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Host Stacy Havener brings you the storytelling tips, sales strategies, behavioral secrets, and inspirational stories that help YOU turn your words into dollars. Learn from sales and marketing experts. Meet finance and investment leaders, founders and fund managers who have made it, and the ones on the rise. Because there are people behind the portfolios. Their stories matter. So does yours.
@stacyhavener // www.billiondollarbackstory.com/
[00:00:00] Stacy Havener: Imagine I'm doing that DJ scratch the record thing. Welcome to billion dollar backstory podcast rewind. We passed the 50 episode mark and there are some gems at the beginning of our podcast series. So while we're on summer hiatus, we're going billion dollar back backstory with some of our most popular episodes.
[00:00:21] Hope you enjoy.
[00:00:23] No matter what industry we're talking about today, the internet has given us just so many choices. What makes somebody, you know, kind of edge ahead in the race? And it usually comes down to the person, if I'm the buyer. Or the person choose making the choice. It comes down to who do I want to work with?
[00:00:40] Who do I want to be emailing with? Who do I want to have phone calls with? Who do I want to run into at a conference? Who do I want to come to my office? And honestly, I will say, you know, it almost becomes the numbers and the performance become sort of table stakes. Like, okay, can you do this? Yes. And now it's, will I like you?
[00:00:57] Will I like interacting with you? And that can be [00:01:00] really hard to demonstrate if you wait until the time you have the meeting to put your full personality on display.
[00:01:07] Hey, my name is Stacey Havener. I'm obsessed with startups, stories, and sales. Storytelling has fueled my success as a female founder in the toughest boys club, Wall Street.
[00:01:19] I've raised over 8 billion that has led to 30 billion in follow on assets for investment boutiques. You could say against the odds, yeah. Understatement. I share stories of the people behind the portfolios, while teaching you how to use story to shape outcomes. It's real talk here. Money. Authenticity.
[00:01:41] Growth. Setbacks. Sales and marketing are all topics we discuss. Think of this as the capital raising class you wish you had in college, mixed with happy hour. Pull up a seat, grab your notebook, and get ready to be inspired and challenged while you learn. This is the Billion [00:02:00] Dollar Backstory Podcast.
[00:02:05] People do business with people they know, Apparently that's true for podcast hosts as well, because today's guest is someone I not only know, like, and trust, she's someone I adore. Samantha Russell was employee number one alongside her founder, husband, Ryan, where their team built a successful marketing agency serving financial advisors called 20 over 10.
[00:02:33] In 2020. 20 over 10 was acquired by FMG, where Samantha now serves as chief evangelist for an agency serving over 40, 000 financial advisors and insurance agents with an all in one marketing platform. Samantha knows what it's like to bootstrap a company, to do sales and marketing with no budget. She knows what it's like to build a [00:03:00] business with her husband and also a life.
[00:03:04] She knows what it's like to do all of that and be a parent and a caregiver. She embodies the idea that we are ands, not ors. Her cutting edge thought leadership is recognized throughout the financial services industry and has led to her being named an Investment News 40 Under 40, a ThinkAdvisor Luminary, and a Wealth Management Top 10 to Watch.
[00:03:32] All of that awesome sauce? And she's got an incredibly kind heart. Pull up a chair as Sam takes us to school on how we can show up authentically to market and sell, yes, but most importantly, to serve our clients and serve them well. Without further ado, meet my dear friend, Samantha Russell. Samantha. [00:04:00] Thank you so much for being here.
[00:04:02] This is a true joy for me. As I was saying to you in the podcast kind of green room, I actually don't know a ton of your backstory. We've known each other forever working on stuff though, like presentations or webinars. And so I wish I had my popcorn because I know this is going to be good. Thank you for being here.
[00:04:24] Samantha Russell: You're so, so, so sweet, and popcorn is one of my favorite snacks, so I would share the bowl with you, and I'm so happy to be here, too.
[00:04:32] Stacy Havener: Good. That is great. Um, so let's start at the beginning. Let's start with some backstory. Tell us about your journey to get where you are. Is it what you always envisioned, like this is where you, you know, you, you dreamed you'd be?
[00:04:47] You know,
[00:04:47] Samantha Russell: it's funny. I was real, like even as a kid, I've always been very go with the flow. I have not been, my dad used to joke around with me, like some of my siblings, I have five brothers and sisters and some of them [00:05:00] are just so passionate about everything and he would always be like, be like, Sam's not passionate about anything.
[00:05:05] And after a while, I was like, that's sort of hurtful, you know, like, I have passions. But I think, you know, it's funny because I was just always the go with the flow kid. I never got upset about most of anything. And when it came to my career as a kid, I knew grades were important to me, pleasing the teacher was important to me, doing a good job.
[00:05:24] Like, I've always wanted to be the best at what I'm doing for me. Not because I'm in competition with someone else, if that makes sense. And so when I thought about what I wanted to do, I always knew I wanted to do something in business and specifically in marketing and like PR. Like I loved combining the creative side with the business side.
[00:05:43] So when I was in college, I studied organizational communication, which is a pretty boring term, which kind of encompassed all of that. And then I left there not having any clue what I would do. And I applied for. a million different jobs. And my school was in Southern Ohio. So [00:06:00] a ton of kids that I went with were going to cities like St.
[00:06:03] Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati. It was very like Midwest focused. Not a lot of people were going more mid Atlantic, interestingly enough. But I had started dating my now husband at the time, and he had just taken a job at Penn State, a tenure track position. And he was like, why don't you, you know, just for the heck of it, apply to some positions in marketing at Penn State.
