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Tune in to "What Works" hosted by Don Patrick where we tap into 2,500+ years of experience in running financial advisory practices. In each episode, Don sits down with an experienced financial planner, uncovering the unique insights and experiences that have shaped their careers. From navigating market fluctuations to building successful client relationships, Don and his guests share invaluable business tips and strategies for financial planners looking to thrive in the industry.
Join us every other Thursday, as we explore the wealth of knowledge accumulated from over 2500+ years of combined experience in financial planning.
Hi, everyone. Welcome to What Works. This is a show for consortium advisors
that taps into over 1,000 years of experience shared by our consortium
advisors.
I'm your host, Don Patrick, and I'm here to guide the conversation with
guest advisors and lift the hood on what works for them in business and
life. It's all about learning and growing.
So let's go.
Don Patrick: Welcome, everybody, to IfG's podcast, What Works, and we have
special guests today, John Collins and Tim Fail from Collins Wealth
Management in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Welcome, guys.
John Collins: Hey, Don. Thanks for having us. And Tim, I think we were gonna
ask Don a few things about himself, right?
Don Patrick: Yeah.
John Collins: Don, how’d you get into business, please.
Don Patrick: So actually, prior to starting this recording, those of you
know who John Collins, he does have a little bit of a sense of humor,
clearly, technically challenged, and couldn't hear him on the mic. And Tim's
pushing this button for him, pushing this button. And it turns out John has
a mouth in the front and back of his head. He had the microphone on the back
of his head. Now, we've got it in the front mouth, not the back mouth.
John Collins: And welcome to the podcast, everybody. Well, congratulations
on editing that part. I know you will.
Don Patrick: No.
John Collins: Thanks. Thanks for having us, Don.
Don Patrick: You're welcome. It's gonna be great. So yeah, there's great
story with both of you and how you got in the business, Tim. And I think
I'll start with John first in terms of how he got started in the profession.
And it goes back just a couple of years.
John Collins: Yeah, it does. Matter of fact, I have to go back a long ways
to say in the tobacco field in Virginia, I was just encouraged to go to
college and try to learn something anyway.
And I thought I was gonna teach math and it ended up student teaching didn't
go well and the banker locally said, “Hey, come on and go to work for us.”
So for 14 years I did commercial lending and real estate lending. All kinds
of retail lending. But, after 14 years of being at bank, I decided I wanted
to help people save and get out of debt.
And so, I don't know, 33 years after that, 14 years, here I am. So, it
sounds like 47 years to me, Don, but I know I must have started at age five.
Don Patrick: Of course. So, so how did you do that? How did you make that
switch? That was a major, major career change for you?
John Collins: It seems like a lot of changes in my life have been prompted
maybe by outside situations and the bank was beginning to change to the
point that you did not have loan authority like you used to.
You didn't have any discretionary expenses. And I just thought the bank was
leaving me and I decided, like a lot of people in this business, to go out
on my own. But I went to work for State Farm Insurance for two weeks. And
that was it. And it was two weeks and then I quit and I said, “This is not
for me.”
But, it was interesting that the bank that I had left, they had just started
an investment program and the investment program, they needed some people
that knew about the bank and there I was and went back and worked for the
same bank as a third party marketing investment person. And I stayed with
them for about three years till I actually just worked myself out of a job.
We had so many clients and couldn't service the ones I had. That brought me
down to Goldsborough for an opportunity with the old Wachovia investments.
And I stayed with them. And about six and a half years after that first
union bought Wachovia and the corporate environment wasn't for me, I stayed
a year and a half, and then in 2003 became independent with LPL.
And that was probably the greatest business move that I've ever had and was
able to bring over most all of the clients I wanted without having a
noncompete contract, so 2003 to now, it's been 22 years at LPL with a lot of
changes, but everything’s been positive, everything's been good.
Don Patrick: So let me go back to the point where you became a rep, an
investment rep at the bank and you were a brand new rookie.
John Collins: Yeah, I didn't have any–well, I did have an insurance license
'cause I had to get insurance license to work for the insurance company. But
I came on board and, I mean, I did not know stock bond, mutual fund annuity.
I didn't know that at all, but I did know people fairly well, and I was,
really knew how to talk the language in the bank about accounts and instead
of maybe an investment portfolio or fee income instead of commissions.
So these were some terminology that got me on board with the bankers real
fast. And I relied on their referrals and gave them little key rings and
trinkets and things to encourage them and patted them on the back. And all
of a sudden they were doing more referrals than I could even see. I was
seeing six and seven people a day for five days a week.
And so it really wasn't gathering clients or advocates, it was more just,
“Hey, get everybody in as fast as you can.” And I was just running on
adrenaline, just loved seeing people, meeting them. But we had, at that
time, when I entered that field, we had one fixed annuity. It's a
seven-year, and we had one variable annuity.
And the variable annuity was through the interest company, but it held
Fidelity, Oppenheimer, Putnam, all these various companies. And so if you
wanted a mutual fund, you basically had to meet the criteria for variable
annuity. That's the only two products we had. And then we did start offering
a family of mutual funds within the propriety group.
So limited products, but we were under a system of time management that you
had to report in with a phone call to a central agency at 08:30 in the
morning. You had to report in before you went to lunch, report back in when
you got back and report out at the end of the day. You had to call and
report in after every appointment you had the results.
And if it was a positive, that was great. If it wasn't, then you had to have
your next step of action. And so it was as regimental of a system I'd ever
been under, but I learned a lot from that. So when eventually I became
independent, I was still able to structure my day a little bit more
regimental than probably most people and make the most efficient use of my
time in doing that.
Don Patrick: So that, yeah, that was a great background, great training. So
now you are independent, you're a new business owner with LPL. How did you
build the business?
John Collins: When I moved to Goldsboro, I basically had zero clients, plus
I opened up a brand new Wachovia Securities. And again, it was just
adrenaline going out, meeting people and just, I don't know, just being able
to approach them and introduce myself.
And one thing led to another and started, I, again, getting more customers
than what I could even serve. So, Wachovia was good that they allowed me to
be the first rep in the organization to hire a sales assistant. And that was
just new ground for Wachovia. But we had so many customers at that time. I
couldn't do new business and service the clients and servicing the clients
was, I thought, so important.
If you were gonna get them as a client, you need to service them. But, as we
went through gathering all of those clients, when I was that the point of
moving out of the Wachovia first union model to go independent, I had over
1100 households and did not have a non-compete. And so when I left, I was
able to bring over about 96% of the clients that I wanted, which ended up
being about 480 households, which is still too many.
But again, over the years we were able to even streamline that to where we
are now with about 290 households.
Don Patrick: So how many households do you have today?
John Collins: Yeah, we have about 290 households today. We've kind of set a
limit at 300, but with attrition, because mainly of clients dying in the age
of the clients, a lot of times we will lose a client. But we'll gather that
to children as new clients, even though they're not in this area. And I
think we have clients, Tim, in about 14 states now, right?
Tim Fail: Yes.
John Collins: So, and it's just been a real blessing to us to be able to
maintain relationships down the generations.
Don Patrick: So how are you doing that? That's a big challenge for folks
keeping that next generation, keeping those assets.
