April 15, 2025 • 25 mins
Navigating the world of financial advising can feel like wandering through a maze blindfolded. Not every financial advisor is created equal—some have the credentials and expertise, while others just have the title. So, how can you tell the difference?
In this brand-new four-part series, we’re joined by Jeff Chase, Senior Vice President of Financial Planning at S.E.E.D. Planning Group. Together, we're pulling back the curtain on the financial advising industry and trying to help you better identify and spot the real deal when it comes to working with a financial professional.
Together, we break down the various titles floating around and uncover what truly separates a knowledgeable, trustworthy advisor from those just playing the part.
Tune in as we demystify the world of financial planning and help you make more informed decisions about your financial future!
Takeaways:
- Understanding the difference between a so-called financial advisor and a truly qualified one is crucial for your financial future.
- The financial planning industry is filled with a plethora of misleading titles that often confuse clients about whom they can trust.
- Building a career in financial planning requires passion and dedication beyond just chasing the paycheck, which many professionals often overlook.
- Networking and learning from experienced colleagues can significantly accelerate your growth and understanding in the financial planning world.
About Jeff
Jeff is the Senior Vice President of Financial Planning at S.E.E.D. Planning Group, a fee-only financial firm committed to acting in its clients' best interests as a fiduciary.
He joined S.E.E.D. in 2020 and is a key member of the firm's leadership team. He currently oversees and leads the financial planning team which consists of nine financial planners and wealth managers.
🅿️ For more DTS content check out our Patreon
Thanks to our sponsor, S.E.E.D. Planning Group! S.E.E.D. is a fee-only financial planning firm with a fiduciary obligation to put your best interest first. Schedule your free discovery meeting at www.seedpg.com
You can get Ditch the Suits highlights, and other great content produced by NQR Media at https://youtube.com/@NQRMedia
📧 For more information or to get in touch with us, visit https://www.ditchthesuits.com
👍🏼 You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at @nqrmedia
About Your Co-Hosts:
Travis Maus has been in financial services for over fifteen years. He is a Senior Wealth Manager and Chief Executive Officer at S.E.E.D. Planning Group. Travis also hosts the Unleashing Leadership Podcast, where he dissects some of his favorite books on leadership and how you can apply it to your business or life.
Steve Campbell has over a decade of industry experience and is a Senior Marketing Director at S.E.E.D. Planning Group. Steve also hosts the One Big Thing Podcast, an interview-style show meant to inspire and encourage 30 and 40-year-olds going through difficult seasons of navigating marriage, raising kids, and growing personally.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Foreign.
Welcome to Ditch the Suitspodcast where we share insights nobody
in the financial servicesindustry wants you to know about.
We're here to help you get the.
Most from your money in life.
So buckle up and welcome toDitch the Suits.
(00:21):
So we're going to talk todayabout how to know if somebody's a
so called financial advisor orif they're a real deal.
So Steve, we talk about thisall the time.
You know, the whole show waskind of started on people kind of
masquerading as financialadvisors or financial planners in
our industry.
There's tons of titles andthey don't really mean anything.
(00:42):
There's not, there's not likea law that says this is what a financial
advisor is and this is whatyou have to call yourself, you know,
like the credential, you haveto have to call yourself a financial
advisor.
And so these things get likereally, really convoluted and confusing
to people.
And then even when you talk topeople and they kind of, they, they
do a little bit of advising,it's like, what kind of advisor are
they?
Are they the kind of advisorthat I should be working with?
(01:04):
Are there things I need to beconcerned about?
So we wanted to dig into thatand not only like, how do you identify
the difference between a socalled financial advisor and the
real deal, but also let's saysomebody's getting into the profession.
So this is also for thosepeople who are thinking, maybe I'd
like to be a financial advisor someday.
How do you actually become thereal deal?
(01:26):
How do you, you know, how doyou not be the so called financial
advisor?
The person kind of like we, weput in the crosshairs of this podcast
where we talk about, look,these are the things that they do
that really aren't for clientsand they may not even know it sometimes
because that's how theindustry is kind of framed.
You know, you go and you startworking for a company and the company
kind of, this is how it is.
(01:46):
And so you kind of start to,you start your career thinking this
is what financial planning isall about, only to find out years
later.
At least this was my experience.
Find out years later, oh,that's what financial planning or
being a financial advisor isreally about.
So we got a four part episodeminiseries on digging into the business
(02:10):
of building and running anentire division of fee only financial
planners.
So we're going to talk aboutour story a bit.
And through our story, I thinkwe're going to be able to help create
this comparison and helppeople walk through this topic and
We've got a special guest withus today and it's one of our very
own.
We love to brag about them.
(02:31):
I'm pretty excited aboutshowing them off a little bit.
We've got our Senior VP ofFinancial planning, Jeff Chase with
us.
It's going to be exciting.
And welcome to Ditch the Suits.
My name is Steve Campbell.
I serve as a Senior MarketingDirector at Seed Planning Group.
My co host, Travis Moss is ourChief Executive officer and this
show is all about us.
Seed is a fee only financialplanning firm and so we want to bring
(02:53):
you our collective experienceand knowledge working in the industry
so that you can get the mostfrom your money in life.
Let's take a quick break to hear.
A word from your sponsor.
This episode is brought to youby Seed Planning Group.
If you're looking for a lifegiving experience working with a
financial planner, then Seedis here for you.
Seed is a fee only financialplanning firm with a fiduciary obligation
(03:17):
to put your best interests first.
If your goal is financialfreedom and independence without
sales products or reallyglorified salespeople, then check
out Seed Planning Group todayyou can visit www.seedpg.com.
that's www.seedpg.com.
and the best part, you canschedule a free consultation to find
out if their fee only plannersand their process are right for you.
(03:40):
Yeah.
So, Jeff, welcome.
Thanks guys.
I'm excited, excited to be here.
It's my first time on apodcast, so it's going to be fun.
Yeah, you'll be good.
