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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.
Donald Patrick
Hey everybody, welcome to the 46th episode of the IFG Podcast, What Works? And today we have Alison Burkett of 21 Goats in Roswell, Georgia. And we'll get to the 21 Goats thing a little later in the conversation. Of course. Welcome, Alison.
Alyson Burkett
Of course.
Thank you. Happy to be here.
Donald Patrick
Yeah, this will be great. So tell us a little about yourself, your family, personal things like that, because we're all nosy.
Alyson Burkett
I'm nosy too, so I can appreciate that. Well, I grew up in Ackworth, Kennesaw, which is like a suburb outside of Atlanta. I went to school at Auburn University, came back to Atlanta for a job actually with Waddell and Reid. Funny enough, my husband, Brian and I met at Waddell and Reid. So we joke that we're partners in life and business to clients and friends and you know, we get some mixed reviews about that. But that's how we met actually at
training at Waddell and Reed. So blurry on the dating. We were definitely friends for a while before we actually officially started dating. And now we're in business together, but I guess I could probably get there eventually. since we both were, we started at Waddell and Reed in 2009. So it's been, we've both been advisors almost, or I guess licensed advisors for about 17 years. Brian took
a step away from the advising side after a few years at Wood Ellen Reed and had various other positions at some other firms and broker dealers in the Atlanta area and came back after we had our second child. probably important part would be at Auburn. At Auburn, I got a degree in economics and finance. I started in accounting, thought I was going to be an accountant. My grandfather was an accountant. Everybody said I was just like him and that I should be an accountant as well. So I started on that pathway.
Accounting 101 was not very kind to me. Realized that my mindset is not accounting. Had a very rough run. Had to end up dropping out of the class. Took it out of community college back home, which was a much better decision. Did better there. But I did very well in economics. That was more my mindset. I understood exactly how everything worked. I didn't have to use a lot of energy and effort to learn the material. And it was just, it felt comfortable and everything made sense. Whereas accounting, I still
Even after coming out of tax season, nothing ever makes any sense to me. Like it's just very hard to understand why things are the way they are in accounting, but economics does make a lot of sense. So when I was interviewing for jobs, my mom worked in the pharmaceutical sales world at the time. And my dad was a medical technologist, so he was in the hospital system. Both of them were not supportive of me stepping into any job in the healthcare space at the time in 2009, which they were correct on.
Alyson Burkett
So I started to look at other companies. So I interviewed with a ton of financial services companies, insurance companies, real estate, anything in that space that my major would have brought in companies. I talked to all of them, talked to all the accounting firms. I said, what can I do with the accounting firm that's not accounting? And they really wanted people that haven't had accounting degrees, even if they weren't going to be doing accounting. So it was never going to be a good fit. When I was interviewing with the investment companies and the insurance companies,
I really found a like towards how they brought clients in, how they serviced clients, the relationships that they seemed to talk a lot about. The freedom in the job was very interesting to me. And I liked that you could kind of grow the business as you wanted and that there was upward potential of you weren't trapped into like, this is your salary, these are your requirements. So that was very attractive. So I interviewed with tons of companies. One of them that I stumbled across stumbled upon was Wooddell and Reed.
I had asked my dad and my parents about their relationships with different financial companies. Some they had good reviews on, some they didn't have good reviews on. Funny enough, Waddell and Reed was actually one of the first companies that my dad invested money with. When he was working, he was overseas for a while, but when he came back to the US to work, he had an account at Waddell and Reed, an investment account that had done very well. And he had a good relationship with an advisor that was in Idaho at the time. He met my mom.
when he moved to Atlanta and they got married and actually when they sold that investment account, they use that as a first, like their first time home purchase together to buy a house before we were born. So that gave me a good leeway to say like, this is a legitimate company. I had two other family members that also had accounts with Wood Elm Reed. So that was part of the reason why I made the jump. They had a great training program at the time where at least they would give you a little bit of a runway of like how to do this business and
you know, how to make yourself seem valuable and how do you prospect and how do you sell yourself? And it was a good camaraderie, which is probably why Brian and I bonded so much. You know, could have been trauma bonding, right? Like coming into this industry, like trying to figure out, you know, what in the world you're doing and, you know, try to invest people's money when you barely have any yourself is pretty funny. But there were some really good people in those trainings and some of them actually are still with IFGE that have made the transition from Wood Ellen Raid, which is pretty cool. So that's how we met.
Alyson Burkett
Um, let's see. What Dellen Reid was acquired by LPL financial in 2021. We saw the writing on the wall, I would say in 2020, not necessarily tied to COVID. We, we saw that they were changing corporate real estate in 2019. The Atlanta office wasn't really affected until 2020. They told us in, it was probably November, December of 2019 that we were going to be losing corporate office space and that we needed to find somewhere else.
to like have an office, which seemed very daunting. I was like, my gosh, I'm gonna be working on the basement and where I'm gonna be like an Edward Jones advisor, knocking on all the neighbors doors. Like, this is gonna be really weird. You know, I didn't feel very legitimate, like not having a place. And I looked at like some regis space. I looked at partnering with some other advisors that were in the same place of like, hey, let's share space together and share costs. I think the most daunting part was how long you had to sign those leases for. It was like five and 10, somewhere even 15 years.
That felt more terrifying to me than even going to LPL. So we actually were, we found ourselves in COVID looking at corporate office space together, Brian and I. I said, hey, let's go and see if like, there's some space around us that maybe we could buy. Like, I don't even know if we would have enough money to buy, like how much do these spaces cost? So we were, and since no one was in the office, it was really easy to go look at offices because they were all empty. But.
Donald Patrick
you
Alyson Burkett
We found a place in Roswell and that was when I started to look at like the SBA lending options, which was a recommendation from a lender of mine. And I had done some research on the small business association and different options for purchasing. And at the time, the 504 loan was absolutely perfect. The hardest part was that was the time where everybody was refinancing and a lot of lenders didn't want to do business with anyone that didn't want 500,000 or a million. So we had to find the right fit. Luckily, I had a good relationship with the credit union, so they let us.
you know, go through that 504 SBA process, which was amazing. So we were able to purchase the office in Roswell, funny enough, October 21st, 2020, which was amazing. So we bought the office that felt more legitimate to me. And it was like, well, if this office doesn't work out, like we'll just sell it. We'll buy something else or I'll move to a different part of town. But Roswell seemed to be like a central part where a lot of our clients were living until again, 2020, when everyone started moving further and further outside the city. But a lot of us, a lot of clients still
come and visit us in Roswell now, which I think is nice. During that process, so after we got out of corporate real estate in 2020, we had purchased at the end of 2020, we, and I found out we were having our second child, which would have been Lillian. I guess I should maybe go back to family. have a, our oldest son is Watson, Watson is eight, and then Lillian is four. She will be five in a couple of months, but.
Donald Patrick
Yeah, let's tell the split for kids a little bit.
Alyson Burkett
we found out we were pregnant, or I should say I was pregnant. We found out together that our world was gonna change with a second child during 2020. It was about two or three weeks before Waddell and made the official announcement that LPL was going to be acquiring Waddell and Reid. We joke that it's always called the four o'clock special, but I had just gotten out of Trader Joe's. I was sitting in the car. It was probably 410, 415, and I was like, let me just check my emails, make sure I didn't miss anything that day.
