Founded 1999 … now $3B AUM, 20K clients, 200+ workers in 10 offices … clients $200K+ in assets … baseball player, Vanguard U, 1980s … hires athletes: ‘discipline’ … president, booster club, Pacifica Christian H.S. (see David Bahnsen) … on Trilogy softball team with father, son … plays bridge … supports Anaheim Ducks (see Tim Ryan) … first car: 1975 Chevy Malibu
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Sometimes a cliché is best captured in a picture. On my colleague's phone was a black Bentley, chrome logo glistening in the sun. The car belonged to one of his most successful clients, but it wasn't the presumptive price tag that was jarring. The custom license plate read, “NVSTWME,” surrounded by a frame stating, “My other car is a yacht.”
Photographic evidence of people's worst assumptions about financial advisers: extreme affluence, simplistic value proposition, garnished with a touch of hubris. Truth is, the majority of people in financial services do not carry themselves with…
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Written by: Matthew Phillips | The last words of the email stood out the most. “… the thing is … we are deaf.” This is how the prospective client closed her message to me in 2017.
When I agreed to meet with the woman and her husband, I was feeling uncertain about how to best communicate with them. To prepare, I added captions to my usual video presentation. But halfway through, I realized the couple was completely overwhelmed with the financial vocabulary I was using, which was entirely new to them. Improvising, I pulled up a blank Word document and started typing which allowed us to converse back and forth. I felt completely inadequate and regretted not preparing more, but did my best to connect with the couple.
To my surprise, the meeting concluded with the wife rejecting my handshake and instead grabbing onto me tightly as she began to cry. “Matthew, thank you for what you have done,” she said. “We have sat with five advisors, and none have come close to helping us like you have. I know we have missed out on financial opportunities because we are deaf.”
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