This is my first time too.
It's always like the first time.
So I wanted to do a little bitof who was Jeff, but I didn't want
you to have to just read yourbio or something like that.
So, Jeff, you're our Senior VPof Financial Planning.
(04:03):
Senior.
In our language, senior meansthat you're actually an equity holder.
You're part of the leadershipteam at Seed, not to mention your
job as far as leading theentire group of financial planners
that we have.
But you've been in theindustry a little bit before you
(04:23):
came to Seed, and so I thoughtit'd be good to maybe share with
our listeners a little bitabout who you are, where you came
from and maybe how you endedup at Seed.
Yeah, absolutely.
So how I ended up at Seed isquite the journey.
As you said, I was in theindustry a little bit before I came
(04:44):
to Seed.
I had about nine years inbefore I got here.
I'm about 13 years in now.
So in Seed years I've been here.
What 31 years or something.
We'll talk about that a littlebit more in the future here.
Let's imagine 13 -9, that's 4times 3, that's 12.
You're 12 in seed years.
12.
Okay, all right, a little bitoff there, but yeah, I started kind
(05:06):
of like what you were sayingsaying earlier, Travis.
Started at, I started at aninsurance company actually.
So that's where I was, youknow, kind of getting my, getting
my feet wet, getting mylicenses kind of as they say, getting
your teeth knocked in a little bit.
But I, you know, that's whereI got my, my initial experience into
the business.
Right.
So they would come over to mydesk, I remember they'd come in,
(05:27):
they'd give you what theywould call a stack of Orphid fleets.
And that was clients who, whodidn't have an advisor.
Right.
So our job at that point wasto call them, try to set up a time
to go and review, let's saytheir life insurance policy.
Right.
So you're calling like, youknow, 87 year old grandma with, you
(05:49):
know, a $12,000 life insurancepolicy driving all over the state
to go and you know, set up a,set up a meeting at her house and
then you get to the doorstepand nobody answers.
Right.
So that was, that was aninteresting foray into my career
as a financial planner.
But I bounced around a little bit.
I've got a lot of experiencein the business at this point, which
(06:10):
I actually consider myselfvery lucky to have that experience.
Now.
I worked for an insurancecompany, like I said, I worked for
a bank, worked for anothersmall independent firm.
And that really gave me a widerange of topics and things that I
was able to be exposed to.
(06:31):
Right.
So I now I'm very grateful forthose opportunities, but there was
always, always somethingmissing there.
Right.
And that's kind of how I foundmyself here at Seed.
So.
Well, definitely gives you agood understanding of the industry.
I think when a lot of timespeople take things for granted that
they haven't walked through.
When you come into theprofession and you start at one part
(06:51):
of the.
Because the industry is prettybroad, you've got, you've got everything
from the commit the captivecommission people all the way to
the fee only people.
And in between is the feebased and you've got independent
and quasi independent and allthis other stuff.
You get registeredrepresentatives, investment advisor
representatives.
You've got a lot of ways thatthe business can manifest.
(07:13):
You know, you can go and youcan work at an insurance company
and call yourself a financial advisor.
And sell insurance.
You can go and work at abroker dealer and sell stocks and
bonds and call yourself an advisor.
And all you're doing is makingcommissions, too.
Like, there's a lot ofdifferent ways you can be advisor.
So you, similar to me andSteve, kind of walked that gamut
trying to figure out where doI belong in this profession.
(07:35):
And I remember when I firstmet you, you were actually considering,
like, if this is what theprofession is about.
I'm not certain that I want tobe in the profession anymore.
I.
I think that there was a pointthere where you had got enough teeth
knocked out that you're justlike, yeah, you know, I'm gonna be.
I'm gonna have dentures soonhere if I don't make a change in
my life.
So you.
I don't know if you want totalk about that, because that.
(07:57):
I remember that specificallyabout you.
You're like, look, you know, Ithought this is what the industry
was going to be because youhave your.
Your background, I think, isbusiness, right?
That's right.
Yep.
Yes.
So you got.
How did you get into financial plan?
Let's start there.
Let's go.
How did you get into financial planning?
Then tell the story about whatyou were thinking when we first met.
(08:21):
Do you want more of Ditch the Suits?
Well, let's take a break totell you about our Patreon channel.
If you're wanting moreannouncements, notifications, even
access to prior seasons, youcan head to patreon.com search ditch
the suits and subscribe to our channel.
You'll get notifications ofall episodes right in your inbox.
So visit patreon.com searchditch the suits or head to our show
(08:43):
Notes where we got links toour channel.
Yeah, so I went to school for business.
Always took a lot of theclasses that were available.
You know, we had some actualfinancial planning classes.
Right.
So it would be.
There was one class that Itook pertaining specifically to financial
planning, or what they thoughtfinancial planning was.
There were investment classes,economics classes.
(09:04):
I always had an interest in that.
Right.
So that's kind of where Iwould take my electives because technically
I went for management atNiagara University.
But one day, Prudentialactually came to the school and they
had kind of a meet and greetthing, and they were trying to figure
out, you know, who.
Who they were going to chooseas an intern.
(09:25):
And I kind of just, you know,I think they were there from like
8 to noon or something, andyou could just walk in and meet them.
And I knew they were comingfrom Syracuse that's always where
I wanted to end up back in Syracuse.
And I remember it was like11:30, and it was like a half hour
before it was ending.
And I'm like, you know what?
I just have this weird feelingthat I should go down there.
(09:47):
So I.
I ran down there real quick,went and met with them.
They ended up, you know,liking me, offering me the job.
It was $18 an hour as anintern, thought I was rich.
It was the best.
When I got that job, I waslike, oh, my God, $18 an hour.
It's unbelievable.
You know, I'm in college.
Like, if I had 20 bucks in mypocket, that was.
(10:07):
I felt like I was doing pretty good.
But I did a Yourself, too, bysaying the $18.
Exactly.
Exactly $18 an hour.