And it was probably around November, December of 2020, which was still kind of an unsettling time. And I looked at my email and it says, LPL to be, or would Del and Read to be acquired by LPL? And I was like, my gosh, like this is crazy. I read the email. I called Brian immediately. I was like, my gosh, you're never going to believe what email I got. I'm in the car, haven't even moved, in the car reading the email. And I sent him the email and I said, let's read through it together. And he was like, that's very interesting. Hmm. We'll see how the news sources like it.
It wasn't but like two hours, like the LinkedIn job request posts were already coming in. I was like, oh my gosh, this is so daunting. Funny enough, Justin Burgess actually texted me. I would say maybe an hour after we got that email, because LPL must have sent the same email to everyone at LPL at the same time as they sent the email to Wooden Reed. I'm sure they were a little bit different in wording, but that was kind of crazy, crazy timing. So we knew that we were expecting a child.
We just didn't know when the closing was going to be. So all the conversations around that transition from LPL acquiring with Ellen Reed was, it's going to be, you know, first quarter of 2021. It was like, okay, I can do that. Like I can like transition some business and then then I'll have a child and like, it'll be fine. Then that got pushed back to Q2. I was like, okay, well Q2 that's, you know, May, you know, June, we can do that. Like, you know.
child's not due until July, like it'll be fine. Got pushed back a little bit more and then we finally got the final date of it'll be mid July. We just didn't have a date. I was like, my God, this is gonna be insane. So Lillian was a few days late. She was due at the beginning of July, but we had her July 13th, which was very, very shocking. The transition date, which was part of the reason for 21 Goats financial planning was July 21st, 2021. So let's say I had an eight day old baby and.
Alyson Burkett
our business had entirely shut down, which was really wild during the transition, as they said, you will not be able to trade or do anything at any accounts seven days before the transition and seven days after. Now, if you have to service things, there was like a few emergency things you could do, but it was very limited in what you could do. So it was kind of a weird lull of, okay, I can kind of be with my child, but then I also have to be available to like send emails and say, everything's fine. Like it's just.
Donald Patrick
Yeah.
Alyson Burkett
Your money is in floating in air, but I promise it'll be there soon and I'll let you know exactly what your new credentials are as soon as you can get them. And it was COVID too, so no one knew that we had even had a child. I didn't even really tell a lot of people that I was pregnant either. One, because they didn't really see me. And then a lot of clients just didn't. Like Zoom is only like, you know, here up. So we were kind of mysterious in a way. So I had like this mysterious child, but it was, it was a really good, good place.
I would say during that time, Brian had a very stressful time at his job. He was working at another broker dealer in Atlanta, who has now become a bigger broker dealer, but he did a lot of the technology client service and onboarding with new advisors that were coming in. So instead of servicing clients, like in the way that we do as advisors, he was serving advisors in the same way they serve, we serve clients. So he would help them set up any of their technology that they would choose. They had some like,
technology that they forced on advisors for billing purposes, for example, but there was other things that they could select. So he would help them narrow down that huge tech stack and give them some choices on how to negotiate those rates and then implement them into the business. So some of that was done virtually, some of that was done in person. And then there was a weird time where he was actually doing some of the billing as well. He had started to take on a few different roles of tasks that it seemed like other people maybe didn't wanna do.
but he would find himself doing because it was a smaller broker dealer that was growing very, quickly through acquisition of advisors. He saw it being a way of growing very rapidly, but maybe not advisors that he would want to see growing very rapidly. So we saw a different side of the business, which led to some difficult conversations as well within the day-to-day operations. I mean, we had just had a child. I was transitioning my book of business and they weren't super supportive of the family change.
But there was also lot of really stressful things at business that he either agreed with or didn't agree with. so it all kind of culminated to, I would say September, October, he had come home a couple of days through work and said, like, okay, I know we had talked about maybe working together officially in the next five years. And I was like, okay, let's just get through some health insurance years. Let's get through some young years of childhood. his job was the stable, every single month was the same compensation.
Donald Patrick
Hehehe.
Alyson Burkett
know, the sticky part was he had some, you know, rough vacation times and limitations there, but it was the health insurance, the stability, you know, it like, this is childcare and it was our little like safe place and like we can grow the business outside of that. One conversation in particular, he came home to, or I was at home with the baby and he came home and he was like, today is the day I'm writing my letter of resignation. And I was like, okay. I was like, couldn't say I was shocked that it was coming.
Brian is very strategic in making decisions and very emotionally could be very detached from the situation. And I knew like, if that was the decision, like that was the decision. It was like, okay, well, we are going to make this work. Selfishly, I'm so excited for you to come help because I have to decide on these new technologies that I have no idea what I'm doing. Some of them were grandfathered in from Wood Ellen Reed. So we were able to carry subscriptions, but a lot of them.
we had autonomy to decide of anything that we wanted. So I didn't want too many, but also how do we make sure that we carry some of the data that we had before and be efficient with new choices that we have? So I think Wadal and Reid was really lining up this acquisition for a long time because almost everything was identical except for client works, but Redtail was there. We actually use Allbridge for account reporting. They let us migrate all of the data.
and account history and transactions for all of our clients that have been here since 2009 over which has been really nice. We had eMoney as well. It was a different version obviously. Any company can water down any version right of how they negotiate the prices. We had a little bit better version when we were at Waddell and Reid. It changed to Wealthvision when we came over to LPL and then we eventually migrated to eMoney Pro instead.
Donald Patrick
Right.
Alyson Burkett
it's been a better fit for us, those little tiny changes have been very helpful to have Brian with, you know, make those choices. Yeah.
Donald Patrick
So can I do a quick chronological recap? So you have a brand new baby, you've got a toddler, and then they shut you down. You can't even run your business for several weeks. And now the transition was a tape to tape.
Alyson Burkett
So strange.
Alyson Burkett
that's probably something that's very, very unique. I, this is where I learned when a broker dealer says something that the way that they say it, the way that you understand it and the way that they mean it might be all three very entirely different things. And everyone has a manager or a person that they keep contact with. Some of them may have had a long tenure at the company. Some might be fresh within a couple of weeks.
everyone's working virtually, right? So the communication is maybe lacking in some ways. So when they said, hey, everyone at Wendell & Reid who takes this buyout package, which I would say it's probably been one of the more successful buyout packages that LPL has had is 90, was like 90, 95 % of people took that package. So the package is, hey, we will negative consent your clients, which means that we're gonna send them a letter as long as they say they don't wanna go.
or if they say that they don't want to go, we'll move them somewhere else. But if they don't say anything, we're going to transition all of the accounts that you had at Waddell and Reed, advisory to advisory, brokerage to brokerage, over to the LPL platform. And there was a mapping of what accounts would go where based on account balances. Very few accounts were, I want to say, caught in the crosshairs. Simple IRAs, SEP IRAs, 401Ks, and then some of the advisory balances were a smidge different. But for the most part, everything
moved like to like, there was a few investments that didn't come over and you would have to move those to different investments. But LPL said, there is nothing that you will need to do. Everything will just go into these new accounts, right? I know you're already laughing. Everything will go into these new accounts. You'll have to touch them, make sure the account information is correct, but there's nothing else that you're going to need to do. You will need to review beneficiary information for TOD accounts or trust accounts. That was a concern.
And get that updated because you have to have client signatures for those but you know, nothing else should be a big deal. Well, we get over to the transition we get out of that like, you know, one to two week lockout period where you can't do much and I'm trying to work client works. I've done the same thing for so many years that I'm like, I'm young, I can figure this out. I can do technology like, you know, they've changed systems and processes on us so many times. Like it's not gonna be that big of a deal to open an account.
