#153 - Going All In: How Logan Valentine Built His RIA

He didn’t grow his RIA through ads or a content machine. He grew it through trust, a simple fee model, and doing the unglamorous work when it mattered most.

In this episode, we’re joined by Logan Valentine, CFP®, founder of Valentine Wealth Management in Seymour, Indiana. We unpack his path from insurance to Charles Schwab, how earning the CFP shifted his thinking, and what clicked when he discovered the fee-only RIA model.

We also talk about the reality of building a firm early on—tight runway, young family, and the mindset required to keep going when things feel uncertain.

Then we get practical. Logan breaks down his pricing structure, including a minimum fee and capped maximum, and explains why he avoids charging on held-away assets like 401(k)s and 529s. The result: fewer conflicts and a simpler, more transparent sales process.

On the marketing side, this isn’t about hacks. It’s about what actually works for most advisors—strong reputation, Google reviews, local presence, SEO, and creating long-term advocates by helping people whether they become clients or not. (At one point, someone even found him by asking AI who to call.)

We wrap with the client experience—from discovery to onboarding—why cash flow is the foundation of good planning, and how thoughtful tax decisions can lead to real, tangible savings.

If you’re building a firm—or looking for transparent, fee-only advice—there’s a lot here you can take and apply.

Logan's social and website:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/logan-valentine-cfp/

https://www.valentinewm.com/

Transcript

Welcome And Why Logan’s Here

SPEAKER_01 0:04

How's it going, everybody? Welcome back to the OnlyFe Only Podcast. And as always, thanks for being here. In this episode, we talked to somebody that I've known for a long time. Uh, actually, since college, we've got Logan Valentine, who is the founder of Valentine Wealth Management based out of Seymour, Indiana, on the podcast. And this is a really great episode. I mean, for me, it was really cool because I've gotten to see Logan do some different things over the years and to see him do something that he's really passionate about and share how he's been growing it and how he just brought on a new team member and all the awesome things he has going on is really cool for me. Um and Peter and I just really enjoyed having this conversation with him, understanding the direction that he is going and the level of transparency in this podcast is unparalleled. I mean, everything from how he started the business to you know literally taking out some different credit cards with zero interest to start the thing to just doing whatever it takes. So without further ado, enjoy this episode with Logan Valentine on the Only Fee Only podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Only Fee Only Podcast. I'm Peter Travolo. I'm here with my co-host Brock Buckles, and today we're very excited to have Logan Valentine on from Valentine Wealth Management. Really excited to have him on and share his story about how he's growing his firm. So, Logan, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me, guys.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

I'm excited to be here.

From Seymour To Schwab

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yes, you bet. So we'll get into the uh personal relationship that you and Brock have before being a financial planner and everything like that. Um, but for those who don't know who you are, kind of where are you based out of and uh when did you start your firm?

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Yeah, so uh I am based out of Seymour, Indiana, so southern Indiana, about halfway between Indianapolis and Louisville. Um originally from Terre Haute, Indiana, and lived up in the Indianapolis area where I worked at Charles Schwab for about five years uh before coming down here. So my wife's family brought me here. Uh it's a pretty small town, about 20,000 people. Um Jackson County is a really good area, though. I've grown to love it over the last five years. Uh it's been very supportive of my business, but um yeah, we kind of just ended up here because her family's from here and we had kids, and we realized it definitely takes a village. Um so got down here, got free daycare, and been in uh Seymour territory ever since.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Yeah, and uh yeah, strong disclaimer. I've known Logan for a long time. Logan's known me since uh well for a while. He's known Logan's known a lot of different versions of me. So back in the heyday. Back in the heyday, man. So it's it's good to good to kind of see that you're doing all this. But like walk us through it, man. Like, what'd you think you were gonna do? How did you get into like this financial planning stuff and decide to launch your own firm?

