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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 our guest
today is Darren Bearden with episode number 22. Welcome, Darren.
Darrin Bearden: Thank you Don. Pleasure to be here.
Don Patrick: Yeah, this is gonna be great. Have a nice conversation, learn
some things about you. There's always something to learn for all of us. So
why don't you start over. Tell us a little bit about your family.
Darrin Bearden: My family is all from North Georgia. We've been here since
about the 1700s. Best I can figure.
Don Patrick: Holy cow.
Darrin Bearden: I've got two siblings, an older brother, a younger sister.
I'm married to Ingrid. She is from Venezuela and we have three girls. I
actually met Ingrid, with all three girls. They were, one, nine, and 10 when
we met. Now they're 23, 31 and 32.
Don Patrick: Oh my gosh.
Darrin Bearden: So, people look at me funny when I say I have a 32-year-old.
But,she calls me dad. So what do you do, right? My youngest is at UGA
Mariana, she's doing her masters. And then I've got one, the middle one
lives in South Florida and my oldest is living in Salamanca, Spain at the
moment.
Don Patrick: Oh my gosh.
Darrin Bearden: So they're spread out all over.
Don Patrick: That's crazy.
Darrin Bearden: So we're empty nesters now and enjoying it.
Don Patrick: You're fluent in Spanish without an accent. I understand.
Darrin Bearden: Yeah. I have less accent in Spanish.
Don Patrick: Accent, not in Spanish.
Darrin Bearden: Yeah, it's pretty good. I've been learning, man, since I was
in high school and then, so yeah what, 35 years or something. I've been
speaking Spanish.
Don Patrick: Amazing. That's fantastic.
Darrin Bearden: Yeah, it's a big part of my life.
Don Patrick: Do you have any Spanish speaking clients?
Darrin Bearden: I do actually, one of my first, I would say, big clients was
Spanish speaking. That was like the first kind of client that I got where I
said, “Oh, okay, this is what I'm talking about. This is what I'm looking
for.” And I did the whole deal in Spanish, and he's still my client to this
day.
Don Patrick: Fantastic. That's great. So your career changer, getting into
this profession. Why don’t you share with us some of the things you did and
then why you made the career change to become a financial planner.
Darrin Bearden: Okay, during college and out of college, I worked in
manufacturing, like in customer service for a big flooring manufacturer, the
largest in the world at that time. I dunno if they still are. I did that and
I had some opportunities to advance in that company and I kind of thought
that I was just gonna stay there and that opportunity fell through and I
wound up moving to Mexico where I taught English for a while. I lived there
for two years, in Central Mexico—in the city of Morelia, a beautiful
place—and I’ve still got a lot of good friends there. I came back home and
decided I wanted to be a translator and an interpreter. So I studied that
and worked as a translator and interpreter for a while.
Then got an MBAI and wound up working at the Federal Reserve Bank for a
couple years in midtown there.
Don Patrick: That must have been interesting.
Darrin Bearden: It was really,really interesting. It's a little dry place to
work. A little bit of a—
Don Patrick: So we have another advisor who worked at the Federal Reserve
Bank. I dunno if you know Hank.
Darrin Bearden: Oh, no. I'll have to talk to him. I worked in the retail
payments office there. I worked on cross border electronic payments
projects. So it was pretty interesting stuff. I left there, I went back into
the language world. I wound up running the language services department for
a big healthcare system in Atlanta.
And then that kind takes me into how I got into this business. So all those
jobs that I just told you about, I had this dream all along of starting my
own business, and working for myself. And I kind of did that a little bit
with my language work, but I didn't really have a business per se that I was
running.
It was more so contract work and whatnot. Somewhere around 2012, I think it
was I read Dave Ramsey's book, Total Money Makeover, and a light bulb just
kind of went off in my head and I said, “I think my grandparents lived this
way. I think I'm gonna do it too.” And I think the next year, my wife and I
took financial peace to university and kind of got on the same page.
Then by 2016, I was working at the hospital, really thriving there. I was
the system expert. Hospitals have what they call system experts. So if you
wanna talk to somebody about a certain thing, everybody knows who that
system expert is. And I was the system expert for what I did.
So everybody knew who I was. A lot of recognition. I was passionate about
what I did, and I loved serving kind of an underserved population, which are
limited English proficient patients. So this, I was enjoying that. That was
2016 and a tree fell on our house.
That was kind of the impetus for all of this. Yeah. Believe it or not,
that's kind of where it started after reading Dave Ramsey's book and stuff
like that, and just kind of getting into personal finance, and trying to get
my financial house in order. So a tree falls on our house.
Fell, it was 06:50 in the morning. I was standing at the front door, fixing
to go upstairs to get ready for work, and it fell right on the front door,
right where I was standing, and a big hole opened up in our two-story foyer
and all this debris came crashing down at my feet. I screamed like a little
girl.
