Shawn Rohrig - CFP & President of Rohrig Financial

We're back! Mike Howard sits down with Shawn Rohrig of Rohrig FInancial to discuss his leadership style, his message to anyone wanting to succeed, and more.

Episode Transcript

(00:18):
Welcome to the next podcast. Wheelings. Local CEOs you should know take production
of iHeartRadio in conjunction and sponsored andpresented by the Wheeling Area Chamber of Commerce.
I'm your host, My Coward,vice president of Membership, Events and
Education at the Wheeling Chamber. Weare sponsored today by West BANKO and West

(00:40):
Virginia Northern Community College. You cancheck out all of our recent podcasts for
CEOs you should know at Wheeling Chamberdot com. Click on the media icon
and down scroll down to podcasts andthey're all right there, including some of
the national podcasts done by the iHearthosts, which are typically very very good

(01:00):
as well. So we strive tofind out what's going on in the valley
with the CEOs and the leaders,and today is no exception to that.
In studio with us today on CEOsyou should know. Certified financial planner and
President of RORIG Financial, Sean RoorigWelcome to CEOs you should know. I'm
excited to be here. Finally we'remeeting somewhere other than the golf course or

(01:23):
at a business after hours. We'rein a recording studio. Yeah, it's
kind of excited about this. You'rementioning it before and glad to be here.
Well, we really like, youknow, talking to our members and
I have a good time, especiallywith the smaller groups or even the one
man one woman shops, to heartheir story of their struggles and the successes,

(01:45):
because it's so interesting when you don'thave a plethora of people around you
to have them do what you do. You're you're the chief cook and bottle
washer, right, yeah, prettymuch the buck stops here if you ask
me. Well, in financial planning, that's a good phrase. Sean and
Rory against our our guest. He'sa certified financial planner and the president of
Rory Financial. Let's make sure Ispell that for people. R O h

(02:07):
Rig for Rory. Correct, that'scorrect. All right, let's go let's
go way back back to the dayof birth and grown up? Where did
that happen? Where where did yougrow up? So born and Raisin Wheeling,
So basically our roots come from theWhirlwood area base. I would have
guessed that, but I wasn't sure. Yeah, So we had a santation

(02:30):
business calledburg Santation and Garbage Company.So for those that are listening to this,
they probably might recognize that name.No, and that's kind of where
our back round comes from, bornand raising a business owning family. So
this is kind of natural progression forme. Okay. And then from a
schooling perspective, did did you takesome things that would help out with what

(02:53):
you're doing now or what was yourkind of your plan in high school,
college, whatever you might have done. Yeah, So I went Bethany College,
graduated in honors and financial economics,basically the path they had to be
able to invest money, and whenI was there, we had kind of
helped start it was called the McCannFamily Investment Club. So basically the x

(03:17):
CEO of Merle Lynch actually graduated fromBethlen College and he actually donated ten million
dollars to the school so that theidea was for those that wanted to get
into this industry they could start actuallyinvesting real money for the college. So
my actual sector was the financial sorrywas the energy sector. So my first

(03:39):
couple of picks were like Chevron,Excellent, things like that. So,
no, this is what I wantedto do is what I went to college
for. All right, So whenyou came out of college was the plan
to do your own thing? Right? Then did you start with other folks.
What was the first step, Well, the first step you get licensed,
so you gotta you gotta start workingfor somebody else step point Yeah,
okay, basically at that point intime, that was right coming out of

(04:03):
the financial crisis. So at thatpoint in time, no one was looking
for a financial advisor really at thatpoint they didn't want to hear from us,
So that would have been So hegraduated in May of nine time,
Yeah, the worst time. It'spretty much bother the market, bart of
the market at that point in time, and the financial crisis was March of

(04:23):
oh nine. So got right in, was able to start with the firm
called First Investors that was out inSouth Point, PA. Basically, I
you know, when it comes downto it, I just wanted some licensing
from there. I from there,I ended up going with uh basically Wells
Fargo Advisors and Wheeling and went fromthere. And you started at in for