Are you k.
Well, they could probably.
You know, the viewers canprobably tell that from the lack
of hair on the video here onmy end.
But, yeah, that was.
(10:27):
It was a good experience.
I would say the internship,just kind of getting into the business,
but I did a summer internship,and then when I went back to school
for my senior year, continued on.
I would travel to Buffalo anddo my internship there during school.
And then when I got out, right?
And this.
This kind of permeatesthroughout, right?
It's not just my first job.
(10:49):
It's all the places along theway that I ended up.
What you were saying, Travis,you're 100% right.
And that was literally ourfirst conversation.
I was just verystraightforward and honest with you.
I was like, this is not what Ithought this business was.
This is kind of my last, youknow, hurrah, right?
Before I give it up and dosomething else, right?
(11:10):
And here's the thing, too.
Like, I always.
I always did well, right?
I was doing well.
I just didn't like the salesaspect of it.
And I always felt likesomething was missing.
I would come home, you know,this was on, like a weekly basis,
right?
I'd come home, I'd tell mywife, I'm like, I'm done.
I'm quitting.
I'm done with this.
I'm going and doing something else.
(11:30):
I'm going to go work inwhatever real estate, right?
But I kept showing up, right?
And I don't know.
I don't know why I keptshowing up, right?
I think a lot of it obviouslyhad to do with.
I did have a real passion for this.
Like, this is what I wanted to do.
I think part of it also wasfear of failure, right?
Like, I was already deep into it.
I had.
Right?
(11:50):
We were having Kids, we had ahouse, all that type of stuff.
And I almost left the industry.
But I remember talking toformer colleague of mine, actually
around that same time where Iwas deciding, you know, I kind of
don't really want to do this anymore.
And she was like, listen,she's like, this industry, I'll never
forget this.
She goes, this industry needspeople like you, right?
(12:12):
And this is what SEED does.
Let me get you in contact with Travis.
Please, just give it one more shot.
So I remember when we met, Iwas like, this is amazing.
I remember going home.
I was talking to my wife about it.
I'm like, this is exactly whatI want to do.
But you know, the way my mindthinks, right?
And all the experiences I had,I was like, what's the catch, right?
(12:36):
And now that I've been herefor a while, right?
And I understand what we'reall about, and that happened pretty
early on.
But this is the real deal, right?
It bleeds through from us asleaders to the rest of the organization
to our clients, into ourbroader communities as a whole, and
now hopefully into theindustry itself, right?
What we're building here.
(12:57):
So I'm just.
I'm very grateful and gladthat I kept showing up day after
day, even though I hated it,because now I realize that it was
because I was supposed to behere at sea.
This is home for me.
Yeah, I think it was.
I think I remember our first meetings.
I remember the internaldialogue about, okay, we met this
(13:20):
Jeff guy because we had metsome other people right, at the same
time that we were looking atbringing on.
And they had a lot ofcredentials and a lot more experience.
And I remember talkinginternally to the leadership team
at the time.
We were a very small companyat the time.
Time you came like, we're asmall company now, but we were like
a third of our size, I thinkmaybe even a quarter.
And I remember saying, like,but this is somebody we can build
(13:42):
around.
Because the.
The push was, well, let's getsomebody, you know, with 20 plus
years of experience who canstep right in right away and maybe
has some, you know, CFP orclus or other credentials and stuff
like that.
And my point was, look, I'veworked with a lot of people with
credentials.
It's not the credential thatmakes them good.
It's the passion for whatthey're doing that makes them good.
(14:02):
Like, you can have all thestandardized testing that you want,
but if you don't live andbreathe financial planning and the
industry, you are not going tobe that effective, right?
You'll be able to scoop by on it.
And people will say, oh,because their credential, they must
be good.
But in reality, it's that timeand that effort and that energy and
(14:26):
that desire that makes you good.
I remember talking to them andsaying, you know, yeah, I like this
other guy too.
You know, you've got somecredentials here and some experience,
but Jeff is somebody that youcan literally build a company around.
Not to pat you on the back toomuch here.
And, you know, I think we needto move that way because in five
(14:46):
or six years, you know, andthat's a lot of times what people
don't understand is whenyou're, when you're working with
anybody, if you're working onsomething like financial advising,
and you're saying, look, theseare my planners and they're going
to put together plans for me,and this, these plans are going to
shape the, you know, possiblythe rest of my life.
You need to be thinking, five,six, seven years down the road, you
(15:07):
need to be thinking, thisperson in front of me, can I trust
them?
And, you know, like, in yourcase, where you're evolving and you
still work with clients, but,you know, I've walked a path that
ahead of you, and there's.
I do less client work nowbecause I do more mentoring and coaching
and working on the business.
And my job now has turned intomaking sure that we have the highest
(15:29):
quality people in front ofpeople that take care of them as
we can.
And you're making a deal withthe firm.
The firm is here to take careof you as a client.
So I think that it's reallyimportant with the leadership that
we find people that have thatkind of passion that are saying,
I can't even explain it, butthis is all I want to do.
(15:50):
And it's for the right reasons.
For you, it was never about money.
You know, none of ourdiscussions were about money and
what you could get out of itand things like that.
It was just simply about I, Iwas getting into financial planning
and this is what I wanted to do.
And if that's not what it is,then I think I'm going to go do something
else.
And I was like, no, it couldbe that.
Let's, let's get you in asituation where, where you can have
(16:13):
that experience.
So now let's go forward andsay, okay, so I talked you into this,
right?
Somehow or somebody talked youinto this.
It's like, okay, here's Jeff.
And I remember when you firststarted, and when you first started,
we didn't Even have a training program.
Basically we brought you inand like, we did a little bit of
training, but nothing likewhat we have now.
It was a lot more likelearning from the other people around
(16:35):
you and kind of self paced andthat stuff.
Now it's much more structured.
But talk about that experience.
You came in as really what wewould call a financial planner.
Yeah.