Leaving Insurance For Planning

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Yeah, so back when I met Brock, um, I had a very noble reason, uh, but a kind of silly idea. I thought I wanted to work in insurance my whole life. So I was an insurance risk management major. Um, when I was a kid, my family got in a car accident, my mom became a periplegic. She passed away when I was 16. So we saw these insurance mechanisms that you guys work with, um, you know, over an eight-year period and lawsuits, everything else included in it. So I thought I'm gonna go out of school and I'm gonna be an autobodily injury claims adjuster at the Hartford, and I'm gonna help people in the same situation. Um, that ended up being one of my least favorite jobs on the planet, and uh kind of peeled around in insurance for a little bit. I did really well. Um, you know, I hit all the goals that I ever had, ended up having a state farm up there in Carmel for a year, and I just I hated it, man. Like I hated selling products, I hated how much gray area there was. Um, and I I just didn't enjoy selling products and and selling them to you know individual people. And you know, while I was there, Brocky were at Northwestern Mutual, like you get it. It's a it's a it's a grind and it grinds you down as much as anybody else. So eventually I looked at my wife and said, Look, I've done everything that I think I could do to try to enjoy myself here. And a lot of our old fraternity brothers were over at Charles Schwab, uh, and we'd all go out drinking and they'd start talking about whatever was going on. And I just thought it was fascinating. So I took a big old pay cut, went to Schwab for about 45 grand a year. And within like two months, I just knew finance was so much more than I'd thought in the past. You know, I thought it was way too personal, and I didn't want to like get into personal people's lives. Um, but as I was at Schwab, they afforded me every opportunity for growth that I could have asked for, especially while we lived up in Indy, still around the office. And I got, you know, all my series, uh, series seven or six, sixty-five, sixty-six, like all the different licenses, and then I ended up getting my CFP. When I got my CFP, that was a real turning point where I started to understand the depth that you can go to into planning and and you start to kind of connect the dots on the back end. You know, I always tell people, like, you can do this yourself, but connecting all these different strategies and how one decision affects another, that's the only reason I even have a job. Right. And so that's when I kind of found Kitsis, I found his podcast, found XY, found fee only, and just became enamored with it. Um, so I'd say that was probably around 2022 where I came across the concept um and launched my firm in 2024.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Yeah, for sure, man. Yeah, it was it was fascinating. I remember like talking about it back in the day with you. You're like, man, I just I like have this idea. I know what I want to be doing. Like, I'm not super happy doing what I'm doing now. Like, I'm learning a lot, but I feel like there's more out there for me. Um, and so like having that thought, man, obviously you'd kind of gone off and done some things before, didn't really love that, but this is like what you knew you wanted to do. And so you knew what starting a business was all about. You kind of knew what was gonna come. But what were like some of the things when you get up and running about XY? Like, what's your game plan look like? What's your go-to-market strategy? Like, how the hell are we gonna get clients? Like, what's all that stuff look like in your head?

Pricing With A Minimum And Cap

SPEAKER_02 6:26

Yeah, man. Um, that's that's all the questions that everybody has, right? And it gets so overcomplicated in the grand scheme of things, especially when you're sitting there trying to make those decisions and it's all just a hypothetical conversation. So you can listen to those podcasts all day and listen to this one, and all these different advisors talk about how they did it and what their parameters were and how they were going to structure everything. But at the end of the day, like the most important thing you have to do is you've got to be able to go make relationships with people and maintain those to the point where like you've got trust and you've got this client base because all the technical knowledge in the world does nothing for you without it. And that was my thing. Like at Schwab, I just felt like my time was being wasted because when we moved here and I was working remotely, I couldn't go do the job that I wanted to do at Schwab anymore. You had to be in the office, and I wasn't gonna drive three hours a day. Um so you know, when you get into it, then it's like, all right, um, I I actually initially really tried to find a practice to buy over time from uh an existing advisor, right? It's like, well, I have to give up my salary. I have a two-year-old and a newborn when I came up with the concept or about when I launched, um, and and how am I gonna do all this without like the big runway that everybody talks about, right? And so for me, you know, I'm me and Brock historically uh could tell you that we're both pretty big risk takers. Um, so it's not my first business. I know what I'm getting into. And and the most important advice that I got was not from a financial advisor, it's from my pastor. I asked him to come over one day and I said, like, look, this is what I think I'm gonna do. And I'm just having a hard time like making that step. And he just looked me dead in the eyes. He's like, All right, so you're a CFP, you're smart, like everybody knows that. If this doesn't work out, what happens in a year if you close a business? I'm like, I go get a job. And he's like, Yeah, because you're capable of going to get a job, right? And I was like, Yes. I was like, all right, that's all I needed. It was like, okay, like give up one year for the rest of your life. It's it's it's either you, you know, you go work for somebody else for a 3% raise every year, or you go work for yourself, and even if you make the same amount of money, it sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Um, but yeah, so I I started looking at like the way people structured things and the minimum, I think is always a really big conversation. So for me, I started out at 3,000. Uh in hindsight, I probably would have done four, which is what I'm still at today, and I have a reason for that. Um, but the kind of unique thing that we did is is I decided on a maximum fee as well. So I'm not a flat fee planner, but I'm kind of like a hybrid. I have a range. And so originally I put that at 25, and now I've got it at 15. Um, so after year one, I went from 3,000 to 25 to 4,000 to 15. And the way that looks for my clients is once you're at about 1.7 million in assets because it's an AUM schedule in between, you max out. So, you know, if and and there's other people, like I listened to a podcast recently of a guy that's very, very, very similar to me. Like, same amount of clients, same amount of revenue, same amount of everything. But he's flat fee, right? And and when you're and I have no issue with that, but to me, it makes the barrier of entry harder if it's gonna be like 10 grand, because now I can't work with that young professional that's 35, right? Like they're not gonna pay me 10 grand a year if they are great, but like you know, I'm in southern Indiana, I've got clients all over the country. I like being able to bring those people on at four grand a year, right? And until your assets that I manage, like I don't charge on 401ks, HSAs, 529s, no held away assets, no emergency funds, none of that stuff. It's literally if you have IRAs with us and you have brokerage accounts, and if you're a high earner and you got a traditional IRA, we're putting it into your 401k so you can do backdoor ROS, right? Like you've got to remove as many conflicts of interest as possible. That was rule number one is every place that we can find one, if we can remove it, we're getting rid of it. And that has made the sales process so much easier. Because I can walk into a meeting, I can spend an hour and a half with somebody, and it's like 95% close ratio if they are qualified to be in that range. And it's really like, do you have enough assets income or a mixture of the two? Um that took a little while to cook up and figure out, but that's where we've landed, and it's pretty close to where we started, oddly enough. Um but like I I think it's it's so easily replicable. Anybody else could take the same thing and go do it. Then it's just a matter of like, do you want to actually run the business or do you just want to be an advisor and do your thing?

