I think I've posted. Somebody could fact check this if you really are bored but uh, like I basically every weekday since 20 or january of 2020, pretty much right and like sometimes I feel myself like you know, we got like a new video editor and I'm like rejuvenated and I'm loving what I'm doing, and then other times it's like what the hell am I going to post today? Have you, have you experienced that? Or is that just me? That might just be me.
Speaker 3:I experienced that, Like most of the time, it feels like no.
Speaker 3:I started in 2022, and I was really good with consistency for that first year. I don't think I missed a single day. And then, I don't know, things happen. You get overwhelmed, especially because when social media starts doing really well well, now you've got prospects and clients coming in and then it's all of a sudden it's difficult. So, like, what got you there is now difficult to keep up with because you're seeing the results of it. So that's something I'm still working through, but also sometimes I'm not. I'm a big believer in consistency, but I don't necessarily think consistency is posting every single day. I think it's showing up most of the time and I also think it's giving yourself the break when you need to, because you don't give yourself that break, you will grow to hate it.
Speaker 3:With everything that I do, I try to really give it a long-term view. So with social media I'm like man. I don't think I will really see the results like the real big results I want to see for this for a decade. So whatever can get me to continue posting for a decade is what I'm going to keep doing. I'm really impressed by some of the advisors that seem like they never go through burnouts and they can always stay on top of it and be consistent. I'm not one of those people. I definitely go through peaks and valleys and I need time off, but when I come back.
Speaker 3:I'm really rejuvenated. So for me, like that's my consistency, give myself the time off when I need to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's easy to put the facade on now about for those who are sitting there. They're, they're like, okay, well, it's 2025, new year's resolutions. They need to do social media. Um, you know, you're posting in the beginning. You're posting every day. You get a couple of likes. What? What else should you be doing? Like, you know, because people are like, okay, do I just post every day? But like, how do you do network with other advisors? Like were you in people's dms? Like how can people actually get this thing off the ground? And try to make sure that they have some inertia behind it too results quickly.
Speaker 3:You kind of have to give up that balance that. You know what I have today is not something I could afford to have in the beginning. In the beginning, I was on my phone all the time and I was on Twitter dozens of times a day and what I was doing is I just wanted to be everywhere. I wanted every personal finance account to see me. I wanted everybody who follows personal finance accounts to see me. So this is something I'm terrible at now, but I was just an engagement machine.
Speaker 3:I was like 20 to 30 people, I'm commenting on their posts, I'm quote, tweeting. I'm trying to have a good reply, cause you really, in the beginning, you're crawling to get to that first 100 and then that first 1000 followers, and in order to do that, like no one's really coming to your page, you have to go to other people's page, and so I really prioritized engagement in the beginning, building relationships with other accounts and, honestly, the hack there is just like build real relationships. Some of my best friends now are from Twitter. So don't go into it with like this give and take approach, but go into it like I might. I like this person, I like their tweets. Let's like actually really connect and then just provide value under their tweets as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. Okay, so what about like recycling content? I remember I was having dinner with Thomas one time and he was like yo, here's the deal, all right, he's like a lot of the stuff. If you follow me long enough, a lot of the stuff that you're going to see is like similar, because if you're following me right and you've been following me for three years and you've seen all the stuff that I post and we're not working together yet, we're probably not going to. So like I need to keep putting out the relevant content and the stuff that people actually need to be seeing. So do you like, do you kind of take that same approach in terms of like even if it's some of the same stuff that I talk about often like that's the stuff that people need to hear.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I probably every month, go back and look at the content that I posted that did well Copy paste. I have a scheduler. I use Hypefury, copy paste into Hypefury, schedule it three months out. It's going to come out the exact same way. If it's something that did really well, I might think through okay, what's a different way? I could say this, but that's what everybody every creator on Twitter who's been doing it for a while almost everyone does that Occasionally. The people who just like don't mind showing up today and have thoughts that they want to tweet every day. I'm not that person.
Speaker 3:I need to rely on some of the older content that did well. But yeah, I would say like, at this point, the majority of my content is recycled in some format. That's another reason why when you first start on social media it's so difficult, because you have nothing to fall back on that's recycled. Everything has to be new, so it's super time consuming. But once you get like three months in now you've got a ton of valuable data and you can take some of that and just repurpose it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so true, because I always joke. It's like from the insurance perspective, right, I'll put out something I think is really good about annuities or long-term care or term life insurance, and the minute that anything says IUL in it, it's like on the fee-only side and on the insurance side, people are like piranhas just jumping on that post. There are just certain topics that like again and again and again, you know the content is going to do well, and for those people that are listening, hypefury is basically like a scheduling system where you can set your tweets and they're automatically released over time. I use it. It was a great decision because, like you, I'm not just going to tweet all day, every day.
