4 Seasons Podcast

Embracing Legacy and Purpose: The B&H Wealth Strategies Journey

• Jeff Bingham • Episode 1

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Meet Jeff Bingham With B&H Wealth Strategies

Discover the transformative journey of B&H Wealth Strategies as Jeff Bingham shares the inspiring legacy of his father Bob Bingham and co-founder Norman Hensley. Leaving behind the comfort of an insurance agency in 1966, they established a financial advisory firm that has served Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia for nearly six decades. Jeff opens up about his unexpected transition from the world of hospitality to steering the family business, culminating in their 59th anniversary. This episode offers a glimpse into the steadfast values and unwavering commitment to client care that have been at the heart of B&H Wealth Strategies since its inception.

On a personal note, Jeff reveals a profound shift in his life that occurred on April 2nd, 2023, when he embraced a calling to serve and glorify God. This newfound purpose has deeply enriched his professional and personal relationships, transforming them from transactional to truly meaningful. Through a mission-driven approach, Jeff emphasizes the importance of proactive financial planning and invites listeners to embark on their financial journey with B&H Wealth Strategies. This episode not only aims to inspire but also empowers you to take actionable steps toward securing a future filled with purpose and impact.

To learn more about B&H Wealth Strategies visit:
https://www.BHRetire.com
B&H Wealth Strategies
423- 247-1152

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Four Seasons Podcast brought to you by B&H Wealth Strategies, serving Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia since 1966. Here we guide you through the ever-changing seasons of your financial journey, offering insights to help you grow, protect and enjoy your wealth. Ready to turn your financial dreams into reality, dare to dream. And now here's your host. President of B&H Wealth Strategies, jeff Bingham.

Speaker 2:

Welcome everybody. I'm Skip Mauney, co-host and producer here in the studio with Jeff Bingham. Jeff, how's it going?

Speaker 3:

It's going great, Skip. How are you doing this morning?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing just fine, doing just fine, thrilled to be here. So, jeff, over the years, b&h has grown a remarkable following. However, some of our listeners might not be familiar with your full journey, so let's take it from the top.

Speaker 3:

Could you share a little bit about your company and what you do? Sure, I'd love to. Yeah, we were founded in 1966, almost 59 years ago. It'll be on April 1st of this year It'll be our 59th birthday.

Speaker 3:

My father, bob Bingham, and Norman Hensley were the co-founders of the business at that point in time and they had actually had a history together prior to that at an insurance agency here in town it was Bennett and Edwards, which still is in existence, but at the time it was actually the largest insurance company, at least allegedly, this side of the Mississippi River.

Speaker 3:

At the time the Edwards family, along, I guess, with Eastman, is what we generally associate with Kingsport, but the Edwards family put together, I would guess, the entrepreneurial side of Kingsport back in the early 50s and into the 60s, and so that's where my dad was and they had an offer to buy out the life insurance side of that. So they moved to B&H Wealth Strategies and anytime you see a business start like that, you'd say it takes a lot of courage, it takes a lot of naive optimism, but they get it and they started this culture that I've been fortunate to be part of since 1989. And I've tried to really just honor them and continue the tradition of what we do here, which is serve our clients. That's a short version of our history, right there, I suppose very good, very good, very impressive.

Speaker 2:

In what year did we start?

Speaker 3:

I'm sorry, 1966 the year, steve spurger won the heisman trophy oh, wow, very cool.

Speaker 2:

You've got a big anniversary coming up.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, well it would be 60 years in 26,. But yeah, we're 59 this year. So I guess 59 is kind of interesting, because in our business 59 and a half is when you can start taking retirement plan distributions without a 10% tax bonus when the government says you're old enough to do that. So I suppose that we can start taking our retirement distributions on our own in October of this year.

Speaker 2:

There you go, take your own medicine there. That's good stuff. So, jeff, how did you get involved? I mean, was this something you always wanted to do, or was it just you know? How did you get in that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean I would say a lot of people that look at me and not know my entire journey I guess would assume what you just said right there, because I was born in 1960. So I'm actually turning 65 here. By the time this podcast drops, I will be 65 years old.

Speaker 2:

I didn't start here.

Speaker 3:

until I was almost 30 years old, I didn't have a straight path to becoming a financial advisor. I'd always paid attention to it and knew a bit about what my dad did, but not really a lot, to be quite honest.

Speaker 3:

I was there in college and probably actually started in high school. But through my college career I was a bartender and then became an assistant manager at Richfield's Country Club here. So my background is really in hospitality and I did that in the private sector here, which is really much different than the public sector, I would argue, for most of the time anyway, in the restaurant business, because we weren't a seat and feed in place. We were very much catered to your clientele. You understand what their needs are. They come in, they expect to be taken care of, and so that's what we did, and so that really is how I developed what we call the Four Seasons, which is a Four Seasons podcast, and that is really where that evolves from is my background in hospitality, restaurant service, et cetera.