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Yeah. So how have you been marketing your services, right? Like how have you built your book of business so far?

Marketing Through Reputation And Reviews

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Yeah, I uh I don't market really at all. Like I I did a lot on social media at first, you know, posting on LinkedIn and Facebook. Um and then at one point I did start doing some YouTube videos. I never actually posted anything. And I still kind of want to do like a podcast with some YouTube content, kind of like what you guys are doing, but just purely from an educational standpoint, right? Um, I love helping people for free. I love doing pro bono work. So we won't do anything if like if you don't make a certain amount of income, which for us is where like a lot of MAGEI faceouts come in, like 240, 250 grand for a married couple. Um, and then the assets just on the asset schedule. Like we start at 1.25 on the first 500, so that's at 320 for 4,000 to meet the minimum. You gotta be somewhere in there for it to make sense. And I always tell people like if you are kind of on the fence, like there's a tangible value that we try to create through what we do, right? And there's always gonna be an intangible value for how you value having somebody to go to and manage whatever investments you have, etc. You have to determine the intangible value. I can't make that decision for you, right? So I'm not gonna try to pigeonhole somebody into a client relationship just to make an extra couple grand. And that I think that gives us a lot healthier client relationships. They're just super transparent about it. I'll tell you that the first 10 minutes you meet with them. But if that happens, we still I met with a guy that makes like 50 grand and has no assets a couple weeks ago. And by later in the day, we spent an hour and a half together, go through the basics, just give him some education, get him on the right path. He left me a Google review. So now we've got we've got all these people that are huge fans, right? That we help for free or our clients that pay us. Um, we have Google reviews that we've gotten. We've got way more than anybody in our area, and I haven't even asked for any lately, so I'm probably gonna be doing that soon. Um, NAPA, XYPN, fee only, working on our SEO through the website and all the connectivity on the internet there. We even got a call on Tuesday from a guy that AI, he said he went through AI for a whole week, and he's like every single time it kept coming back to tell us to call you guys. And so I've never paid for really anything marketing-wise. Um, it's really reputation, right? And like brand awareness. And when you're in a small town, I think it's pretty helpful. Like if I was in an Indianapolis or something, still it'd be a different conversation. Um, but like the proof is in the pudding, too. You know, if somebody hears something, it's like you better follow through with it. And that transparency, that's something that people really value. And down here in southern Indiana, if you look for another fee-only planner, you're not going to find one. So I'm kind of a novelty down here as well. Um, like I helped a guy in Franklin when he launched, that's a good friend. And uh, I know there's some in like Louisville and maybe over in Evansville, but that there's a big geographic area down here that there's really none. Uh kind of the only game in town when you find that.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Yeah. It sounds like, man, what you've done. I I gotta get this out real quick, Pete. But uh it sounds like what you've done a good job of, man, is like uh back in the day. I had like an old mentor of mine say, you can there's still there's a difference between clients and advocates, right? Like clients, they can use my services, like they're gonna work with me, we're gonna get stuff done for them, we're gonna do a good job. And then there's advocates. So that's like you take it a step further, you do such a good job for people that they literally go the next level and they're telling other people about what you do. And it seems like you've been able to create a lot of those advocate relationships to where you've been able to grow without really having to do too much social anything, um, which I truly believe in this probably speaks to that 95% close rate. If you, if that's how most of your referrals are coming in, stuff is way stickier, it's way better, and those relationships last way longer. So it's it's awesome that you've been able to build that way.