Speaker 3:So really good. I would fail really quickly if I had to show up and tweet every day.
Speaker 1:No, it wouldn't happen, right. And then to your point, like when you have that social proof and you actually understand what's performing well, what does well, then there's so much you can go back to and you can really be like all right, you know, it's no different than like music artists, right, they released like 10 albums and then you'll always see the greatest hits. So the greatest hits are the pieces of content that are going to do well, exactly. So that's really good. So, to wrap up, the content part, because I want to talk a little bit about, like, how you've changed and who you're working with and how that's been rejuvenating for you. If you could give somebody one tip to take away, just like, if you can remember one thing from this podcast about content, what would that be?
Speaker 3:It's just input. Everything is input. I mean, this is my advice for anybody, whether they're doing content or they're just a new advisor find the input that you need to do. I didn't start off and we can talk about this but I didn't start off building a client base from content. I started off from a lead generation and at that point my input was phone calls a day. So I figured out it's all a numbers game and I know there's a really good book on this that I haven't read but people keep recommending it to me.
Speaker 3:But it's the same concept. It's all a numbers game. Figure out what's the input. If it's a hundred tweets, if it's a hundred phone calls, that leads to three meetings, that leads to one client. And I know at some point we get to the human side of it and we go beyond the numbers. But I get a little annoyed sometimes because I'm like look in the beginning, some of us are just trying to survive and need that revenue. So you do need to focus on the numbers a bit and if you can figure out what's the input that gets you that output, that's where you should focus because it's completely within your control.
Speaker 2:Truth.
Speaker 1:Al Grant, I'm smiling right now.
Speaker 2:Huh, pete I know I love it.
Speaker 1:I mean.
Speaker 2:Brock and I, we're an old Northwestern Mutual, we're 10-31. It was Al Granum and you would call these people on their birthday and their half birthday. And for those who know insurance, the half birthday just signifies an age change. But it was a way just to cycle through an age change. But it was a way just to cycle through.
Speaker 2:And I think that you know that medium was taught on the phone, cold calling, right, and it's just a matter of taking those. You know, they're not even old skill sets. It's just marketing 101, business 101, like build it backwards and noticing the front end intake and the work that it takes, because that's what you can control. And I think it gets so glamorized these days like, oh, just put content out. Well, you know what, if you have a spouse or kids staring at you at the dinner table at night like you need to start having results, and you know just nothing is not satisfactory. So I mean it's just find something that works and keep on refining and retuning it, right, yeah, so like what were some of those like initial trainings for you? I mean, I love hearing it. Let's like, where did you get your entrepreneurial side? Did you think you would be a business owner?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think so I again. It kind of comes back to my dad where he was. He never understood working really hard to make somebody else wealthy, and that was kind of comes back to my dad where he never understood working really hard to make somebody else wealthy and that was kind of what he put into us. So that was always in the back of my mind. And I'm somebody who really, you know, I value freedom. I talk about that a lot financial freedom, time, freedom, all of it. It's just really really important to me because I think I want to work, I'm a hard worker, I love to work.
Speaker 3:But in order for me to work really hard and to see the results I want to see, I do kind of need to have control over my schedule, because there's a way where I know if I work in this way and I can maybe work out in the middle of the day or something like that, then I'm going to get the results. I really want that first job where I was there for three years and it was measured by me sitting in a chair from eight to six. That was pretty miserable for me. So sometimes it's just about knowing what you really don't want and what you hate and what you're running away from. So sometimes entrepreneurship is born out of just such a dislike for your current life and then realizing, like, in order to get to that point where you do have control of your schedule, then you might just have to be your own boss.
Speaker 3:I know it's not for everybody, but for me I had such a hatred of not having that control over my life, my life, my income as well, like I really that's really important to me. If I work really hard, if I get results, then I want to see that directly correlate to my income. You know, and now I'm at the point too, where a lot of it's just about fulfillment. And what do I do? What are the things I do with my day that make me feel really fulfilled? What's the type of content I could create that I'm really proud of? I've gotten today to that point where I can start prioritizing those things as well, but it's all because I own my schedule, I have control over my revenue. So yeah to answer your question.
Speaker 1:It's kind of always been in the back of my mind but it was really pushed for me when I entered that kind of nine to five world and realized how much I hated it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, and different people work different ways, like I was the same way and even at Northwestern, when we were there, it's like, yeah, you can kind of control your schedule because they're not going to pay you a salary, but at the end of the day, like you're, they're still getting you to push their products and all that stuff is happening and different people work different ways.