Alyson Burkett
And I just remember being so tired, one, for having a baby, and then two, just trying to figure out new systems and the lack of education around it was a little bit tough because we were used to pictures with instructions and maybe 20 pages of that and LPL, it was words. It was very different. So trying to figure out how to open an account in ClientWorks. And it's intuitive, but if you've never done it, you have to like get the groove of doing it five to 10 times before you really get it.
Then I realized, oh, I still have to touch every single account. I have to confirm the name is correct. I have to confirm the email is correct. I have to confirm the birth date per person, right? If it's a joint account, that's two people. So I'm literally doing all of the new account paperwork except for it doesn't require client signatures. So I touched every single account and that was over and over and over and over again. And of course, to keep the compensation that they paid you, you had a certain amount of time to do it, which was very quickly.
very quick. I want to say it was like six or six months or nine months, but some of them like you needed client signatures for trust, for example, or estate accounts or non-retirement accounts, like you needed your physical signatures for those beneficiary updates. So you can imagine there was a lot of papers being mailed and just trying to figure out how to how everything works. So we didn't lose any assets in the transition, but I think the burden and inefficiency of having to touch and update everything was
harmed some of the business at the very front end, but I think clients were happier with the transition as long as you had a good relationship with them. Now, not everybody in Waddell and Reed can say the same thing, because again, I expectations were very different depending on who your relationship manager was and how in tune you were with what was actually happening.
Donald Patrick
So you didn't have to touch anything, but on the other hand, it was almost like a real transition except the negative consent was nice. That was really nice.
Alyson Burkett
Everything. mean, once you... It is nice. know, there wasn't, as far as a revenue standpoint, Woodell & Reed was paid in advance. Sorry, I made that backwards, right? Woodell & Reed was in arrears. LPL was in advance. Is that correct? Yes. So the overlap in like compensation was...
Donald Patrick
for
That's correct.
Alyson Burkett
almost the same, right? We were paid that transition bonus three or four months before we even transitioned, which a lot of people use that money for like marketing or redoing a brand name or, you know, hiring somebody else in the office to do some of the work that was there or, you know, buy another office or whatever their transition that they needed help with was. But we didn't have that gap that I feel like a lot of people had. So that was really nice. But yeah, there wasn't a lot of new business that was happening then.
Not just because I wasn't actually capable, but because I was doing 15 different things that maybe not well, but surviving.
Donald Patrick
new baby, shut down for a few weeks. And then in September, you get a new partner in the business.
Alyson Burkett
Correct, correct. I think I actually remember coming to business planning, which we had talked about this with a couple of other people. Yeah, and I remember like talking to him and I said, hey, so good news. He was like, how's business going? I was like, it's good. This is like my first week back to work. Also, I think Brian's gonna join me in the business. He was like, okay, okay. I was like, you probably need to talk to some other people that also, you know, our husband and wives that work in this business, which was super helpful. But it's been.
Donald Patrick
that's right. Yeah, simplified business plan.
Donald Patrick
Hahaha
Donald Patrick
Yeah, we have a number of very successful spouses working together in the business. I don't know how that works, but it's very impressive.
Alyson Burkett
It's been exciting.
Alyson Burkett
I think everyone, those that get it really get it. The ones that don't get it just could never see themselves in that place. And I explain it to people who should be the person that you trust more in this entire world with your personal life and your business. We share kids together and I mean, we share business together too, right? Because he's helping every single day. Now, Brian's rules are probably more like,
operations type roles and service roles and make sure that I'm doing what I said I'm going to be doing. And he's, he's worn that compliance hat a lot as well. And he's worn a trading hat for a while too. So a lot of his tasks and duties are, things that I don't enjoy as much. And I would say the things that I really enjoy and love are probably things that he would rather not be doing every single day. So it's very complimentary.
Donald Patrick
Do you, when you go home, is there a Chinese wall about business and personal or how does that work?
Alyson Burkett
We try, and this is actually a recommendation from another couple is try to be very intentional about when you're talking about business. and I, it probably ebbs and flows in the day, but Brian usually is the one who wants to have more conversation on like who you talk today, who did you talk with today and who, who did what, or what are some stories or did someone get a new dog and what's their name? And I'm like, I have no more words left to give today. I have used all of the words that I have.
Donald Patrick
Hehehehehe
Alyson Burkett
I cannot talk about anything else work related. If you can give me like a couple of hours, maybe, I said, if not, I will be available in the morning when it is office time. So we try to be very respectful of that. Yeah. And we're very good about it. We have like, if we have like a date night or something, I'll say, I mean, we joke about like, how much business can we talk about? And so it's a business expense. And then on the other hand, we're like, let's not talk about any business.
Donald Patrick
I know where you got that advice, by the way.
Alyson Burkett
This is not a business dinner. But it's the same thing about kids too. It's like, this is a date night. We're not talking about the kids. We're not talking about the business. We have to have conversations around not those two things because those can monopolize every single hour of your day in a great way.
Donald Patrick
Yeah, that's good. And he's also your tech guru, right?
Alyson Burkett
Yes. Yes.
Donald Patrick
We'll get into tech stacks and things of that nature. So, Dellen Reed, you were doing financial planning then. Did they teach you financial planning or was that on your own?
Alyson Burkett
Yes. Yes, we actually had a couple of really good mentors. I say mentors, really, I guess that they were calling them managers at the time or district department leads or whatever you want to call them. But they were, when you onboarded as a new advisor, there was a minimum of five financial planning engagements that you were supposed to have before you could really be a licensed advisor. And it seems like nothing until you actually have to have people sign a piece of paper and like give you a check for $500. It was like, man, this is hard.
Donald Patrick
Right. Yes.
Alyson Burkett
But yeah, those are, that's really how the business started. And then all the recommendations that came from the financial plan really were secondary. I mean, those were important to meeting minimums and the criteria that you had to have at a time. I mean, I remember, so there's some firms that don't have minimums and that was attractive at first because I was like, well, I can be, I can make it as long as I don't have to hit these minimums.
But I think the minimums really on the front end made it easier to keep the people that were going to be successful. Cause if you were going to be successful, you were going to hit those minimums. And if you were not going to be successful, you were never going to hit those minimums and never going to be able to hit the business in the time periods that you were going to. And you obviously were compensated with bonus. And then there would be some house accounts that they may give occasionally, depending if you could hit those, those parameters. So a lot of people, as far as like an attrition goes, like there was a higher attrition.
in the industry at that time of people surviving, but Woodalne Reed was a little bit better, but it was really that three to five year timeframe where you saw most people have a really tough time, right? And it was tough. It was very tough.
Donald Patrick
So you had financial planning training, you had sales training, I assume. And then how did you grow the business? Knockin' doors, cold calling.
Alyson Burkett
Mm-hmm.
Alyson Burkett
I did some client events at first, which was a great way to reintroduce myself back into the community that I had grown up in. I got some introductions to essentially friends' parents, which it was very kind of them to sit down with me at the time to entertain a conversation. Some of them had advisor relationships, some of them didn't. I would say really what I felt most confident in, I had a manager at the time who, it wasn't Morningstar, but it was basically a performance reporting tool, that's wrong.