My daughter's bedroom was right there. I thought she was injured or dead or
something. She came running out. She was fine. “What happened? What
happened?” And I opened the front door and there's this big pine tree
staring at me in the face. All I got was a little scratch on my finger. Long
story short, we–then started pouring down rain.
It was just a traumatic experience. I called my wife, she was on her way to
work. She came back home. We spent the night at some neighbor's house, and
the next morning , we wake up and my wife's first words were, “Darren, how
much life insurance do you have?”
And I said, “Dave Ramsey says not enough.” And so just based on that
question, I called a buddy of mine, you know, through all this like
financial piece and my MBA and all this stuff, I didn't, I hadn't hired a
financial advisor or we hadn't. Didn't think I needed one. I could figure
this out.
Boy was I wrong and so I called a buddy of mine that I had worked with and
he was starting his business at the time. He was independent. And I said, “I
need to buy a whole bunch of life insurance from you and I've got a bunch of
money sitting around just doing nothing. I want to invest and I really don't
know how to do it. Can you help me?” And he said, “Sure, of course.” And we
were pretty easy clients. And so about the second or third meeting with him,
and he's Mexican, by the way, so it was all in Spanish. My wife looked at me
and said, in Spanish, she interrupted our conversation. She said, “You need
to do what he does. You'd be really good at that.”
I was like, “Really?” And of course he was excited to bring someone onto his
team or whatever. And so I started talking to him about the business, how it
worked, what do I gotta do, how do you make your money, what licenses do you
have to have? And that was 2016.
And I got my life license pretty quickly. Sold a few policies, and joined
this group that he was with just as a life agent. And by 2017, first part of
2017, I had my 6 and 63 and started opening some accounts and by the end of
2017, I quit my full-time job and got my 65 and I've been doing this
full-time ever since.
Don Patrick: How scary was that?
Darrin Bearden: Well, I was excited, but it was pretty scary quitting my
job, having that stability and that security and like I said, being the
system expert, I didn't feel like my job was going anywhere soon. And so
just going from a decent hospital salary, they don't pay a whole lot.
But it was okay. We were doing fine. Going from that to zero, 'cause I
started as an independent advisor. I never worked anywhere for anybody as an
advisor. So I went from that to zero. So there was a little nerve wracking.
My wife said, “Do we have any money?”
And I said, “Yes, but it's not gonna last us forever.” And so she was the
one that basically told me to quit my job though too. She said, “If you're
gonna do this, do you really wanna do this?” And I said, “Yes, I'm loving it
and things are going well, but I'm not making any money.” She goes, “Well, I
think you need to quit your job. Quit tomorrow.” And I quit my job the next
day. I put in my resignation, and worked another month and just started
building it from there. So here we are.
Don Patrick: And how did you build it? Cold calling, networking?
Darrin Bearden: Dave Ramsey.
Don Patrick: So you hooked up with Dave Ramsey? Yeah.
Darrin Bearden: I did. So my partner is Sabrina and at that time, she was
not my partner, but she kind of helped me get hooked up with Dave Ramsey.
And I started working a territory around Athens, Georgia. So I was hitting
the road every day, meeting with anybody anywhere about anything, just
trying to get in front of people and learn the business and just slowly but
surely started taking clients. And I've still got some of those original
clients, several of them. So that's kinda how I built it.
Don Patrick: So when did you join IFG and why?
Darrin Bearden: So we joined, our official start date, I believe, was August
30th, 2021. Of course we started talking to IFG before that. I say we,
Sabrina and I.
Our businesses were growing, but I was just starting to feel a little stuck
where I was, like I wanted more and just didn't feel like I had it there.
I'm forever grateful to that organization for giving me a chance to start a
business as an independent advisor with no book so that's, I just feel very
grateful to them.
But we really had a desire to grow our business, not just grow our book, but
grow as advisors as well. So we decided to start looking together and to
partner and create a firm together. At the old firm we were, or at the old
group, we weren't officially partners, we just kind of helped each other out
or whatever.
So we decided to go looking for a new place together, and we kind of went on
this journey. Just talked to so many different people, so many different
organizations and just never quite found the right fit, or we've just never
satisfied with what we were hearing, or they couldn't really accommodate us
with the way we wanted to set it all up, or just different reasons.
And we eventually talked to LPL and LPL pointed us to IFG. They said, “We
know about this group. We think you might be a good fit for.” Right. That's
based on what they heard from us. And so here we go. We set up another call
with another organization, right? But we were determined to find a place,
and to grow and we were looking for really solid back office support, and
just a place where we could grow both as advisors and learn more than–I knew
there was so much more I could learn, and so we're looking for a place to
achieve that.