Speaker 3:

I went to Dallas, texas, and decided to leave. I was actually as oftentimes we do in our youth. I moved to Dallas and that fell through. But I got a job down there. You know, before I moved I had a job in the public sector, a place called On the Border Cafe and they were opening up and it was quite a different environment. I learned a lot, but it was, you know, the idea there is to get them in and get them out as fast as you can. We call them, you know, seed them and feed them and get them out, and which was contrary to what I had learned in my previous career at Richfields. And so I came home as the relationship fell apart and I came home, I suppose, a little bit with my tail between my legs and not knowing exactly what I was going to do. I was 29 years old and I looked around to get back in the restaurant business because of what I knew, and I didn't find anything that worked. Where I was at Richfields, that job wasn't still available.

Speaker 3:

I did knock around a little bit there bartending and doing some things, but I went to my dad after a bit and said what do you think about me coming to work here at B&H? And he said, yes. I said, but you know, you're just going to have to come in, you know, in the mailroom, so to speak, and learn the business from the ground up. And that's how I started in this. That was September of 1989. So I'm now in 35 years plus that I've been doing this. But that's really my journey into this and with the parallels there and the growth are to serve clients, right, and that's what we do, and serve clients. I think it really has part of the use of the term again, but to serve is what we're built to do, it's what we are geared to do. And you know the B&H, well, strategies is really the black and white of financial planning and the Four Seasons is where we kind of bring it into color, right, that's where we color the landscape and we use the phrase dare to dream. When you come in here, tell us what your goals, your dreams, your aspirations are. And if you could see, there's a board in here in the room that I'm in, and my dad and I, you know, kind of coined this. I guess it was in 1991 or 1993.

Speaker 3:

And it's you really just ask.

Speaker 3:

There's a lot of things that go into planning, but there are basically three questions you can ask, and that is where are you, where do you want to go and how do you want to get there?

Speaker 3:

If you ask those questions, you give the client the canvas that they need to outline what they're looking for, not just from their financial future and obviously the finances, the engine that drives everything but what you really want to hear about.

Speaker 3:

What are those goals and dreams? What is your bucket list as you move into retirement? How can we get you closer to that financial freedom that you're looking for and that really has evolved and blossomed quite a bit from 30 years ago or more, when we began to ask those questions just kind of sitting back and letting clients talk, began to ask those questions, just kind of sitting back and letting clients talk. What our job really is to do, if we're doing our job as advisors, is we want to ask the questions, get out of the way, let the client talk and listen, and then ask some questions along those lines to kind of add some texture to what their dreams are, and then you just sit back and you try to put together the tools and the investments and the plans that are going to make those dreams become a reality.

Speaker 2:

Excellent. Well, Jeff, first of all, happy birthday. Hope it's a good one. When you're not running this business, Jeff, what do you do for fun?

Speaker 3:

This is fun.

Speaker 3:

What do you do for fun? This is fun. I have a James Mischinger quote around here that I got many years ago and you know, those that live a passionate life which I try to do kind of evolve around that you never really know the difference when you look at a man when he's in leisure and play versus when he's working, because for him, everything is just the life that you live. But I do, you know what do I do when I'm not doing this? I used to be a golfer that not everybody knows this but I lost my sight fully, I guess in June of 2022. And it came on kind of slowly. But I'm an avid cyclist now and that's quite interesting when you can't see as well. But I managed to ride outside with some of my friends that can kind of lead me along.

Speaker 3:

But I do a lot of that inside. It's, it's solitude and poetry to me, just getting on and kind of shutting. Eventually, sometimes you need to shut your mind down and what I find for me that works is that I can push my body to the physical limits at some point in time, and that's when the mind shuts down from thinking about work and the things that we're talking about here, let's say, but you move into the challenge between wanting to quit, can you push your body past when the brain's saying, man, let's stop doing this? So I mean it's an excellent form of for me anyway of discipline and diligence of doing that. And, like I said, one of our sayings we have around here too, by the way is that the difference between success and failure, the way you get to success, is discipline, is the bridge between success and failure, and I kind of try to live that to a degree.

Speaker 3:

Also, something that will come clear through most of these things is I, at 63 years old, on April 2nd, on Palm Sunday of 2023, I committed, recommitted, I suppose, really committed my life to the Lord. I was saved on April 2nd again Palm Sunday, which is quite remarkable, I think, in the story. It means a lot to me. It just was by, not by plan, that was just just happened. That's a God thing. But so I spent a lot of time in prayer and faith and in church, and our practice is now also conveys that, but that's trying to spread the gospel.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome Mind, body and spirit.

Speaker 3:

Mind, body and spirit Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Amen, got to have them all in line and it sounds like you're doing it, jeff.