John Collins: Well, I think it, in my world, it boils down to time
management of how do you have your business structured first and how much
are you able to say no to clients that don't fit what you do. And if you do
that and do that to where you've streamlined your model, it allows you more
time to get with your existing clients, inviting the children to come in
with them if that's what they want, or even if you have that child as the
beneficiary on the account or the personal contact that we can say, “Is it
okay if we call your son or daughter if needed?” And they will allow us to
get engaged with them.
So we do a real good job putting time into that next generation. And so if
our clients are in their seventies, that generation, that's the early
forties and fifties, they're gonna be retiring one day. And so we get with
them and a lot of times the comment is, “If you're good enough for my mom or
dad, you're good enough for us.”
Don Patrick: So you're very intentional about this. Yes. And you're reaching
out to the next generation.
John Collins: Right. And I'll have to say that, when Tim came on board and
maybe a couple of years ago before our succession plan developed, and I was
just kind of on a path of just take care of the clients that we have, maybe
ride this thing out.
I didn't know how long I wanted to be in the business. I still love what I
do. But as Tim came up with the idea of how about just a legacy program,
it's a nice name to say, “Mrs. Jones, we do have the Legacy program. Even
though our minimum threshold of 250,000, your adult trial may not have that,
but we can let them on board for $10,000.”
So that in itself, let's mom and or dad know that, “Hey, we've got the
children's interests at heart.” And Tim has been really instrumental in
getting that going, that legacy program, making the parent feel like that,
“Hey, you mean you could help our child? And they don't have the money that
we do?” And we bring 'em on board.
And so, and interestingly, Tim just had another client today that had a
couple of orphan 401ks out there and maybe is in the early thirties. And so
just, he called us and said, “Listen, I'm leaving my job and I've got a
couple of these 4 0 1 Ks. Can I just add those to my existing IRA?” So we're
seeing more of that.
And again, thanks to Tim, he's bringing the age band down so that we have a
much more valuable practice today than what it was six years ago.
Don Patrick: I wanna jump in and talk about Tim's journey, both prior to
joining Collins Wealth Management. And then I wanna get into how you run the
practice in the business because I know it's very efficient, very
structured, very process driven.
So, Tim, give us a little background prior to Colin's Wealth Management and
John, and I think I understand, John, you telling me that Tim was giving you
referrals while he was still in his prior career, if I can remember
correctly.
John Collins: That's right. I would just, every now and then tell him a good
joke so he'd have something to tell his people, that was his pay for doing
that. Yes. No, Tim has been a friend and I've know his family for many
years. But Tim, you take over on that.
Tim Fail: Yeah. I'll tell you a little bit about myself, Don, and how I got
tied up with this rascal. So go back, let's go back to what we say whenever
we meet with clients. Genesis one-on-one at the beginning, and so I've known
John now about 21, 22 years, and my wife and I have been married about 21
years.
So the way this all happened was, John, if you don’t know, is an avid tennis
player and my wife played tennis growing up and her family played tennis
growing up. So I realized early on whenever we were dating that if I was
gonna spend any time with her, I was gonna have to learn how to either
understand tennis or play tennis.
And that's where I met John originally about 21, 22 years ago. And we always
had good conversations. We always were like-minded, we always treated people
the same and but just things were well. I was at the hospital as a senior
financial analyst. I was supporting the financial areas. I was also on the
IT side of things, writing some code for financial logic to support those
areas and just kind of to speed things up a little bit, John asked me about
15, 16 years ago if I'd be interested in maybe coming to work with, and I
just didn't see the time at this point. I was about late twenties, maybe
early thirties or late twenties, and my wife and I hadn't built our house.
We hadn't had kids. The hospital where I was working at had not been bought
out by a healthcare system yet. And then I also had a business outside of
the hospital. And my business partner in that endeavor was also a client of
John's at that time, so–
John Collins: It was the one that Tim referred to me also, by the way.
Tim Fail: So I was working at the hospital and folks would constantly come
to me at the hospital and asked me how do they set their 401 up, how do they
set their 403B up?
How do they need to allocate it? Who do they need to talk to? And the
hospital here was about one of the largest employers at the time, and still
is. There's around 25 to 2,800 employees there. So I was getting a lot of
folks just coming to talk to me just 'cause of the role that I was in, even
though that wasn't my role to help the employees.
So I would tell whenever they had serious money and they were getting ready
to retire they needed to see John ‘cause I’ve seen him so many times on the
tennis court. I'd seen him outside. I knew how he treated individuals. I
knew how he was treating existing clients that I knew who were friends of
mine, so I just continued to send him this way.
So, fast forward a little bit, and about six and a half, almost seven years
ago, the hospital I was working at had been bought out. The house that me
and my wife hadn't built had been built, the two children that we didn't
have, we had had, but I had a life-changing event and that was my business
partner had a massive heart attack and died age 51.
So John, a few months later, me and him were talking and he called me and he
asked me just a question I'll never forget. He said, “Have you ever wondered
whether you made the right decision?” And I was actually on vacation that
week whenever he asked me that question. And I went back and I was sitting
on the beach watching the waves roll in, trying to read a book.
And I couldn't get past the first page because I was thinking about what
John had asked me. And I knew that if I was ever gonna take that chance,
this was gonna be the time and opportunity. I had always loved investing. I
always loved people, helping people. Things had changed so much in the past
for the good.
So I just, I knew that was the time that I had to kind of jump on it. And I
told my wife, “If I'm ever gonna do this, now's the time to do it.” So I'm
sitting here six years later talking to you, Don, with John in here, giving
me a hard time.
Don Patrick: Yeah. Thank you. Survived six years together. It was amazing
with John. Yeah. So was it scary for you to make this, so you already had an
entrepreneurial bent and drive?
Tim Fail: I did. I had some commercial real estate. I owned some storage
units and that was fine. And I'd always knew how to manage a dollar and
manage my expenses and understood what it took in order to be financial
literate.
So was it scary? I think the biggest thing was the individual that was my
business partner who passed away, I think taught me something, a valuable
lesson. And that valuable lesson in life was when you are working for
someone else and you're getting a paycheck every two weeks or every month,
you think that is a safety net and you think that is a safety net underneath
you.
However, what I realized was it was actually a net, but it wasn't a safety
net. It was almost a net on top of me that was keeping me from going any
higher. So once I was able to realize that through experiences with him, I'm
not gonna say it was scary. I think it was exciting more so than it was
scary because I was at a point in life, I knew that I could take this
calculated risk at this point.
Don Patrick: So, you sign on with John, and so how was that, how did you
guys structure this? How'd you start off and what kind of apprenticeship
program and learning and did you have to go out and get clients, service
clients? What did that all look like?
Tim Fail: So what I did to get started with was me and John talked in the
summer and I told John, I said, “Hey, before I do this, let's start with a
clean date.”
Me and him come up with January 1st. That would just be clean. So before I
came over to work with John, I wanted to go ahead and get licensed. So John
worked with me and you guys as well to be sponsored so I could sit for the
series exam. So I went ahead and got my SIE and my series 7 and 66, and then
I got health and life once I onboarded here, which is fairly easy compared
to the series, so that was kind of in place whenever I came on board. And
John and I had worked out a very, I'd like to say gentleman's agreement, to
where we had a five-year kind of thought process of, “Hey, this is kind of
the stepping stone and the opportunities.”