It was a like investment proposal tool, but I forget the name of it. Maybe it was Morningstar, but they would, we had a really good fund family at the time when we were at Waddell and Reid. Waddell and Reid and Ivy funds is probably, yeah, how most people know them. Now it's Nomura and was McCorry. And anyways, it's changed names 15 times. But at that time we had such a good fund lineup that it was very easy to show somebody who had like an old IRA or an old account that they had forgotten about.
Donald Patrick
Ivy, yeah.
Alyson Burkett
hey, here's a diversified portfolio or least more diversified portfolio than you currently have and here's the 10 year track record. And as an advisor, here's what I will do and here's what my recommendations will do and I could do some financial planning. And so I found that to be very helpful and gave me confidence of like, here's how your portfolio is done, here's what I would recommend and here's how it would have done in the past 10 years and the difference, you know, including my fee and expenses and advisor, right? And it was really the start of the advisory.
relationships. So I think I got really lucky coming into the industry at that point because that became more standard. Now the minimums were a little bit higher. You it was you had to find an account with $25,000 on it, right, to have that advisory relationship. Otherwise they were brokerage and you know you were doing A shares or C shares or B shares were kind of dying off at about that point but they were still there. They're know they're lingering around.
Donald Patrick
I forgot about that. Be sure.
Alyson Burkett
And then the other thing I found a lot of confidence in, especially as a new advisor, was life insurance. So I had found a lot of old life insurance policies and I think it's as a new advisor, you can have a lot of confidence saying, hey, I could get you more. And the insurance tables had also changed around this time too. So there was more value to be had other than just saving someone $10 a month, but giving them a longer insurance policy for lower premiums or protecting their family for longer.
or trading one for another, or maybe they were moving from a permanent policy to a term insurance policy or term insurance to a permanent, whatever the situation was or whatever life circumstances happened. Like I sold a lot of insurance policies at that point. I don't sell as many now, you know, unless it's a young family, but I had a lot of time to do those things and it was a good way to start the relationship.
Donald Patrick
Yeah. So, so let's fast forward now to your firm. And, so tell us about 21 goats. It's the coolest name ever. And I know the story behind it. Share it with all of us.
Alyson Burkett
you
Alyson Burkett
I mean, it's fun to us. when we, really Brian was part of the conversations when we knew that Waddell and Reed was gonna be acquired by LPL, it was like, well, I can't, no one knows Waddell and Reed, but no one really knows LPL. Waddell and Reed had like a soccer following they had in Kansas City, which is where the headquarters was. They were sponsoring a soccer team at that point. So some people really did know IV funds at the time, but no one knew LPL. Like other than us in the industry,
People probably don't even know if you're saying LPL or other letters. So I said, I have to come up with another branding. Like I can't, I can't change my name, but it also can't be Allison Burkett Financial Services. Like that's incredibly boring. I was like, people can't even spell Allison correctly. We got to do something like a little bit more simple or have a little bit more fun with it. And most of my peers had changed their business name to their name, financial services, wealth planning, fill in the blank. They all kind of were the same to me.
When we came over to LPL and had IFG help us, we had started some marketing conversations at that point. And I knew the conversations around branding had to happen, but my idea on branding was, okay, so we're just going to take a flyer and we're going to change the color from blue to green. And like, that's the difference in branding. And then you just put your name on it instead of LPL, it just says Alison Burkett on it. And so my idea of marketing was maybe not the most positive.
but I knew that I had to do something different. I had to be memorable. It had to come up at a Google search. It couldn't be something that somebody else had already used. And I'm not, I can be creative. I can joke with Brian that I'm the ideas person. just sometimes can lack the execution part. So I needed someone to kind of hand hold me through that. We had a good friend of ours who owns a marketing agency and she said, well, why don't I just come into the office and like, we'll do just like a brainstorming session. I said, that'd be great.
So she came in, she brought one of her partners in and it was really interesting because we got to share about the business and talk about ourselves. And Brian was coming into the business at that point. I think he, it may have been like the first month or maybe he was like in transition from leaving the old broker dealer coming over. And so she was like, okay, so what are your names? Which my name is Alison Burkett, A-B. And Brian's name is Brian Burkett, B-B. So we, there's a lot of things around A-B and B-B and we kind of use each other's initials, like when we sent text messages and things like that.
Alyson Burkett
We talked about our favorite animals and there's a lot of fun banter just around things that we like. Like we really liked craft beer at the time. We really loved coffee. We really, I thought the animal side of things was very relatable for many people. was like, but I'm not really a dog person. not really a cat person. I say, don't like them. I'm just indifferent about them. And I was like, well, what's the funniest animal? Like what's a cool bird or something?
So we started doing some Google researches and we left that meeting being like, okay, Cardinal was kind of the top front runner, which Cardinal seemed very spiritual and they seem special. And a lot of people associate them with like, you know, just bonding moments with people that have passed. And so I think that's, that's something that's kind of nice. And sometimes it does intertwine with finances. And I was like, that just seems that's interesting. So then I started Googling everything around Cardinal and financial and wealth. And there's about
10,000 other companies that have thought the same thing apparently. So that was a bad idea. Then we started looking up, you know, what are some of the funniest animals and a friend, the friend that came to the brainstorming meeting actually sent me the one about goat. She was like, don't, she's like, don't hate this, but what's your thoughts about goats? And I was like, goats? Brian and looked at each other. was like, goats. And she was like, can I really think you guys, I had no idea at the time. I had no idea.
Donald Patrick
you
Donald Patrick
Gifts are hilarious.
Alyson Burkett
We went on a whole spiral of looking up, like, what is the personality of goats? How long have goats been around? Like, do people like goats? Do people hate goats? Like, what's the feeling around them? And we started researching more and more and looked at the personality. I was like, I think we're kind of goat people. Like, this could work. And then the 21 was how we could differentiate and make sure that people knew that we were financial planning. 21 goats financial planning kind of came between putting all the little pieces together.
And the number 21 is special to us. because, so Brian's birthday is January 21st. Our anniversary and Watson's birthday is actually March 21st. My birthday is May 21st. Lillian ruined the whole thing. She was supposed to be born on July 21st, but she was born on July 13th, 2021. So still 21. And then the acquisition with LPL was July 21st, 2021. Also the same date that I pretty much joined IFG as well.
We closed on our office July, or excuse me, October 20th, or October 21st, 2020, excuse me. And we've had several other life moments, family moments, anniversaries. I mean, the joke is like everything special always happens on the 21st. So it's kind of just been something that's fun with us. Jokingly enough, we like, we've hired a few people in the office and like their birthdays have been around the 21st or.
You know, just fun. They're always like, this is the fun. This is the fun month with the 21 for me. And so it's been, it's been just kind of funny and special and it's memorable. the goats part, mean, goats are whimsical. They're funny. there's a good financial planning story where they always find their way back home, financial planning and the way that they always climb mountains. They always make it to the top. They always make it back down. They don't injure themselves. They're actually one the oldest animals that have ever been around.
So yeah, we like the goats and it's great for marketing because it's like no one else has a goat.
Donald Patrick
know it's fantastic, it's so unique.
So tell us, well, first of all, you got Brian, do you have any other?
Alyson Burkett
We do. have Brett. Brett's our part-time assistant. She's new to us the past couple of months. We are pre, I mean, this is what you want for any employee that comes on board, but Amy was with us previously. We've had a couple other part-time assistants before Amy, but Amy was wonderful. She was coming off of divorce and had started a real estate business and she was helping us on the side. Very entrepreneurial, wonderful person.