And so the first call that we had with IFG, I was at the beach with my wife
and some friends, and I was sitting in my forerunner in a parking lot in
some shopping center, so I was on vacation and Sabrina's like, “We've got a
call with these people from IFG.” I'm like, “Oh, good grief, does it have to
be today?” So we just, you know, just having a conversation with y'all and
the more we talked, I was like, “Huh. This is sounding like what we're
looking for.”
And so we just continued talking and eventually just became convinced this
is where we wanted to land. And you were gracious enough to accept us. And
you never know everything that you're getting into, you think what to
expect. But once we really got into IFG and started participating and going
to the retreats and everything, we were, we said, “Yes, we made a great
decision. This is everything that we were looking for and more.”
Don Patrick: You're in a mastermind group, right?
Darrin Bearden: Yes, I am. I would venture to say the best one.
Don Patrick: Everybody has the best one.
Darrin Bearden: Yeah. No, it's a really great group. I don't know how IFG
chose us or thought we would be a good fit for each other, but we are. I
feel like we just really support each other and kind of challenge each
other. And I've learned a lot from the group and we consult each other and,
“What do you think?”
And it's just been great and. We meet twice a year in person and we meet on
Zoom outside of those meetings. And just have a good time socializing
sometimes as well and just have a great time together. They're a great group
of advisors.
Don Patrick: They are. I know 'em. Yeah. So now did you drop your license
when you joined IFG licenses and go IRA-only?
Darrin Bearden: Yes. I had my six and 63, the place we were at before was
kind of a share kinda shop. I don't know what you call it.
Don Patrick: Call it old school.
Darrin Bearden: Yeah. And I didn't know, I didn't know anything about the
business that somebody said to do that first. So that's what I did. When I
joined, pretty quickly, everyone was talking about the fiduciary rule and I
was talking to my wife about this other license that I had to get, 65 and
why I should get it and she goes, “Well, I don't know what that is, but you
need to get it.”
So I got it. I just do what my wife says. So pretty quickly, I got my 65 and
pretty quickly I started leaning more towards managed money and being a
fiduciary and not doing any commission-based business. I was doing some of
both, but just more and more I started doing less commission based and more
managed money.
And so when we switched to IFG, I just made the decision to dropped those
licenses all together, the six and 63 and just worked with a 65 and be
IRA-only. And I didn't know I was the first one to do that. Yeah, I had no
idea. You didn't tell me that. It worked out though. Now I don't know how
many we've got, but it's not just me anymore. I don't regret the decision at
all. I like it actually,
Don Patrick: That's great. In terms of your business now, are you doing–so
you're doing managed money, are you managing the portfolios? Do you
outsource it? What does that look like?
Darrin Bearden: So previously I was working with third-party money manager
platform. There are a few big ones and I was working with one of those and
had a handful of models that I was using. But I would say it was, the way I
was doing it was a little messy, maybe, not as clean as I'm doing it now.
So when we switched little by little, I moved everything over to LPL, but I
still work with models. I've got, and the different money managers that we
have available to us. So that's what I'm doing now. I don't really, I don't
have my own models. I don't really manage them myself. I enjoy working with
the money managers and just having access to them and their resources and
their people and just having those relationships.
I think it makes for a good story with clients as well. Like, “I've got a
lot of smart people working for you.”
Don Patrick: Yeah, exactly.
Darrin Bearden: So still doing that, working with models.
Don Patrick: And you're doing financial planning.
Darrin Bearden: Yep. So I think I became a financial planner when I joined
IFG. Before that, I was a financial professional and a financial advisor.
And so once I joined IFG, I started hearing a lot about financial planning
and I just started to feel some of this positive pressure, I call it, to get
more into financial planning and make that more of a priority in my
practice. I remember Sabrina and I when we first joined, Karen Lee gave us
an hour of her time just to tell us how she does things.
You know how she works, how she does business, and I still remember she
said, “Start with planning.” And I wasn't even really sure what that meant,
I was like, “What is she talking about?” And now I totally get it. And so
the clients that I've done plans for so far has really enhanced my
relationship with them, and just feel like I'm doing a better job for 'em
instead of just managing their investments. I can really help them prepare
for retirement and kind of see the future and have a clear plan in place,
and have some confidence around what they're doing.
Don Patrick: Yeah, I agree. I mean, financial planning is holistic and it's
taking care of all the stuff, the risk management, the insurance, the estate
planning, all those things.
Darrin Bearden: Yeah,
Don Patrick: Money management's an important part of it, but it's just a
part of it, so I absolutely agree.
Darrin Bearden: Yeah, so it's made a big difference in my practice so far.
Don Patrick: What are you using for your financial tools?
Darrin Bearden: Do you wanna talk tech stack in general? I mean, for
financial planning we had been using MoneyGuide Pro and I was just kind of
dabbling in financial planning, and maybe did a couple of plans for some
existing clients for that.