You know, cutting your teeth,you know, at the ground floor and
kind of worked your way upthrough now to the VP of Financial
planning, kind of.
How's that experience been?
Yeah, it's pretty cool to lookback on it now, but the experience
(16:56):
was great.
You know, when I came in, Ikind of just did whatever I needed
to do.
Right.
I wasn't trying to pigeonholemyself into, hey, I'm only going
to do this, or I only likedoing this.
It was just, what do you got?
Let me do it.
Right.
I'm ready to learn.
I'm ready to, ready to dowhatever you need me to do.
But you're right, we didn'thave a training program.
Right.
So a lot of it was workingdirectly with you, Travis.
(17:18):
Right.
We do pool work.
You would give me, you know,certain things to work on with clients
and I would kind of just pickup things along the way.
Right.
I described it as, or Idescribe it now as kind of just adding
tools to my tool belt.
Right.
That's all I would do.
I was just trying to be a sponge.
I knew that most of the otherpeople here that I was around knew
(17:40):
a lot more than I did.
Right.
So anything that I could pickup and learn from them, whether it
was from you, Steve, you,Travis, the other planners that we
have, that was my whole mindset.
And you're right, it wasn'tabout money, it was about opportunity.
Right.
Because at that point, youknow, I wanted to just, if I had
(18:00):
the opportunity to actually dofinancial planning, something I was
really, really passionateabout, that's all I cared about.
The money will come.
Right.
That's not the most important thing.
But looking back on it now,probably the best decision, you know,
I've made in my life besidesmarrying my wife.
You see what I did there?
But being, being hereseriously on a serious notice made
(18:25):
me a much better financial planner.
And I think it's theenvironment that accelerates your
professional growth in that way.
Right.
We joke about earlier, right?
The 12 years or 31 years or whatever.
One year at seed is like sevenyears somewhere else.
I think about the new plannersthat we have coming in now and the
things I didn't know when Icame in.
(18:46):
And now, you know, the, theprogram that we have around them,
the way we can put our armsaround them and really teach them
from day one.
Right.
The right way to do things.
So it's really cool.
It's an environment ofconstant learning, constant collaboration
among team members.
You know, one of my favoritesayings is iron sharpens iron, right?
(19:06):
And that's, that's what we dohere, right.
We have strong leadership,strong culture, and if you marry
that with something that youreally love, it's all you can ask
for.
Yeah, I think it's really neatwhen I watch the work.
And for those that don't know,we have, we call it the pit.
All of our offices are set upso that everybody just works in a
common area and then they gooff to the conference rooms for phone
(19:29):
calls or meetings or whatever.
And so our most experiencedpeople and our least experienced
people are sitting right nextto each other and get to hear each
other talk and what they'reworking on.
And so the amazing thing to meis having started in this profession
in my twenties and working myway through.
Same thing with you, Steve.
Same thing with you.
(19:50):
The stuff that our planners intheir early 20s now are doing is
more advanced than the stuff20 and 30 year planners were doing
when I started in the profession.
You know, and there's thisstigma with young people in the generation
and blah, blah, blah, blah.
You put them in the rightenvironment, you know, because of
(20:13):
their abilities withtechnology and, and frankly, if you
get young people that, if youget the right young people, you know,
you get that energy bang.
It's, it's, it's amazing.
But now you look at them andyou see these really, really just
incredible work that's beingdone at a very young age, which for
(20:33):
our industry is not typical.
It's very not tip.
It's very atypical to find 20year old, you know, people in their
20s.
So I don't want to say 20 yearold, but people in their 20s that
are really, really effectivefinancial planners.
And not only that, but they'relike, they're pushing to get to the
next level where most of thetime in our industry you're just
(20:57):
starting to kind of figure outwhere you are in your 30s and then
maybe in your 40s to develop alittle bit of a specialty and then
you kind of just sit on yourhands for the next 10 or 15 years
and then sell your book andretire or something like that.
Right?
Like that's kind of, we've gotlike people really pushing the Boundaries.
And then I would say that's inlarge part about the work that you
(21:18):
do, which we're going to talkabout in some of our next episodes.
But certainly, you know, thatseems to be part of the, the journey
that you've been asked seed,because like I, I think you were
saying, let me check my notes here.
Just the opportunity over money.
And so really long winded tangent.
(21:41):
Let's, let's throw that out there.
We've got like one or two morequestions for this episode I want
to get to, but this kind ofsparked me a little bit.
If you were to talk to, andyou do all the time, if you do a
meet and greet withprospective employee, what are you
telling them about theindustry and about that journey through
the industry and what theydon't know and the importance of
(22:03):
opportunity over money right now.
Yeah.
So I tell them the story.
And I think, just going backto your previous point, I know we're
talking about something elsenow, but you're 100% spot on with
the pushing.
I remember you telling me,right when I first came in, you're
like, I need you to push, pushthese, these other planners who are
here too, right.
Push them to become better,push yourself so that we're all getting
(22:25):
better as a team.
And that's, that's somethingthat I've tried to allow to kind
of permeate, continue on, right.
Go through our team going forward.
That is still the focus, right.
But what I tell planners, newpeople that were we're interviewing,
I tell them my story, right,of how I started in the business
(22:46):
and, you know, some of thegood and some of the bad, right.
There's a lot of good thatcame out of it.
There's a lot of experienceswhere I feel like I have a wide range
of knowledge that I can talk about.
Right.
I can really help people witha broad range of things.
But at the same time, beingable to start at a place like this
where you're allowed to comein and grow, right.
(23:07):
In the right way, it's invaluable.
And I'm going to giveeverybody laughs because I give a
lot of golf, a lot of golf analogies.
I'm going to give you another one.
Right.
And I tell this to new hiresas well.
Anybody who's listening tothis right now, if you're a golfer,
right.
You know that it usually, ifyou don't get professionally taught
(23:31):
from day one, right.
How to swing a golf club takesa long time.
It takes like 10, 15 years tofigure it out.