She says really kind things that she found us in the right place and she really appreciates the relationship we have. mean, she's a client now too, which is even funnier, but she just got remarried and she's been super successful at her real estate business. So it doesn't make sense for her to work with us anymore.
Donald Patrick
Great. Fantastic. So might as well talk about the tech stack. You got the expert there.
Alyson Burkett
always. I mean, Brian has a lot of opinions about technology. Most of them are very true, right? I mean, the CRM being the number one is like any CRM is going to work for you as long as you use it. If you don't use it, no CRM is going to work for you. So he even has that sticker that I think Redtail even brands and it says, you know, if it's not on Redtail, it doesn't happen. he'll say he brings it up like at the worst time, you know, he's like, well, if it's not in Redtail, it doesn't happen. So it's always the joke.
Donald Patrick
Yes, I know.
Alyson Burkett
Same thing with the family calendar, right? If it's not in the family calendar, it can't happen. But I think one of my favorite technology items is My Rep Chat. I love it so much. If I could text more, I would. We text links to our calendar in My Rep Chat. We remind clients about client events in My Rep Chat. We ask them to schedule meetings and once hub on My Rep Chat. We get usually a fairly quick response, whereas if we send emails or a phone call and leave a voicemail, like,
Donald Patrick
It's lost.
Alyson Burkett
I don't know, maybe 20 % might get back to us and that's if something's happening in their life. But somehow you send them a link and they get, they somehow always get to it like 7 p.m. every evening. Because I'll see like the request start to come in. I'm like, oh, okay. Or I can see like Brett in her office. I can see that she's sent text messages and I'm like, oh, they're starting to respond back, which is great because the, my rep chat goes to, it's my office phone number. So everybody has access to it.
Donald Patrick
Mm-hmm.
Alyson Burkett
So what we try to do is when we respond is we'll put, you are you available next Tuesday? Something, something, something. And if it's Brian, he'll just put like a dash in Brian. So the client knows who they're talking to. But sometimes I just always think it's me, which is great. Say you need money or a quick phone call, then whoever's available can take it and pick up with it. So I think it makes everything a lot more efficient. And we joke within our office about different generations and how they need to be communicated with. Whenever you have a new hire in the office,
There's always those little tiny nuances that you have to remember. Like, John and Sally might be married. Sally does not check her email. John only responds by text messages and they're only free on Tuesdays. You know, it's like those little notes that like you forget about, which we try to always put in Redtail. have like the red dot, but like anything that's in the important emergency, you know, need to know information, we try to put that stuff in there. you know, those are the things that are.
making us see that the business has to run even if I'm not here or if Brian's not here and trying to make it as long lasting as possible.
Donald Patrick
And I assume you have built-in workflows in Reddale. Of course.
Alyson Burkett
Of course, of course. Brian has created our workflows. We have tweaked our workflows. Amy helped actually really liked Redtail. Funny enough, on the real estate side, they have their version of their CRM and she's like, ours is trash compared to Redtail. She was like, I have told them like we need a version of Redtail. I was like, I was like, well, it's Salesforce and that's about it. And she was like, yeah, and we have like the worst version of Salesforce. She was like, it's terrible. But yeah, workflows are very important.
Donald Patrick
Mm-hmm.
Donald Patrick
Salesforce's.
Alyson Burkett
It's a big bear. We do. We have Allbridge for... Yep. For performance reporting, we have Jump, which, you know, I think in the office it's make the relationships a little bit stronger than notate. I mean, every advisor could take better notes, just like every doctor could take better notes. But when you have it in a form of like nothing is missed, a birth date, an amount of money...
Donald Patrick
So what else? You have RepChat, you have CRM, you're using eMoney, eMoney Pro, AllBridge.
Donald Patrick
Mm-hmm.
Alyson Burkett
an investment preference, that a client said taxes 25 times in a phone conversation. Like those things have helped Brian feel more connected in the business if he doesn't talk to clients on a day-to-day basis. He wants phone calls to be recorded more, but we'll get there. We use Redtail, obviously Microsoft Exchange for email. Most people have Ring Central. We use Uma for our office phones within the office, the voiceover IP. We use HolistaPlan, FP.
Pathfinder and then we use constant contact for email notifications to clients and managing client events as far as invitations go.
and wealth.com. We signed up for that too this year. That's kind of my passion project. Yeah. So for those that don't know, actually lost my, my last living grandparent was probably the closest grandparent that I had last year, hours after my birthday, which I was expecting it. I was just really hoping it wasn't on my birthday, but it was hours after, which was a little bit of a relief. And then my mom, that was on my mom's side of the family. And then my mom's younger sister passed last year too. Both of them had some
Donald Patrick
So, he did. Have you done anything with it yet?
Alyson Burkett
I would say lacking in the estate planning purpose, even though I've had those conversations many, many times, but reality is always a little different than maybe what your assumption of someone's life is. So that wealth planning or wealth.com has been something that we have offered to clients, at least for simple wills. We've said that we're not going to do trust unless it was perfect scenario case, but.
Simple wills and trust. Most of the time it's been to clients that have estate planning documents to their kids that are 18 and older in the city of Georgia, hopefully. Um, and then some young couples that we have that wouldn't do it unless, unless we forced along the way. have, I think four pending right now that are pending signatures that have been done. It's a matter of getting people in the office to do them, to have it notarized and sign it. Right. That's, that's the hardest part, but they've been, they've been super appreciative.
of the option. One of the clients actually just got engaged. she's, I'm like, okay, this is where I can't help anymore. I was like, you're going to need some, some professional help because it'll be a remarriage for her. And she just wants to make sure her kids are taken care of, which is important.
Donald Patrick
Yeah. Are you charging fees for this or is it just bundled in?
Alyson Burkett
you
Right now it's bundled in. We have talked to a couple of potential new clients that we're doing financial planning for. So we think that for new clients coming in as part of the financial planning process, it might be something where we add another 500 or a thousand dollars on and then say we will do estate planning or we'll do simple estate planning documents for you as well as the financial planning process so that we know everyone's starting on a fresh foot. So, but we haven't charged specifically for it yet.
Donald Patrick
Okay, so how do you get clients these days in your 21 goats financial?
Alyson Burkett
I mean, most everyone now is referral. used to do, yeah, we used to do some advertising with Dave Ramsey. We stopped that probably three, maybe four years ago. We found some of the clients aren't very sticky. Now some of the clients that we do have, absolutely adore. mean, when you find a client that's the right fit, it's a personality match and it's a, you know, heck yes, we definitely want to work together. Like we both like each other and like this would be somebody I would want to spend a lot of time with. Some of them you're just servicing them for a need that they have in their life.
But right now, of my new clients or new clients that are coming in are either, there's several women's groups that I'm a part of where I actually have clients that are in there. And I actually have friends that are in there too. And they write people, I would say more and more of society in today's world, like in the working households. A lot more women are taking charge of the finances in the household, not just paying the bills, but managing a lot of the household tasks on the day to day, like not just buying, you know,
diapers and toilet paper and groceries, but they're also paying the bills and managing all of the other aspects and the home projects that come in, they're managing the expense and getting the quotes and doing all those things. So in these financial groups that I'm a part of, or even mom's groups that I'm a part of, people will ask for recommendations for financial advisors. And I usually always have one or two friends or clients that will recommend us and they'll put in 21 goats. And obviously 21 goats stands out versus.
you know, Joe Smith at Edward Jones, but you know, so we get a lot of interest that way. Some become clients, but there's also a little bit of pro bono work that we do there too. I've met a few women that are looking to separate or divorce and stuff kind of give them a good outline of their assets. tell them that I'm probably not a good fit for them until the time of separating the assets comes up or they need more recommendations. But yeah, that's probably most everybody's introduction that way. There's a few that come through.
from a couple of CPAs, but you know, not a lot. Those are hard relationships.