(04:46):
Rooring Financial. What year was atthat was? Actually we're just celebrating our
two year anniversary. Yeah, justtoo, Yeah, I was. I
was at Hazel Burton Watson for nextright there. Yeah, so Major Rounds
paid your does all that stuff.Time to do it yourself you got.
Is that a safe assessment? Yeah? Pretty much. Okay, that's what
it comes down to. I'm gonnacome back to the whole obviously career and

(05:06):
talk a little bit about your leadershipstyle, how you help your people that
are your clients, that type ofthing. But I want to go back
to I'm going to make an assumptionhere that you met your wife at Bethany?
Is that correct? As correct?All right, Well that was a
guest, but it was a prettycalculated guess. Tell us how that happened
because we know Jennifer very well.So interesting enough, my birthday is October

(05:30):
one, hers is September thirtieth.Oh nice, So we actually were celebrating
our birthdays together. Bethany College hadBubba's Bison in, which is basically the
only bar that was there recently they'veclosed a few years back, but basically
we were celebrating with a couple ofbeers basically our birthdays and kind of meta

(05:53):
ever since. So yeah, wellthat's awesome. And how long have you
all been married? Ten years andwe're getting close to eleven? Wow?
Okay, very nice. Well,yeah, we love Jennifer and I just
had to bring that family aspect intoit, and I appreciate that very much.
Hobby wise, though I know you'reI think avid is just not even
a right word for your for yourgolf, correct, I play some?

(06:15):
Yeah, Well, we appreciate youalways being a part of the wheeling chamber
golf outing. But but I knowthat's a big thing for you, and
it's it's a lot of fun.Yeah, how did you get interested in
golf? How did that start?Actually, it's it's interesting. So after
my dad retired, basically he triedto take it up, but he had
a really really bad shoulder, soit just never doesn't make it tough.

(06:36):
Yeah, he couldn't really come throughthe golf ball, so he actually just
gave me his clubs. So Istarted playing probably when I was let's say
around ten, started hitting a littlebit. I did a one of the
summers, I can't remember what ayear, but one of the summers I
did a little bit of I gota little bit of help from one of
the Oogaby clubs there and then fromthere I just kept playing. So nothing

(06:58):
big, nothing major story, justkept planning. Do you like the more
competitive tournaments that are around? Areyou more of a just play and have
fun and maybe do a scramble oncein a while, guy, or somewhere
in the middle. Probably somewhere inthe middle. Uh, sometimes the scrambles
get a little bit, you know. I don't like to play golf for
more than five hours. That's whywe've limited hours so it doesn't take that
long. Yeah, I like Ilike to play quicker tournaments, not too

(07:21):
much. I don't think I'm goodenough to be playing in two May tournaments.
But too many rules. In mymind, I just can't stand all
that legalism. Yeah, but morefor fun, but just quick golf.
That's it. Well, good,all right. We're talking with Sean Roorig.
Sean is the certified financial planner andpresident of Roorig Financial. Sean,
why don't you tell him website phonenumber? However, if someone wanted to
get in touch with you, whatis the best way to do that?

(07:43):
So, yeah, the office linesthree oh four nine oh five oh five
three eight, and our website isrug financial dot com or h r IG
financial dot com. You got it. I always gotta get that spelling right.
So if someone doesn't miss the Hor miss something there, you got
it all right. So you toldus a little bit about your the beginning
of your career. I would becurious in those early years before you got

(08:05):
to RORG, what were a coupleof things that stood out to you,
either successes or challenges that shaped youthat years, like I don't ever want
to see that happen again, oroh boy, I want to do a
lot of that, or how didthat kind of develop to where you got
to today to do rory. Basically, you're asking me what some failures probably

(08:26):
well that could be in there ifa failure, successes, challenges, things
you might want to see happen ago. Obviously, who wants to see O
nine happen again? You were juststarted, correct. I would say one
of the things that I would sayfor any young entrepreneur anybody, is you

(08:46):
don't know what you don't know.And when I was starting out of one
of the guys that were overlooking atme at that point was saying, you
know, he doesn't know what hedoesn't know. Nobody knows what they don't
know. Yeah, that's part ofa being and it's funny. And this
is anyone that's listening to this.You know, when you start out in
any kind of industry, you lookback where you were ten years ago and