And that's what I've had to do.
Right.
It's the same thing with, withbeing a financial planner.
Took me a long time to piecethe things together to really become,
you know, effective.
If you get taught early on theright way how to swing a club, you
(23:53):
are so much better off rightin the long run.
And that's, that's the analogythat I use with new planners that
come in.
So I really just tell my story.
I tell them what this place isreally going to be able to do for
them, and I give them realworld examples of what it's done
for the planners who we'vebrought onto our team, including
myself.
All right, so I think, I thinkfor our first episode, this pretty
(24:15):
good.
We'll get Steve talking alittle bit more the next one.
But this was really good tokind of set the table to dig more
into the industry and moreinto really understanding what a
real financial advisor is andwhat it takes to be one and you know,
how to identify it one whenyou find one.
(24:35):
So we'll get into that andstarting in our next episode.
And I want to leave a littlebit of a cliffhanger here.
Let's start the next episodewith what is one thing that you would
actually change about the industry?
Thanks for checking out Ditchthe Suits.
Be sure to write a review ordrop a comment about this episode.
(24:56):
And if you want more likethis, head over to ditchesuits.com
you can send us a message andget in touch.
Let us know how we can helpand be sure to share any topics you'd
be interested in having uscover on the show.
We're here to help you get themost from your money in life.
Thanks for being our guest andchecking out Ditch the Suits.
Foreign.
Welcome to Ditch the Suitspodcast where we share insights nobody
in the financial servicesindustry wants you to know about.
We're here to help you get the.
Most from your money in life.
So buckle up and welcome toDitch the Suits.
(00:21):
So we're going to talk todayabout how to know if somebody's a
so called financial advisor orif they're a real deal.
So Steve, we talk about thisall the time.
You know, the whole show waskind of started on people kind of
masquerading as financialadvisors or financial planners in
our industry.
There's tons of titles andthey don't really mean anything.
(00:42):
There's not, there's not likea law that says this is what a financial
advisor is and this is whatyou have to call yourself, you know,
like the credential, you haveto have to call yourself a financial
advisor.
And so these things get likereally, really convoluted and confusing
to people.
And then even when you talk topeople and they kind of, they, they
do a little bit of advising,it's like, what kind of advisor are
they?
Are they the kind of advisorthat I should be working with?
(01:04):
Are there things I need to beconcerned about?
So we wanted to dig into thatand not only like, how do you identify
the difference between a socalled financial advisor and the
real deal, but also let's saysomebody's getting into the profession.
So this is also for thosepeople who are thinking, maybe I'd
like to be a financial advisor someday.
How do you actually become thereal deal?
(01:26):
How do you, you know, how doyou not be the so called financial
advisor?
The person kind of like we, weput in the crosshairs of this podcast
where we talk about, look,these are the things that they do
that really aren't for clientsand they may not even know it sometimes
because that's how theindustry is kind of framed.
You know, you go and you startworking for a company and the company
kind of, this is how it is.
(01:46):
And so you kind of start to,you start your career thinking this
is what financial planning isall about, only to find out years
later.
At least this was my experience.
Find out years later, oh,that's what financial planning or
being a financial advisor isreally about.
So we got a four part episodeminiseries on digging into the business
(02:10):
of building and running anentire division of fee only financial
planners.
So we're going to talk aboutour story a bit.
And through our story, I thinkwe're going to be able to help create
this comparison and helppeople walk through this topic and
We've got a special guest withus today and it's one of our very
own.
We love to brag about them.
(02:31):
I'm pretty excited aboutshowing them off a little bit.
We've got our Senior VP ofFinancial planning, Jeff Chase with
us.
It's going to be exciting.
And welcome to Ditch the Suits.
My name is Steve Campbell.
I serve as a Senior MarketingDirector at Seed Planning Group.
My co host, Travis Moss is ourChief Executive officer and this
show is all about us.
Seed is a fee only financialplanning firm and so we want to bring
(02:53):
you our collective experienceand knowledge working in the industry
so that you can get the mostfrom your money in life.
Let's take a quick break to hear.
A word from your sponsor.
This episode is brought to youby Seed Planning Group.
If you're looking for a lifegiving experience working with a
financial planner, then Seedis here for you.
Seed is a fee only financialplanning firm with a fiduciary obligation
(03:17):
to put your best interests first.
If your goal is financialfreedom and independence without
sales products or reallyglorified salespeople, then check
out Seed Planning Group todayyou can visit www.seedpg.com.
that's www.seedpg.com.
and the best part, you canschedule a free consultation to find
out if their fee only plannersand their process are right for you.
(03:40):
Yeah.
So, Jeff, welcome.
Thanks guys.
I'm excited, excited to be here.
It's my first time on apodcast, so it's going to be fun.
Yeah, you'll be good.
This is my first time too.
It's always like the first time.
So I wanted to do a little bitof who was Jeff, but I didn't want
you to have to just read yourbio or something like that.
So, Jeff, you're our Senior VPof Financial Planning.
(04:03):
Senior.
In our language, senior meansthat you're actually an equity holder.
You're part of the leadershipteam at Seed, not to mention your
job as far as leading theentire group of financial planners
that we have.
But you've been in theindustry a little bit before you
(04:23):
came to Seed, and so I thoughtit'd be good to maybe share with
our listeners a little bitabout who you are, where you came
from and maybe how you endedup at Seed.
Yeah, absolutely.
So how I ended up at Seed isquite the journey.
As you said, I was in theindustry a little bit before I came
(04:44):
to Seed.
I had about nine years inbefore I got here.
I'm about 13 years in now.
So in Seed years I've been here.
What 31 years or something.
We'll talk about that a littlebit more in the future here.
Let's imagine 13 -9, that's 4times 3, that's 12.
You're 12 in seed years.
12.
Okay, all right, a little bitoff there, but yeah, I started kind
(05:06):
of like what you were sayingsaying earlier, Travis.