Bootstrapping Without A Runway

SPEAKER_02 15:24

And it's hilarious that you use that reference. So I went to a leadership conference that my church put on um, it was in 2024 in the summer. And our pastor, Danny Anderson, had this guy come in that he used to be a pastor, but now he like he does business coaching essentially. Um, and and a big part of his coaching is also church focused. So, like you had a lot of church leaders there, and then you had a lot of, you know, uh like small business owners. And he he he used the same same exact analogy, essentially, just a little different terminology. But he's like, you know, Jesus Christ had disciples that went and told people about the gospel, and then that got people to come to Christianity, right? And that's still our our duty as Christians. Well, this you do the same thing for your business, you create disciples of your business, and then they will go and tell people about it. They don't have to be a client of yours, right? Like you can just do right by people. I can take an hour and a half of my day, and I don't know who that person knows, but they could go send me three referrals over the next 10 years, and that's exactly what's happened is like you're just creating disciples of your business, but like your business has to be on a firm foundation. There's a song called Firm Foundation that they sing at church all the time, and it's like that is your your faith in your life, right? And so, and the on the same token in your business, if you don't have a firm foundation where people are going and referring you, and then people that find you are like, okay, that's what they told me about, it's not gonna work. So you've got to have it on like the basics have to be figured out, and you've got to be able to deliver that message concisely and clearly in layman's terms, right? Like most people, they'll just go and puke all this random information, and it's like the traditional advisors are all talking about mutual funds and clients leave meetings and their eyeballs are glazed over. Like, I couldn't tell you the last time I talked to a client about investments unless they asked a very specific question. We're talking about taxes, we're talking about insurance, we're talking about estate planning, we're talking about your goals and your dreams and your hopes and your wishes and your employee benefits and like things that you can actually comprehend and understand, and that's where that little bit of tangible value can come from for each person. Um, yeah, dude, making those disciples, that's that's the that is the marketing right there.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Yep, absolutely. Yeah, sorry to interrupt you, Pete. Go ahead, man. I just had to get that out there because I was like, just it was ringing a bell in my.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