(09:11):
you're like, man, I didn'tknow anything at that point. And that's
how this industry is a lot.You know, you think you know everything,
or at least you think you knowa lot, and then you look
back like, wow, I wishI knew what I know now from my
clients at that point. And Ifeel that same way a decade from now.
That's how everyone does. That's aneasy one. That's in any industry,
but definitely in this one in particular. Now. I think. I

(09:35):
think another thing is there's times thatin my industry you can overanalyze things.
You know, you can look atthings and go, you know, I
think this could happen or that couldhappen. The market's always right. If
you think something bad is going tohappen in the market and the market's up,
it's probably because the market's right andyou're wrong. Just trust the market.

(09:56):
Yeah. Yeah. One of thethings I want to I ask you
too, was in those formative earlieryears. And you can even take it
back to family or a college professor, high school teach or whatever. Is
there one or two people that thatyou would say, man, that person
is very important in my life.They helped shape me as a man,
or they helped shape me as abusiness person, or they helped shape me
whatever, you know, whatever thatthought might be, I would say it

(10:20):
would have been a collective of myfamily, Okay, whether it be my
you know, mom, dad,uncles, and aunts. Growing up in
a family full of business owners.When you're looking at that, you learn
how to deal with people, Youlearn how to how to deal with different

(10:41):
situations. You. You know,my up brings a little bit different than
a lot because I've lived it,I've seen it. You kind of have
to just learn that. You justput your head down and work. Yeah,
a lot of people try to say, well, you know, I
can't do this, I can't dothat. I think that's crap. I
think you just work. I thinkyou just work. And if you do

(11:05):
it, and you like to dowhat you're doing, and you work,
no matter what you're gonna do,it's gonna work out for you. I
do. I've always thought that way. People were too inclined to work on
something, find out it's not easy, and quit. And I don't care
what an industry you're in, it'snot gonna work. It's never going to
work. When I worked for highat hotels, got in through the management

(11:26):
training and got into sales and satdown with this guy who was from Rochester,
New York and one of those fasttalkers. And we're in Nashville,
so he was kind of a duckout of water, but he was very
brilliant. Still in the industry today, high up with one of those big
hotel companies. And he looked atme and he said, Mike, let
me tell you what's going to happen. I said, okay. He said,
it's gonna get tough for a while, and you're gonna want to quit,

(11:48):
he said, but don't. Hesaid, you wait six to nine
months, and I guarantee you inthat time period you'll sit down at your
desk one day and go I gotit. Yeah, I've got the basics.
I can do that. He wasexactly. It was month eight.
I can remember it like yesterday.That that's a lot in the financial advising
industry. That's a lot of thesame thing. If you survived the first
year or two, your odds ofmaking it are pretty good. You know.

(12:11):
It was interesting I found out.So I knocked on doors to start
my career. A lot knocked ina lot of doors. Scenarios that will
and Gas to get a lot ofmy clients in the beginning, and I
loved it. I still like it. I just don't have as much time
as I used to do it.And I found out I was having lunch
with my mom, like probably fiveor six years ago. I didn't know

(12:31):
the story, but apparently the waythat the garbage business started was my grandfather
was basically was called by a neighborand my grandfather was one of the ones
that had a garbage or not agarbage truck, a just normal pickup truck.
Yeah, and they asked him,you know, Bill, while you're
going home anyway, you can dropoff a garbage at the dump. Sure,

(12:52):
that's how the company started. Ohmy gosh, I had not heard
that. So that started. Andthen eventually he did that, and then
next door neighbor asked, Hey,you're out that way, why don't you
take ours? So eventually it camedown to my father and my grandfather basically
knocking on doors to neighbors in thearea basically saying, hey, we're gonna

(13:16):
be out this way, you know, thrown away some garbage. Do you
mind if we do yours? That'show the business started. That's grassroots until
my mom told me, you know, your dad and your grandfather started the
business that same way. Yeah,and that always stuck with me. That's
why that was always a special placefor me. Yeah, knocking on the
doors and meeting people and trying tohelp him out. Correct. Okay,