Started at, I started at aninsurance company actually.
So that's where I was, youknow, kind of getting my, getting
my feet wet, getting mylicenses kind of as they say, getting
your teeth knocked in a little bit.
But I, you know, that's whereI got my, my initial experience into
the business.
Right.
So they would come over to mydesk, I remember they'd come in,
(05:27):
they'd give you what theywould call a stack of Orphid fleets.
And that was clients who, whodidn't have an advisor.
Right.
So our job at that point wasto call them, try to set up a time
to go and review, let's saytheir life insurance policy.
Right.
So you're calling like, youknow, 87 year old grandma with, you
(05:49):
know, a $12,000 life insurancepolicy driving all over the state
to go and you know, set up a,set up a meeting at her house and
then you get to the doorstepand nobody answers.
Right.
So that was, that was aninteresting foray into my career
as a financial planner.
But I bounced around a little bit.
I've got a lot of experiencein the business at this point, which
(06:10):
I actually consider myselfvery lucky to have that experience.
Now.
I worked for an insurancecompany, like I said, I worked for
a bank, worked for anothersmall independent firm.
And that really gave me a widerange of topics and things that I
was able to be exposed to.
(06:31):
Right.
So I now I'm very grateful forthose opportunities, but there was
always, always somethingmissing there.
Right.
And that's kind of how I foundmyself here at Seed.
So.
Well, definitely gives you agood understanding of the industry.
I think when a lot of timespeople take things for granted that
they haven't walked through.
When you come into theprofession and you start at one part
(06:51):
of the.
Because the industry is prettybroad, you've got, you've got everything
from the commit the captivecommission people all the way to
the fee only people.
And in between is the feebased and you've got independent
and quasi independent and allthis other stuff.
You get registeredrepresentatives, investment advisor
representatives.
You've got a lot of ways thatthe business can manifest.
(07:13):
You know, you can go and youcan work at an insurance company
and call yourself a financial advisor.
And sell insurance.
You can go and work at abroker dealer and sell stocks and
bonds and call yourself an advisor.
And all you're doing is makingcommissions, too.
Like, there's a lot ofdifferent ways you can be advisor.
So you, similar to me andSteve, kind of walked that gamut
trying to figure out where doI belong in this profession.
(07:35):
And I remember when I firstmet you, you were actually considering,
like, if this is what theprofession is about.
I'm not certain that I want tobe in the profession anymore.
I.
I think that there was a pointthere where you had got enough teeth
knocked out that you're justlike, yeah, you know, I'm gonna be.
I'm gonna have dentures soonhere if I don't make a change in
my life.
So you.
I don't know if you want totalk about that, because that.
(07:57):
I remember that specificallyabout you.
You're like, look, you know, Ithought this is what the industry
was going to be because youhave your.
Your background, I think, isbusiness, right?
That's right.
Yep.
Yes.
So you got.
How did you get into financial plan?
Let's start there.
Let's go.
How did you get into financial planning?
Then tell the story about whatyou were thinking when we first met.
(08:21):
Do you want more of Ditch the Suits?
Well, let's take a break totell you about our Patreon channel.
If you're wanting moreannouncements, notifications, even
access to prior seasons, youcan head to patreon.com search ditch
the suits and subscribe to our channel.
You'll get notifications ofall episodes right in your inbox.
So visit patreon.com searchditch the suits or head to our show
(08:43):
Notes where we got links toour channel.
Yeah, so I went to school for business.
Always took a lot of theclasses that were available.
You know, we had some actualfinancial planning classes.
Right.
So it would be.
There was one class that Itook pertaining specifically to financial
planning, or what they thoughtfinancial planning was.
There were investment classes,economics classes.
(09:04):
I always had an interest in that.
Right.
So that's kind of where Iwould take my electives because technically
I went for management atNiagara University.
But one day, Prudentialactually came to the school and they
had kind of a meet and greetthing, and they were trying to figure
out, you know, who.
Who they were going to chooseas an intern.
(09:25):
And I kind of just, you know,I think they were there from like
8 to noon or something, andyou could just walk in and meet them.
And I knew they were comingfrom Syracuse that's always where
I wanted to end up back in Syracuse.
And I remember it was like11:30, and it was like a half hour
before it was ending.
And I'm like, you know what?
I just have this weird feelingthat I should go down there.
(09:47):
So I.
I ran down there real quick,went and met with them.
They ended up, you know,liking me, offering me the job.
It was $18 an hour as anintern, thought I was rich.
It was the best.
When I got that job, I waslike, oh, my God, $18 an hour.
It's unbelievable.
You know, I'm in college.
Like, if I had 20 bucks in mypocket, that was.
(10:07):
I felt like I was doing pretty good.
But I did a Yourself, too, bysaying the $18.
Exactly.
Exactly $18 an hour.
Are you k.
Well, they could probably.
You know, the viewers canprobably tell that from the lack
of hair on the video here onmy end.
But, yeah, that was.
(10:27):
It was a good experience.
I would say the internship,just kind of getting into the business,
but I did a summer internship,and then when I went back to school
for my senior year, continued on.
I would travel to Buffalo anddo my internship there during school.
And then when I got out, right?
And this.
This kind of permeatesthroughout, right?
It's not just my first job.
(10:49):
It's all the places along theway that I ended up.
What you were saying, Travis,you're 100% right.
And that was literally ourfirst conversation.
I was just verystraightforward and honest with you.
I was like, this is not what Ithought this business was.
This is kind of my last, youknow, hurrah, right?
Before I give it up and dosomething else, right?
(11:10):
And here's the thing, too.
Like, I always.
I always did well, right?
I was doing well.
I just didn't like the salesaspect of it.
And I always felt likesomething was missing.
I would come home, you know,this was on, like a weekly basis,
right?
I'd come home, I'd tell mywife, I'm like, I'm done.
I'm quitting.
I'm done with this.
I'm going and doing something else.
(11:30):
I'm going to go work inwhatever real estate, right?