[00:06:28] And so I got a job at the university doing alumni relations, which was sort of my first job there, and then quickly went into development and fundraising. And so what I used to always joke around when I eventually then moved more into sales and, you know, later, you know, Parts of my career was that it was the best training ever because if you can sell somebody on the idea of donating their money really for nothing, you can sell them very easily on a good product that's going to help their business.
[00:06:59] And it's so [00:07:00] true. I learned so much. So, so much. But no, I did not envision at all, um, having the career path that I have now.
[00:07:07] Stacy Havener: That's amazing. And, I mean, fundraising, capital raising, hi, we are so aligned. I didn't even know we shared that in our career trajectories. Okay, so you're doing that. You and Ryan are both at Penn State.
[00:07:20] What gets you to the place of launching 20 Over 10?
[00:07:23] Samantha Russell: Yes, great question. So, Ryan, my husband, is a professor of graphic design at the university, and he And another one of his business partners had, you know, a lot of other companies they would do consulting work for and one of them was a large financial institution and they reached out to my husband and his partner to redesign their firm's, like, whole identity, their logo, their, all their branding, their website, everything, and at the end of the project, one of the last steps was to take all the individual advisors that were affiliated with this mega organization and link to their websites.[00:08:00]
[00:08:00] And this was back in like, ooh, 2012, maybe? I mean, it was real, it was, you know, over a decade ago. And at the time, When they started doing this, every single advisor basically had the exact same website. It even actually would say something like, welcome to our website where you'll find, you know, a calculator on how to do this.
[00:08:18] Or it was very generic, very, very, like almost identical. And so my husband asked the question to the firm, you know, well, why is this? And they said, oh, well, because of compliance, it's a lot easier for us to just have everybody be the same. And yet they were each running their own businesses. So he and his A partner at the time thought, Oh, pfft, they didn't know anything about financial services, really.
[00:08:41] They thought, Easy peasy, we can create something that will, you know, allow advisors to market individually, and we'll just build like a compliance portal in the background. So, you know, their naivete really benefited us. Because if they would have known how complicated it was going to be, they never would have [00:09:00] done it.
[00:09:00] But, um, that's where they got the idea from. So, I was not part of that original idea. It was just the wife listening to this at the dinner table. And for probably two or three years, they worked on like a prototype. They were beta testing it with some people, working out all the different comp the kinks of what the compliance part would look like.
[00:09:20] And then when they were finally ready to launch it, my husband said, well, we need somebody to run, you know, he's still teaching at Penn State. We need a point person to get this thing off the ground. Would you consider coming on board and doing that? And I was like, yeah, I'm up for the challenge. So I came over as employee number one, and I was in charge.
[00:09:40] Of everything. I was in charge of sales, marketing, actually helping advisors design their pages, write their copy. There's a million stories within there of like how to bootstrap because we were self funded. So
[00:09:57] Stacy Havener: Are you an investment boutique looking to grow your business and [00:10:00] need a little help? If you feel like you're fighting for the spotlight and well still stuck in the shadows of the bigs join us in the boutique investment collective.
[00:10:08] Havener's new membership community dedicated to the specialist in the investment industry. In the collective we'll guide you through a billion dollar blueprint we've used to help boutiques add over 30 billion dollars in AUM. You'll refine your story, focus on your ideal target market, and practice your pitch.
[00:10:25] You'll rethink your marketing materials, rewrite your emails, and refresh your differentiators. We'll even help you step up your LinkedIn game and give your profile a makeover. You want to grow your biz? We've got your back. Learn more about The Collective, the curriculum, and the amazing coaches who will help you on your journey.
[00:10:42] Visit havenercapital. com slash collective. High five! Hope to see you in a coaching session soon.[00:11:00]
[00:11:00] So I was just going to say, as you're talking, there are so many founders who are nodding their head like me, who are like, yes, wearing all the hats, employee number one, and two, three, four, five, six, right? And I think that's super interesting. So yeah, let's talk about that because there are a lot of us who've done it.
[00:11:18] And certainly, even though it's probably seems crazy, like, Fund managers do it as well, right? I mean, if you're setting up a financial advisory firm, or if you're setting up a fund, if you're an investment boutique, they might actually seed the fund with their own capital, cover the operating costs with their own capital, just so they can control 100 percent of the equity.
[00:11:38] So talk about that a little bit. What was that like for you?
[00:11:42] Samantha Russell: You know, my husband is the smartest person I've ever met. It's one of my favorite things about him and what I was so drawn to him when we started dating. And I will say I had so much faith in him and he's very frugal and very, very good at the business side of things.
[00:11:58] So he took care of [00:12:00] all of the books and making sure we would never run out of money and making good business decisions. And he basically said to me, your job is to sell this. You have no money to do it. So come up with ways to be creative and figure it out.
[00:12:15] Stacy Havener: Budget zero. Yeah.
[00:12:16] Samantha Russell: Budget is zero for year one.
[00:12:18] Actually, I think that's a lie. I think the very first Year, maybe like the budget was $25,000 and I was like, oh, how hard this can be. I'm gonna run some Google ads because when we first launched it, I should have mentioned this, it was a do it yourself website builder. We thought, oh, okay. The way people use Squarespace or Wix or any of those to make their own site, we thought, well, advisors will wanna do this 'cause it'll save them a bunch of money.
[00:12:44] Well, obviously, not many financial advisors are building their own website, so we did not know our market that well, and so the first three months, we were just running Google ads, inviting people to come and build a site, and the ads were really great, and we were getting a ton of [00:13:00] clicks, but we were paying crazy amounts of money to compete, and then once people got there, they were like, wait, I have to build this myself?