I was oh, I was gonna bring up just kind of like how old school marketing, like people don't talk about it, right? Like, especially in the XYPN, you know, atmosphere, right? It's like gotta have a long runway, just keep posting content, trust me, it will come. But if you don't have a long runway and you don't have a wealthy spouse and you don't have, you know, clients coming over or a salary from previous firm, like you gotta make it work. Right. And it's like, you know, are you gonna put it in or are you gonna make it work? And it's just interesting to see like how people react to that. Because Brock and I have been doing this now for six or seven years, and it's interesting because we'll see the evolution of people or the absolute, you know, fail of people because they had a marketing method that they thought was gonna work, and that was like the shiny object, and they're gonna get popular on LinkedIn or Twitter. And sure, some other people have, but that's a very small percentage.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Yeah, I mean, like you guys know the people from our backyard that are really good at that. Like, I'm not gonna do what he's gonna do. And and frankly, I don't want to spend all day on Twitter. Like, I reflect the hell out of what those people do, and like that they've taken the time, like it takes a lot of time and patience and effort to do that. And and I've looked into it. Like, when you start, you got nothing else to do but sit there and fiddle with all these ideas. But to your point, I had no runway, dude. Like, we just renovated our house, we had two new kids. Um, and so I literally started this business all on zero percent credit cards. I had 80 grand on zero percent credit cards by the time I got to the peak. And it's I mean, it's all completely paid off now, and now I'm just cash flowing. Because I follow my I follow my own advice. That's the best part. It's like people always ask, like, well, what do you do? I'm like, I don't put any money in retirement accounts right now. I haven't for three years. You know why? I'm pouring it into my business, I'm pouring it into hiring another advisor. I just bought an office, I'm gonna renovate it, I'm gonna pay for it with cash, but I also have a line of credit open just in case because I want to be able to build something now. And my retirement plan, if you look at my right capital, I don't retire. That's like the whole business model is have 60 to 80 clients and work 30 hours a week. It's been that way since the beginning. And it and that's for every advisor. Like initially, it was I'm gonna be a solo, like I'm a classic example of the solo dream has died now that I've hired another advisor. But it's because I found that like it works so well, and I'm at about 40 clients myself. But if I get to 80, right, and I'm and I never hire anybody, do I just say no to all these referrals? Right? Like if I'm creating all these disciples, I'm doing all this good work and I really enjoy what I do, do I just tell them all no? So that's where it's now I'm trying to find like like-minded people, and and I brought a guy on here about a month ago, and he's gonna have five clients in his first two months. And he's just like, you know, I was at my old firm for two years, and he heard this guy call on Tuesday that found us through AI. He's like, I've never heard anybody call the last place in two years, yeah, like that. And I'm like, dude, it happens every two weeks, and then we just have to go qualify them, they have to qualify us. Like, it is an interview both ways, but the whole logic is 60, 80 clients, there are no service people. You do all your own work, but you're a better advisor for that, right? Like you understand the paperwork, you understand the importance of it. And then when you go and tell people like how to facilitate transactions, you're not relying on somebody else's service knowledge to get there. It makes the whole process better. Like the game of telephone is eliminated where you call my service person and then they call me, and then I call you, and everybody's confused. It's me and you. That's it. Plain and simple, like ride or die, straight up. It's very simple. And people love that because they can text me, call me, email me, and we're very quick to respond because we're most of my competition has 400 clients, 400 households. I have 40. And I've I make about half the revenue that they do already. So if I can go work 20, 30 hours a week, I'm not gonna retire, so I don't need to put money in a retirement account. But if you want to retire 55, yeah, you better get on it. But you know, that's where it's like, hey, you need some money in a taxable account for flexibility in those years in between when you can touch the retirement money. There's so many different things that cover that traditional relationship, is is gonna miss so many opportunities, and that's like that's where the passion comes from. It's like just by laying it out and going through it in detail and asking you questions, like that's our first three meetings. We just ask a ton of questions. Yeah, we can put together a plan for you that makes so much sense that you don't you never think about our fee ever again.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Yeah. So when you do that, man, like so. I guess first of all, before we move on to that, because I want to make sure we do talk about client experience, what that all looks like. But were you hesitant at all when you were like, okay, we're we're moving. On from the solopreneur thing. Because I know a lot of people, like, there's this whole thing, I'm going to be a solopreneur. I'm doing this for the freedom. This is what I want. This is what I desire in life. I want to get to this amount of clients and be able to like maximize freedom, travel, go on vacation when I want, whatever it is, spend more time with family. Like before you made that, I know you're happy that you did it now, but what was going through your head in terms of like, okay, this is a big step, big decision if I'm going to move forward this way. And then you were like, okay, it's time to do it. Like, how did you get to that decision?

Hiring To Expand Impact

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Yeah, man. Um, that was a battle. And and frankly, a huge part of it was I knew a guy that I knew had the right values. I knew he had all the technical knowledge in the world. I knew he had the right personality to where he would come and represent it the same way that I do. And like I even tell him now, I'm like, dude, it could end up being me and you. It could end up we could blow this thing up as big as we want to. That's a future problem for us. Like, I'm not gonna sit here and worry about that right now. But for me, it all comes back to impact. I love helping people, like it's it's addicting, and it doesn't even have to be finance. Like my neighbor's tree falls down. I'm gonna go help them cut it down. Like, I just I love helping people. My wife's the same way. Like, we're just giving people, whether that's time or money or whatever, that we love helping. And I like making other people's lives better because you know, if everybody in the world did it, the world would be a better place. Well, unfortunately, whatever, right? But that's what it comes down to. So, like what I set up with him is a very unique contract in our industry. Like, most people get paid about 40% of revenue, right? If you if you go to some kind of a firm, get about 40%. The deal with him is I'm gonna pay him 60. And that doesn't leave a lot of margin for me, but I'm not doing it to make more money. Like, if I make an extra 50 grand, like great, but I'm doing it for the impact. So we'll cover all the expenses, we'll cover business development, we'll cover mileage. Like he'll be here locally, so we'll cover office space. But like if we do a satellite office in the future, we'll cover all that stuff. I just want you to go do a really good job. I want you to live a really good life, and then I can provide a job for somebody as well that they can actually enjoy and learn and stay educated and impact other people. And that's literally all it comes down to. Like, I genuinely am in my bones feel like we could make the Charles Schwab of RIAs, and that's super cocky, and that is definitely my personality. But I just think I can go and replicate this a thousand times over with the right people, and the difference is like I'm gonna make people sacrifice. So this dude took a 50% pay cut to come here. It's a pretty big sacrifice, right? Uh, but within two years, I bet he's making twice as much as what he did before.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