And he was very clear about what was ahead of me. So it was really up to me
if I wanted to make this work. It wasn't that he painted a picture and it
was very fuzzy. It was very clear, and I really appreciate that and respect
him for that. So I'll let John talk a little bit about far as the structure
of having to gather new assets versus taking care of our existing clients
and knew that it was gonna come organically.
John Collins: I do think that, when we started off, Tim wanted to know how
he'd be paid and I told him weekly, but he didn't realize that was
W-E-A-K-L-Y. So, anyway. But weekly is weekly. No, we, I think, Don, from
the beginning, I told him that the utmost importance was communication. That
we had to talk, we had to communicate.
I need to know what he was lacking. I didn't know what he was doing good. I
didn't care what it was. Well, we have so many outside activities we kind of
agree on anyway, and whether it be his golf or going and cutting wood or
whatever other activities, that is just a natural progression when we get on
the phone to talk about business.
And I think he has been able to make me excited about it and I've been able
to make him excited about it, which is the fun part. But as far as initially
coming in, I think any advisor that is trying to bring on someone, it's
gotta be a give and take. And I mean, I've said this to Tim many times, “I'm
taking a risk. I'm spending money I don't have to spend in order that one
day, you gonna make it worth my while.” And that has of course, come to
fruition. That is definitely what's going on. But in the meantime, it has
been a real win-win about doing this. But I do think the advisor has gotta
step up to the plate first and is gotta be willing to sacrifice something to
get to that next step.
So with Tim, and again, we communicate extremely well, which is important,
but Tim has a couple of real gifts. One is being able to know so many people
in this area, 'cause he's from this area. Now I've been here 30 years and I
know a lot of people, but I think he puts me to shame on knowing so many
others out here or something about him.
And then he is able to actually talk to people in a friendly way and has
that likability factor. So you put all that together, then it's just a
matter of then how do you get structured to know what to offer, how to talk
the talk, how to keep it simple. And these are things that I illustrated
early on that we can teach you these things.
I can't teach you how to be a people person. I can't teach you how to say
thank you and yes ma'am, and no sir, and everything else that's polite. But
I can teach you the financial things and then how to keep it simple. So I
think it has been a process that, like I told him early on, you need to be
hungry, but you gotta be humble.
And that means that you've gotta be willing to suck up some of the things
and learn everything that goes on in this office, keying accounts, setting
appointments, whatever it might be, to get to this point. And that's gonna
take you five years to get there before even talking about buying into the
business. But as I saw early on, after a year, two years, he is starting to
advance quite rapidly and becoming a little bit more seasoned along the way.
And so, about probably in year four, I had mapped out, “If this happens,
then this right here will be available to you.” And so, at the end of year
five was kind of where we're targeted that, “Hey, year four and a half, we
need to start getting a plan together because you've done all the things
I've asked you to do.”
And so that's where we, at the end of 2024, we had a plan in place. We had
developed this through LPL succession planning with Carla McCabe, who does a
wonderful job to keep us on the calendar and keep us proceeding what we
needed to do with our attorney so that on January 1st we were able to put
into place the buy-in to the business part of things. So that's kind of
where we are now.
Don Patrick: So in the first two years, what, Tim, were you meeting with
clients solely on your own, or was it jointly with John?
Tim Fail: So even to this day, John and I try to meet with everyone as a, I
don't wanna say a couple.
Don Patrick: As a team.
Tim Fail: As a team, though. I like that better, Don.
John Collins: Well, I definitely like that better. Come on. Gosh.
Tim Fail: The reason for that being is we want our clients, whenever they
come in, we want 'em to know whether it's a new client that I'm bringing in,
I want 'em to know John, not only just because of the fact he has so many
years of experience and knowledge and he's seen different things, but also
they know that they're getting another advisor's.
We call it a two for one kind of deal. Same thing when an older existing
client comes in that's been here longer than I've been here. I'm sitting in
there. So that way they have a familiar face. If John's not in the office,
they can call the office. They can ask for me, Tony, Linda, whoever, and
they know that they're gonna get a response because I've sat in that
meeting, I've done it every single time there's a client review and it's
just more fluid that way. So do I meet with clients individually if needed?
Yes. But we try to schedule everything just outta the convenience of me, him
staying afresh of what is going on with each individual client.
John Collins: Yeah, Don, I think also, our entire office is just the best
I've ever seen in communicating. And so we may not have all the technology
driven systems that maybe other offices, but you know, we've got four people
in the office that communicate extremely well. But get back to, again, the
factor of Tim being here for two years, three years, five years prior to
that. And even to this day, I'll have clients that will say, “Well, John,
when do you plan on retiring?”
And of course I usually have a standard answer. The standard answer is that
I am retired. And they say, “Oh really?” Yes. Let's define what retirement
is. And in my mind it's, and listen, I can put a Don Patrick spin on this,
'cause it's the same thing with you, Don. It's doing what you love to do
with who you like to deal with when you want to do it.
And so I do that. We are set up now to where that's exactly what I'm able to
do. And so we go into the joint meetings and whether a client says it or
not, they've got experience and youth in the same room. And I would just
suggest also for an advisor looking to create a succession plan.
And you gotta determine what are you gonna do and where are you gonna be?
Are you gonna stay on board? Are you giving it up after two years? What is
the dynamic of your succession plan? And for mine, and Tim will say to a
client, “We're gonna have to haul John out in a box. He's not going
anywhere.”
And that's true. I mean, I want Tim to eventually own the majority of the
business, but I don't plan on giving it up because we've worked 40 some
years to get to this point that you've got great clients, great staff,
flexibility, great income. Wait a minute, and I want to give this up? I just
don't get it. I don't get it.
So again, it's a great, great situation that we've been really blessed to
have over the years and every, and I think we even had an IfG conference
that we talked about is that obstacles or opportunities and we really just
have such a positive attitude that everything that comes about, it seems
like it's an opportunity. And that gets us so way ahead most of the time
Don Patrick: Folks struggle with succession planning, so on and so forth.
You hit the nail on the head, John, you had a very clear vision of what it
looked like for you. And then Tim nailed it in that you two had a great
vision for the first five years and what it was gonna take for him.
It was very clear and communicated and once you know that, then you can go
your way. So, well, two things. So John, you're kind of the Nick Murray of
our world. You're very clear about lots of things. You're very clear about
your investment processes and you're not chasing the latest thing, very
process driven.
Your business runs like a well-oiled machine. So tell us a little bit about,
because that's a great way to plug him in, it's already there just showing
him what John does, what the firm does, what the processes are, what the
investment philosophy is. So if you guys could share some of that, that’d be
great.
John Collins: I think that in our world, we're pulled in so many directions
that you are a financial advisor, you are a business owner, you have all the
outside money management companies calling you, wanting to get appointments.
You have clients that maybe want to come see you, that may not fit the mold
that you want.
How can you politely say to them, “You don't fit.” There are just so many
things that you have to be in this business, I think, to be successful, that
somewhere along the way you've gotta step out of the box, step out of the
picture, and start thinking about what is it that you want to be and what is
it that you wanna do?