And we heard about eMoney and WealthVision and so we did a demo with them
and kinda liked what we saw. We hadn't made a decision to switch yet. And I
had a client that I had approached about doing some planning with, that
seemed, I just thought they would benefit from it and would be interested it
in it and I was right. And they specifically asked me for eMoney. They said–
Don Patrick: I never heard that before.
Darrin Bearden: Yeah. They asked me for eMoney by name and I said, “Well,
that's interesting. We're talking to eMoney.” And so basically the fact that
they wanted–they’re great clients, some of my original clients, and they
asked me for it. And so I was just like, “Ah, let's just go ahead and do
it.” 'Cause they want it, and then of course I had to learn how to use it,
so I dug in deep. And so they knew that it was new for me, but I was willing
to learn it and try to use eMoney to help them plan. And they love it.
They're all about it. So, apparently some friends of theirs had it and just
highly recommended it. So that's what we use specifically for planning
software.
Don Patrick: And you charge separate fees for your plans, correct?
Darrin Bearden: Yes. So I have approached several of my existing clients and
said, “Hey, I wanna do a plan for you.” But I haven't charged them, right?
But new clients that I bring on, I do charge an initial fee to build the
plan.
Don Patrick: And what's that look like? What kind of price range?
Darrin Bearden: So I typically say 1% of income or salary, household income,
with a minimum of $2,000.
So, most people, I wind up charging $2,000 to build the plan. But if I've
got someone that's making more than that, I'll charge 'em 1% of their
household income. And then I have one client, he's planning only. That was
when I was first getting started. I just started using eMoney and I wasn't
even sure what to charge him, what to tell him.
I mean, that's how little I knew. And my mastermind group really stepped in
and gave me some good advice and gave me some good suggestions. And I went
with it and presented it to him and he said yes. That was in 2022. And, he
still has me on retainer. He is a physician and just kind of ramping up to
retirement.
Just wants to make sure he’s got all his ducks in a row. And so I meet with
him pretty frequently just to touch base and make sure everything's in order
and he's feeling good and, and he's approached me with planning questions
and I've been able to use his plan to show him what's possible and whatnot.
So it's been a great, great relationship. So I've got that one client. Just
all I do for him is ongoing planning. I have other clients, you know, I had
established an asset minimum, and then I found some younger clients that
didn't meet that, but they were hungry for the help, hungry for the
planning.
And so I discovered they're willing to pay me for planning while they build
up the assets that I'm looking for in my practice, that I'm shooting for.
And so I've got a few or a handful of clients that manage their assets and I
bill them for an ongoing planning fee as well.
Don Patrick: So you charge an initial plan to build the plan. And then you
mentioned you have one client on retainer. Do the other people stay on
retainer or is it just that one time charge and then you go to an asset fee?
Darrin Bearden: No, I charged them the one time fee just to build the plan,
all that's involved in that. And then I charge them an ongoing fee plus a
percentage of their assets to get me to a yearly minimum that I'm willing
to– to be willing to take on a client, if that makes sense.
Don Patrick: And what is that?
Darrin Bearden: So I started with $2,500 a year. That was the least amount
of revenue I was willing to take. And I told Andrews, I said, “So far it's
great. Everybody said yes.” And he said, “Well, that's 'cause you're not
charging enough.”
Don Patrick: That's correct.
Darrin Bearden: And I was like, “Dang.” So I upped it to $3,000 and I've
gotten a couple of nos here and there. So I thought, okay. I think I'm on
the right track. And so what I do every year, you know, with the clients
that I'm billing a planning fee in addition to the percentage of their
assets, we just kind of do the math and in some cases I've been able to
lower what I'm billing them out of pocket for planning as their assets grow,
and then eventually that out-of-pocket cost just goes away. But then I have
a bunch of clients that I do Pantera for us, I'm managing their employer
sponsored plans, and I build that out of pocket as well through advice pay.
So I bill quite a bit for that. So I take that into account as well. So I've
got some clients percentage, percentage of their assets. Pantera, one bill
all every quarter is Pantera. And then another bill is just an ongoing
planning fee. And as their assets grow, both at their LPL accounts and
Pantera, that out of pocket, that ongoing planning fee might go down, if the
math works out each year.
Don Patrick: Or go away.
Darrin Bearden: Yeah. Until it eventually goes away.
Don Patrick: So we used to call that fee offset. So you got $3,000 minimum
and they've only got enough assets that generate a thousand, then you charge
them $2,000 for the difference.
Darrin Bearden: Yep. That's basically what I do. And it seems to work out
pretty well, and people understand exactly why I do it from a business
perspective. Some of 'em are business people and they're, “Yeah, I get it.
That's fine. Let's do it.” I did meet with a prospect recently, a guy I used
to work with, and he was hesitant about the planning fee and, “Well, let's
just go ahead and do this rollover and I'll think about the planning piece.”