Donald Patrick
Yeah, yeah. So you've just gotten an introduction to somebody. How does that happen? Because quite often they'll say, well, I'll give your name to my friend. And of course, it stops there. So how do you handle that?
Alyson Burkett
Mm-hmm.
Alyson Burkett
It depends on the person. Some people are really good and they will ask the referral already, hey, why don't I just match both of you up in an email together and then balls in your court if you want to reach out to them. If I get just a blind email that comes in occasionally or sometimes it's even they go to our website and they schedule through once hub and it's, you know, introductory meeting, right? And I'm like, who in the world is this? So I'll copy and paste their email. mean, one of the first questions that I always ask is like, who can I think for this introduction? And I'll say, we'd love to know, you know,
how you found us, what's going on, and if you could give me a brief idea of what's going on before we talk and let's talk for 30 minutes or so and see what's going on and if I can be a fit and if it makes sense for us to meet face to face, I would love to.
Donald Patrick
So you do this introductory call with all of them, sounds like.
Alyson Burkett
Yes, always. No one's coming into the office without at least one of us talking to them for at least 30 minutes.
Donald Patrick
And it's kind of a mutual selection process where you're kind of evaluating them and vice versa.
Alyson Burkett
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I try to be as honest as possible with them of, hey, here's what our typical client looks like. Here's what fees and expenses look like. Here's how people normally engage with us. Is it an advisory relationship? Is it a financial planning relationship? And I'm honest with them, hey, you we do do some financial planning. You know, it's roughly a percentage of your assets or it's roughly a percentage of what your income is and complexity. I can ballpark that once I know a little bit more about.
know what your situation looks like. said, or some people, you know, would like us to manage assets and maybe on the side we also do some financial planning that might be a little bit slower pace or, you know, just depends on how organized that you are.
Donald Patrick
So you've had the introductory call, then the next meeting is in the office or Zoom or a combination.
Alyson Burkett
I would much rather be face to face, especially if it's going to be a financial planning relationship. think the amount of trust that you build face to face is always going to be higher. Some people are very busy professionals. I I'm not going to meet someone after five o'clock unless it's extenuating circumstances. So if those are the reasons and we can only meet over lunch, then we can talk over Zoom. But I will tell them like we...
I don't feel comfortable doing a financial plan or engaging where you're paying me unless we've at least met face to face once.
Donald Patrick
Okay, that the introductory call, then the next meeting is what?
Alyson Burkett
After introductory call, it's, I would say that's more of the fit meeting. that's, you know, I'm going to send over probably like a brief list of documents based on what we've talked about. Hey, can you bring in these things? Can you write a list of your questions? Can you write a list of, you know, wants or wishes or 10 year goals or whatever that might look like. And let's talk about those things together and how I might be able to help or what I might not be able to help with. And then we'll decide if it makes sense to work together or not. I always let them sleep on it. I never let them.
you know, make that decision with me face to face. And then I usually follow up with them in a week or sometimes they tell me exactly how long it takes, you know, to get back to them. Like if we meet out on Tuesday, they may say, hey, follow up on Friday. If it makes sense to work together after that point, that's usually when we send the financial planning engagement. Really, I want to have all the information before I send the financial planning engagement, but sometimes those are one in the same, just depending on how organized I think somebody is.
Or we might start gathering statements and setting up new accounts and new accounts that might be over the phone or Zoom to get that information and getting the ball rolling and then it might be sitting down to make recommendations on other things after we've gathered and had those conversations. So there could be two or three meetings between there just depending on, you know, what the situation is and how organized somebody is.
Donald Patrick
So that meeting is almost, it's understanding their goals, their desires, their challenges. You're getting, and they're bringing in this information. You're getting kind of an idea of their situation financially and that sort of thing. And then you do the financial planning engagement and then what's next.
Alyson Burkett
Mm-hmm.
Alyson Burkett
Mm-hmm.
Alyson Burkett
Then we usually have where I send them all the information to send to me and the questions that I would have based on what I already know. They either input those documents into the vault and e-money after we've set them up there, or I send them some secure emails or, know, sometimes we've gotten together face to face and I've gotten some of those documents if they don't want to put them in there. It's so much easier if goes in, if they link everything and e-money. Sometimes if they give me just a pile of statements and they're like, good luck to you, I'm not going to submit anything in the e-money, you know.
Donald Patrick
you
Alyson Burkett
Brian and I will reach out to eMoney and have them, we'll pay them hourly to input all of that data. But I tell people it's it's gonna be ish. If you don't want it to be exact or want to see that number fluctuating or changing every single day, like just know that this is just gonna be a picture in time. So usually the ones that are okay with that. I mean, the recommendations will still be the same, but normally they'll come back around the other way. They'll wanna delete those manual entries and put things in in real time.
Donald Patrick
Now, do you share the plan on a screen or do you print it out and how do you deliver?
Alyson Burkett
You know, recently in the past couple, it's more so been a conversation of here's what my recommendations are. And I put it in like a list and I might attach the financial plan to like a secure email or I'll put it in the vault or I'll send it to them in some way. But normally they just want the bullet points in an email. Hey, here's all the things we've talked about. Here's the tweaks that I would make. Not to say that these have to be in this exact order, but these are all the things that I have concerns of. And then I try to make sure that they always see, you know, the balance sheet.
If there's very specific things that we need to talk through, like I might separate those into some other meetings. Like if we're rolling over assets or transferring assets or life insurance or other pieces that might be longer than, you know, a 45 minute to an hour conversation, then we can break those off. But I always want to present that plan or present the recommendations and then we can have more detailed conversations so that one or both spouses don't completely check out because it tends to be a lot.
Donald Patrick
Yeah, so you've got a to-do list for 21 goats and a to-do list for the clients. How do you track?
Alyson Burkett
Correct. Good question. Some of them become workflow items. we also have, like within the workflow, mean, there's like, we have a 90 day check-in that's very important that we always try to do. Sometimes that's like the statement review. That's the, hey, here's my recommendations. What have you taken action on? What you haven't taken action on? Or when's the next point that we need to check in? But usually six months after that, hopefully I would say 80,
Donald Patrick
doesn't get locked.
Alyson Burkett
to 90 % of the time when we're presenting a financial plan, it's just because that client didn't want to transfer assets on the front end. They really wanted to know what all the recommendations would be. They want to know that you're knowledgeable and that you're educated and that you understand them and that you're listening to them and that you're building the relationship before they feel comfortable. Even though sometimes they know that that's probably what's going to happen, it's just feeling comfortable to do it. So, but usually in that like next six months is when we're doing.
all of those other things that I'm checking on the recommendations. Like, did you change your 401k contributions? What does the tax return look like? You know, is any of these things that I've made recommendations going to drastically change anything?
Donald Patrick
Do you charge separate fees for the planting or is it bundled?