[00:13:07] Forget it. And we would get inquiries all the time. You know, we love your platform, we love the look of the websites, we love that it's compliance friendly, but will you build it for me? And we had to say no. So after three months of me draining those Google ads, that's when my husband cut me off and said, you need to figure out a different strategy and maybe we should bring on some people to do these sites.
[00:13:27] Because we originally were going to be strictly SaaS. So then we had to pivot there very, very quickly. So
[00:13:32] Stacy Havener: let's talk about that, because that's super interesting to me. So, because we talk a lot about like, knowing your market and beta testing, and then I also know that sometimes you just have to like, sometimes the best beta test is just get out there and do it, and let your customers tell you what they need.
[00:13:50] So here they are, they're saying, I need you to do this for me. And that was not your original business model, but you pivoted. So that was obviously the first [00:14:00] pivot.
[00:14:00] Samantha Russell: Right. And I think a crucial mistake we made was that we were in our 20s, so everyone we asked in our quote unquote beta test or focus group, we asked every financial advisor or people akin to the industry that we knew, which were our peers.
[00:14:16] So of course, young people who are in their 20s who are in this marketplace were like, sure, I'll build a site. And they had no problem doing it. But a lot of them were an associate advisor or they didn't have their own website because they were, you know, were part of a firm. So when it came time to sell, they weren't the decision makers and their bosses or the people we were selling to were the industry as a whole was not the type of person that was going to build it themselves.
[00:14:39] So we did not do a good job figuring that out, but we were able to pivot very quickly. And that's where I think it gets really interesting because I sort of had this revelation that it was about 2015. And I said, wow, if all of these folks need to market, they need to have a unique value proposition, but they're struggling with how to do [00:15:00] any of this.
[00:15:01] And we're kind of going through the same journey. We're trying to figure out who our target market is, who our niche is, what do they look like, what are going to be the best strategies to get in front of them. I'm just going to document all of this while I'm doing it and figuring it out and sort of quote unquote build it in public and take them along for the ride and be honest about what works, what doesn't work.
[00:15:20] So that's what we started to do. I created a blog. And I would, you know, write very organically, you know, I stayed up all last night looking at the top trends right now in X. And here's what you should know about what kind of content is getting the most shares on social media. And then I'd post it to our blog and we would share it on our pages, but no one was following our pages yet.
[00:15:41] So I started sort of stalking on social media. Who was everybody else paying attention to in our space? You know, who are the advisors paying attention to? And then I would start liking and commenting on all their posts. So then pretty quickly, you know, they're like, who is this Samantha Russell person who comments on everything that I post?[00:16:00]
[00:16:00] And then once I would build up a rapport with them, you know, I'd say, I just, you know, published this blog post not that long ago looking at some of these trends on X. Again, I'm not selling them anything, uh, just adding to the conversation. And so it was very, very organic and tedious. And everybody on our team, I think for a while thought I was crazy because it was not.
[00:16:22] Translating to a ton of sales at first.
[00:16:26] Stacy Havener: Wait, can we just say that that was just like a master class in social media that just got embedded in this story session here because that's exactly like, it's funny how sometimes we fall into it without maybe all the intention of Around it because what you did was so brilliant.
[00:16:45] Well, You invited them into this story with you You went on to social media and instead of just saying look at me look at me Look at this post look at what I did You went to where they were and engaged with them and we both know being [00:17:00] creators How that feels when someone comments on your post or like something or just starts a conversation with you when you're sitting there making a video You know, writing into the void and wondering if anyone other than crickets is paying attention, you know, so it's just so I love everything you said and i'm sort of putting a little pin in this part of the call because it truly is how Social media should be done which leads me to the question at that point So when you started you were doing websites.
[00:17:30] Were you also doing social media for people?
[00:17:33] Samantha Russell: No, we would get asked all the time, and actually again, my husband, I always say he's such a savvy businessman because he, as the founder was said, we're not gonna spread ourselves too thin. We're gonna do one thing and we're gonna do it really well. But this is gonna give us a great opportunity because we have all these adjacent things.
[00:17:50] People need to partner with the best in the industry. Like we are gonna be known to be the best website provider. And let's partner with all the [00:18:00] other consultants and industry boutique marketing firms out there. They're going to love our website and want to send people to us. And we actually ended up building a whole product line where it was specific to industry consultants, marketing agencies, where they could work directly with our design team.
[00:18:17] It wasn't us talking to the client, the client talking to the agency, you know, it brought them in and we had. section of our website where they could easily get into the code via the CSS or the HTML. So my husband thought of all that and he said, but still talk about these things because this all goes together.
[00:18:34] But then when someone asks, you know, okay, so you just talked about this with social media. Can you do my social media for you? I could say, we're going to build you the best website possible. That's going to pull people back in, convert the leads, get the traffic, be, you know, ready for SEO. However, when it comes to promoting it on social, we have a whole library of great content, webinars, all this stuff.
[00:18:55] But if you really want to hire somebody, here's our top five partners we suggest. And [00:19:00] then I'd make warm introductions. And then they did the same for us. So that really helped us initially, you know, very much so. And a lot of the content I was doing was very specific to websites at first, because my husband is a professor of this.
[00:19:13] He has studied websites such great knowledge and, and insights. And he was a public speaker. And so I would record some of his lectures or talks to his students and then repurpose it into content.
[00:19:26] Stacy Havener: I mean, seriously, let's pause again. I feel like I'm just like, everyone needs to pay attention to what Samantha is saying here.
[00:19:34] The first thing you said that is so So good and a lesson that I think fund managers and financial advisors need to hear loud and clear is specialize in something. One thing, like be really good at one thing before you start expanding. And I know every fund manager is probably cringing when I'm about to say here, which is, can you imagine what would happen [00:20:00] if you were like a small cap value specialist and you recommended a peer who offered I don't know, small cap growth, something else, someone who you like really trusted and believed in, but like, it's not what you do.