(13:37):
So as you got into your ownthing, what what did you find early
on that was different being the certifiedfinancial planner and the president versus just the
certified financial planner. Uh, well, you gotta figure out if you're gonna
do it, what kind of advertisementyou're gonna do. That's one thing.
You gotta find that out. Yougotta find out. Gotta get a website,
gotta get Google still calls me,which is crazy. You gotta,

(14:01):
you know, basically, get yourname out there. Ye know that you
have either moved, you gotta yougotta tell people that you know, this
is where our location is because you'restarting from scratch with a whole name.
That was one of the things.That's one of the things that basically have
changed. Minus that it's the samebusiness. You're still dealing with your clients.
You're still going over their planning,They're still going after what they really

(14:24):
want to accomplish, And what money, when it comes down to it any
day, what money is going toinvolved to get those things accomplish. So
the business is the same, it'sjust you're running the ship at that point.
Yeah, like payroll, things likethat, but you can always take
care of that and there's people thatcan take care of that for you.
So how does all the legalities,the federal side of the compliance, any

(14:46):
of those things. Did that changea lot when you became the chief cook
and bottle washer? Not too muchactually, So how I'm structured is different
than some. But basically I havemy company, but I'm also a representative
of a firm call LPL Financial isbasically the firm that makes sure that I'm
good with the sec They make surethat I'm compliant. It's their technology.

(15:09):
It's a great it's a great wayto work. So you're basically have your
own company, but they take careof all the things that you don't want
to deal with so you can dealwith your clients. So I did a
lot of work before I broke offto make sure to see what would make
sense. So no, luckily forme, I'm not doing all that stuff
I could. I'd rather give itoff to somebody else. Pass that one
on, correct. Yeah, whatwould you say would be kind of your

(15:33):
leadership Styn? I know you don'thave like a whole office full of employees,
right, yeah, just just myassistant Christine's Yeah, there's just the
two of you. So maybe Iguess the leadership style might be in working
with your clients. And of courseyou're going to have people of differing ages,
differing incomes. How do you kindof work through that in feeling?
I mean, I think you're youobviously have to be a leader to help
people in their finances. And Iwould tell our I didn't turn my alarm

(15:54):
off. I would tell it hasthe beauty of podcast, just turn it
off and keep going. I wouldtell our salespeople, darn right, you're
leaders. Why are we training tobe leaders? I said, because people
are expecting you to take the multiplethousands of dollars they're investing with us and
manage it correctly. In an advertisingworld, Yeah, same in this way.
How how would you look at thatfrom from your leadership style? Well,

(16:15):
I think, yeah, what you'retalking about there and what I'm doing
is they're coming for you. They'recoming to you for advice. And if
you have no advice to give,you're kind of out of a bit out
of business. Yeah, when itcomes to financial part of it, yeah,
you need to be able to say, listen, this is what we
need to do. You need tobuy this much life insurance. You need

(16:37):
to buy uh, you need tobuy this much in you know, in
stock you got. You gotta basicallyput the stuff together. You gotta have
a four one K. You haveto do these things so then you can
reach your goal. And if youcan't look at a client and tell them
that this business was never made foryou, right, a little bit of
confrontation at times. Right, I'min a good way, it can from

(16:59):
time to time. You know what, we were looking not to put that
much away. I was like,well, then you're not going to have
that much. I mean, that'swhen it comes down to it. You've
got to be able to say thatin this business or you can just like
you know, in advertising, ifyou can't, you can't tell a client
that, hey, you know,if you don't spend this much, then
we can't get your name out.You've got to be able to back that
with data and everything. So yeah, now you're probably talking occasionally with clients

(17:23):
that are also like yourself, aspiringentrepreneurs type thing. What what's something maybe
they need to think about more asthey're starting a business versus just the family
planning financial planning that you just mentioned. I would say, what they need
to start thinking about before they wouldbreak off? Can you repeat that again?

