Marketing Your Way with John Bovard

In this episode, our Host, Charlie Van Derven, chats with John Bovard, the brains behind Incline Wealth Advisors. John shares his story of moving from a big firm to being an RIA. His story shows how becoming independent can bring new opportunities, especially in digital marketing. John's experiences and tips can help listeners who want to become independent advisors themselves.

John talks about how important digital marketing has been for growing his business and keeping his clients throughout the transition and how independence has opened new avenues for marketing his authentic self. 

This episode is great for anyone thinking about becoming independent. Listen in to hear how John Bovard used digital marketing to become successful in the RIA world.

John Bovard
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Transcript

 00:00
Charlie Van Derven
Thank you for tuning into another episode of RIA Collective. My name is Charlie Van Derven. I'm your host for today. I got a great guest today who came out of a big firm, like a lot of our guests, and, you know, just didn't serve his needs or the needs of his clients. And so we want to we want to tap into the experience of John Bovard. John is in Cincinnati, Ohio. His RIA is inclined. Wealth advisor. Now I thought Incline was Pittsburgh, but John informed me that Cynthia's got some incline too. We'll talk a little bit about that. So we're learning things geographically as well. John, without further ado, thank you for joining me on RA Collective. I appreciate you taking some time out of your day. 

 00:40
John Bovard
Yes, thanks for having me, Charlie. I'm looking forward to our conversation. 

 00:44
Charlie Van Derven
Awesome. John, really the goal is, man, if we got a captive advisor that like, you, knows they're in the wrong situation and hopefully we give them some knowledge. But more than that, some confidence that others before them have successfully made that transition to independence. And I think, John, we share the idea that not the idea, but the knowledge that there's a more pure client relationship in that RIA space where you don't have the biases of the big firm. 

 01:12
John Bovard
Right, correct. Yeah. I think if you can operate your clients and the way that I like to word it a lot with my clients is I like to meet them where they're at. So what that means is I'm not trying to slam them into whatever a wire house tells me to or cross sell them on any certain products. But by being independent, it truly gives me flexibility to work in my clients best interest. Whether that be from how my cost and fees are structured, whether it be AUM, whether it be a retainer model, a one time planning fee to tax preparation, tax planning using different software available there cash flow, budgeting, account aggregation. All of those different services that become available to you when you're independent is really something that I felt is necessary to provide a deep level of service to clients and to truly meet them where they're at. 

 02:13
John Bovard
And also to add value to us because add value to the client because at the end of the day, investments are somewhat of a commodity. So you really have to show your client that you're adding value to them. 

 02:28
Charlie Van Derven
John, do you mean that not everybody needs to refi their mortgage and get a credit card? 

 02:33
John Bovard
Yes, that is correct. Yes. Credit cards? Yes. New mortgages, trust accounts? Yes. Not everyone needs that. And people should be able to choose whatever bank they want to whatever relationship they have. It shouldn't be in my mind, really shouldn't be dictated by their wealth management relationship. 

 02:56
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. So prior to starting Incline Wealth, let's talk about listen, when we first met, I said incline wealth. John's either inclined Village, Nevada, which is Lake Tahoe. I lived there for a little while, so I know it well. Or Pittsburgh, but no, you're in Cincinnati, man. So tell me a little bit about I wasn't aware and this is a little bit off topic, but that's okay. I wasn't aware that Cinci had an incline. Like I've ridden the one at Pittsburgh. 

 03:22
John Bovard
Yes. So Cincinnati, there's actually seven hills around downtown Cincinnati. And back in the day, they currently do not have a functioning incline. But back in the day it's what people did that mainly lived on my side of the town. So downtown Cincinnati, it's one of the geographical areas where they talk about the west side of Cincinnati and the east side of Cincinnati. West side of Cincinnati is typically the people that are born there live there forever and they die there. East side is a lot more people that move into the area. They work here. Maybe they got moved here by Proctor and Gamble, big company here or Kroger and they come here to work. And typically when that happens, they'll live on the east side. So the east side did have one incline. The west side also had an incline that took people from downtown up the hill and the hill is called Price Hill. 