And you know, meanwhile, like I'll keep the rest of myself, but it's just that that's like the driving factor, if it's money, you're probably doing the wrong thing. And that's we talk to our clients all the time when it comes to goals. Like, tell me about the intangibles because that's what our advice really needs to be based off of. Like, money's great, money's easy, like math doesn't change. But even people with their own money lose sight of the intangibles when they see like account growth potential. And when you bring it back to like goal-based planning, what do you actually want in your life? I mean, I have to draw goals out of people. That's where you start to make a real impact. It's the same thing with us as advisors. Why do you want to do this? Right. And if you want to be solo, you want to stay that way, that's great. But for me, it was like, all right, I found the right person. I've got a ton of leads coming in. Um, I'm only gonna be able to grow. Like, if I stayed at the pace I was at, I'd be full next year, right? Yeah, I don't want to, I don't want to do that. So ask my wife, like, hey, do you want to stay home from work? No, okay, I'm gonna go hire somebody. Like that was it.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Yeah, yeah. No, I love that, man.

Daily Rhythm And Running Operations

SPEAKER_00 26:25

So, I mean, another interesting thing just that I want to hear from your perspective, you know, being an insurance and at Schwab and now being out on your own, is just kind of like the lifestyle and like what your routine looks like, right? Yeah, like the flexibility you have as your own business owner, being at home, the autonomy. Like, how do you kind of balance the flexibility, but also, you know, trying to scale?

SPEAKER_02 26:46

It's hilarious because I've I've I've had that flexibility since I was about 24 for the most part. Um, so when I was in insurance, I pretty much had free reign for some of the some of that period for about four years. And then at Schwab, obviously, you know, you're pretty much under the microscope. But I work more now that I'm doing this because I'm not spending my day doing, you know, the corporate work where I'm like, man, I could do this. Like when I was at Schwab, I felt like if I really wanted to, I could do the job in four or five hours. I could take the same amount of calls, deliver the same experience, do all the same things that they wanted me to do, and I'd be done for the day. But it's like you gotta be on, you know, the meetings that should be an email type thing, and you gotta have like your 15-minute breaks that are required by you know the law and all this stuff. And I was just like, this is dumb, you know. So for me, you know, my wife and I kind of balance it out because she loves her job too. And uh, we kind of like she and I meet every Sunday night, we go through our calendar. Like I went to work early Monday and Tuesday this week, uh, and she goes early Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. We'll both be off at 3:30 today because we got to make food for our small group tonight. Um, but you know, like there's there's a very defined schedule. So I live by my calendar, but I again like I think if you love what you do and you really care about the people you do it for, like in this in this environment, you're gonna have a personal relationship with every single client if you're doing your job correctly, right? It is not like I'm gonna send you a birthday card every year. So when I know that something needs to be done, like I have a deeper sense of personal responsibility towards getting those tasks done. And at the same time, it's like, even if not, like this entire notebook is literally just my long-term stuff that I want to do that's like the business, right? Everything else is in my CRM for clients. So there's something I can do to make this business better, which means I can either get more efficient and take more clients myself, I can bring on another advisor and get more clients for them, I can make workflows better, I can make SEO better to get better leads. Like, there's so many little things, but I'm also responsible for compliance. And I I'm doing my own books because a lot of people love to argue about that. I think it's hilarious. If you take a day to learn books, you can do them in five minutes. It's not like we don't run a complicated business. But if it if like if I was single at this point, I'd work 12 hour days. I just love my job. And yeah, and I I think that's the thing is like you have to get into a profession that you enjoy. And if you're doing this for money and you don't really enjoy it, and you are taking like playing golf four days a week or something, it's gonna catch up with you at some point, right? And you know, some people can manage it, but it's just I'd sit in my office all day if I could.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Yeah, I love it, man. It definitely seems like uh you have a high sense of honor and a deep sense of personal responsibility there.

Onboarding Steps And Meeting Cadence

SPEAKER_02 29:34

So uh you know, oh no, that's that's even a strat joke in your podcast.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Yeah, no, we had we had to throw something in there. Um, there are worse things. Uh so like walk us through real quick, man, like what it kind of looks like. Like somebody comes in, obviously, you've qualified them, they're a good fit, you're they're they're they're ready to work with you. Uh, what does kind of that look like in the beginning? And then how often are you meeting with them? And then what's that ongoing relationship look like? I know you touched on it a little bit um in terms of like, we're not just the birthday advisor, but what does it kind of look like from start to finish?

