26. BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND WITH BOB FARNES

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

lance, bob, clients, financial advisor, business, advisors, people, processes, questions, rob, roi, incredible, felt, cfo, gravitate, helping, adrian, fly, conversations, embraced

SPEAKERS

Adrian

Adrian  00:02

Hello, and welcome back to the get rich slow podcast future millionaires. This is Adrian SHERMER, your host and I am here with Robert delavan Lance Johnson and our guest, Bob Farnes. How’s everyone doing today? Good morning. Good morning, everybody. Today, we’re going to begin with the end in mind, we want to take a little trip down memory lane, talk to Lance, and more importantly, talk to Bob here who’s known Lance for what was it? We were talking about three decades. put a date on you guys. Since they were 12. They’ve been working together on all things financial. Bob is a financially independent former financial advisor. He is now a consultant in the finance industry. And it sounds like you do a lot of really interesting and amazing stuff. But

00:54

yeah, I really do I have the opportunity to work with people that, like Lance that really have a vision for where they want to go in the future and can help them and it’s makes for a very satisfying lifestyle. Awesome,

Adrian  01:09

awesome. Love it. Love it. Well, I’m gonna jump in. We have a number of questions for you guys. The goal of this podcast is to dig into Lance j, a little bit here, where he’s been. And there’s no better person to do that than with Bob, who, you know, again, better part of three decades. You guys, I believe that one of the comments you said was something to the effect of you knew Lance back when he had hair. Yeah, which was a long time ago. So put a note on that.

01:41

We’re just going to interview you, Bob. As usual, Lance, myself and Adrian, we’re going to just dig in ask questions, pretend that we’re the idiots in the room. And let’s let’s just jump in. So give me a brief history. So how you guys know each other? Were you friends First, the transition to colleagues, so on.

02:06

Yeah, Rob. So I was working as an advisor in an office where all of a sudden, Lance showed up, and I could just see him running around the office a lot being productive, but I wasn’t quite sure what he was doing. And what he was, it’s pacity that he was in at that time was he was helping out financial planning, you know, being produced. And I just saw that he was somebody that had a lot of energy, was always in the office, and would pop his head in and kind of ask questions. And from that we developed the friendship.

Adrian  02:42

Gotcha. So colleagues first, and then the friendship. And you guys, your friendship obviously has gone through you. You’ve had the personal peace forever. What made you click in that capacity? You know, on the friend level?

03:01

Yeah, I think it’s really pretty closely tied, Rob between the friend and the business in the sense that I think we get energized by asking questions to one another and kind of doing what if scenarios and and where do you see things going from here? And how do you make things more efficient? All of that was really interesting to both of us. And as a result, we kind of started finding it. Let’s spend some time away from work doing things together.

Adrian  03:27

Gotcha. So would you say that your style together? What? And obviously you both had your own style, but you guys have both been incredibly successful? So both of you speak Lance to I want to hear that. But you know, how, what’s that style? Where are those lanes? Where you guys seem to be in sync? What do you think, Lance?

03:55

Well, we definitely different had different styles and how we ran our practice. But the commonality was, we were I felt like we were out of the box thinkers. So the the current mass trap was a good mousetrap. But there was always just a different way to look at that mousetrap. And we were just crazy enough to look at it. It’s standing on our desks in standing on our chairs. Look at him from across the room. I look at him from his office versus my office. And then we would talk about ideas and the why and then to me the why was more important than the actual thing we were working on. And we were just brainstorm over beers. We’d be at a conference on a beach and we just naturally gravitate towards each other and have conversations and and I always kind of felt like since Bob started in the industry, what five to seven years before me. I always kind of felt like He was similar to me, but just has already gone through some of those things. And I would ask questions that he already had insight on. And then I would take his insight. And then I maybe had just a slightly out of out of the box more look at things. And I would think of it differently and then run ideas by him. And then we would flesh out the pros and cons. And it was just for me, it was just a great mental exercise, am I thinking things, you know, the right way. And he would challenge me and have insights on those. So it was it was a fun friendship that we had that was business slash friendship. So if we went on a bike ride, you know, we would talk about those things on our stops and stuff like that. And it was a lot of fun for me,

05:47

when you what you said really sparked something to Lance’s if we weren’t offended by bringing up things like even though one of us was accustomed to doing something a certain way, it was okay to be challenged. And you were one of those people that I felt like I could challenge and I liked when you could challenge me, it just brought us to a higher level. And other people might start getting defensive and say, you know, here’s why I do that in for you. And I think we just paused and kind of said, maybe that would work. So I think it was a mutual respect.