 04:20
John Bovard
It would take them from downtown and up the hill into Price Hill where a lot of people would work downtown and they live over in what would be the suburbs of Price Hill and they would ride the incline home from work. 

 04:32
Charlie Van Derven
Well, recording right now I'm in Wisconsin for a few weeks and so I will be passing back through Cincinnati on my way home to Florida, like middle of March or something like that. I'm going to have to stop by you and I grab a coffee and maybe you could show me what this incline thing is all about. 

 04:49
John Bovard
Absolutely. There's a great coffee shop up in the incline district. 

 04:52
Charlie Van Derven
Awesome, man. Make it happen, John. I look forward to that. Let's help some advisors that are thinking about independence. So you were with a big wirehouse firm for three years. Let's talk about the good of that, John. We're going to talk about why that was negative. We kind of alluded to it already. Right. All the cross selling and dictating quotas and what you need to be selling to clients that don't necessarily need the products or services. Do you take anything away from it that you were like, you know what, I'm glad I spent this three years, even though it wasn't the perfecting environment for me. Something that helped you as a catalyst to opening your firm? 

 05:30
John Bovard
Yeah, absolutely. I felt that the wirehouse firm that I was at created a structured training program. Right. So you may have heard of this from different wire house firms, but they typically put you on like a two year or a three year training program where you are required to meet certain hurdles and there's some learning involved with it. So the financial planning process, the investment process, you're kind of on a path where you're getting checked in with, you know, some sort of manager or, you know, training program leader where they are holding you accountable. So there's some accountability there. Also what helped me was being on a team. So I was on a team of four different advisors and they really helped to just the time I spent with them, just learning, sitting in on meetings with them, how they interacted with clients, how they met with clients, was a great experience for me. 

 06:37
John Bovard
They also had some support as well from who I could meet with and also already having a book of well established clients that I could service and really get those reps of meeting with, building plans, communicating with people that helped me. And then, honestly, I had my feet to the fire a little bit with bringing in new assets. You know, it was very much an eat what you kill environment where I was expected to be a self sustaining advisor at the end of my training program. Meaning I brought in enough revenue to the firm to pay for my seat. Right. So there are some advisors I know nowadays that might be somewhat frowned upon, but where I was at in my career, I wanted to build a book of clients up. I wanted sort of that accountability. I wanted those sales goals to hit and achieve. 

 07:33
John Bovard
And that provided me with good structure and learning during my time with the wirehouse firm. And then, like I said, being in that team environment, providing that structure, I definitely think led to the success I had and helped me to really launch and set me up for success with my next step in my career. 

 07:54
Charlie Van Derven
That's awesome, man. I hear that a lot, right? It's really the roadmap, right? If you jump right into an RIA, first off, you lack a lot of knowledge, but also, how do you go about this, right? And the big firms have done it so many times. It's scientific to some degree. Right now. There's a skill level and everything else involved that's going to have a variance between advisors. But for the most part, it's a. 

 08:21
John Bovard
Scientific approach to growth, right? Yeah. Nick Murray, right? What does it call it? A game of numbers or whatever. The book he wrote, if you will hit your numbers and put in the time and have the meetings and set the relationships. There was a book I read at Merrill called Million Dollar Producer. Really, if you hit those numbers, you can get there. You certainly can if you'll put the time in the structure and then the learning too. At the bigger firms, they have specialists that can help you with things like trust accounts. They can help you with insurance and life insurance, things like that. If you need a resource. You can really be a sponge there. And then during my time, I met with other advisors at Merrill. One of them was a private wealth advisor, very successful in his practice and really tried to learn as much as I could from the other advisors while I was at that. 

 09:19
Charlie Van Derven
That's awesome. While the environment may not be great, there are some wonderful things that come out of it that are a catalyst to your success with Incline as well. 

 09:31
John Bovard
Yes. 

 09:32
Charlie Van Derven
That's awesome, man. When were getting to know each other, John, you mentioned something to me which I'm kind of impressed by. You moved over like 70% assets. That's a pretty big number when you're removing that big brand from your credibility factors. 