(17:48):
We're going to add all that now, that's what's the question. The
question is if if you're talking withobviously, if you're talking with someone that's
just talking about their family and whatthey want to do with for one case
and all that, versus someone who'salso got to think about a business as
a CEO, what's the starting upyou know, because I'm sure you've got
experience from doing that yourself. Butthen there's the financial planning side of that.

(18:10):
What's what? What maybe are someof the things people were missing that
they need to know about before theyjump into entrepreneurship. Well, I think
it depends on what the industry is. Uh. You know, for myself,
I have clients, so they generatethe revenue for me. For myself,
you know, for myself, howmany people I think it would follow
me when it comes to depending onwhat your industry is, how many people.

(18:36):
If you're working for somebody, howmuch how much of that business do
you think you're gonna be able toretain because you do need to heat of
course. Now some industries, ifyou're siging you know, a widget or
whatever it is, you gotta makesure that widget is good enough that's going
to sell before you break off anddo that. It depends on what it
is. I mean, if it'sa good if it's a good product,

(18:56):
then yeah, you got to makesure you have the right people for for
patents for one, well there's it. Maybe a good attorney to go along
with that that would good. Yeah, So it all depends on what industry
you're in. I would say youalso have to have your other centers of
influence, which would be you wanta good CPA or an accountant, probably
an attorney. Like you said,make sure you do that research before you

(19:18):
do that, not after you correct. Well, I think part of it
just surrounding yourself with the people thatare going to help you get where you
want to go, especially in theareas that you don't know too much about.
You don't know what you don't know, you don't know. That's why
you got to ask questions you know, in any in any move, if
you don't ask the questions, you'renot going to get answers to anything that
you're looking for. I know thatsounds dumb, but it's true. A

(19:41):
lot of people will say, well, yeah, you know, I got
it handled, and then they didn'task the questions. They found out they
didn't have anything. They have thingsready for when you do make that move,
for what you're going to do,so you try to land on your
feet versus your head. Yeah,oh yeah, good advice, good advice.
We're talking with Sean Rorig. He'scertified financial planner and president of Rorig

(20:03):
Financial Shan, go ahead and tellhim your phone number and website one more
time. Fun numbers three oh four, nine oh five oh five three eight
again three oh four, nine ohfive, oh five three eight. Website
is rug financial dot com. Thatis ro oh ri i G financial dot
com. So of all the financialplanners out there, how many of them

(20:23):
have really kind of gone into itstraight out of college versus like my brother
in law who came out of pastoringto do that. What are you seeing
out there in that regard and howshould if someone has this? Yeah,
I think there is there really abad time to go into it. If
someone were thinking that, I willdon't know, want you to have a
who lot more competition? No,No, there's a lot of business out

(20:45):
there, guys. You know what, the honest truth is, there's not
enough of financial advisors out there.Uh statistically saying that we're looking at the
average financial advisors probably getting closer totheir sixties. Now that's nationwide, that's
in West Virginia, West Virginia,it's way older than that. Wow,
kids are not getting in this industry. Books of businesses are being handed handed

(21:07):
down to generations. But that's actuallya very very less time frame, meaning
a we're at a very very weirdpoint. We have baby boomers retiring and
those that are retiring that the amountof people that are retiring right now are
astronomical. So we have a lotof money in flux for people like myself

(21:30):
to manage, and we have peoplethat don't want to enter the industry.
So there's a lack of people thatwant to get in the industry with a
lot of money moving, it makesno sense to me. I you know,
I was. I was up atBethany College actually recently, and I
was telling them roughly what I do, And I said, if you have

(21:51):
any interest in financial advising or investingin stock, you should do what I
do for a living. So whereI'm going with this is Yes, I
think there's a lot of opportunity init. I think there's a reason for
a lot of people to get intoit. I think it's a good industry,
and I think being young in thisindustry makes a lot of sense because

(22:12):
I have the ability to grow mybook of business and get more people if
I went to Absolutely so starting outfrom the college level is not a bad
thing at all. No, Idon't think it is. A lot of
people don't though. A lot ofpeople kind of fall into it. Most
of the people I've known are notwhat you did there. They got into
it later. In the quick story, Tom Pay great financial advisor when I