How do you wanna structure your business? And once you've come to a really
clear definition in your mind of what you wanna do and where you wanna be,
then you know, be flexible somewhat, but stay on that path. Don't let
somebody take you off that path. And I do think that so much of that is
developed because of experiences you've had in the past to be able to say no
to certain things. And I think in our world, we probably say no more than we
say yes, but we know real clear what we need to say yes to.
Tim Fail: So Don, I'll add something to that. Whenever I walked in, I knew
John had a well-oiled machine. There was no reason for me to rock the boat.
I tried to figure out what he was doing and what was he doing really good
at, and that was keeping it simple.
So early on, John said, we can either figure out if we want to spend
majority of our time analyzing investments, if that's our strong point, but
we realized that we think our strong point is gathering assets. We try to
keep it very simple. We don't have 50 different models. We keep it down to
anywhere between five to six models.
When clients come in, we're evaluating the onboarding process of how that
individual would fit into our business model because we don't really want to
complicate things and we don't want to make it to where it's not simple. So
gathering assets is what we really feel like we're good at, and there's a
lot of people in this small town where we're at, when I say small town,
there's about 150,000 in the county, and we're about the only real
independent advisors that are right here to where they can get what we
offer.
And we tell clients, when they come in, or the prospects I should say,
there's probably a place for that, but it's not here. If they're looking for
something that we don't offer, we do not try to change our business plan to
what they want. And I really commend John for that and keeping it simple and
not muddying up the water.
Don Patrick: So you're ensuring through the selection process that they are
a fit for your philosophy and your vision, and you don't, and if you bring
somebody in who's not, it'll blow it up.
John Collins: Well, it starts wasting your day. It starts wasting your time.
I'll even say, and again, this is a compliment to just the way we run the
office back, a few weeks ago we had a few thousand point drop in the quote,
the stock market, whatever that is.
And we had one, we had five phone calls. One call was from a client that'd
been with us about 15 months, early fifties, and he's a little bit antsy and
Tim handled it so well. But I told Tim after I heard him on the phone in his
office, and I told him, I said, “I'm gonna give him a call in a couple
days.”
And my call to him was basically, “We don't get phone calls like what you
just did, and we want you to understand what our process is a little better,
and we are perfectly okay if you're not on board with us. You can get off
the bus anytime you want, but if you're gonna stay on the bus, we're not
gonna get that kind of phone call again.”
Tim Fail: That's the Nick Murray approach, Don.
Don Patrick: That's exactly it..
John Collins: Yeah.
Tim Fail: That’s his language.
John Collins: Now, I would not do that with Misery Jones, who's 75 years of
age, but this guy need to hear it a little bit more serious. And we did. And
he says, “Oh,no, I'm good. I'm good. I'm staying right on. You're not gonna
hear from me again.”
“No. You call us anytime you have a concern, but do not call us about a
fluctuation in the investment market.” And so it's, I suppose you've been in
business so long, you learn how to say no, but by saying no, or maybe
educating a little firmer, then we don't get any phone calls when you have
the volatility, the up and down.
Now, the four other phone calls we got, as I always define our clients as
A+, A or Fs, Fs don't stay on board, by the way, they're the ones that get
put on the raft and you cut the rope and let 'em float on out in the ocean.
So we don't have any Fs. The A clients, they may call and they may say,
“John, you've told us. Will you tell us one more time, please.”
I said, “No problem. We'll tell you.” Or they don't call. That's fine too.
But the A plus, which was these four said, “I know you've told us over and
over again if things are down, we hear all this negative news to add more
money, right.” I just wanna reach across the phone and hug them. They've
gotten the message, they drink the Kool Aid Well.
And so that gets back, again, to are we financial analysts? Are we teachers
and able to educate the clients to where they stay on board and they
understand thoroughly you can get on our bus, we are driving the bus. If you
wanna drive, you get your own bus. And we are okay with that. We’re okay
with that because it keeps it clean so that we can advocate for Mr. Mrs.
Jones's children that are gonna come on board one day and it gives us time
to sit and talk and communicate. And I, well, you know, Don, I mean, I say
work, we don't really work anymore. We just come in and have an enjoyable
time every day. But it's Monday through Thursday and our office does not
open on Friday.
And somebody says, “Well, you mean you don't work on Friday, Saturday,
Sunday?” Now listen, when you own your business, I think you think about it
most, all the time.
Don Patrick: That's correct.
John Collins: So it's not, but our office hours are gonna be Monday through
Thursday, whatever, so anyway, again, it gives us plenty of time to plan and
practice, but do I take a client after dinner on a Saturday night?
Absolutely. Does Tim see two prospects at the baseball game on Saturday?
Absolutely. So it's different than having a job. This is a career and a
passion that we have and I think that's what drives everybody in the office.
We just, sometimes I wonder if Tony and Linda really wanna get paid 'cause
they just love coming in. But, I haven't gone that far, Don. Okay. I do–
Don Patrick: I'll ask–
John Collins: Yeah, right. I mean, I do give them Saturday and Sunday off
sometimes, so, hey, that's just ‘cause I'm a nice guy, right?
Don Patrick: So, asset gathering is the major focus. You're really good at
it, but you clearly are delivering great service to your existing clients.
You have extremely high retention. So what does that look like?
John Collins: Well, we have, every client is gonna be on at least an annual
type of meeting. We call it the annual client meeting. And so we'll call
'em, see if they wanna come in. Some of 'em just want a phone call. Some of
them don't even, don't even come in. But we try to encourage everybody to
come in at least once a year. And with the existing clients, it's tell, I
mean, tell 'em we go back in the conference room or what.
Tim Fail: Usually we talk about finance for 15 minutes and then 45 minutes
is gonna be about family vacation, where have they been, where are they
planning to go, anything exciting going on, tell us about grandkids.
That's where we really find out, a lot, by listening. That's where other
assets get gathered and they don't even realize it. They're telling us about
the, “Well, this past weekend they went to their brother-in-law's house
because he was retiring and they were having a retirement party.” And that
would've never come up if all we did was focus on the financial part.
So next thing you know, that drives into more conversations and it's done in
a very subtle way to,next thing you're getting a phone call two weeks later,
and it's a referral from Ms. Jones who was sitting back there telling us
about her family for 45 minutes. So it's very family oriented and service
driven whenever folks come in.
Don Patrick: So the financial portion of the client meeting, what does that
look like? You looking at performance, you're looking at asset allocation. I
mean, what kind of conversation's going on there?
John Collins: Okay. Well, I think it, we drive the meeting by having all the
reports prepared. Whether it be the annual performance since inception,
report performance, et cetera, many times we don't even go over those
reports.
And the reason is that if the client is not asking about it, we are not
gonna try to stir it up and bring up a report that they don't need to hear
about because really, they already are trusting us to take care of them.
Now, what we'll do is show them, “Well, listen, now you started with
800,000, you've taken 200,000 out and you've got 900,000.”
“Oh, that sounds good.” “Well, it is good. It's right there where we
targeted.” “Okay, now how are your grandchildren doing?” And so we will, we
feel confident that we are going to not hurt the client. Am I gonna build a
portfolio that's gonna beat the market every year? I don't think anybody can
do that.
And the other part of it is that's not what we deliver. If you're trying to
beat the market, you're not gonna come here. We don't want you here. But now
if you wanna be able to grow and preserve, grow and preserve, we'll help you
with that one.