Tax Savings Stories And Insurance Reality

SPEAKER_02 30:11

Yeah, that's what we kind of tried to start it in the discovery call. So I'll I anytime one gets scheduled, we'll send an email out and say, hey, like our whole goal in this is to get to know you. Like, we're not trying to sell you anything, nothing else. If you want to send us anything, here's some documents, right? It's like tax return stuff like that. Send it to our secure upload, we'll take a look at it before the meeting. So I'll prepare for just like a client meeting from that standpoint. And I'll just be like, all right, here's you give me a tax return, I will, without a shadow of a doubt, come up with 30 questions for that person. And it's like, what is this? Where does this come from? Why are you doing this? Why aren't you doing that? Like, there's so many different things you can pull out of that. And so we go into that discovery meeting, and the whole goal is like, I don't want to talk to you about hypotheticals. I want to talk to you about you. Because even if you're not going to be a client, whether you're qualified or not, I want to make sure you get some value out of it. Cause I'm trying to create that disciple. That's the first thing we tell them. Go through that meeting. If it all works out, you know, we'll send them a client agreement on DocuSign. We try to do everything electronically just to make life as easy as possible. And then we'll schedule, we'll we'll send a client intake form that we do through JOP form. So we collect all the important information that we need for Schwab and know your customer rule and all that. And then we start collecting all the documents throughout as well, um, which sometimes that takes a little longer. Because, you know, when it comes down to it, we tell people it is a lot of work for you too. Um, you're getting in a relationship like this, like I'm literally going to ask you for everything. And then once you send it to me, I'm gonna ask you 10 more questions about it. Um, but it's for your own benefit. Like, I'm not asking you for fun. I don't really care that much about your personal life. I just need to know so I can do my job, right? And and that's where the personal relationship grows eventually. So it does take some time to build trust and we recognize that, but it's like there is a purpose to my questions. Um, so we get all that stuff, and then we have the onboarding meeting. So it's it's basically, I always tell people like, we will do no more than two onboardings per month per advisor, because if we're gonna make a commitment to bring you on as a client, you deserve the time from us. And the way I think that should go is I can go as fast as you can, but we're going at your speed regardless, right? So some people, I got them onboarding in a month. We'll have four meetings in one month. Some people, it might take two years because they've got multiple businesses and rentals across the country and all kinds of stuff going on. And that's fine. It's it's your life, right? And you know what you're paying me. It's very transparent. So we're going at your pace, regardless of what that is. So we start that first meeting onboarding of what's your top priorities? And we're gonna ask that in every meeting we have with people. Like, what do you want to make sure gets hit on today? And we'll dive into that, whether it's a part of the agenda or not. But you go into that and then you start addressing things one by one, and we really try to hit all the low-hanging fruit. And the most important thing we want to do, it's kind of elementary, but it really is just critical to every plan, in my opinion, is we go through a cash flow analysis. So I already have your pay stubs, right? I already know what your distributions are from your tax return last year, whatever. I know what your take-home pay is. I need you to tell me what your monthly spend is. I don't care what it's on, I don't need a budget, I don't want any of that stuff. I just want to know how much is the delta that you can save in between comfortably. And uh tell them, like, this is not Dave Ramsey. I'm not telling you to eat ramen noodles. I could give I could give two shits what the number is, quite frankly. Just give me a number. And a lot of times this is how it goes. You know, we make 24 grand a month and we spend 12. I'm like, okay, then why aren't you saving$12,000 a month? And it's just crickets. And so, okay, now if I build a plan off$12,000 a month, it's completely inaccurate, and that plan's not worth anything, right? Also, I can't tell you where to save money because you're not you're actually spending$18,000 or whatever it is. So eventually people will dial it in. Some people are really quick, some aren't. We pay for Monarch money for those people that need it because it gives you a number, it says this is how much you spend every month. Like plain and simple. It's a great software. Yeah. So we put all that together and then we'll go in, we'll start building that plan. We'll get your tax analysis built out and a holistic plan. I think that's probably the most valuable thing that we do. But to know how much we can save, then we can tell you where to save it based on all your goals in your plan, right? Like it all ties back into one another. So you do that cash flow analysis, you get your active savings plan, go through right capital. We spend a lot of time on the goals page. Like, I want to know when you need a new roof on your house, new HVAC, when you're getting cars, how often you're getting cars, you're gonna buy them, you're gonna finance them, are you buying your kid a car, you're making your kid buy a car, are you paying for college, are you paying for grad school? Like the list goes on, and people don't think about this until you ask them, right? And so I need to make sure money's in the right buckets along the way, and I need to make sure you're tax efficient with wherever you get it from. And if you don't do that, you're just shooting yourself in the foot. Like that's part of the big value that we can provide is making sure that you don't miss the opportunities along the way. I just had a client, both kids have 160 grand in a money market in a trust account that has about a half million from the grandparents. That money's for college. That money's subject to kitty tax. Mom and dad are in the 35% tax bracket. Just by getting that money into a$529, we're saving six grand a year that dad's paying, by the way, when they do their taxes, we're saving six grand a year on taxes just by moving it in a 529 where it should have been in the first place, anyways, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

You just find all the low-hanging fruit, you start adding it up. Some people, you know, it all depends, it's all relevant to income and assets, but you might save 10 yeah taxes, you might save 100.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

We've justified your fee at this point.