But I kept showing up, right?
And I don't know.
I don't know why I keptshowing up, right?
I think a lot of it obviouslyhad to do with.
I did have a real passion for this.
Like, this is what I wanted to do.
I think part of it also wasfear of failure, right?
Like, I was already deep into it.
I had.
Right?
(11:50):
We were having Kids, we had ahouse, all that type of stuff.
And I almost left the industry.
But I remember talking toformer colleague of mine, actually
around that same time where Iwas deciding, you know, I kind of
don't really want to do this anymore.
And she was like, listen,she's like, this industry, I'll never
forget this.
She goes, this industry needspeople like you, right?
(12:12):
And this is what SEED does.
Let me get you in contact with Travis.
Please, just give it one more shot.
So I remember when we met, Iwas like, this is amazing.
I remember going home.
I was talking to my wife about it.
I'm like, this is exactly whatI want to do.
But you know, the way my mindthinks, right?
And all the experiences I had,I was like, what's the catch, right?
(12:36):
And now that I've been herefor a while, right?
And I understand what we'reall about, and that happened pretty
early on.
But this is the real deal, right?
It bleeds through from us asleaders to the rest of the organization
to our clients, into ourbroader communities as a whole, and
now hopefully into theindustry itself, right?
What we're building here.
(12:57):
So I'm just.
I'm very grateful and gladthat I kept showing up day after
day, even though I hated it,because now I realize that it was
because I was supposed to behere at sea.
This is home for me.
Yeah, I think it was.
I think I remember our first meetings.
I remember the internaldialogue about, okay, we met this
(13:20):
Jeff guy because we had metsome other people right, at the same
time that we were looking atbringing on.
And they had a lot ofcredentials and a lot more experience.
And I remember talkinginternally to the leadership team
at the time.
We were a very small companyat the time.
Time you came like, we're asmall company now, but we were like
a third of our size, I thinkmaybe even a quarter.
And I remember saying, like,but this is somebody we can build
(13:42):
around.
Because the.
The push was, well, let's getsomebody, you know, with 20 plus
years of experience who canstep right in right away and maybe
has some, you know, CFP orclus or other credentials and stuff
like that.
And my point was, look, I'veworked with a lot of people with
credentials.
It's not the credential thatmakes them good.
It's the passion for whatthey're doing that makes them good.
(14:02):
Like, you can have all thestandardized testing that you want,
but if you don't live andbreathe financial planning and the
industry, you are not going tobe that effective, right?
You'll be able to scoop by on it.
And people will say, oh,because their credential, they must
be good.
But in reality, it's that timeand that effort and that energy and
(14:26):
that desire that makes you good.
I remember talking to them andsaying, you know, yeah, I like this
other guy too.
You know, you've got somecredentials here and some experience,
but Jeff is somebody that youcan literally build a company around.
Not to pat you on the back toomuch here.
And, you know, I think we needto move that way because in five
(14:46):
or six years, you know, andthat's a lot of times what people
don't understand is whenyou're, when you're working with
anybody, if you're working onsomething like financial advising,
and you're saying, look, theseare my planners and they're going
to put together plans for me,and this, these plans are going to
shape the, you know, possiblythe rest of my life.
You need to be thinking, five,six, seven years down the road, you
(15:07):
need to be thinking, thisperson in front of me, can I trust
them?
And, you know, like, in yourcase, where you're evolving and you
still work with clients, but,you know, I've walked a path that
ahead of you, and there's.
I do less client work nowbecause I do more mentoring and coaching
and working on the business.
And my job now has turned intomaking sure that we have the highest
(15:29):
quality people in front ofpeople that take care of them as
we can.
And you're making a deal withthe firm.
The firm is here to take careof you as a client.
So I think that it's reallyimportant with the leadership that
we find people that have thatkind of passion that are saying,
I can't even explain it, butthis is all I want to do.
(15:50):
And it's for the right reasons.
For you, it was never about money.
You know, none of ourdiscussions were about money and
what you could get out of itand things like that.
It was just simply about I, Iwas getting into financial planning
and this is what I wanted to do.
And if that's not what it is,then I think I'm going to go do something
else.
And I was like, no, it couldbe that.
Let's, let's get you in asituation where, where you can have
(16:13):
that experience.
So now let's go forward andsay, okay, so I talked you into this,
right?
Somehow or somebody talked youinto this.
It's like, okay, here's Jeff.
And I remember when you firststarted, and when you first started,
we didn't Even have a training program.
Basically we brought you inand like, we did a little bit of
training, but nothing likewhat we have now.
It was a lot more likelearning from the other people around
(16:35):
you and kind of self paced andthat stuff.
Now it's much more structured.
But talk about that experience.
You came in as really what wewould call a financial planner.
Yeah.
You know, cutting your teeth,you know, at the ground floor and
kind of worked your way upthrough now to the VP of Financial
planning, kind of.
How's that experience been?
Yeah, it's pretty cool to lookback on it now, but the experience
(16:56):
was great.
You know, when I came in, Ikind of just did whatever I needed
to do.
Right.
I wasn't trying to pigeonholemyself into, hey, I'm only going
to do this, or I only likedoing this.
It was just, what do you got?
Let me do it.
Right.
I'm ready to learn.
I'm ready to, ready to dowhatever you need me to do.
But you're right, we didn'thave a training program.
Right.
So a lot of it was workingdirectly with you, Travis.
(17:18):
Right.
We do pool work.
You would give me, you know,certain things to work on with clients
and I would kind of just pickup things along the way.
Right.
I described it as, or Idescribe it now as kind of just adding
tools to my tool belt.
Right.
That's all I would do.
I was just trying to be a sponge.
I knew that most of the otherpeople here that I was around knew
(17:40):
a lot more than I did.
Right.
So anything that I could pickup and learn from them, whether it
was from you, Steve, you,Travis, the other planners that we
have, that was my whole mindset.
And you're right, it wasn'tabout money, it was about opportunity.