[00:20:16] I mean, that doesn't happen. I sort of question, but why? Why? There's enough money. There are enough investors. There's enough ways, you know, to help these, you know, your target market. And I think what you did there was just, again, another lesson that transcends.
[00:20:35] Samantha Russell: Yeah, and I think for sure as you get bigger, you know, there becomes a real business case for expanding and, you know, absorbing more wallet share.
[00:20:44] But when you are first starting out, you don't have a big budget and you have to be scrappy. There's so many reasons to do it, and it just makes intuitive sense. And also, You have so much to prove when you're the new kid on the block because nobody knows you from [00:21:00] Adam and why should they trust you? So when someone's in a call with you, a sales call, and you can say, you know, I don't know the answer to that because that's not my expertise, but I'm going to tell you the best person I know to go to, you're building trust because you're not lying to them, you're being honest, you're not taking their money in that instance, and that creates trust.
[00:21:21] And it's really hard. to get people to trust you when you're new. So I think that really went a long way for our early success.
[00:21:28] Stacy Havener: Okay. So you're building, you're building. So now it's like, I think you said 2015 and it's working. You're growing. Talk about that growth because I want to eventually, you know, weave into sort of where you are now, but we're not going to get there yet.
[00:21:43] I just want to still stay with 20 over 10. So. You're doing the websites, you're going to, as you said, as you grow, you start expanding service offering. So how many financial advisors were you helping and was there a niche for you or did it kind of just become that space was the [00:22:00] niche?
[00:22:00] Samantha Russell: Yeah, so I guess, too, for people who aren't familiar with 20 over 10, I should say we were specifically a website design platform for financial advisors.
[00:22:07] By this point now, we had a team of designers, copywriters, a logo designer. So soup to nuts, you could come to us and say. I want you to help me create my brand, my identity, my website online. So this was from 2015 to 2017. Okay. We were in what we called V1, version one of our product. And At that point, we were only serving RIAs because we did not yet have a product that would come to be known as Compliance Core, which played the go between, the conduit between a broker dealer and an advisor.
[00:22:39] So at that point, you had to have self managed compliance. We still archived everything. We had everything you needed, but there wasn't that back end connection. In 2017, we launched version two of our product, which went to what we call a visual editor, where you could just point anywhere on the page and inline click.
[00:22:58] And then we launched compliance core. And [00:23:00] that's when things really took off because now we could serve any advisor with any broker dealer. And what happened was a lot of the really younger advisors who were design savvy, who were You know, sort of paying attention to what was out there would take our product to their team or their broker dealer and say, we should use this.
[00:23:19] Look at how the work really did speak for itself. It was beautifully designed websites, amazing messaging, just different than what was out there. And so it wasn't hard to sell once we did get it in front of people, which was great. And one of the strategies actually that worked really well for us that I came up with was we would get lists of advisors.
[00:23:38] And I would send them a cold email that would say, I know what you, I just checked out your current website and saw what it looks like. If I had any connection at all, so let's say they were with, you know, LPL, I could say there's another LPL advisor that. We recently worked with, and we just, you know, took their website from this to this.
[00:23:56] And I would show them through, I don't know if anybody's heard of the Wayback Machine, [00:24:00] you can look at any page of the internet at any time, a screenshot of what the website used to look like versus what it looks like now. And I'd say, you know, if you're interested in talking about this, let me know. And that actually got a ton of meetings on the calendar, because it was really like a proof point, um, for folks.
[00:24:18] So we just started building up more and more of a client base and getting those conversations, you know, with these broker dealers and bringing them on and having resale agreements and all of that. And so then we quickly went from just a handful of team members to about almost 40, um, in just a few years.
[00:24:38] Stacy Havener: That's crazy. And again, I think that example you gave about, especially with a cold email, because that's super challenging. Again, all salespeople working for fund companies, financial advisors are all nodding here because they know how challenging that is. But what you did was so brilliant because you invited them into a space.
[00:24:56] story. So you told them a story, we call these [00:25:00] impact stories, basically like little mini case studies where you said, let me show you what the journey looks like at the end. Let me show you the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, rainbow being the story arc of how you're going to help this hero get there.
[00:25:15] Let me show you, let me invite you in. Let me let you see yourself in this story. And then when they do that, that just, that Like jumps the shark on the whole sales process because they know you've made them the hero You've shown that you're the guide and you're showing them what success looks like for them And that is super powerful.
[00:25:37] Samantha Russell: You're making me think of one of my favorite quotes, which is nobody cares what you can do But people do care what you can do for them. Yes, and I Utilize that all of the time because when I was in my fundraising days at the university sending an email about, you know, how many students come there and have financial need and then the great need for scholarships and all of that did nothing [00:26:00] ever.
[00:26:00] It did nothing. The numbers, the stats, the facts, the figures, but the minute you just hone in on one child or student, I should say, and you know, this is Jeremy and he is trying to come to Penn State and he's, you know, been here for two years. He wants to come back a third year. He's now, unfortunately, because his father lost his job.
[00:26:21] He's not going to be able to attend unless he gets a scholarship. These are the types of students scholarship support. That right there makes a huge difference. And we want to see, we want to visualize the person we're helping. It's why all of those campaigns, if you remember, I feel like they, I don't know if they do it anymore, because I don't have cable, but I remember as a kid, we would watch cable TV and on PBS, they would have these advertisements for, for 30 cents a day, you can help this child.