SPEAKER_02 35:59

No, yeah, like, and that's the best thing is like if I save you more than 15, and like a lot of people, you go start doing charitable bunching, you get people in the appropriate S Corps, you get QBID deductions and salt caps dialed in. Like, I've shown people six figures in tax savings this year, and they're like, and I'm paying you 15, that'll take seven years. I'm like, so we're good, right? And they're like, Yeah, like we're good. So, you know, the onboarding is like it's it's flexible depending on your priorities. We have very clear lists of what we need to get through, very clear workflows, but that workflow just kind of goes out to where it needs to be based off of what you need to be done, right? Like, we're gonna get your Schwab accounts open, we're gonna do all that stuff. That's easy stuff, but what we address just depends on what's most important to you, right? And then you guys know, like I'll refer people to you after a conversation, and it'll be 18 months before they actually do anything. Because maybe life and disability, like they'll say it's a priority, but it's really not when an action comes down, like you know, action speaks hotter in words, but I'm gonna harp on it because I've lived it. And and you guys know, I'll tell people you can't say this because of HIPAA, but I can because it's me. I'm 34 years old, I can't get life, and I can't get disability. That sucks. And like I'm healthier than I was when I bought a policy from Brock 10, 12 years ago. Yeah, but because of my heart, I can't get one, and I'm a small business owner with no disability and no life insurance. Like, that sucks. So I really push people on it. Um, but you can't like you can't force people to do stuff, so you just make it a subtle reminder over time and hopefully eventually they take care of it or tell you it's not a priority.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

No, it all makes sense to me. I mean, matching what your clients need, I mean, that's what it's all about. Um, any other golden nuggets, Logan, that you're thinking of before coming on here?

Advice For Advisors And How To Connect

SPEAKER_02 37:57

I mean, like, just from the context of another advisor, I think there's just a like a few important things. Like, you need to be able to speak to people very clearly about the value that you're delivering, right? And like if you can't deliver that and relay it to them in layman's terms, then you can't get clients. And if you can't get clients, all your technical knowledge is worth nothing, right? Like, you've got to have somebody to do it for. So that skill has to be, I think you need experience with that skill, right? And that's what gives you the confidence to go and do this. Because for me, it's like, I was you're still gonna be worried about it, don't get me wrong. But within six months, I was up to like 80 grand of revenue, and I was like, oh shit, like I can actually have a decent salary now. This is wild. You know, mine was all going to pay off debt, but at the same time, like knowing that I could do it and then I could replicate it time and time again. It's like the same conversation, it just you adapt it to a new person, right? Um, so I think it's like ask questions to there, there's no advisor I've ever reached out to that won't have a meeting with me and answer questions I have. Like Brock's advisor is is one of the guys that really helped me go through XY, actually. I think you actually connected us. Um and and he's been invaluable. And we talk maybe every six months now, but like the dude was huge to me just getting the comfort to get the the questions answered to what I need to know. And that's like I'm meeting with two guys this week, and I know other XY members or not even XY members will happily meet with you because they want to see more advisors do the right thing because that's what we need, is we just need more good advisors, straight up.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

Yep, absolutely, man. Well, from uh firsthand experience since I met you in 2012, which seems crazy to say, um, it's been really cool to see you grow, man, and and seeing where you're at now and all the stuff that you're doing. I know it's gonna be a lot of success to come. Um, so appreciate you taking the time to be on the podcast today. For those people that might want to reach out or follow along, I don't know how much you're posting on social media, but they want to connect with you. What's the best way?

SPEAKER_02 40:07

Yeah, um, best way is probably through our website. It's uh www.valentinewm for wealthmanagement.com. Um, we've got LinkedIn and and I've got a little Facebook page that I post to maybe once every two months now. So um I'll respond to it. It just might take a while. But email, phone, our calendarly's on there. You get a hold of us, and we'll be happy to meet with anybody.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Awesome. Well, Logan, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks, fellas.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

Thanks, man.