Speaker 1:Right, like if I can get I'm like you if I can get a workout in the middle of the day and like I feel good about it and like I feel rejuvenated, then I can get on this podcast. You know there's already been endorphins released because I feel good, it's just a good thing and I don't think that, like trying to push everybody into the same boxes is fulfilling right and fulfillment is a big thing. So one of the last questions I have is like, so you said you moved from, like you know, high, very affluent, high net worth, older people kind of earlier in your career and I'm sure there was a lot of good, a lot of things that you learned from that. But like, talk about that transition to working with you know people that are similar to your age now and how that's a little bit better for you and how you like that more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean selfishly. It was kind of a product of focusing on my own financial life. So I love the FI community as well, I have a natural interest in that, and so I would find myself just in my spare time researching, obviously, concepts that applied to me as a business owner, as somebody who's younger, in the accumulation phase. So I just thought it'd be really fun to work with people who are in this same phase of life, because I have a natural interest selfishly, because it's what I'm focused on, and then I can kind of turn around and help other people who are in the same stage as me. It was, you know, I love working retirees, to be honest too, um, but I just can't relate to them as much.
Speaker 3:Obviously we're in very different phases of life. Um, and you know, with content, one of the things I love about it is I can kind of share my mindset. Like I don't really have an interest in retirement. I'm more into flexible finances, work, optional status, retirement doesn't really interest me. So I like to relate to my clients to a certain point, and so when I tweet about that, I get clients or prospects that come in are like I love that. You say that I have the same goals I just, rather than retiring, I just want to try something different. So that's really fun, fun to me to be able to work with people like that because we just have such a similar mindset.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, and that's one thing I've always taken away from your content too. Is your mindset right, like I think you're anti fire. I know you're anti fire, right.
Speaker 3:And I think the retire early portion for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know, but you know, financially independent, you know getting there. But I think, like when you were talking about what gets you ticking to be an entrepreneur, a lot of these people have these same thoughts. They just don't know how to leave that desk job or, unfortunately, they're in an environment that's not positive, or, you know, the glass is half empty to them. It's, you know, it's a mindset thing to an extent too, because I feel like you run into a lot of millennials, or people are, you know, younger. In their 20s and 30s they're trying to figure this thing out. The world's not the same as what their parents were.
Speaker 2:You know their grandparents and having a pension right that's even a further idea, right, and people, they're just trying to make sense of this new creator economy and they want to see can I get a piece of it? How do I even start? You know, so, like with you, I know you guys are bundling up some packages and selling some courses and things like that, but you know, maybe for those people who they might be sitting there and they're not happy in their nine to five or they feel like they're seeing some of their friends go this creator route and they're like waiting for their calling, like what would you say to those people, like the ones who they feel stuck?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say I really think you should go for it, like I really think you would regret not trying. That's something I think about. A lot is like just picturing myself when I'm older and what I regret not going for this. What I regret not trying especially young people, but it's why it's so fun to talk to them, because risk is so different when you're in your 20s right, you have so much time to recover. At that point in your life you might not have people who depend on you yet like you would maybe when you're a little bit older and you start having children and you get married. So really, I mean I think anybody should go for it. But especially if you're sitting there and you're in your 20s and 30s, I do think you have to think about regret minimization and would you regret not going for this, not being true to yourself, giving it the chance and also just really manage your expectations, because it's going to be a lot harder before it's easier and if you want to try it, there's going to be a lot of work up front. So just be prepared for that.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I mean, like I said in the beginning, figure out the input. What's the thing that you need to do to see if this will work. For me for content, it was two tweets a day, three threads a week, and I committed to that for a year and I said I'm not allowed to reevaluate this for a year. I'm a big experimenter. I like to try different things out, but also give myself the permission, if it's not working, to stop it. So if that's something that you feel comfortable, or if that makes you feel more comfortable doing it, I would say maybe try that approach too.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Well, I will say I mean, if you can't get anything out of this podcast and you weren't listening, so you need to go back to the beginning and listen again. Rachel, you're awesome. You're such an authentic person. You do great things for the industry. You have awesome content. So thank you so much for coming on the show. And for those of you, or for those of the people out there that want to follow along with what you're doing I got it out, pete, I saw your face. For those that want to follow along with what you're doing, where can they follow along?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Thank you guys. This is so fun. Like you guys mentioned, I'm pretty active on Twitter. Camp underscore wealth on Twitter. I'm on other social media platforms too. If you want to find me there at camp wealth, yeah, my website's rachelcampwealthcom.
Speaker 2:Awesome, Rachel. Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3:Thank you guys.