[00:26:47] And it would show you the kid. It wasn't just. Stats and figures about the need and the amount of staggering hunger. It was honing in on one person and that always stuck with me. And it stuck with me during the fundraising days. [00:27:00] And it really translated when I was trying to get this. business, you know, off the ground and, and sell this because I knew if I honed in to your point on you as the buyer, what we can do for you, how we help people like you, that's going to motivate you.
[00:27:17] Stacy Havener: Brilliant. And such a good dovetail into one of my other favorite topics besides storytelling related topic, which is qualitative versus quantitative due diligence. And I think you just hit the nail on the head, you know, In our industry, because it's a numbers industry, because, you know, it's sort of like math wins, we, as a group, tend to go towards stats and dollar signs and performance figures and all of those things.
[00:27:46] And what you're sharing with us is It's something that's not specific to marketing sales. It's specific to human nature, which is that's not what sells. People do business with people and [00:28:00] qualitative is as important as quantitative. And I appreciate you bringing that in. Let's pull that thread a little because I'm sitting here looking at you with these awesome bright blue headphones.
[00:28:15] Samantha Russell: They're the new style. You know, I'm influencing you all. If you want my like to know it link, just let me know. And so
[00:28:24] Stacy Havener: here's what's so great about it. Well, why don't you tell everybody, why do you have on these bright blue headphones? Are they your faves?
[00:28:30] Samantha Russell: Yes, Stacey, come on. I bought these intentionally for all the podcasts that I'm on.
[00:28:36] Um, no, these are my five year old daughters. She luckily left, leaves her things, like all five year olds, everywhere. So they're easy for me to spot because I, for all the preaching I do to my own children about not misplacing their things, misplaced my own headphones. So this is God's way of teaching me a lesson today.
[00:28:54] And so I just had to show up with these beauties on my head. See, but
[00:28:59] Stacy Havener: that's [00:29:00] authenticity, and everyone listening to that, especially if they have kids, can relate to the story you just told, right? I mean, it makes us feel connected to you, because we got a little glimpse of, like, the stuff, the messy middle of Samantha Russell's life.
[00:29:18] Samantha Russell: Yeah. There's a really great marketing guru. I don't know if you've ever heard of the company Drift. You can add like a chatbot to your website with them. Yeah. His name's Dave Gerhart. I love him. Okay. So he had this recommendation, especially for founders and early stage companies where you're just building and you're really trying to build connections.
[00:29:37] Whenever he would write an email to the email list, rather than making it sound corporate, he would write it from himself in his own voice, and he would always give you a little bit of a mental picture, help you create a mental picture of what he was doing in that moment. So he might say, you know, Greetings from Mexico.
[00:29:54] I'm here with my wife on vacation, but I couldn't, you know, and she might kill me for writing this [00:30:00] email, but I couldn't let this go by without letting you guys know about this. Or, hey, I don't know how your day went, but I fought with my daughter about eating too much Halloween candy. You know, right, the couple days after Halloween.
[00:30:11] But he always would add something in that helped you create a mental picture of who he was as a person beyond his company or his product. And, um, He said, you know, try it and you will be astounded by the number of replies that come back having nothing to do with what you talked about, but just your personal antidote or story.
[00:30:30] And so I did adopt that. It really made a massive difference. And so it's advice I give to the folks I work with all the time.
[00:30:40] Stacy Havener: I love it. And now I feel like we're flashing back to our webinar that we did on on LinkedIn and social media because I've got another example of that. That's like so underutilized and has worked great, which is when you're traveling, you know, you do your away message instead of just like making it so blah, boring corporate [00:31:00] like I am currently away from the office and like say something about where you are or what you're doing or just like something fun.
[00:31:08] Absolutely.
[00:31:09] Stacy Havener: I get so many people responding to my out of office, like just saying, Oh, like, you know, I went skiing and they're like, Oh my gosh, I just got back from skiing or whatever it is like you, the personal touch, the human element goes so far in establishing that connection of, you know, knowing, liking, and trusting someone.
[00:31:30] And there's so many little
[00:31:31] Samantha Russell: opportunities to do it. And when people have so many choices, which consumers do no matter what industry we're talking about today, the internet has given us just so many choices. What makes somebody, you know, kind of edge ahead in the race? And it usually comes down to the person, if I'm the buyer.
[00:31:49] Or the person choose making the choice, it comes down to who do I want to work with? Who do I want to be emailing with? Who do I want to have phone calls with? Who do I want to run into at a conference? Who do I want to come to my office? [00:32:00] And honestly, I will say, you know, it almost becomes the numbers and the performance become sort of table stakes.
[00:32:06] Like, okay, can you do this? Yes. And now it's, will I like you? Will I like interacting with you? And that can be really hard to demonstrate if you wait until the time you have the meeting to put your full personality on display. You can do that in all these little instances, through your auto office message.
[00:32:23] Besides, I mean, that whole line, I don't have access to email. I mean, where on this planet can you go? And not have access to email anymore. I would love to know because send me there so nobody can bother me
[00:32:37] Stacy Havener: I'm crying wait now i'm laughing so hard. I forgot what I was gonna say. That was so good Right because that's what everyone says.
[00:32:46] Oh my gosh. It's so funny. I was chatting with a friend on linkedin today She had a post, you know, amy volis. No, I don't You should follow her. You would love her. She's like a sales guru. Now she helps SaaS companies hire [00:33:00] salespeople. But needless to say, she did a post and it was like, where's the fun in the meetings?
[00:33:05] Like, where's the fun in your sales meetings? And I was, I had that exact thought that you said, which is nobody comes to a sales meeting, listens to like with a pitch, right? And then leaves and goes, wow, those people were so boring. And so dry and so cold, I definitely want to do business with them like that.