And I said, “No, I don't think you understood me. If you're not willing to
do the planning, I don't think you're a good fit for my practice.” I said,
“I can manage all your money, but at some point you're gonna need my help,
and I'm not gonna know how to help you make good, solid financial decisions
if I haven't built this plan for you. So think about it and let me know.” I
hope he comes back. I think I can really help him and he would be a great
client. He really would. He's a really, really good guy.
Don Patrick: So, walk us through your sequence of meetings. So you've got a
prospective client. What is your, is it a phone call? Do you meet in person?
Is it a get to know you kind of meeting? Then what comes next, what comes
next, what comes next?
Darrin Bearden: Yeah, so sometimes it's a phone call, it's a referral, and I
try to keep the phone call, you know, if there's an initial phone call, I
try to keep it pretty brief and just say, “What kind of help are you looking
for?” And then I usually suggest that we meet in person. I heard an advisor
say one time, “I don't give haircuts over the phone.”
And so I learned that from him. He is like, “You gotta make people come and
sit in front of you.” And I just think things go better when we do that. I
have loosened a little bit, someone's out of state. I've got clients out of
state that I've literally never met in person, but there was some referral,
a brother or a friend or a sister or something like that.
And so there was already some trust there built up without even meeting
them. So I have some clients that state that I've just done Zoom, but that's
the best thing after face to face. So I wanna see you, I want you to see me.
So that second meeting or that first meeting, let's call it after the phone
call is really just for me to get to know you and really learn what you're
looking for and share with the prospect, how I do business and what I do for
my clients. And I tell 'em, I said, “Our job at the end of the meeting is to
figure out if we wanna work together or not, if we're a good fit for each
other. And if we're not, it's fine. I'll give you some pointers and you can
be on your way and keep looking. But we're gonna decide if we're a good fit
for each other.” And sometimes I get a yes, sometimes I get a maybe. You
know how it works, right? And so if I get that yes, I just keep going, and
we talk more about exactly how we're gonna set things up.
And if we're doing, if we're transferring assets or stuff like that, we'd
talk about how that looks. And I talk about the whole, the planning process
that I'm gonna take them through. And that kind of leads us, I think, into
the onboarding process. I don't know if you wanna talk about that, a little
bit.
Don Patrick: Yeah. So you have your fit meeting and you share the plan. So
what is the next step?
Darrin Bearden: Well, once I get that yes, and I'm convinced they really
wanna do it, then I go ahead and gather their personal information.
Don Patrick: And how do you do that? Do you just have 'em bring a box full
of stuff? Do you have 'em complete a form or what does that look like?
Darrin Bearden: No, when I say personal information, I'm just talking about
name, date of birth, social security number. Let me see your driver's
license, just basic information like that, to where I can put them in
Wealthbox, that's our CRM that we use, and then create a task for our
assistant.
And I use IFG’s client form, I can't remember what it's called exactly. I
fill that out and attach that to the task and any instructions and I tell
Heather, our assistant, exactly what the nature of the relationship with the
client is gonna be, everything that we're gonna do for them.
And she goes to putting together their paperwork. If there are statements to
gather, I tell the client to send me those before we get everything signed
and then once everything's signed, as far as planning goes, I start working
on trying to gather all of the information that I need from the client to
take them through the planning process.
Don Patrick: So they give that to you electronically or just bring you a
bunch of stuff? How does that look?
Darrin Bearden: Well, the personal information, I'm just asking them.
Don Patrick: I'm talking about like, wills and trust and insurance.
Darrin Bearden: Yeah. So my recommendation is that they upload everything
into the vault and WealthVision, right. I tell them that's the most secure
place that we can do that. It's easy for us to exchange secure documents
like that. If we're not to the point where I've even given them access yet,
I'll send them a secure email and say respond to this and attach whatever
information.
Sometimes, I have a conversation with them, I'm asking them questions, “So
what about this, what about that?” It's challenging to get–that's one of my
challenges, you know, is just figuring out what's a quick and efficient way
to gather all of this information and encourage people, and make them
understand how important it is. So that's one of my challenges these days,
so I just kind of get it however I can, Don, a lot of of different ways.
Don Patrick: So you've had your fit meeting. You had the phone call, fit
meeting, agreed to go forward. Now you're trying to gather documents,
information, and that sort of thing. You have another meeting to go over
their goals, their challenges. So we've had one meeting so far that I've
heard.
Darrin Bearden: Yeah, we'll do a meeting, once paperwork's signed and we're
kind of getting going, we have another meeting to discuss and we'll do this
over Zoom, unless they're really close by or something, they wanna come to
the office. But we'll have a Zoom meeting and I'll share my screen and, I'll
share the–they're looking at what I'm looking at and what I want to know,
and we just kind of talk through their goals. Some of them I've already
talked to 'em about in the first meeting, you know, people share a lot.
