A Chat with Hank podcast transcript

A Chat with Hank

SPEAKERS

Hank Multala, Adviser First Partners

Hank Multala  00:02

Hi, this is A Chat with Hank. I'm Hank Multala. Since this is the first installation in this podcast, I thought it'd be most appropriate to give you the give you the listener, an outline of our firm, and the intention of the upcoming podcasts. Just so you feel more comfortable, giving up a small fraction your life to listen to upcoming podcasts, I think a quick background of who I am would only be appropriate. And at any time, if there's something you want to share, take part in a podcast to educate the audience, or have suggestions on how we can improve, please drop us a line through our website, our social media pages via LinkedIn or Facebook. So first, advisor first partners is a Verified Veteran Owned Business (VOSB) and we make monthly donations to a veteran’s organization on behalf of all who register for free, subscribe to our services, or are on our outside resources tab, which I'll provide more detail on in just a moment. The reason I do this is up until the start of 1993, I had spent 10 years in the Navy and for all of you who have served, or someone in the family has served or you've committed time or resources to our troops and veterans, I wanted to say thank you from bottom my heart and it means a great deal. The following 14 years, I worked as a retail and institutional advisor. And about the last baker's dozen plus years I have spent in business development, recruiting, strategic growth or whatever stupid descriptive best suits the role at the time. But over the last few years, I came to a realization that business development is damaged and broken. And if you looked at it objectively, you would come to the same conclusion and there's room for significant improvement for all those who take part, and any advancements or renovations will simultaneously benefit everyone involved in the process itself. So we at Advisor First Partners are the ones who have made the commitment for all those involved to bring about and deliver this change to our industry. So very simply in business development, if you were a gallon of milk, you would be sick, it's spoiled, and it's well past its expiration date. So as financial professionals contemplate a shift from one firm, or business model to another, they are numerous options that always surface, and they all seem to look alike. There's an abundance of financial firms and practices that bring a very unique, and I would say industry leading solutions for business growth. But rarely do these companies get an opportunity to present their wares and that's due to biased, overpriced, I would say outdated and slothful tactics of connecting financial professionals and financial firms. So again, it was time to positively improve the outcomes for both groups. So we have two primary objectives. First is to level the playing field for all firms as we constructed and utilized a fiduciary approach which I'll discuss in a moment. And second, we wanted to provide financial professionals anonymity to investigate those often overlooked, high quality firms that can deliver a distinctive construct, a mindset and a benefit to their practices, as well as our industry. So to sum it up, our focused discipline produces full transparency and attracts excellence. So let me get into the specifics of why we came to be and then very briefly let you know what we would like to do on this podcast. So in full transparency, which is essential, from our perspective, let me begin by saying this, even though I have acted in that capacity years ago, I'm actually insulted to be called a third-party recruiter, a few decent ones exist, but for the most part, they're all biased, conflicts of interest are rampant, and more often than not, their results suck. And as you get a clearer understanding of the details I'm about to run through, I hope you come to the same conclusion as I did. And also ask why didn't someone recognize an overhaul this mechanism sooner? Will I piss off or alienate some third-party recruiters now, probably. I really don't care. So here's the three areas we focused on. We focused on compatibility matching, fiduciary  responsibility and level of playing field, so compatibility matching, we are focused on quality, not quantity, garbage in equals garbage out, and it does nothing to benefit us. And most importantly, it doesn't do shit for those who have elected to use our services. if it's someone who registers for free, or paid subscriber, or one of our friends on the outside resources section of our website. Some of you may be familiar with eHarmony and their process. Now, I've never been on their site. I've been married for 31 years. And if I was on the site, I, I think we can all agree my wife would have my ass. But the process that they use, we did similarly is that we utilize psychologists to develop a weighted compatibility algorithm that matches financial professionals with financial firms. A lot of complexity but just a very simple statement. On one side, we have financial professionals, they can either be single or multi partner practices, retail, institutional a combination of all of these and the other side we have financial firms that can be broker-dealers, RIAs hybrids, regionals consolidators, OSJs and all others that are looking to grow, which may