[00:33:28] Samantha Russell: I mean, and what's interesting, too, is that I think whether you're a salesperson, you're a marketing person. You're an advisor, whatever. You get focused on yourself. We're so focused on ourselves and our products. You know, let me prove to you why this is going to be the best choice for you. So I'm going to talk all about me.
[00:33:49] We do this. We've done that. This is our performance. It's gotta be flipped. You gotta flip it. Stop the we, the I, the me, and it's you, you, you. And [00:34:00] the more it's you focused, The better the person's going to walk away from that meeting thinking, man, I really like that person because unfortunately, that is human nature.
[00:34:08] We like it when people are interested in us. We all want to know that we matter and that someone cares. I'll never forget the first time I had that experience. It was when HubSpot was a brand new platform. And we as a company at 20 over 10, we're going to use them on the back end to, you know, power some CRM and marketing and sales stuff.
[00:34:26] And the woman who I worked with, I met with her seven times and she was amazing. She asked me so many questions about her business. And in every meeting, she would say things that I would have had to pay, you know, hundreds of a dollars to a consultant to learn, but she was sharing it freely in the calls.
[00:34:44] And I would be writing it all down. And, you know, we were so sold because she was so incredibly helpful and interesting and would make jokes in her follow up emails. She'd mention little things we talked about. And it was a master class in how to sell in a [00:35:00] way that isn't salesy. Totally.
[00:35:02] Stacy Havener: And it makes you feel like you're together on the journey.
[00:35:04] Yes. That's a great example, and HubSpot is awesome. They're already in your
[00:35:08] Samantha Russell: corner, like, before you hire them.
[00:35:11] Stacy Havener: Yes. So, okay, we, I think we deep dive tangent over somewhere else. I want to come back to authenticity, though, because this is a real challenge for people. Especially in our space, you know, we started with the blue headphones, but just showing up as yourself and sort of figuring out, like, what's the right balance of what to share and not to share?
[00:35:34] And how do you help advisors think that through?
[00:35:39] Samantha Russell: Yeah, it definitely is a fine line and you as a person need to decide what you're going to be comfortable with. I think one of the best exercises to start is to go through your own social feeds and think about where do you pause and actually read or pay attention?
[00:35:58] What's getting your [00:36:00] attention? Is it, you know, something that's super informational? Is it a certain kind of image? Is it a personal story? And then Save them. I'm a big proponent of a swipe file. You can actually use the hashtag and LinkedIn Sam swipe file and see a ton of examples that I have, um, that I will share and save.
[00:36:18] Oh my gosh. I didn't know that. But create your own little swipe file, you know, take a screenshot of it, copy and paste it into a Google doc, even if you want to, and then that if whether you're working with a marketing consultant or people on your team, you'll start to get a sense of this is the style that we like, and what I think you'll find.
[00:36:35] no matter what you end up doing is that you're going to naturally be drawn to stories and you're going to be naturally drawn to people talking like real humans and cutting out the jargon and I always say write like a sixth grader could understand it because in our scroll and scan society nobody pays that much attention to every little detail so the more you can, you know, just write so it's easy to absorb, easy to [00:37:00] understand.
[00:37:01] Again, don't start your social posts with I, my, or we, start with you. I can't harp on that enough. All of those things will really make you so much more relatable. And if you are sharing a personal story, there are always connections and everything in life to business or what you're trying to do. And so you can bring it back in some way and make, make that connection for people.
[00:37:25] Stacy Havener: That's great advice. Wait, I have a super silly question, and I'm going to ask it because I don't know if anyone else Because you're authentic. Yeah, and also I really need to know the answer to this, by the way. So I love the swipe file idea. I use LinkedIn not just to connect with my friends and kind of, but I use it almost like, it's not like Google.
[00:37:45] It's different than that. Almost like Pinterest. Like I save a ridiculous amount of stuff on LinkedIn, and I think there That portal for them. You can't organize it. You can't do anything with it. Do you have a hack for that? Like what do you do [00:38:00] when you see a linkedin post that you like? Like how does that get put in the swipe file?
[00:38:03] Samantha Russell: I don't so I don't try to save it on linkedin Like I said, I will screenshot it put it in a google doc and then You know, right click and add the hyperlink so I could go back to the original post if I want and that's how I save them and that has worked well for me. My team has access to it and then I will share them on social media, ones that I think would help my followers with that hashtag Sam swipe file.
[00:38:26] I do it on Twitter and LinkedIn actually.
[00:38:29] Stacy Havener: Okay, that's good. And that's the other thing. My phone is filled with screenshots and then I'm like, oh my gosh This is just getting like unmanageable and I don't yeah, you
[00:38:36] Samantha Russell: need a folder folder in the phone
[00:38:40] Stacy Havener: Okay, perfect Sam's hacks. Okay, so I want to come back to your story a little bit your journey with 20 over 10 Because a few years ago you actually went through an acquisition so FMG suite Came in and acquired 20 over 10 and that's something that a lot of financial [00:39:00] advisors are thinking about.
[00:39:01] Finding a partner, maybe selling their business. Certainly a lot of fund managers go through this process as well and I was hoping you could share a little bit about that process with us.
[00:39:09] Samantha Russell: Yeah, I think an important thing to think about is, are you building to be sold or are you building, you know, a 150 year company that you want to be at the head of forever?
[00:39:21] And really, you know, that obviously might change, but for us from day one, my husband and his other two co founders really knew. that they didn't want to become the CEO of a 400 person company someday. They both have very entrepreneurial spirits and so they knew that they always wanted to build the business to be scalable and attractive to buyers.