Tim Fail: And one, one thing too, Don, what John's referring to right there
is more of our long-term clients. Somebody that's not been here as long,
whenever they come in for the annual meeting, we may talk more than 15
minutes. It may be that we talk 45 minutes and 15 minutes about family. But
as the longer they've been here, the tenure, it starts to shift. But the
first few years, it's an educational piece that they're here and we try to
educate them so they don't make those phone calls.
We go over the asset allocation and why are we putting them there and based
off of their goals, based off their age and things of that nature. But we
don't want to give them the same financial picture every single year when
they come in, it's a 60 split stocks, bonds. So we have done the education
portion upfront so that way it will allow for more of the conversation
pieces about, “Tell us about your life, tell us about the goals, changes,
health,” things of that nature, estate planning. Those are the ones that we
really shift towards once those folks have been here in that three to five
year window or longer.
John Collins: Yeah. We've got a lot of clients that have been here 25 and 30
years, and so we have to encourage them to, let's talk about some of the
financial aspects because they're so trusting.
I said, “Well, we're gonna be making a change to your portfolio coming up,
but lemme tell you why.” “Well, no, just, John, go ahead.” “No, no, no. You
need to understand why.” And so from the existing client viewpoint, that's
how we handle that and a lot of education. And even recently, what we've
done is delve a little deeper into the portfolio by asking the client,
“Would you like to see the top 10 or 20 things that are in your portfolio?”
“Oh, yeah. Oh, I didn't realize Walmart was there. I didn't–oh yeah. Look at
that. I didn't realize Apple.” And so it gets them a little bit more
intimate with the companies they have instead of the stock market. And they
really leave with a better appreciation. “Well, I'm not in the stock market.
I'm in 2000 different companies.”
So, that then kinda leads maybe to another question you may be gonna ask is
what do, how do we handle respective clients or new clients that come in.
Don Patrick: That's a great question, John, how do you do it?
John Collins: Yes. Don, how you doing today, by the way? You doing well? No,
no. So back 10, 12 years ago, I attended a breakout session. I believe it
was at a master's conference. And they had David Richmond prompt client
promising, one of them things, client promising.
That's what it was. And it was basically how do you conduct an initial
meeting in 50 minutes to determine whether the claw is a good fit or not.
And so I kind of read over that book and I read over again. I said, “This is
new. 'cause you don't have to stay back here and go through a lot of stuff
for an hour and a half, two hours. You can cut to the cut really to the
issue of whether they're gonna be a good client. And you start off with a
few little pleasantries for five minutes and basically you just say, ‘Well
listen, I know you're not here for this conversation on the pleasantries,
but is it okay if we talk for a few minutes? Let me ask you a few questions
and you can ask us a few.’” And then say, by the end of the 45 or 50
minutes, “We'll know whether we're a good match and if we're not a good
match. Is that okay?”
And, “Oh yeah, that'll be fine.” So you've already laid the expectation with
the client that you may not fit. And more so than not, the client is going
to fit even if they have a portfolio, existing portfolio somewhere else that
doesn't fit, it's going to fit because they're gonna say, “Well, what do I
need to do to change what I've got to get here?” Say, “Well, this is what
we're gonna have to do and let us look at this. Let us analyze what you
have. Let us get back to you in a few days to see whether or not it's gonna
be any adverse consequences for you because we don't wanna have anything
that's gonna be negative. You'll have to make that decision after that
point.”
So, sometimes we have the client and they will have, a couple of million
dollars and say, “This is what I've got on my statement at Merrill Lynch at
Wells Fargo.” And thus, by the time we get through halfway through the
conversation, because of the experience with previous advisors, because of
the way they like to buy individual stocks because of the way they wanna do
X, Y, Z, we basically, “Well, that's not how we do business, but I'm sure
there's a place for that, but it's not gonna be here. I appreciate the
opportunity.” And so you start turning down. Not money. You start turning
down problems that you could be having. So even though sometimes they say,
“Yes, I want you to change, take it over. You manage it, John.” But deep
down, do they really understand? They’re giving up control in doing that.
And so that's a good process for us to be able to weed out the ones that
don't really fit. Do we lose a client particularly because of that? Maybe.
Maybe. But we've gotten to be pretty good judges of clients and we ask 'em
enough questions early on to determine whether they're good fit.
Don Patrick: Yeah, I think we had David Richmond at two different retreats,
I believe. He's fabulous and both his books are great. Yeah. Getting that
fit, I mean, when you first start in the business, you will bring on anybody
that breeds and once you get to a certain place and you have real clarity in
who you're and what you're, it's actually a pleasure not to take a
prospective client on.
John Collins: You've hit the nail on the head and listen, I can look back to
1992. Remember the first hundred thousand dollars account I got, I left the
office, I stopped at the local convenience market and I got me a Budweiser
and I sat in the car and drink it. I said, “This is so good. This is
unbelievable. I can't believe it's this easy to do this, and I'm getting
paid to do it.”
And then you turn down a million dollar client today and you get this, I'm
not gonna say the same, but you get an exhilaration from adhering to your
values.
Don Patrick: There is. Absolutely. So I'm gonna ask a question that people
struggle with, and you're in a smaller community, so when you went
independent, went to LPL, you had over a thousand clients slash customers
and you're down to less than 300. How did you shed those in a smaller
community?
John Collins: Suppose a lot of them, a lot of the people would pass away,
but, I suppose, we got down to a certain point that we, when we moved from
the Wachovia world, which was basically brokerage, and we came to LPL, at
that time, of course I was under the SAM platform, that's what I wanted to
be under, excuse me, because everything was commission driven where I was.
And so first step was move everybody over here to brokerage. Everybody, to
get the assets there. And then as we started having the annual client
meeting, the annual planning meeting, I just said, “This is the new way that
we're doing business. And what we're gonna do is lift up these assets and
bring 'em over to an advisory accountant and we're going to charge this fee
based on this amount.”
Probably 75% of those clients was, “No problem. Whatever you need to do,
John, I understand.” And 25% said, “No.” They didn't wanna do it that way.
They were gonna, they didn't wanna pay a fee. What I said, “Well that's no
problem. We'll give you 60 days to find another advisor.” And I felt like if
you started looking at the advisory fee you were making on 75% of the assets
that you had, you are gonna be just fine down the road. And so 25% left
because of that. And then probably just had a number of people pass away
over the last 22 years.
Don Patrick: Yeah, so they basically deselecting themselves.
John Collins: We set the standard, yes. I didn't turn on, I didn't say just
leave. I said, “This is the new way we're gonna do business.” And again, I
think I, when I came over, probably in June, of June of ‘03, I was still
gathering all those brokerage accounts as fast as I could. And then I'd set
the stage for January 1st. January 1st is gonna be the date. It's a new
year, it's a new beginning. And so this is the way we're doing business
going forward.
Don Patrick: So there's a trend here, this clean start date, January 1st.