Alyson Burkett
As long as they're not an investment client, yes, we charge separately. So usually it's a minimum of $2,500. And then I would say, you know, plus or minus depending on income. So like, for example, one guy has several real estate properties and he has like several beneficiary IRA accounts and it's a lot more complicated. But he's a single guy. So I charged him a little bit more. Somebody who's a little bit younger and single like
maybe we'll charge 2000, but I feel like usually they need that advice and guidance and it's more meetings. So usually we try not to charge less than 2500. We will charge on a monthly basis just because advice pay is so easy to use. And it really does give the clients more incentive to send us the things or at least I find, because they get that notification. We try to always bill on the first of the month. So every first of the month, they get an email that says, you've been charged. I always round up, it's like 210 a month.
Donald Patrick
great. It is.
Alyson Burkett
So it'll be like $210 to LPL financial. And so I usually get an email from them a couple of weeks after and they're like, hey, so here's those things that you said you needed. Which I feel like it's a good thing for both of us.
Donald Patrick
Yeah, so $2,500, people love subscriptions. That's less than $7 a day.
Alyson Burkett
They do.
Donald Patrick
Is that how do you present? say it's $2,500 or it's less than $7 a day.
Alyson Burkett
I say it's roughly 2,500 if you paid upfront. I said, I like round numbers. said, so if you're gonna pay it monthly, we'll just round up to 210, because let's not make it a weird number. And I said, it's almost like if you put all of your cable subscriptions together, your Amazon and your Netflix and everything together. But I said, but that fee is as long as you want it to be. So I'm gonna do it for a year, but if you want to be a client, we can negotiate potentially canceling the...
the financial planning engagement fee and then we can carry on as investment clients. But I'd rather make all those recommendations before we decide to cancel or not cancel.
Donald Patrick
So you have the 90 day check in, six month check in. Now they're a client. What does the cadence look like for an existing client?
Alyson Burkett
Depends on the person. Some people say they want quarterly check-ins. And I find reality, it's like sometimes once a year it's difficult to do. It depends on just what's happening within their life. Normally when I'm doing an account review, I'm like, when's the next time we should talk? Is it three months? Do you want me to send an email or when do you want to meet? Do you want to meet face to face? Do you want a phone call? What do you see this looking like? What things are coming up in the next year that I need to be aware of? And so we put those tasks within Redtail.
Brett knows if she needs to schedule a progress meeting with them or do we need to send an email check-in or they want to be invited to the Braves game or their child's graduating from college, whatever that thing is, we have those check-in points. And then making sure if they're an investment client that we're doing that. Usually every six months we're doing some progress review, at least for an A and B client.
Donald Patrick
Okay. In terms of the money management, are you doing it yourself? Are outsourcing it? What is that like?
Alyson Burkett
Good question. It's something that's evolving. I mean, as chaotic as life was last year, I would say that project kind of got put on hold a little bit. both Brian and I have experience with managing investment accounts. I mean, Brian did trading when he was working at eTrade and, you know, he's messed up some really big things and then he's like, you know, done some really cool trades. like, that sounds like a lot of money. Like that's a lot of zeros.
So, and I'm, I always thought at Waddell and Reed that I was trading accounts, but I realized, quickly realized that LPL was actually trading accounts. So I actually learned how to trade accounts at LPL because it was always automated previously. Like you did a percentage for what you wanted large cap to be and what funds you wanted there. And it just, the computer just did it. Like I had no idea that that wasn't trading, which is funny now looking back on it. So we, all of the assets that came from Waddell and Reed,
went under a certain rep ID, because of negative consent, right? Easier to do that. Everything was the same. And we, I feel pretty good about those portfolios. Now, as clients age, as their needs change, some of those we're not managing as much anymore and we're shifting them over to investment solutions to a few models that we really like at investment solutions. Brian's also still a trader. Like it's still like in his blood. It's what he does. It's what he did.
Donald Patrick
in his blood.
Alyson Burkett
It's kind of hard to shake like those the way you've always done things. Do we know that we can't do this forever? Absolutely. But it's also not that much of a pain to make too many changes, if that makes sense. But any new clients that are coming on board that have, I would say really under maybe 250 in assets, like they're kind of all becoming investment solution models. Unless it's a non-retirement account. Those are ones I still feel like.
I kind of need to manage just for just tax efficiency and maybe some value add has been around transferring some certain assets to consolidate and just to be more tax efficient.
Donald Patrick
any challenges in the business right now? That's a stupid question. There's always challenges.
Alyson Burkett
Yeah, we really would love to buy a new one. I know, always challenges. think priorities change, you know, on the day. I mean, we're in a really good place. It's when Brian left his, I would say his comfortable broker dealer, very stressful world, where he wore a lot of hats to come and help me in the business. And for us to grow this business together, it was like, wow, if we can just replace your salary in like a few years, like we'll be doing so good.
Donald Patrick
Uh-huh.
Alyson Burkett
What we really didn't realize is how much help we needed, like with the kids and how they've gotten older and how we've still spent ridiculous amount of money on childcare, but it's like getting them to their sports and their doctor's visits. And so it's nice to be able to share a lot of those tasks now where that wasn't really happening before. And now it's like, okay, how do we share the business tasks? the hardest part in the business is
wanting to grow intentionally and to have more clients around us. Because I think the physical space between clients, like as they move to other states, like that's where we start to lose some connection with a few clients. And some of them are very sticky and we have amazing relationships. But the ones we've had okay relationships with that have moved to other states, like they have self-selected into another advisor. So our intention in the business is to grow intentionally this year. And one of my goal
is I would like to buy a new office that is walking distance from the house. Sounds so silly. We're not even that far. It's like 15, 20 minutes to Roswell, which is like the next city over. But there's two office complexes, less maybe 0.7 to five miles from our house that I would really like to love to have an office there. we have a few other business owner, like one of them would be a CPA. We have a few other business owner friends within the neighborhood, like
Donald Patrick
That's nice. I love that.
Alyson Burkett
it would be nice to have other people within the office, whether it's other advisors or I don't know what that looks like right now. anyways, the complexes that we want to live or want to own a place in, which we would definitely do an SBA 504 loan if we did, haven't come up for sale. So one of our projects next month is our real estate agent is going to actually help us write some letters. And so we're going to send some people some letters. We'll see if it works or not, or we'll just sit around and wait. I mean, we don't have to do anything, but it's a wish.
Donald Patrick
Yeah.
Donald Patrick
That's great. I love it. So what led you to joining the consortium, the Marine Trust? How did that come
Alyson Burkett
This is probably another funny story. It has to do probably with Justin Burgess and the Trader Joe's parking lot comment. But if I back up a few years, so when Justin Burgess, who is also at Waddell and Reid, we also went through training at the same time, like he knows Brian super well too. I mean, his wife like took like maternity photo shoot pictures for us. Like they're just such lovely people. Justin, this would have been 2017, I think.
And he, we both worked in the same office up in Alpharetta for a few days a week. And he said, Hey, can we go to lunch today? I mean, we had like some weird managers at that time and it was just a strange, strange vibe. like not everybody was in the office. The camaraderie had kind of changed and the writing was on the wall. And he said, let's go to lunch. And I said, yeah, that'd be great. He goes, I have some news to share with you. And I said, that's so crazy. I have some news to share with you. We get to lunch and he was like, so I'm joining this group. I'm going to leave with Elnry. And I was like, man, that's such a bummer.
And he was like, but I'm going to be joining this group called integrated financial group. said, okay, cool. That's interesting. Tells me about you guys. was like, wow, that's so awesome. I'm so happy for you. And I was, he was like, well, what's your news? And I said, well, my news was that I was pregnant going to have a child. And he was like, well, I was actually just about to ask you if you would come with me to IFG and we could like all do it at the same time. And I was like, so.