include at times of the multi partner practices, both sides would fill out profiles, which is a list of questions, and it's completed by both the financial professionals and the financial firms. Financial professionals receive what we call a compatibility score. It's ranked from high to low. And it's based on the answers in their profile, when compared to the answers in the financial firm profile. From there, the financial profile professionals maintain their anonymity during their due diligence and communications with firms. And at any time, they want to disclose their profile to a prospective firm, they would very simply send them an invite to that firm and this invite grants that firm access to the profile of that financial advisor, they can then continue the conversations in any manner they choose, whether it's a home office visit or virtual visit, conversations on the phone, whatever they choose. So that's a compatibility matching. The second focus was to have a fiduciary responsibility. So we decided to run our business with a parallel fiduciary behavior that's synonymous to the financial services industry. Why did we do this? First that creates full transparency. And it is the highest standard of care. It develops ethical relationships, and it's a loyalty to principle. Most of all, eliminates all conflicts of interest, we have none, zero, we accept no finders’ fees, we do no revenue sharing. We have no incentives to direct business to specific firms. We don't generate leads for our own products, and we have no affiliations with other companies. So this creates what I would say is proper conduct, alliance and trust within the industry. So that's what the fiduciary responsibility that we incorporated has done as a result of the compatibility matching aligned with the fiduciary commitment. What it has done is it has leveled the playing field. And this is another area that truly sets us apart. Since Advisor First Partners does not accept finders’ fees, you know, the six or 10% that firms have to pay out. It's a huge savings. It allows all firms regardless of scale. Whether the boutique mid-tier to large firms, it allows them to showcase their wares and compete head-to-head for financial professionals considering a change. And because of the elimination of the large expenses, it allows firms to provide customized transition packages, as well as offsetting fixed expenses that are associated with the transitions. It creates faster expense recovery and improves margins. Financial professionals register for free, financial firms pay a minimal subscription that can save them 10s, if not hundreds of 1000s of dollars in the long run and the pricing is obviously outlined on our website. Besides a compatibility matching, we also provide podcast interviews with those firms that subscribe to our annual service. We share their organic content via social media and our news link. And we built this three-pronged approach to better educate and create greater awareness in the industry, rather than just relying on a single source of interest by financial professionals. So again, the compatibility matching the fiduciary commitment and responsibility we have made, levels the playing field and it really benefits all the parties involved in the process. So that's the overview and the foundation of Adviser First Partners. So what's going to be the purpose on these podcasts? Well, since I have a face for podcasts, and a voice perhaps for silent movies, my intent is to deliver you information that you can take away to benefit you and your practice. I don't think anybody is a custodian of all the best ideas. But some firms and people do have a new, unique and simple ideas and strategies that we would like to share with our audience in our industry. You've heard that saying before, that if you ever the smartest person in the room should find another room. Well, you have my promise that with the guests I have on, I will not be the smartest person on the podcast. But I have to warn you that occasionally I will be the most intelligent individual in a room, I will be alone, but that would be an occasional instance, when I do a brief solo podcast. But my intention is not to be a talking head. I'm an engineer by education and as a result, I love to learn new things and new ways to do things. And I hope you the listener feels the same. Who would we like to take part in? This is going to be the fun part. We want to talk to leaders and influencers in and around the industry. They could be executives past and present. asset managers, marketing professionals, product providers, FinTech as well as others. We're also speaking with and looking to introduce individuals who are not in our industry, but perhaps the subject matter and their insights may be a benefit on a much broader application to you, your associates, and or your business. So we're open to ideas. We're open to suggestions. We're open to referrals and recommendations to potential guests, as well as speaking with you the listener, if there's something you would like to share with our audience via this podcast, I'm open to having a chat about the possibility. So I hope I've given you some insights. And more information, again is available on our website at Adviserfirstpartners.com I want to thank you very much for your time, and we look forward to releasing discussions shortly. Take care