 09:50
John Bovard
Right? 

 09:51
Charlie Van Derven
Let's talk about that. I think that's a great learning place for some of our listeners, is how right. Especially if my timeline lines up. You're doing all this kind of during. 

 10:02
John Bovard
COVID That's exactly right, yes. Which a lot of people say if you move over in a down market, that can cause a lot of opportunity. It might actually be a good thing. COVID I would say was a double whammy for the worst possible timing. Not only did the market drop there in March, where it hit a bottom on March 23, but also people weren't getting out and about. People weren't leaving their homes, they weren't leaving their basements. The traditional networking and business development strategies that I had built throughout my career were nonexistent. Now everybody's, instead of being out at happy hours, are sitting at home in front of their computer. But yes, I would say a lot of it is if you're determining it, really. So I had a mentor that kind of helped me through the process. Someone that had actually launched an RIA, sold as RIA and then really was a sponge to the industry by diving into different podcasts. 

 11:07
John Bovard
Michael Kissy's podcast is a great one. This one would be a great one as well for people that are trying to learn the RIA world. But I'd say you have to have someone that can mentor. You can't do it alone. You got to have a firm that can get you registered. You have to have some sort of mentor coach that helps you through that process. And then there's so much available information out there, you got to be a sponge and you got to put that time in. But one of the things that I learned is you have to have your script ready, right. You've got to have your benefits laid out and bullet pointed well so that all of your clients know exactly why you left and now what their benefits are, because that's the first thing they want to hear is what's it for me? 

 11:50
John Bovard
Right? Why should I go with you? Why should I look to move? And to me, the service model was pretty simple, right? I mean, as far as why they should they were getting kind of the tip of the iceberg when it comes through a financial planning model and services. And a lot of the big firms, if they're publicly traded, they aren't reinvesting those dollars back into their financial planning technology. So on the open market, there's a lot of resources that are available to you when you're independent that you can pick from different vendors where the technology is light years ahead of what you get at some of the bigger firms. So, for me, granted, yeah, Incline Wealth Advisors, not a big firm, right? But my custodian, Charles Schwab, they're a big firm, right? Yes, they're the biggest. And you're talking a trillion dollar firm if you look at them, compared to any wirehouse as far as number of assets go. 

 12:48
John Bovard
So really leveraging the strength of Charles Schwab and the services that they are providing, the investment platform, the custodian of the assets, the service team that I had at Schwab. So really saying, hey, yes, Incline Wealth Advisors, I'm your planner, I'm your guy, I'm your one call. You need something and I'll be housing your plan. But Schwab is holding the assets, right? There's a firewall between me and Schwab, and they're the ones holding the assets. They'll send your statements. You can log in the Schwab's website and see your money in. There a lot in Cincinnati. You have Schwab branches you can go to. So I'm your advisor. But Schwab is kind of the big firm replacement, so to speak. So not only do you get the extra level of planning, the extra services on an ongoing basis at a reduced cost because you're not necessarily paying for the downtown office that you are at the big firm. 

 13:46
John Bovard
You're getting some cost concessions there, and then you're also getting the benefits of a big firm like Charles Schwab as well. 

 13:54
Charlie Van Derven
You brought up some really important points there for the big firms. 

 13:59
John Bovard
Technology is a capital investment, right? 

 14:02
Charlie Van Derven
And it comes around on a budget every five years, every seven years, whatever that might be. And we've watched marketing I won't bring up any names, but I watched one firm revamp marketing technology in 2022. They didn't do it very well. 

 14:16
John Bovard
Right. 

 14:19
Charlie Van Derven
You can do webinars, but we don't really know what that means at this point. 

 14:23
John Bovard
Right? 

 14:24
Charlie Van Derven
I mean, stuff like that, right. So the advisors, you could do video, but it's so difficult to do. So they're revamping that marketing technology for the first time in 5710 years. Now they got some bright, shiny stuff going on there, but it's going to sit with a band aid on it. Anytime they need something for the next 5710 years, where is the open market going to be in seven years? Ridiculous, right? So that's a really important part. I think the other piece that you brought up, John, that's so important is you do have the backing of a major brand with Schwab or whoever you custodian through. 