John Collins: Yeah. I couldn't help it. It was just January 1st. We had to
do it. And also I learned too, Don,, when you–is to have a spec sheet that
we have drawn up in the desk drawer that–we don't even talk about what fee
we charge. And a lot of times, until near the end of the conversation, and
sometimes I'll say, “Well, you didn't even ask how you gonna pay us.” They
say, “Oh yeah, how do you?” I said, “Well that's a great question. You
should be asking that.” And I said, “Well, we're gonna charge an advisory
fee based on, well, let's look right here at the schedule.” Now reaching in,
I pull that sheet out, it's a nice typed up sheet and, “Okay, you're at
750,000. Okay, that's gonna be, lemme follow that scale down. That's one and
a quarter percent.”
“Oh, okay.” And somebody may say, if it's retired executive and they're
sitting there say, “Well, I wanna pay 1%.” I say, “Oh, okay, let me go down
the scale. That's a million.” “Okay, yeah, you bring us 250,000 more and add
to what you got, that's gonna be a 1% fee. That's a million dollars.” They
say, “Oh, okay.”
Don Patrick: Exactly. Your fee schedule.
John Collins: I can't help it that I drew up the schedule. That's just the
way it's. But you have to be, I think over the years, you need to start
developing a sense of what the client is gonna ask. And you've gotta know
what's gonna be an answer and be able to take that thing, that first wheel
in your head, that spinning around, you better be able to pull out that
answer.
And a lot of times the wheel will turn around, you never have to even answer
any of that. There's no need to answer something the client doesn't ask
about. But I think that if you have those answers prepared, you have that
sheet knowing the client's gonna ask about the advisory fee, you have all of
that prepared, ready to go, and I think that's through maybe more deductive
reasoning that you understand that, then you can help offset many possible
conflicts down the road.
Don Patrick: So I'm gonna kind of go back to when Tim joined. So obviously,
you've got your processes, the business is running smooth, and Tim, you're
very clear you didn't wanna come in and upset anything. But I would have to
assume that over time you've had some interesting ideas that maybe, John,
you adopted for the business that maybe you didn't think about.
Tim Fail: Maybe. A couple things. One, I come from a very technological
background from the hospital who had the latest, whether it was the
healthcare system that they, we were using or the platform that we were
running on to over here. But what I realized was a lot of our clients, as I
sat back there, so John and I have moved to a new office since I've been
here, and part of it was because our old office, we did not have enough room
to where if we were gonna add anyone else.
And John and I are currently looking for a paraplanner and getting that
narrowed down and it looks promising. So now we have that room. So whenever
we move to this new location, we have a larger conference room that's
dedicated for client meetings. And one thing that John and I did, not that
we used it, but we put a smart TV on the wall that we can hook up the
computer to and we can project everything right there on the TV.
And we use that on an as needed basis because some of our clients come in,
they just, they're not gonna be interested in that at all. But one thing I
always realized was how responsive people were to John writing down on a
legal notebook pad, just a blue pen and a pad, and he would draw boxes or
circles.
And it was very clear, and I think John got this from one of the consortium
members, Matt Carpinelli, where he said, “Everything with IPS should fit on
one sheet.” And so we've stuck to that. And there's some other good things
that we've learned from consortium members. One thing I've learned from John
is that legal pad was so important and it broke everything down. And you
could explain all of this. You could show 'em brochures, you could show 'em
prospectuses, you could show 'em the TV. But whenever they left, they would
say, “Hey, can I get a copy of that note pad” So–
John Collins: And of course we couldn't provide that because of compliance.
Don Patrick: That's right.
Tim Fail: But if we turned our back and they took a picture of it with their
phone, we didn't know that.
John Collins: We didn't know that. I couldn't help that.
Tim Fail: So John and I were at a couple meetings and we were talking about
notebook pad so often and one of the other consortium members who–
John Collins: wait, you're not gonna talk about our tech stack, are you?
Tim Fail: No, no, no. I'll back up. I won't talk about it–
John Collins: Don't talk about our tech stack yet, come one.
Tim Fail: I'll wait until Don gets wants to talk about the tech stack.
Don Patrick: Well, so my understanding is Tim, John had to teach you how to
use an abacus.
Tim Fail: Yes, yes. Very much so.
John Collins: Well, no, I had to go learn how myself first, because that was
way after my time. Get back to your question, Don, about Tim having ideas
and he has so many good ideas.
He would come to me and say, “Hey, have you ever thought about this right
here? Or this right there?” I said, “I have. And lemme tell you why it's not
gonna work in our office.” And then he’d come in and say, “Have you ever
thought about this right here? I says, “No, I really haven't.” “Tell me what
would it do to improve our life and improve the client's life?”
He said, “Well, it'll do this, this, and this.” I said, “I never thought of
it. Let's go for it. Do it.” Including the smart TV in the conference room,
including moving to a new office that we'd kind of been looking, but he kind
of prompted that. Lemme just say he has been spending a lot of my money
since he's been with me. Okay.
Don Patrick: Now it's his money too, so.
John Collins: Yes. It's really interesting. On January 1st of this year, you
started asking him about, “Do we really have to spend that much money on
this? Do we have to spend this much money on that?” When you get to that net
profit, man.
Tim Fail: Don, I tried to get everything bought before January 1st that the
office needed.
John Collins: He really did. He did. But yeah, he has come up, but I think a
combination of his creative mind coming up with a lot of good ideas and then
maybe my experience of saying, “Hey, pull back a little bit on what we got
going because we don't wanna break this. Okay. Tell me how it's gonna really
enhance not just the client, but how's it gonna enhance us also.”
Don Patrick: Yeah. Don't chase shiny objects.
John Collins: That's very true. Very true. So, so that right there maybe
leads into another question you wanna have, Don.
Don Patrick: I've got plenty. So it actually, you two seem to have a great
partnership. You trust each other. As you mentioned, open communication is
huge and somewhat different skill sets as well.
John Collins: Yeah. I'm not the tech guy.
Don Patrick: Yeah. But yeah. Well, we know that.
John Collins: Okay, good,
Tim Fail: Don, I've just got him on ChatGPT, so I'm trying to bring him
over.
Don Patrick: Oh, well that's easy. Just talk to it.
John Collins: Yeah. I knew how to spell chat. I didn't know how to spell
that GPT.
Don Patrick: That's amazing stuff. So right now, so January 01, a clean
start date again, what percent of the business did you buy into? And what
does the next five years look like as far as buying into the business?
John Collins: Well, we looked at trying to do 10% in 2024 and 10% in 2025.
And again, from a financial aspect, thought maybe the capital gains the way
we have our business set up is gonna be a capital gain to me, is gonna, I
didn't want to take all that in one year.
We'd split into two different tax years. But as we looked at where the
capital gain tax rates are and everything, it didn't matter whether did 10%
or 20%, it didn't really change, but we also had to be cognizant of how much
was Tim gonna be able to afford and paying upfront in cash or financing, how
was he gonna get it financed?
So a lot of dynamics go into this to make it, again, work for both of us.
And so, Tim, you were able to, paid 10% down.
Tim Fail: I did. I paid 10% down, and then I did 10% owner finance through
John. But keep in mind too, the reason why we did 20% was if we would, if I
would've owned the business one day in 2024, that would've really messed
things up from an accounting standpoint too.
John Collins: Yeah, it did.
Tim Fail: So that was one reason why we went ahead and moved to everything
January 1st of this year. But yes, as John mentioned, I paid 10% down,
finance 10%, owner financing through John. And the way we have this
structured is I have up to a 49% opportunity over the next seven years being
10% in year three, 10% in year five. And an opportunity to finalize the
final 9% in year seven. So that's currently how we have this first segment
set up.