Donald Patrick
You
Alyson Burkett
I can't. I can barely take care of myself right now. said, but I'm so happy for you. So I knew, I knew he was, he was at integrated financial group and it's just so funny, full circle that it was the wrong time for me at that time. I mean, it would have been, it would have been fine. It would have been a great transition, but mentally there's no way I could have done it. for then let's say that was a couple of years later for LPL to then acquire with Dellen read and then.
I would come to LPL no matter what. And then I got to decide to partner with IFG. But yeah, after Justin texted me when I got the, I don't even remember exactly what the text was, but I'm sure it was something, you know, a little bit funny, like, hey, did you get an email? I'm like, I probably said something like, yeah, did you get an email? Like, what's the vibe over there? So we had a couple of conversations and he's like, hey, you really did talk to Don and Lant. I was like, dude, I don't know, man. I was like, I don't even know what any of this means.
Donald Patrick
bizarre.
Alyson Burkett
LPL is like this massive company. I was like, I don't even know what they're going to give me or like what this looks like. But he started the conversation.
Donald Patrick
That's great. Now you're in a mass and mind group.
Alyson Burkett
Yes, the Megaminds. It is.
Donald Patrick
MegaMinds, it's a great group. You've allowed me to sit in a couple times. It's strong. Mastermind groups are amazing, aren't they?
Alyson Burkett
They are, they are. I mean, I have to thank you and Andrews for kind of setting the group up and then said, voluntold said, hey, you got to lead this from the get go. Or like, we don't know, you know, the longevity. I was like, really? I was like, okay. And he was like, but you guys, need to be in the mastermind, Allison. like, we'll get, we'll get some people. You know what's so funny is I think all those same people are still part of the group, which is, I think pretty remarkable.
Donald Patrick
That's great. Yeah, I mean, it's your group. We help you get it started. And you do the simplified business planning, right? Simplified business planning towards the end of the year. Is that helpful? Setting targets and goals and tracking.
Alyson Burkett
And they're the coolest people too. Yes, yes we do.
Alyson Burkett
It is. mean, I think I've joked about it before, but my idea of business planning, and it was really when the Wooddell and Reid days were, you know, going towards the negative and I didn't want anyone to know any of my personal business, but, you know, personal goals, I used to put their personal and then business. was like, what is the minimum I can put in these areas so that it doesn't matter? But now it does matter because it's you. And if you're not at least putting something on a piece of paper, then, you know, nothing is going to happen. It is.
Donald Patrick
you
Donald Patrick
Yeah, it's amazing when you get it down and riding.
Alyson Burkett
Brian always, I put some crazy big pie in the sky number on there and then Brian goes, I don't, that seems like a lot. Like, are you sure? And I was like, yeah, I think we can do it. He's like, feel like how sure? I'm like, I mean, I think we're pretty sure, pretty sure we can do it. Which is funny.
Donald Patrick
It's a head goal. You always got to have a head goal. You have a real goal and a head goal.
Alyson Burkett
Yeah! Correct. Correct.
Donald Patrick
Let's have some fun, few questions. So I'm going to ask three words to describe your talents and strengths.
Alyson Burkett
I thought this one was interesting. We actually went through this when we did a little bit of some of the marketing. So I had Brian, I said, a blindfold, know, blindly sent it. said, Hey, if you were to pick three about me, what would you pick? He said, persistence.
Donald Patrick
Okay.
Alyson Burkett
confidence and decision-making. was like, okay, that's interesting. Which I totally, and I was like, but it's interesting when someone sees you in a way that you don't see yourself. But I said that I have resilience, empathy, and then building relationships, I said, were some of my what I believe strengths.
Donald Patrick
Yeah, I buy all three of those.
Donald Patrick
are all good. But that's six, I only asked for three. Not kidding. That's great.
Alyson Burkett
I mean, some of them kind of like mirror each other a little bit, you know, like.
Donald Patrick
So tell us something surprising about yourself that others probably do not know.
Alyson Burkett
So my mastermind group, I think somebody else mentioned this too, but Brad's leading this year and very funny, we had to send three things that people might not know about us to his wife and his wife culminated the list. And so there are still some surprises yet to come this year, but I'll share it. There's two that I know that most people might not know that I haven't shared within the mastermind group yet. I think one of them is probably, I still play on a women's soccer team. I used to play on a coed team, but I got injured last year. So now I'm down to just one.
one soccer team, but still playing adult soccer, which is so humbling at times. Yes, yes, I love it. I grew up playing soccer and came, I played a little bit before we had kids and I've come back in the past few years. So it's been great. And then I would say the second one is pre-COVID, I had a little stint where I did some standup comedy. You know, when you have a child, you kind of lose yourself sometime. And I was like, I got to do something fun and skydiving seems really dangerous right now. So let's do,
Donald Patrick
I didn't know that.
Alyson Burkett
stand-up comedy because I need to do something outside the box and I I think I really pushed myself during that time I've never been so intimidated to do some things and you know getting up in front of large groups of people and trying to make them laugh as they are looking at you like you're crazy is this is just it's wild yeah
Donald Patrick
That's amazing. Well, we've got entertainment for the retreat next year.
Alyson Burkett
The Mastermind group has also said that and I said, I don't know if I can say appropriate things without offending people in a kind way. I also realized I'm not a very good writer. You have to be a very good writer to do comedy. And so I do have a new appreciation for comedic.
Donald Patrick
That's comedy.
Alyson Burkett
delivery as well as the writing. Like lot of the celebrity roasts that are out there, like they have three and four people that are writing behind the scenes. So like they might not be, you know, doing all the writing, but they have a great team of people behind them. So it is amazing.
Donald Patrick
mean, that's amazing. Stand-up comedy, my gosh, it scared the heck out of me.
Alyson Burkett
I'll get back to it one day. just don't, I'm a morning person and like staying up until 11 or midnight is not my strength. I got to, not right now.
Donald Patrick
Yeah.
Donald Patrick
Last question, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Alyson Burkett
I would say it's going to come down to the financial side just because that's what we do, but if you don't have enough cash to pay for it, like in a lump sum, then you probably can't afford it.
Donald Patrick
I love it. That's true. Alison, this has been fantastic. I've certainly enjoyed it. I hope you have. I appreciate you taking the time and sharing with all of us. It's been great.
Alyson Burkett
It's so true.
Alyson Burkett
I agree. And I would like to acknowledge the work that you've done within IFG and how amazing of a consortium that you've created and you've had the right people around you and how lovely it is to be a part of such an amazing group. Everyone has been great and it's been better than I could have honestly imagined, which again, seems all fake to say that, but it's so true.
Donald Patrick
Yeah, it is the people. very careful about our culture, as you know, our vetting process.
Alyson Burkett
Yes. Yes. I gave Justin what for. was like, come on, man, this sounds like just, I was like, down read was so cool. It does, it does sound fake. It's something you have to experience. And sometimes it's taking the leap of faith of, yeah, you just have to, you have to be in the, in the mix to truly understand how wonderful people are.
Donald Patrick
Sounds fake, doesn't it?
You do.
Donald Patrick
So from the 30,000 foot view, everybody in the consortium does financial planning. They all do it differently. The one thing they all have in common, they're really nice people. They're good people and they care. All right, I'll see you. Thanks so much. All right, bye.
Alyson Burkett
True.
Agreed. Agreed.
Thanks. Have a good one. I appreciate it.