 15:04
John Bovard
Right? 

 15:04
Charlie Van Derven
I mean, there's some smaller ones out there that are doing some really great things. But if one of those fears is leaving the big brand and the credibility you've got that you're walking into another huge trusted brand that frankly has the same marketing budgets and advertising budgets on Sunday golf tournaments, the brand you're leaving, they might be spending more money. I'm not sure about that. So very important points. We talked about 70% or approximately of assets. Did all that move over right away? What does that look like? I mean, again, so you talked about you had a non solicitation. So you can't reach out and solicit people, but you can still inform them. 

 15:50
John Bovard
Correct. 

 15:51
Charlie Van Derven
Right. And you've got some methodology behind that once you speak to that. 

 15:55
John Bovard
Yeah, absolutely. It is definitely a process, right, because yes, for you and I to sit here and talk about the benefits of an RIA and being independent, being a fiduciary. Clients don't understand any of that. They don't. In fact, the matter at the end of the day, they can't tell the difference between what a wirehouse firm is and what an independent firm is. They have no idea. So with that, it takes time. It takes time, it takes meetings, it takes education. Initially, yes, you'll get your first wave of clients that will come right away. And you'll get some surprises there too. People that maybe if it's out of town clients or remote clients, and you never even met them in person, but they move right away. And then you'll have your surprises to the downside of people that you thought would move right away. And it takes them a year, maybe even two years. 

 16:48
John Bovard
I mean, I'm three years in, and I just got two clients that moved over in the fourth quarter of 2022. So you have to keep at it. You have to stay top of mind, because what happens is your book of business gets reassigned to somebody else. And are they going to give them the same level of attention that you were? No, probably not. So it's very important that okay, yeah, initially, that you might get those people that don't move and say, well, I'm going to give this guy at your old firm. I'm going to give him a shot. Right. And then inevitably, what happens is twelve months in, 15 months and 18 months in, they're still hearing from me, and they're not hearing from that new advisor as often. So, like you said, what you can do is you can definitely reach out and inform people of what your move is and really look to leverage all of the digital marketing resources that are available once you become independent, because you don't have some of the compliance restrictions that you had at the old firms. 

 17:52
John Bovard
So I really hit the ground hard with the digital marketing. Making sure my website was up to date was correct. People can schedule meetings with me directly on my website. They knew exactly how to get a hold of me showing up on Google Maps, Google calendar, I mean, everything that you can do, calendly is what I use for that. So really made sure my website was where it needed to be. And then from there, I looked at my website kind of as a wheel, and then there's all of these different spokes that you can use that all lead back to that wheel. So my most important one when I learned was email subscriber list. So I would write one blog post every single week. I had a bunch of subscribers to that email address, so they were getting constant emails, and I was staying top of mind with them. 

 18:43
John Bovard
I had a couple of people that responded directly to my email, so that came out on a weekly basis and said, I'm ready to move over now, just because they would continue to see my information on a weekly basis. And most of the time, like I said, that spoke of the blog post and the email list, I use MailChimp for mine, it drives them back to my website, right? And then a lot of those other spokes, LinkedIn, Facebook page, a Facebook group, a YouTube channel, instagram, and Twitter, I all use as those folks to try to drive traffic back to my website. So staying top of mind with people on those websites was tremendous, and it was a huge value for me because honestly, I couldn't do those things before. I had people that knew me that didn't even know I was a financial advisor, but by going independent and oh yeah, I saw you on Facebook. 

 19:37
John Bovard
Oh, you're an independent buyer, okay, great. I just changed jobs. I got no 401K, what should I do with it? Or my wife and I have been putting things off and we realized we need to meet with somebody. And I saw your information on LinkedIn or Facebook, and now I'm reaching out to you. So had a lot of just what I would call your natural market that were not clients when I was at the big firm. But now they saw the different marketing that I can do, and they realize that I'm in the industry. And here's what you need to realize with content, you got to be consistent with it. And it doesn't have to be a full production studio, right? I mean, you don't need to be one of the larger RIA firm. You don't need to be on CNBC and have it production. 