(22:37):
worked with him, nice guy atat Hazlet and he didn't get start until
his forties and it did very wellfor himself. But it's never too it's
never too late to start now.I know you have your roots here,
We've been here, grew up here. But there are a lot of financial

(22:57):
planners taken off to live in Floridaor other retirement areas. Is that a
thing for me? It'd be I'dwant to go to Hilton Head and be
a financial planner. Uh, there'ssome, Yeah, there's some. There's
some in the area that I knowthey've done that. Yeah, but that's
hard because if you've got your booka business here, now you got to
go somewhere else and start another bookof business. Yeah, you can do
that, but it's COVID's change alot of things. I have a lot

(23:18):
of clients now, I asking clientsin Vegas. Now, I've got some
clients all over the country now becausefor me, all I gotta do is
basically licensed that state, which isnothing. And because of Zoom and teams
and everything else, it's very easyto go over a plan with a client
that makes sense. And it's reallybroaden the horizons of where I can actually

(23:41):
do work. Yeah, So itwould be impressed. You know, if
I ever would get a place somewhere, no one wouldn't even know because it'd
be that easy to do a bookof business. So I know, in
the years now that you've been doingthis, what maybe surprised you the most
about clients what they didn't know oreven what they did know. What surprised

(24:02):
me what they did and didn't know. Yeah, let's make for good stories.
Yeah, I've had I've had alot of clients that didn't know much
about how this stuff works. I'dbe one of those. I still can't
get my head around the stock market. I will, but I will say
I think that's part of a failureof somvera education system. I think this

(24:25):
is a very very important thing thatwe need to be teaching kids how to
do. I've said this to multiplepeople. I shouldn't have a job.
This is something I think should betaught and it's not. And I think
part of my job is to helpeducate a lot of my clients of what
these things are. You know,what's the stock how it works? Well,

(24:48):
you know what what the SMP fivehundred is. What they do know,
I'd be sure. I'd tell youwhat's impressive. I was impressive how
many farmers actually about yielding on crops, what they knew about the preciation law,
whichould be more in taxation. Yeah, I was impressed on a few

(25:11):
other things, but I will saythis A lot of them other stuff.
Yeah, you'd be shocked, SoI will say no. I mean,
I definitely don't judge a book bytheir cover. Some of my some of
my biggest clients, you would neverexpect from their houses or whatever what they
have. So I think a lotof people in this in this society,

(25:34):
judge people by what they see.I know plenty of people that are you
know that are attorneys and doctors,and they just don't have the assets compared
to someone that has nothing you cansee, Yeah, you'd be shocked.
And that's a mindset. And maybewhat you learned early on in your family,
what your parents may have taught youabout saving and spending. And I

(25:56):
think a lot of it happens athome in that regard. Yeah. And
with the Farmers, they were probablymaybe the their whole family line was farmers,
and they just they taught each other. Yeah, I think that can
happen, all right. So myfun, fun question is always, and
I think we've kind of answered it, but if if the folks at Bethany
College call you up and say,hey, Sean, you're the commencement speaker

(26:17):
this year, and you're gonna standup in front of all those seniors,
and what's your your main message tothem? Nobody owes you anything. You
have to go earn it nice.If you don't want to earn it,
you ain't gonna have it. That'sit. That's a good one. That's
a good way to wrap up CEOs. You should know our guest has been

(26:41):
a Sean Roorig certified Financial planner andpresident of Rorig Financial and our sponsors for
CEOs you should know here locally alongwith ourselves the Wheeling Area Chamber of Commerce
because our good friends at West Bancoand West Virginia Northern Community College. Sean,
thanks for your time and your insights. Much appreciate it. I hope
you enjoyed the show. Yeah,it's a good time. Good well,

(27:03):
we'll see you soon on the golfcourse, I'm sure, and at all
the chamber events would like to comevisit us at that's awesome. We appreciate
it and we'll see you again.Thank you all for joining us. We're
CEOs. You should know. We'llsee you next time.