John Collins: And you may wonder, well, why seven years when you get the
assistance of Carla McCabe at LPL succession plan and they can run all these
numbers to show the cash flow and based on certain parameters, certain
growth projections, et cetera.
And so for Tim, the first year is a little tougher. Second year is not as
bad, but his cash flow starts rolling in years three and four. And if he
can–
Don Patrick: Yeah. So you're trying to use the net, his portion of the net
income to pay the note. Correct.
John Collins: Yes.
Don Patrick: And yeah,that's key.
John Collins: And so as you start looking into year five, it may, it should
be really, a real financial windfall for him if we continue doing what we're
doing. So now I've got skin in the deal, he's got skin in the deal, and it's
a win-win again. Now, we have to get back up a little bit and say that Tim
has his own rep code, but we don't, he does not get rewarded on the amount
of quote new clients or production. Everything is under Collin's Wealth
Management. It's not his clients. It's not my clients. It's our clients. And
he will get a salary plus bonuses, and I've got that outlined over the next
five years. What that's gonna go to also. So when he gets to be, maybe in
the seventh year, his salary and my salary should be the same 'cause we're
about 50% owners.
And then everything else would be split, whatever, 49, 51%, 50-50, whatever
it is on the net revenue. So again, everybody has skin in the deal and
everybody has an incentive to continue to see the business grow. But as Tim
said, the more he grows the business, the more he has to pay me. I said,
“Isn't life sweet? Isn't life just beautiful? It's a good thing.” But the
less business we have, the less profit he gets.
Don Patrick: That's correct.
John Collins: Don, isn't life beautiful. Now you know how landfills, okay.
Don Patrick: I love it. Well, that's a great structure and that's very
helpful for other folks out there. There's so many ways to structure these
things. You've done it all the right way. I mean, everything from hiring
Tim, bringing him on, having clarity of the vision, what it's gonna look
like. He knew what it was gonna look like.
I mean, Land has told me that over and over and said, “It was very simple,
but he had very real clarity what the first 10 years was gonna look like and
what the steps would be.” And that is critical.
Tim Fail: And I'll tell you a couple things too, Don, that we had looked at.
LPL offers a couple different things. Carla McCabe was the succession plan
that we looked at. We also looked at the opportunity that LPL does where
they buy the business, basically, I say they buy, they pay the owner out,
and then they basically give it like a 10-year window and then the successor
stage there and then they get the business back.
We looked at that option. We also looked at a third party lender. We looked
at using LPL as a third party lender. So, we tried to exhaust all those
resources, and we just kept coming back to what made the most fit. John
wasn't trying to get a lump sum of cash right now and get out of the
business.
That wasn't his case. So we ruled that portion out. The LPL financing versus
owner financing, we looked at the pros and cons of that. So many different
things, but we just kept coming back. So make sure you look at all the
different avenues whenever you're going through this process. But Carla
McKay and her team, the other lady that we worked with, her name was Amy
Below, and both of 'em worked really, really good on the valuation.
They wanted to be fair because they don't want to overcharge the buyer
because they can't afford it. They don't want to sell the seller short
because they’re not getting the best of it. LPL, at a point, they're trying
to retain as much of the assets as they can. So they're trying to be as fair
as possible to both the buyer and the seller. So Carla's team, as y'all
mentioned, or as you saw with the IFG retreat, she was first class and her
team was just like that through the whole process.
Don Patrick: That's great advice. So on the upcoming tranches where you'll
be buying in, I assume you'll go through that process of where do you get
the financing, right, every time because it's gonna change.
Tim Fail: Yeah. So the valuation portion, basically what we'll do is we'll
look at the end of the previous year on December 31st, we'll look at
revenue.
We'll use the multiple that Carla’s team had put in place. And that's gonna
determine the price. And then it's just a matter of do I pay cash or do I go
with a financing source? So, that's pretty much in place. And Carla's team
worked very well with providing documents for us, so that way we could go,
they don't draw any legal paper up, but they will provide some sample
documents, so we can go to our attorneys, we could sit down, we got the buy
sell agreement, the employment agreement, the operator agreement, the number
of shares, whether it's an S Corp or LLC and so forth. So all of that is in
that whole packet. So it's really a turnkey deal.
Don Patrick: Yeah, that's fantastic.
John Collins: I would say, Don, that any advisor that wants to create a
succession plan, if they can tell me where they want to be in this deal, do
they want out? Do they want work two years? Do they want to stay on board
for another 10 years?
Tell me where you want to be. I can probably tell you which route is gonna
be the best route because we knocked this thing back and forth several
times. And plus with you and Land and Andrews, they had to help give
guidance along the way too, was very beneficial. I'll say too, that it is
got to be a win-win.
Everybody's gotta bend a little bit to get to this point and I think if you
do that, both of you win down the road. So don't be trying to, could I have
gotten a bigger multiple, as an example, could sell it right out and be out
of the business? Absolutely. Yep. Sure. But that wasn't my goal and my
clients have been so good to me.
I felt the least I could do was have somebody working with them of like mind
and me stay on as long as I feel like that I can physically do it and well
mentally, I'm not sure if I'm there, but, hey, physically I'm there. But
don't you say, don't say a word, Don. You can cut that out. Okay.
Don Patrick: But I've already had to edit myself.
John Collins: Yes. Okay, good. But we don't have any problems. And we say
this every Thursday afternoon or whenever we leave, we don't have any
problems. We really don't.
Don Patrick: That's fantastic. So yeah, it's having the clear vision. You
wanna take care of the clients and yes, you could have gotten a higher
multiple. There's a lot of crazy stuff going on out there, but it's what do
you want, what do you want for your clients? And it's still, even at the
little bit lower, it's still rich. I mean, it's wonderful.
John Collins: It really is. It really is.
Don Patrick: And you're gonna continue to enjoy your share of the profits
for a long time. That's a big number.
John Collins: I'll look at it down the road and, whatever, 10 years down the
road, I still hope to have a corner office somewhere that can come in and
still be of counsel or be able to add value to what Tim and his team are
gonna be doing.
Don Patrick: Well, I made Land part of the agreement, right up front was he
had to reserve a small office big enough for my walker.
John Collins: Yeah. But Don, I hate to be the one to bring you bad news. but
I've already talked to Land about this and–
Tim Fail: Don, I will tell you, John said we were in Kerry Mountain in a
box. We didn't tell him what kind of box it might be cardboard. It's still
gonna be a box.
John Collins: I don't expect no less than that. Okay. And no more.
Don Patrick: Alright, so John, what year did you join the consortium?
John Collins: 2014
Don Patrick: Uh-huh. Almost 11 years now. Close.
John Collins:Yes, that'd be true. Very true.
Don Patrick: And why’d you join?
John Collins: At that time, I did not have a succession plan, and I thought
it was really important that it seemed like every conference I went to, I
kept hearing about it and I couldn't really find the right succession plan
partner. I just couldn't find it. And so I said, “Well, I've gotta have
something, somebody to help back me up.”
And I remember you saying to me, “Well, we have a succession plan but it
isn't the best one.” And I said, “Well, it's gonna be better than nothing.”