Speaker 3:

It's a work in progress, with lots of stumbles, as we all do, but, lord, it is good all the time.

Speaker 2:

All the time, all the time. Well, jeff, I know you're an extremely busy guy. You're running a big, successful business. So I guess the big question I'd like to ask is, in your own words and you touched on this earlier but what's your higher? Why, why are you doing this?

Speaker 3:

My highest why now Skip? And this was not true until April 2nd. But it is to serve the Lord, to glorify God, god, and that's what I try to do in everything that I do and every step that I take and every breath. I take pardon for that, for that, using the song, but I mean that everything is inside me and that is my why. But then, as you break that down, it is to serve also our clients. And then you know my why is now. I mean I was a successful businessman.

Speaker 3:

You could have looked at me, maybe until the latter part, because that was kind of falling apart as I found my salvation.

Speaker 3:

I was successful in business, I was the head of a successful financial planning practice and you know it would have been easy to have seen me walk through my career and die and be put to rest and look at it as if I had. You know it would have been easy to have seen me walk through my career and die and be put to rest and look at it as if I had. You know it would have looked like a successful life. But I would have missed what truly what life is about, and that is to serve the Lord and to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ and to try to make as my dad used to say. It just didn't really the words didn't take with me. My dad always said try to leave the world a better place than when you found it. And I would say those words, but they didn't mean a whole lot. But now, since April 2nd of 2023, I understand, or I'm trying to further understand, that every single day.

Speaker 1:

And that's what I'm trying to do.

Speaker 3:

I want my children to look at me, I want my clients to look at me, and not because I want them to look at me, but I want to say that it was a life well lived and I want to finish this thing well. What it has given me is this inner drive that won't allow me to quit anything, because you're trying to serve the highest and you're trying to please your father, and I'm trying to please both of my fathers, my biological father and then God, our father and if you do that, you won't quit. I mean, like I said, I'm blind. What I do every day in here is difficult. Right, we deal. I deal with numbers, I deal with narrative around numbers, you know, and I really thought that I might quit because it was just too darn hard and I can't imagine quitting now. Right, I mean.

Speaker 3:

I know the sacrifice that was made for me to be saved and I can pick up my cross every day and bear the burdens that I've described right there, whatever the burdens are going to come, and I know I can walk up the hill with it on my back, and that's the attitude that I take.

Speaker 2:

That's incredible, jeff. Thank you for that and amen, brother, I couldn't agree more, it's not about me.

Speaker 3:

I was successful in life and I had a lot of gifts. I'm not this is not great. I mean I was athletic growing up. I have a reasonable amount of intelligence, I can talk to people, I'm good at what I do and I thought those were mine. You know, for 63 years I thought those were mine and those aren't mine. Those are gifts that God gave me and now I understand that and without being able to see what I'm able to do in my practice, the relationships that I have further with my clients and new people that I'm meeting are just so much deeper.

Speaker 3:

And this kind of goes back to the mission or quote that I was talking about earlier. Again, these were words. I lived them to a degree, but only on the surface, until I would say most of life is transactional right, and certainly the business of financial planning and investments and all that. It is by nature a transactional right, and certainly my, the business of financial planning and investments and all that it is by nature a transactional business.

Speaker 3:

But we always try to differentiate ourselves and we talked about was making relationships transformational and and we were pretty good at that right, I mean I would say, but now it's just so much. These are truly transformational relationships and I don't think you can have truly transformational relationships until you have, at least for me, the understanding of what the ultimate and what the highest is. And that's where transformational relationships take place. And that's what we have, or try to come in here and do every day and my staff. We call it a mission. This is not a job, but we're on a mission and that mission is to serve our clients and, ultimately, to glorify God. And if we do those kind of things, we're not ever going to get to perfect because there was only one perfect but we will get as close to excellent as we can, if not too excellent.

Speaker 2:

Amen brother Love it Jeff. Amen brother Love it Jeff. So we'll catch you in the next episode where we'll dive into some frequently asked questions about the financial management business. Sound good.

Speaker 3:

Amen, Absolutely. So yeah, this one was not about the financial business, but it really is about financial business. And you know, and again I would say in closing this is not, this wasn't my dad's business, this is not. We're stewards of this business, that's all. We are stewards. And Jake, as he comes along, he'll be the next steward of this business. And whoever comes along after him, you know again, god willing right, it's God's will. This business will endure for however long it's meant to be here.

Speaker 2:

All right, man, you have a great rest of the day. We'll see you in the next episode. Thanks, Skip.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for tuning in to the Four Seasons Podcast brought to you by B&H Wealth Strategies, where your financial success is our priority. Schedule your free 20-minute consultation today by calling 423-247-1152 or by visiting bhretirecom. Take the first step toward making your financial dreams come true. Until next time, remember every season is the right season to plan for your future. Securities and registered investment advisory services offered through Silver Oak Securities is the right season to plan for your future.