 20:22
John Bovard
It can be as simple as a quick video from your phone, from your computer, but you're staying top of mind. Because I'll be honest with you, the people probably aren't listening to every word and every video that you put out anyway, but they see you, they see that you're interested in it. They see that you are involved. If you're willing to put yourself out there and then you obviously have some knowledge around the subject and that builds confidence in them to reach out to you. So a lot of it was, like I said, staying top of mind through the digital marketing that I didn't have access to when I was at the bigger firm and just being consistent with it. And I'll be honest there's, sometimes I look back at all those old videos and I cringe. 

 21:03
Charlie Van Derven
Me too, man, me too. 

 21:06
John Bovard
It's still out there and people see it and they like it. So that was another resource that I had to where I could get not only my former clients could move over with me, but also clients that knew me, that didn't necessarily knew what I did professionally and they started reaching out as well. 

 21:25
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. First off, your website today is better than it was at the firm. 

 21:30
John Bovard
Absolutely. 

 21:31
Charlie Van Derven
You've got more resources, you've got more flexibility. You're not being governed. Here's the thing about compliance, it's really risk mitigation. 

 21:41
John Bovard
Right, right. 

 21:42
Charlie Van Derven
And so when you're at a firm of eight or 10,000 advisors, they are mitigating to the riskiest advisor of those eight or 10,000. And you could be the least risky, but you're still being treated like the riskiest advisor. 

 21:55
John Bovard
Right? 

 21:55
Charlie Van Derven
Absolutely. So they have to do a lot of lockdown and that's protecting the firm. I mean, of course it's there for you and they'll tell you that, but reality is it protects the firm. 

 22:04
John Bovard
Right? Yes. 

 22:07
Charlie Van Derven
You moved a lot of assets over. I keep coming back to that because I'm impressed by it. But to your point, it didn't all happen right away. And with a non solicitation, you can't go get it, but that doesn't mean you can't communicate into it with all the methodology that you're talking about. And you said consistency. You hit all my talking points, John. When I'm doing a sales pitch to somebody, you hit all my talking points, man. So if this doesn't work out for you, maybe we got a position over at Social Advisors. We'll see. 

 22:36
John Bovard
It works. That stuff works for sure. 

 22:38
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, that's it. That's it. So listen, we've talked a lot about the good stuff that you've done in departure from the firm and helping you prop up inclined wealth advisors. Anything that you did that you were like, gosh, I wish I'd done that a little differently. 

 22:55
John Bovard
Yeah, I would say a couple of things. Obviously, timing right. I mean, you never know. You never know when the right time might be. Should I have potentially waited in another year? Could I have left a little bit earlier? I would say you're never going to nail the perfect time. So you've got to just continue to fight through that. No matter when it is you leave, something's going to come up. A client that you expected to move over, they won't move over. I would say that as far as from a preparation standpoint or moving over have kind of that consistent time period and really know what matters most to all of your clients. Obviously, we've got maybe you segment your clients, A-B-C whatever it is, but for some of those clients that you don't have as strong of relationship, make sure you know what all matters to them, right? 

 24:06
John Bovard
And make sure what's most important to them, and maybe ask them point blank while you're at that firm or even before you jump. What do you value most out of our meetings when we call? Because to me, that surprises most people. That surprised me with some people sometimes some of those clients might say it's the cachet of the big firm. Right. I envision that you have to have a certain level of wealth to be at a bigger firm, and I don't want to lose that. I don't want to leave that. I made sure that I saved up a certain amount of assets so that I can reach this level with a certain firm, and that's what was important to them. Right. And those clients, they'll probably never leave that prior firm, really. If I would have kind of honed down on with all of my clients and looked at, okay, what's most important to you? 