Right.
Because at that point, youknow, I wanted to just, if I had
(18:00):
the opportunity to actually dofinancial planning, something I was
really, really passionateabout, that's all I cared about.
The money will come.
Right.
That's not the most important thing.
But looking back on it now,probably the best decision, you know,
I've made in my life besidesmarrying my wife.
You see what I did there?
But being, being hereseriously on a serious notice made
(18:25):
me a much better financial planner.
And I think it's theenvironment that accelerates your
professional growth in that way.
Right.
We joke about earlier, right?
The 12 years or 31 years or whatever.
One year at seed is like sevenyears somewhere else.
I think about the new plannersthat we have coming in now and the
things I didn't know when Icame in.
(18:46):
And now, you know, the, theprogram that we have around them,
the way we can put our armsaround them and really teach them
from day one.
Right.
The right way to do things.
So it's really cool.
It's an environment ofconstant learning, constant collaboration
among team members.
You know, one of my favoritesayings is iron sharpens iron, right?
(19:06):
And that's, that's what we dohere, right.
We have strong leadership,strong culture, and if you marry
that with something that youreally love, it's all you can ask
for.
Yeah, I think it's really neatwhen I watch the work.
And for those that don't know,we have, we call it the pit.
All of our offices are set upso that everybody just works in a
common area and then they gooff to the conference rooms for phone
(19:29):
calls or meetings or whatever.
And so our most experiencedpeople and our least experienced
people are sitting right nextto each other and get to hear each
other talk and what they'reworking on.
And so the amazing thing to meis having started in this profession
in my twenties and working myway through.
Same thing with you, Steve.
Same thing with you.
(19:50):
The stuff that our planners intheir early 20s now are doing is
more advanced than the stuff20 and 30 year planners were doing
when I started in the profession.
You know, and there's thisstigma with young people in the generation
and blah, blah, blah, blah.
You put them in the rightenvironment, you know, because of
(20:13):
their abilities withtechnology and, and frankly, if you
get young people that, if youget the right young people, you know,
you get that energy bang.
It's, it's, it's amazing.
But now you look at them andyou see these really, really just
incredible work that's beingdone at a very young age, which for
(20:33):
our industry is not typical.
It's very not tip.
It's very atypical to find 20year old, you know, people in their
20s.
So I don't want to say 20 yearold, but people in their 20s that
are really, really effectivefinancial planners.
And not only that, but they'relike, they're pushing to get to the
next level where most of thetime in our industry you're just
(20:57):
starting to kind of figure outwhere you are in your 30s and then
maybe in your 40s to develop alittle bit of a specialty and then
you kind of just sit on yourhands for the next 10 or 15 years
and then sell your book andretire or something like that.
Right?
Like that's kind of, we've gotlike people really pushing the Boundaries.
And then I would say that's inlarge part about the work that you
(21:18):
do, which we're going to talkabout in some of our next episodes.
But certainly, you know, thatseems to be part of the, the journey
that you've been asked seed,because like I, I think you were
saying, let me check my notes here.
Just the opportunity over money.
And so really long winded tangent.
(21:41):
Let's, let's throw that out there.
We've got like one or two morequestions for this episode I want
to get to, but this kind ofsparked me a little bit.
If you were to talk to, andyou do all the time, if you do a
meet and greet withprospective employee, what are you
telling them about theindustry and about that journey through
the industry and what theydon't know and the importance of
(22:03):
opportunity over money right now.
Yeah.
So I tell them the story.
And I think, just going backto your previous point, I know we're
talking about something elsenow, but you're 100% spot on with
the pushing.
I remember you telling me,right when I first came in, you're
like, I need you to push, pushthese, these other planners who are
here too, right.
Push them to become better,push yourself so that we're all getting
(22:25):
better as a team.
And that's, that's somethingthat I've tried to allow to kind
of permeate, continue on, right.
Go through our team going forward.
That is still the focus, right.
But what I tell planners, newpeople that were we're interviewing,
I tell them my story, right,of how I started in the business
(22:46):
and, you know, some of thegood and some of the bad, right.
There's a lot of good thatcame out of it.
There's a lot of experienceswhere I feel like I have a wide range
of knowledge that I can talk about.
Right.
I can really help people witha broad range of things.
But at the same time, beingable to start at a place like this
where you're allowed to comein and grow, right.
(23:07):
In the right way, it's invaluable.
And I'm going to giveeverybody laughs because I give a
lot of golf, a lot of golf analogies.
I'm going to give you another one.
Right.
And I tell this to new hiresas well.
Anybody who's listening tothis right now, if you're a golfer,
right.
You know that it usually, ifyou don't get professionally taught
(23:31):
from day one, right.
How to swing a golf club takesa long time.
It takes like 10, 15 years tofigure it out.
And that's what I've had to do.
Right.
It's the same thing with, withbeing a financial planner.
Took me a long time to piecethe things together to really become,
you know, effective.
If you get taught early on theright way how to swing a club, you
(23:53):
are so much better off rightin the long run.
And that's, that's the analogythat I use with new planners that
come in.
So I really just tell my story.
I tell them what this place isreally going to be able to do for
them, and I give them realworld examples of what it's done
for the planners who we'vebrought onto our team, including
myself.
All right, so I think, I thinkfor our first episode, this pretty
(24:15):
good.
We'll get Steve talking alittle bit more the next one.
But this was really good tokind of set the table to dig more
into the industry and moreinto really understanding what a
real financial advisor is andwhat it takes to be one and you know,
how to identify it one whenyou find one.
(24:35):
So we'll get into that andstarting in our next episode.
And I want to leave a littlebit of a cliffhanger here.
Let's start the next episodewith what is one thing that you would
actually change about the industry?
Thanks for checking out Ditchthe Suits.
Be sure to write a review ordrop a comment about this episode.
(24:56):
And if you want more likethis, head over to ditchesuits.com
you can send us a message andget in touch.
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