[00:39:43] They did that from day one. When that was going to happen though, I think it happened much earlier than any of us would have anticipated and really what just put rocket fuel on the whole thing was the pandemic. So we ended up going through the acquisition at the end of 2020 in March of [00:40:00] 2020. So, you know, just nine months previous.
[00:40:03] So we talked before about, you know, being able to upsell. We launched lead pilot, which was our version of a lead generation tool and magnet for advisors. And so now we were going outside of just websites to providing content, lead gen, many other things. And We obviously, there's not that many competitors in the space in terms of SaaS.
[00:40:22] And so we were very well aware of FMG and their capabilities, and they were aware of ours. And one of the best tips I can just give to people, I mean, obviously it's business, but for my husband, me, and all of the people that were on the founding team of our company, the, the clients that we had developed relationships with, we were so close to, and we would felt wrong and icky selling to somebody that we didn't think was going to A, take good care of them and B, take great care of our people.
[00:40:50] And so finding a good fit where we knew everyone would still have a job. They weren't going to say, Oh, we have all these redundancies. We have to do cost cutting was super [00:41:00] important to us. So those nine months from when we launched until the acquisition happened. Yeah. you know, advisors everywhere. So many people who had done only seminars or they never did anything online because they just had a very locally based business.
[00:41:12] Now they can't meet with anyone in person. There is no in person anything and they're flocking to digital solutions. So it was just crazy for us, you know, um, straight up into the right. And so it was an attractive time to sell. It was attractive time for FMG to buy and we had such great synergies. They have had.
[00:41:34] Such a long, great history in the broker dealer space. We were really strong and heavy in the RIA space. So it just was a great, great partnership. And my favorite part was that while I've learned so many things along the way about growing a business, my heart is in teaching these strategies to other people and, you know, giving talks and speaking at events and writing op ed pieces.
[00:41:58] And I was able [00:42:00] to. you know, join the team and really craft my own role, which is now the title chief evangelist. I think it's becoming more popular at the time. So many people were like, what the heck does that mean? But so it was just a win win overall. And we all left with a great feeling, which I know is not always the case.
[00:42:18] Stacy Havener: And I think it speaks a little bit to that authenticity piece again. The idea that every business needs to have faces, hearts, souls on the company. And so I think, you know, the sort of persona and personal brand you had built at 20 over 10 to see it continue to grow and expand now that you're at FMG has been awesome for all of us who know you and for all the people you serve.
[00:42:50] Oh, thank you. Yeah, because you have been able to teach more. And I know it comes from a very true place in your heart. That is perfect. Let's [00:43:00] segue into Into now that we're talking about face and heart and soul here. I have some questions. I want to ask you. Okay, so this is based on Proust's questionnaire, which is a philosophical thing that says there are certain questions you can ask someone that like get you to know them.
[00:43:19] So I've pulled some stuff from James Lipton inside the actor's studio, and I pulled some of the original questions from Proust and kind of came up with these. Are you ready? I am.
[00:43:28] Samantha Russell: Isn't this wasn't this always in Vanity Fair?
[00:43:30] Stacy Havener: Yes, I think that they did a version of Proust's questionnaire too.
[00:43:33] Samantha Russell: Yes, with celebrities.
[00:43:35] I was a longtime Vanity Fair reader.
[00:43:37] Stacy Havener: Well, I mean, so that's what we're doing here. It's our own, you know, celeb questionnaire with, with Samantha Russell. Okay, we're going to start with hopefully an easy one. What book inspires you?
[00:43:48] Samantha Russell: I am such an avid reader, but this is, so this is a really hard question for me, but I would have to say, and you're going to, don't laugh.
[00:43:55] There's a book, it's actually a parenting book, but it's called How [00:44:00] to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. And it is the Bible for communication, not just for parent child relationships, but for every relationship. And there are every page is just like little, pictures of a mom or a dad talking to their kid and the kid talking back like the right way, and then, or how to handle the situation that would maybe go bad, and then how to handle it that would go right.
[00:44:22] And it just teaches you so much about not being judgmental in the way you pose a question, not giving too much information to lead someone in a certain direction, how to be a good listener. I think it is, Like the Bible for all communication. Yeah, so I reference it all the time
[00:44:39] Stacy Havener: I am ordering that as a mom of a six year old.
[00:44:43] I'm getting it But also I think you're right like those going back to that whole idea of you know Tell it to me like I'm in fifth grade like there's a lot of lessons to be learned. That's a fabulous inspirational book. Okay, let's take it from [00:45:00] book to place. So
[00:45:02] Samantha Russell: what place inspires you? So it's so sad because right now they're going through some rebuilding, but our family's like special spot is, um, Sandoval Island down in Florida off the coast of Fort Myers.
[00:45:13] So they got hit with a really bad hurricane. So this was the first year. And over a decade that we didn't get to go. Um, but during the pandemic, we had a condo right on the beach. And we just, actually, the acquisition of our company happened while we were down there living in this condo. But all of our kids had their first dip in their toes in the sand there.
[00:45:33] And it's actually one of the best places in the world to collect seashells because of the way the island kind of kicks out like a foot. So the shells get stuck. So if you ever want the best meditative, you know, moment of your life, go there and just look for shells because you will lose all track of time and just be so focused on the present.
[00:45:52] It's my husband and I's favorite place.
[00:45:54] Stacy Havener: I love that as an avid beach walker, I am adding this to my to do list. [00:46:00] That's amazing. I knew you would love it. Yes. I love that. Okay. So now This totally works, too, because you give presentations. So now, let's pretend you're walking out onto the stage, big stadium.
[00:46:14] You're gonna teach to your heart's, like, content. You are just gonna kill it on this stage. And you need to get your mind in the right place. You gotta have a walkout anthem. So what is it?