 25:03
John Bovard
What do you value most in this relationship? That could have potentially saved me some time and effort when launching my firm, but I would say that would be one thing I could potentially might have done differently at that time. Another focus of mine was before launching my firm, and even in my first year, I had a very strong emphasis on tax preparation. You know, is this gonna be great? You know, I could be an IRS enrolled agent. I can do tax returns for people. And then I got into it and realized, like, this is a lot of time for not a lot of revenue, when really, if I just refer people to a CPA, I could get back tenfold if the CPA sends me one or two referrals. So things like that were kind of learning experiences for me as I have progressed on with my firm. 

 26:04
John Bovard
Another thing, too, is when do you bring in help? What do you look to outsource, and when do I look to bring in help? I waited I was at about two and a half years before I brought in Amy, who's my client service associate. 

 26:22
Charlie Van Derven
Wow. 

 26:23
John Bovard
So could I have potentially hired someone a little bit sooner than that? Yeah, I probably could. I just wanted to make sure that I was at a consistent level of recurring revenue. I even incurred in that first year, I even incurred some debt on the business and wanted to make sure that was completely paid off. 

 26:43
Charlie Van Derven
That's another good point that most people don't bring up. Right. You had clients move over and created revenue. First off, quarterly billing cycle, like your first three months, you can't even bill right. You do have to be able to be prepared for. There are expenses involved. There's obviously things you're not thinking about, like you're going to be an enrolled agent. And that's not necessarily, all of a sudden the time dedicated to doing that isn't paying off. So, yeah, I think flexibility and understanding that there'll be some lean time. John, it's amazing to hear your story, right? You're a put together guy. You the understanding that the purity of the client relationship couldn't exist at a large firm that had the biases and the cross selling. Kudos to you for identifying that and doing what's right, not only for you as a person, but also the clients that you represent. 

 27:43
Charlie Van Derven
So I applaud that. 

 27:45
John Bovard
That's awesome. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

 27:47
Charlie Van Derven
If we've got listeners that resonate with your story, maybe they're curious where inclined Wealth Advisors is going. I mean, typically our listener is that young advisor that thinks they need a change and so they're gathering some information here. Are you okay being a resource? 

 28:04
John Bovard
Yes, absolutely. People can reach out with me. I'm very active on LinkedIn with John Bovard, CFP, and I'm very active on there and then obviously my website as well. So inclinedwealth.com on my homepage, there is a link to my calendar. You can schedule a 15 minutes checking call, 30 minutes call. You're happy to be a resource. 

 28:28
Charlie Van Derven
Awesome. Thank you for doing that, man. I like to think we're doing something good for the industry. I believe, like you do, that the best place to serve your clients is in an unbiased environment. RA. 

 28:41
John Bovard
Yes, absolutely. 

 28:43
Charlie Van Derven
John Boulevard. Thank you for being my guest. I'm happy to call you friend. I'm excited to sit down face to face here pretty soon on my return trip. Yeah, man. Your time is valuable and spending it with me and our listeners, I appreciate that. 

 28:57
John Bovard
Yeah, thanks for having me on, Charlie. And like I said, if you're contemplating making the jump, find someone. Find someone like Charlie. Find someone. There's a lot of different resources that are out there that can help you to go independent. It's very doable, right? There's a multitude of different steps, but it's worth it and you can accomplish it, right? It is so freeing to be acting in the best interest of your clients and also being a business owner at the same time. 

 29:34
Charlie Van Derven
That's awesome, man. So, on behalf of my guest and new final, john Bovard and myself, Charlie Vanderbin, thanks for listening to another episode of RIA Collective. Your time is valuable, spending it with us. I hope it brings you some value. And we're not really hunting big sponsorship. Maybe one day I'm not too worried about this being a revenue machine again. Maybe in the future we'll see, but we need your help in getting the word out. So if you like what you heard today and took some value out of John's advice, please share this with someone who can use it. And if you give us a review and a like and AI Transcription the various listening platforms that helps us reach more people. So, John, thanks again for joining me and for all of our listeners. We appreciate you spending some time with us. Closing out another episode of RAA Collective.