They don't know that I'm gathering information, but I am. So there are
several things, so I'll say, “Well, in our initial meeting, you mentioned
this, this, and this, what else should we add?” Or I may ask for more detail
or, “Tell me what you've got in mind for this goal or what are you
thinking?” And so we just have a conversation around goals and I ask, if I
didn't get, all the important people in their life. People that depend on
them that I want to include in the plan. Children, grandparents, parents,
whatever. It's people that depend on 'em. I'll ask for more of that
information and so I just kind of talk through it.
Don Patrick: So that's your second meeting and then what happens next?
That's when you do the analysis and put the plan together and all that?
Darrin Bearden: Yeah. I may still have some outstanding stuff that I'm
looking for. And so there could be emails or phone calls to gather just a
little more information or some details.
Maybe I missed something or I didn't, or I wanna confirm that I understood,
but from there, I'll let 'em know, “Okay, I've got everything that I need.
I'm gonna start working on my analysis and my recommendations, and I'll let
you know if I have any more questions along the way.”
And sometimes that happens as I start digging into the plan. There may be
something I want to talk to 'em about again, so I may have another quick
conversation with them just, and I just keep going and going until I'm fully
satisfied that I've got every little last detail that I need to make sure
that this plan is gonna be as accurate as possible.
And that we can trust it, and trust the results. And so once I'm done with
my analysis, I schedule a meeting, usually Zoom. I give clients the option,
“Do you wanna come see me? Or do you wanna do Zoom?” And most people say
Zoom, but I have some people that wanna come see me, so I'm gonna present my
findings to you.
And I tell 'em, “Don't worry. I'm not gonna give you a 75-page report and
say, ‘Here, do this.’ We're gonna make it interactive. I'm gonna show you on
the screen what's your probability of successes or what are the chances that
you're gonna retire the way you described it to me, with everything that
you're doing and what you make and how much you have, and what you're
saving, and how much you're spending, and all these different things. I'm
gonna show you. Is it possible? And if we missed a mark, I'm gonna have a
plan ready to–I'm gonna say, “This is one way we can fix it.” Then if we've
got anything to implement, any changes, we talk about that and help clients
implement any changes.
And then it's just a follow up from there, “How are things going? How are
you working the plan? Has anything changed,” or whatnot. So it's been pretty
cool to watch how the process affects people and the way it makes 'em think
and how it makes 'em make decisions that they were struggling to make before
with their finances and like, “Wow, you really encouraged us to do this,
whereas before we were hesitant,” or whatever. So.
Don Patrick: Do you give them, like a one page action list, to dos or
anything like that?
Darrin Bearden: I do, but I don't think anybody looks at it honestly. So
I've considered just not doing that. But I like to have deliverables, just
something on paper like, “Here's what we talked about at a minimum. If
you're wondering why we talked about it, you can refer to this document.” So
yeah, I give them that, but I try to keep it pretty simple, otherwise people
aren't gonna read it.
Don Patrick: So whole planning process, you've implemented. What's next? Do
you just have an annual review? Do you talk to them in three months? I mean,
what does that look like?
Darrin Bearden: I think it depends on what kinda shape they're in after I do
the plan. But typically I like to chat with my planning clients every
quarter or so just to check in with 'em, see how things are going. Most
people are in pretty good shape, and haven't had to make any drastic changes
in the way they're doing things. I do have some clients, they just weren't
in good shape, and so I'm very interested in how closely they're following
the plan.
And so when I talk to them, I really want to know. Are you doing what we
said you should do? Because if you're not, it's not gonna work. And they
are, they're following the plan to a T. It's really neat to watch. And
they're excited about it. And they're excited 'cause they know where it's
gonna take 'em if they do what I showed them they should do, they know
they're gonna be okay. And so it's just really encouraging.
Don Patrick: Fantastic.
Darrin Bearden: I'm enjoying the planning piece. It's a lot of work, but
it's very satisfying and it's really enhanced my client relationships
significantly.
Don Patrick: Yeah. So tell us about your staffing. You mentioned you have an
assistant, Heather, right?
Darrin Bearden: Yes. Yeah, so it's me and Sabrina. We're the advisors. We,
last July, I believe it was, we hired Heather. She works for us part-time
remotely. We started with 20 hours. That was based on the hours that IFG’s
virtual assistants were working for us.
So we had something, we had some data to go off of, but pretty quickly we
bumped it up to 25 hours and we've stayed with that, so far. And she had no
industry experience whatsoever. She had been a stay-at-home mom for quite a
while, and she was eager to get back in the workforce.
And Sabrina had met her in a financial peace university class. She and her
husband were giving the class, so she was excited to get started, but
nervous because she didn't really know much and she has just really jumped
in and made a huge difference in our practice and I'm just real grateful
that we found her.
Don Patrick: Great. So your tech stack, so we know you use Wealthbox, we
know you use the eMoney. anything else?
Darrin Bearden: Oh, yeah, I got a whole list of stuff. I love technology. I
like it. I don't like to pay for it, but I like it a lot, so for scheduling,
we use OnceHub. I think it used to be called Schedule Once or vice versa.