So that was one reason. The second reason was as the LPL continued to get
bigger and bigger and bigger and trying to solve, even though we don't have
many issues to solve, but I needed to have some type of partner in
escalating potential problems that we could not get resolved. And I think
with the clout, Don, that you and the team have you able to push through a
couple things that we were struggling with. So, Don, did you ever, I dunno
if you've even told this story about how we met back in 2014 perhaps.
Don Patrick: Are you talking about focus? I’ve shared the story. I've shared
this story so many times. It's so funny. It's ridiculous.
John Collins: Well, it's like, I'm gonna share the first part, but you share
the second part. You'll know what it's. So the first part of this story is
that I get a call from a recruiter and they, and I know the guy, and we
chitchatting for 15, 20 minutes.
And I finally say, “Well, listen, Jeff, I gotta go.” Jeff Nash. I said,
“Jeff, I gotta go. I got some clients.” He said, “Well, John, hold on. Have
you ever thought about joining an RIA hybrid group?” I said, “Well, I have,
I've talked to a couple of groups. But no.” He said, “Well, as a group in
Atlanta, I think you'd fit in well.”
And so I said, “Well, I don't even know who it is.” He said, “Well, I'm
gonna get in contact with the guys and have them call you.” Well, I get off
the phone, this is about two weeks before focus, and I get an invitation
from a money management group having a scotch tasting. I mean, it popped up
on my email.
I'm sitting right here. I'll respond right then, “Yes, I wanna attend.” I
don't like scotch, but I said, “Hey, this will be fun.” They said, “I'm
sorry, it's already filled.” I said, “It's already filled. I just got it at
like five minutes.” He said, “No, it's already filled.” And so come to find
out, I talked to Don. I talked to say, “Don Patrick, I was invited to a
scotch tasting, but I don't suppose I'll go to that. I'll join y'all for
dinner.” And you said, well, we are having a scotch tasting dinner.” And you
had reserved the whole daggone block with that same group that I was turned
down. And so I was able to go to the scotch tasting with IFG. So you can
take it from there if you want to, because when I came in, I think it
was–anyway, you take it on Don.
Don Patrick: So you are talking to a group of consortium members and–
John Collins: We won't mention their names.
Don Patrick: We won't mention their names. And then now how tall are you,
John?
John Collins: Huh? 6’6” If you counted an inches.
Don Patrick: So then you turn around and Rich Lombardi and David Gaines are
the two I recall. They're both six five plus.
John Collins: And you.
Don Patrick: And you walk over and you says, “So. Where's The Brain Trust?”
Something to that effect. It's like, it was hilarious.
John Collins: I said, yeah. I said, “I've been talking to this group over
there, and I came, I said, ‘Where is the Brain Trust? I haven't seen them
yet,’” and then there's these three tall guys. I said, “Well, do all the
vetting you wanna do. I never make the height requirement.”
Don Patrick: Well, we won't mention the fact when you MCed the retreat that
you ended up coming out in ladies high heels the second day. But–
John Collins: I think that's a rumor. That's all that is, is a rumor.
Don Patrick: We have photos.
John Collins: I mean, what night was that? What night was that? Tell me. Was
it a Thursday or a Friday night? I mean, usually Friday. Okay, see.
Don Patrick: That's actually Friday morning. You were MCing the retreat and
you're doing it in high heels.
John Collins: Okay. Consortium members, that is a law. I do not wear high
heels on Friday morning. I restrict them to Saturday night. Only Saturday
night. Thanks to Bonnie White for bringing the pair of high heels, by the
way. And that ugly jacket of Land, good gracious. Land wears it well though
I have to say that
Don Patrick: He does. Well, I'm gonna wrap this up a little bit. It's been
fantastic. So I'm gonna ask the same question to both of you. If you could
describe your talents and strengths in three words.
John Collins: Tim, go ahead.
Tim Fail: I believe these three go together. The three that come to my mind
are listening, building relationships, and connections. So those were my
three, Don, that I think really hit home for me.
Don Patrick: Yeah, I would agree with that. How about you, John?
John Collins: Well, I kind of broke this thing into two sections and you, I
think you asked about professionally and then I didn't see maybe what I
wanted as a person also, so professionally, and I do have a serious side
when it comes to professionalism, believe it or not. Okay. But I thought
deductive reasoning, time management, and mutually beneficial results.
Don Patrick: I like that.
John Collins: But also came back and I said as a person though, whether it
be in the office or outside the office, humor, encouragement, and optimism.
Don Patrick: Those are all great. You guys nailed it. Absolutely. All right.
Last question for each of you. Tell us something about yourself that others
do not know.
John Collins: Well, let me see. I'm going to tell you something about Tim
that you don’t know. I was gonna to tell something about Don that Eve does
know, but I'm gonna tell about Tim. A lot of people don't know that one of
his outside hobbies is buying, repairing, selling, farmall tractors. Farmall
forties and I don't recall the number, but tell me, tell us how many farm
tractors that you and your dad have searched out and bought, brought back to
your shop, repaired them and sold them. The number is…
Tim Fail: 248.
Don Patrick: Oh my gosh.
John Collins: 248 farmall trucks.
Don Patrick: I had no idea. That's never come up.
John Collins: I dunno why I would ask that.
Tim Fail: I'll tell you one other one, Don. And that's it. I don't know how
many else in this consortium or CDL commercial driver's license Class A, but
I have my CDL so if y'all need any tractor trailer driving to move stuff to
the IFG retreats, you've got a driver now on board.
Don Patrick: I had no idea about that either could fly a plane, I can drive
a truck. I could probably drive it, I just couldn’t park it.
Tim Fail: Hey, I'll share one about John since, he's, he took mine, first
probably don't know it, that John won the very first Andy Griffin contest in
Mayberry for the trivia. And I forgot what year that was. But if you ever
see John and you think you can outsmart him when it comes to Andy Griffin, I
dare you to try.
He will tell you what episode, who was in it, what they were wearing, who
they were dating, and what was their real name. He'll tell you every, he'll
blow your mind when it comes to Andy Griffin, so–
Don Patrick: That's amazing. Most folks don't know that.
John Collins: I lived very limited childhood. What can I say?
Tim Fail: John wouldn't pay for cable, that's what it is.
John Collins: Wait a minute, Don and I knew it was not cable.
Don Patrick: No, it was Gravity ears and you had to put it on your head to
get a good reception.
John Collins: Oh, piece of aluminum full on top of it.
Don Patrick: That's correct. That's correct. All right, guys, well, I'm
gonna wrap this up. I wanna thank you so much taking the time. This was so
valuable. This really is the essence of the consortium, the Brain Trust, and
what a great, great trip you you guys have been down and what a great job
you've done in terms of succession planning and creating a partnership. It's
fantastic. It's been great watching you guys.
John Collins: Don, as always, thanks for your assistance and the team. Y'all
always there to help us out when we need it.
Tim Fail: We've really enjoyed these podcasts. That was one reason why we
were so willing to be involved.
Don Patrick: Fantastic. Awesome. All right. See ya.
John Collins: Thanks. Bye-Bye.
Well, that's it for today's show. Thanks for listening.
If you've got something to share, send an email to
dpatrick@thebraintrust.net. We want to know what works.
Until next time. See ya.