[00:46:26] Samantha Russell: Uh, this is like, super generic, but I feel like mine would be U2's A Beautiful Day. That's a great one! I think, I really, really believe that if you just have gratitude, it makes life so much easier.
[00:46:40] And so, in the morning, my kids and I have this little prayer that we say, and it references A Beautiful Day. And so, I try to wake up every day thinking that, and that would definitely be my walkout song.
[00:46:49] Stacy Havener: That's so inspiring. Gosh, you're making me really question my, like, hip hop choices here with this beautifully inspiring.
[00:46:59] Samantha Russell: Well, [00:47:00] Stacey, if you really want to know, the truth is all the songs that I know are either oldies that my parents introduced me to, things from college, or like the wheels on the bus, Cocomelon, because I like, I mean, music is such an important thing to so many people. It is one thing that I really, I, it's terrible to say.
[00:47:20] I am just not a music person. I don't pay attention to what's popular. I know nothing about what's hip or who the artists are. And so my only answers can be like oldies, unless you want me to, you know, name a Cocomelon song.
[00:47:33] Stacy Havener: But here's the thing, I don't think that makes music any less important to you, by the way.
[00:47:38] Maybe not. No, because I know you listen to a lot of music, and just because it's not like the current stuff, I mean, I love music, I have no idea who's cool. Okay, well that makes me feel better. Yeah, no, I think you can love music and not, like, be up on, like, who's, I was gonna say top 40, but that's totally dating myself.
[00:47:59] I [00:48:00] mean, I don't even know if the top 40 is still going. Like, we don't know. Don't call us for, like, what's resonating in music right now. We don't know. Okay, here we go. What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt?
[00:48:13] Samantha Russell: Sorry, I don't know the answer to this. This is difficult. I think I'm really like tempted to say teacher and teaching.
[00:48:20] Yes, I could see that. Just teaching in general. I think maybe it'd have to be a little bit of older kids because I think teaching like my next door neighbor is a kindergarten teacher and I'm imagining myself in a room full of kindergartners all day and then coming home and still being a good parent and I feel like That would be impossible.
[00:48:37] So, teacher, but for older children. Well, university? Yeah, yeah. Actually, I have done university. I've given university lectures before, too. So, maybe it will happen. Cool.
[00:48:49] Stacy Havener: Okay, I love it. And it's kind of what you get to do today. I very much relate to that. That's super fun. Okay, flip side, what profession would you not like to do?[00:49:00]
[00:49:00] Samantha Russell: I would not want to do anything where you are super in the public eye, which sounds funny because I know it's like, but I look at like true celebrities and how much people just pick them apart, you know, so an actor, a singer, you know, anything like that being on TV, I think that would be my worst nightmare.
[00:49:20] Stacy Havener: I relate to that. And I'm also, which is why, you know, we've talked about this, which is why I think you're such a brave soul for being on Twitter. Like, I'm so scared of Twitter for that exact reason. It's my own bias.
[00:49:33] Samantha Russell: I've had some trolls, and I don't know if I told you this before, but when I was a kid, I had a terrible speech impediment.
[00:49:41] a lisp worse than ever, and it sometimes comes out if I drink too much wine. Um, and sometimes my husband says he can still hear it, but I quit speech therapy in third grade. I just was like, I can't do it anymore. What am I? I'm never going to be a public speaker, so who cares? And then, you know, now I speak at conferences all of the time.[00:50:00]
[00:50:01] I think even though I'm very confident and I know myself, there's been every once in a while a video I'll post or something and someone will leave sort of a hurtful comment, you know, you talk too fast, or you slurred your words, I couldn't catch what you said, and that's just a taste of it, and of course you try to tune it out, but can you imagine being a true celebrity and having that just be your all day?
[00:50:23] I feel like it would just be really hard.
[00:50:25] Stacy Havener: Thank you for sharing that. So you quit speech therapy, but did you feel like you had already like accomplished it? Did you or did you just sort of self?
[00:50:34] Samantha Russell: I just said to my mom, I don't want to do this anymore. I felt it was making me feel bad about myself every time I went.
[00:50:40] And she was very understanding and said, I don't think you sound that bad. You know, probably as you get older, it'll get less and less prominent. And she was right. That's amazing.
[00:50:49] Stacy Havener: Thank you for sharing that. Okay, so you're not gonna be on TV or a singer. All right, last one. What do you want people to say about you [00:51:00] after you've retired or left the industry?
[00:51:03] That's a good one.
[00:51:03] Samantha Russell: I would say, well, the thing I want anyone to say about me ever, number one, first thing always is she was kind. I always just want to be kind. I don't ever want anyone to have a hurtful thing to say about me. And the second thing would be that whether it was me personally working with them or something I shared, helped them feel like they could market their business better.
[00:51:24] Stacy Havener: Well, I can tell you, definite on the latter and also on the former, you are very kind. Your personal brand just is. is kindness. Oh, you're so sweet. And to that end, thank you for taking the time to spend with with me today. I know everybody listening to this hopefully had a pen and a notebook because there are so many practical tips, but also so much inspiration, Sam.
[00:51:53] You are truly one of the great ones. Thank you so much. I just
[00:51:58] Samantha Russell: am so happy that you asked me to [00:52:00] be here. I could talk to you all day, every day, and we have so much in common. So thank you so much for having me. It was a real treat. Okay. Thank you.
[00:52:11] Stacy Havener: This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The information is not an offer, solicitation, or recommendation of any of the funds, services, or products, or to adopt any investment strategy. Investment values may fluctuate and past performance is not a guide to future performance.
[00:52:30] All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not necessarily reflect those at their firm. Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Havener or Havener Capital Partners.