I'm not sure. Once Hub, I believe it is. We use JUMP AI note taking. That's
been a game changer. We use Holistiplan. So, we didn't talk about the, you
know, in the planning process of, incorporated some tax planning for some
clients and that's been interesting. I've still got a lot to learn about
that, but I like it and I think my clients appreciate it.
I'll give you a success story. One client, he's in Texas, pretty high level
finance guy, right? To start, he wasn't even sure he needed me, but now he
knows he does.
He’s an acquaintance of mine, so, but anyway, I took a look at his tax
returns and he had almost a thousand dollars underpayment penalty that he
didn't even know about. His CPA didn't say anything, much less did they talk
about how to avoid it next year. So I was able to discover that for him and
the tax planning that I did for him and he was very appreciative and he was
kind of upset. And now he has a different CPA. I didn't want him to fire the
guy. I just wanted him to talk to him. So that was one, stuff like that. I'm
looking for red flags, so he was very appreciative that I discovered that
for him, he hadn't even noticed, so.
So we also use LPL’s Digital Marketing Suite. It used to be called
AdvisorStream. I've been using that from day one, like when I started my
business, I started using AdvisorStream and then eventually, I mean, just
worked out great. LPL acquired them somehow or another, and it became LPLs
Digital Marketing Suite and they added some other features, so I am still
using that.
I used Nitrogen, used to be Riskalyze. I really like that a lot and the way
it integrates with everything. I use Pantera to manage my client's employer
sponsored plans. That's been a huge part of my business. And those are some
of my best relationships. I use AdvicePay to invoice all of those clients,
plus the planning fees that I charge.
Of course, OneDrive and Outlook, have the FP Pathfinder subscription. Don't
use that a whole lot, but I think it's,it comes in handy sometimes, and if
clients have specific questions, I can send, I'm like, “Hey, here's a neat
little checklist.” I don't have to come up with it on my own that's already
there.
And so I've had some clients that have appreciated that. That's not a huge
part of what I do, but I still have it. I think that's it. There might be
something else out there that I use. I don't know. I use, yeah, I use a lot
of technology. I love it
Don Patrick:Well, if it helps with efficiencies and I mean, just like JUMP.
Oh my goodness. What a time saver. It does such a–
Darrin Bearden: Holy cow. Yeah. I had bought one of these electronic
notebooks. I saw Paul Peeler using it at one of our retreats, and I think
there was bunch of the money managers were on state and stuff, and I just, I
bought it on my phone during the session.
I'm sorry to say, but I was so excited about it, and now I don't even use
that. It's just, it's in my bag, but it's probably doesn't even have a
charge right now. So I use it sometimes. I like to, I still like to, I just
can't help it. I guess because I'm 50, I don't know. I like to jot down
numbers if I'm having a discussion about numbers with clients and stuff. I
like to have 'em right in front of me like, “Oh, you said this number and
that number,” otherwise I'm not gonna remember it. But for like real note
taking and stuff and just saving all those notes to Wealthbox, and just
having all that information. And sometimes it catches stuff that I didn't
even remember talking about Sometimes it's like, “Oh yeah, we talked, he had
said that. Oh, I said that. Yeah, I remember.”
Don Patrick: It's a pretty neat tool. Very nice. Oh, by the way, forgot to
mention the very beginning. Your firm's Clear Blue Wealth. I've been looking
at it the whole time.
Darrin Bearden: Yeah.
Don Patrick: And I realized I didn't–
Darrin Bearden: Yeah, no, that's fine. Yeah. Clear Blue Wealth. Clarity for
retirement is our tagline. So Sabrina came up with Clear Blue Wealth and I
came up with the tagline, and I like it.
Don Patrick: It's great. Yeah. And compliance approved the arrow going up,
huh? That's not–
Darrin Bearden: Yes. I was, no, you're exactly right. I was totally worried
about that when the guy–we hired a guy to design the logo even before we
moved. We thought we needed to have that in place before we moved.
Like, this is our brand, and so I remember the day he showed it to us, I'm
like, “Oh, that arrow is gonna be a problem.” But it passed compliance. I
guess it', I don't know.
Don Patrick: I shouldn't have even said anything.
Darrin Bearden: Come on, Don, help me out.
Don Patrick: Years ago, I used to do a lot of seminars and workshops or
retirement workshops and things, and I had an opening slide when people
walked in and we'd have music playing, but it showed like a beautiful
tropical area and a hammock and all this. They shot it down 'cause it was
promissory.
Darrin Bearden: Oh gosh. Yeah. Like this is your life if you work with me,
Don Patrick: Exactly.
Darrin Bearden: Paradise. Paradise. Yeah. And you're gonna need a lot of
money to live like this and I can make it for you,
Don Patrick: Hey, it was just a hammock. There was no refrigerator or
nothing. Just a hammock.
Darrin Bearden: Yeah. Oh, man. That's funny. You never know. So, yeah, it
passed compliance. I guess it's not, you can see it right there. I've seen
other logos where I'm like, “Did that pass compliance?” But so, I like it. I
think it's nice little addition.
Don Patrick: That's great.
Darrin Bearden: Yeah.
Don Patrick: So I'm gonna ask you to use three words to describe your
talents and strengths.
Darrin Bearden: So I was gonna start off with humility, but my wife said if
I said humility was one of my strengths, then I probably wasn't very humble.
So I can't say humility, but that makes me not humble if I say that's my
strength, right? So in all seriousness, I think building. I can give you,
kind of an explanation if you're looking forward for each one.
But building relationships, optimism, and adaptability are the three that I
came up with.
Don Patrick: Yeah, I would agree with you. As well as I know you, yes.
Darrin Bearden: Well, thank you. Thank you. Do you wanna know a little more
about each one? What do you wanna know? So, building relationships. I'm a
PK. Do you know what a PK is?
Don Patrick: I've heard that.
Darrin Bearden: So preacher's kid. It's a preacher's kid. Alright. We have a
bad reputation, unfortunately. That's only because we hang out with the
deacon's kids. But, so my dad was a Baptist preacher his entire adult life.
He pastored churches for 30 years. And he also had a full-time job that
whole time.
So he did both. I don't know how he did it. But his real passion was
pastoring. And so I learned, how to build relationships from him, he was a
master at it and just how to love and serve people, so that's, I think I got
that from him. And I really enjoy people. You can't have this business
without people skills, so I think that's one of my strengths and I enjoy
it. Optimism, I guess you could throw positivity in there, kind of along the
same lines. I just try not to let stuff bother me or get me down.
I'm pretty low key, low stress. My wife gets stressed out because I'm not
stressed. sometimes about stuff. I don't know if you read the Bible, Don,
but Paul wrote in Romans 8-28, we know that all things work together for
good to them that love God, to them that are called according to his
purpose, right?
So I love God and I believe this is my purpose, being a financial planner.
And so everything that happens, good or bad, I think winds up being good. So
that keeps me pretty optimistic and pretty positive, so that's kind of that.
And adaptability, I mentioned before, I've done so many different things
professionally and I'm just never afraid to try something new.
And my wife told me this is the last thing I'm gonna do professionally. It's
just like, “You're not making any more changes.” And I think I can agree to
that. I love what I do and think I'm just gonna close it out with this, but
I've been very adaptable and professionally done just a lot of different
things.
And personally as well. I lived in Mexico for two years when I was young.
That requires a lot of adaptability. I mean, everybody knows I speak
Spanish, and I would say probably 95% of my friends speak Spanish. I play
pickleball in Spanish. I go out to eat in Spanish. I do all kinds of, most
of my social life is in Spanish and all my friends are from other countries,
so I just kinda live in these two different worlds all the time.
And so that–it's pretty interesting living that way. So that's made me
adaptable as well. So I married someone from another culture, another
country, and she wasn't too keen on adapting to me, so I had to adapt to
her. But, so those are my three
Don Patrick:. Alright. Well, tell us something about yourself that others do
not know.
Darrin Bearden: Well, so, my office is in Alpharetta, Georgia, right? But
what people probably don't know is that part of my family has been in this
area for over 200 years. So just a few miles from here I have ancestors
buried all over the place, like all the way to third great grandparents.
I've got buried just not too far from my office. As far as I know, they were
all–this was farm country, and they were all farmers, as far as I know. But
there's only one farm that I can take you to, it's not there anymore, but I
can take you to the intersection.
It was my great grandparents farm. I looked it up on maps. It's four miles
from my office. My great grandparents farmed all four corners of this huge
intersection, and the family, whoever had possession of it at the time sold
it in the 70s for like $6,000 or something. And that's pretty much the story
of how I could have been a trust fund baby, Don.
Don Patrick: $6,000.
Darrin Bearden: No, if they had held onto it, oh yeah, I'd be getting a
piece of it, one day. So every time I ride by there, just kinda get a little
sick of my stomach. So it's just four, four miles from here. So I mean the
little baptist church where my dad married, me and my wife, my great
grandparents are buried there, the ones that owned that farm, and great,
great grandparents buried. I mean, so it's just kind of fun living and
working in a place where I have roots that go that far back. It's kind of
neat. And I share that story with people, and just to have something to talk
about.
Don Patrick: That's amazing. It's really cool. Very special.
Darrin Bearden: Yeah. It is.
Don Patrick: Thank you so much for tking the time to learn stuff on these
things.
Darrin Bearden: My pleasure, Don. My pleasure. I really appreciate the
opportunity. I enjoyed it.
Don Patrick: Alright. Thank you, Darrin. 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.