Adrian  06:18

So that’s, that’s huge. The fact that you guys could actually challenge each other, and instead of being defensive, that what that really means is you can admit that each other we’re you know, oh, hey, I’m wrong on this. And maybe you have a better idea. And you can you can put that together that builds that relationship. I mean, we all have those relationships, right. So, you know, we’re lucky. I mean, I’ve I’ve fed, they’re pretty rare that that level of mutual respect is pretty rare that to know that you can come to someone with a, you’re doing this wrong. Let me tell you why. And let’s let’s actually, but like, like, has to have a dialogue. It’s not I know, I disagree with what you’re doing. And that’s the end of this conversation. It sounds like you guys were willing to kick the ball back and forth down the field and figure out where it should really lay. Right. So I don’t want to get sidelined by this. But frankly, the more we have these relationships where people are willing to call us on our Bs, that is an incredible relationship that actually builds the relationship rather than tears it down. So anyway, um, I do want

07:21

to I do want to comment on something. You know, our B and I group we have those Friday meetings, the Friday meetings, is literally what Bob and I would do over beers talking about our business. Okay. And so some of the stuff that you and I are implementing for those Friday meetings and having structure and diving in the business, honestly came from what Bob and I used to do.

Adrian  07:46

That’s cool. The context there is Yeah, our networking group, we meet, you know, once a month on Fridays, and we work on each other’s businesses and feeding each other back. And it is incredibly powerful. And so so Thanks, Bob. That’s where it comes from. I wasn’t aware. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I’m a consultant. So I’ll send you a retainer on. There you go. I appreciate it. So Bob, what

08:09

are what are some of the traits that you believe made Lance, so successful over these last better part of three decades?

08:16

Well, I kind of hit on it Rob earlier, where I just think what he’s just like an energizer bunny just works really hard. But he also works really smart. And so you know, I think it was Malcolm Gladwell that coined the 10,000 hours to become really proficient at something. And there’s some discrepancy as to whether that’s true in every industry. But, you know, a typical week, you know, we might work 40 hours a week, and if we do that 50 weeks a year, that’s 2000 hours, so maybe five years in, we really have our business, right dialed in, and I just saw that Lance was doing it so much more rapidly, you know, he was, he was really good with working at a high level of 50 to 60 hours a week. And, and putting a lot of time in, but at the same time, he was also seeking out really the best financial advisors he could find. And he spent time and money, his own money going and spending time with them for days at a time weeks at a time to make sure that his processes were really, you know, best in practices.

09:26

Yeah, we talked, we’ve talked earlier this week, and today about the people I used to go fly to so I had a colleague in California, she was pretty high up in so I would I would see the top 50 advisors and I would reach out to any one of them that I saw on a conference because they would generally speak I would make contact with them and then I would go out and fly myself and maybe a couple staff members and and then we would spend two or three days Just the staff members and myself, meeting with staff, the visor shadowing, and just picking up anything we could pick up that they’re doing as a process better than we were. And what we realized was, we were actually not bad in our processes. We were just like, Bob situation, no, Bob did it five to seven years longer than me. And we would find ourselves giving just as much information to them as we would get. But you know, I would fly to Boston, I would fly to Minnesota, I fly to LA, I’d fly to San Francisco, Seattle, whatever. And I would just, every year, I would try to model somebody that I thought was doing a part of the business better than me, or had processes behind part of the business. And it was, and then I made great relationships that way. So they’ll see these guys at conferences. It was a lot of fun. And Bob was the first person at the time, when I started, if I remember correctly, didn’t you send me that sheet the other day, like two or three weeks ago, where you were number one in your district? Yeah, I tried to bring that to everybody. But so when I started, he showed me the reports where he was number one. And naturally, he was the first person I went to locally.

Adrian  11:21

So let me let me dig into that just based on your experience. And this is this is really for our audience here. These high achievers that you were trying to emulate that, you know, the two of you together. And Bob, I want your feedback on this to you. We’re emulating you’re trying I mean, technically, you’re their competition, technically, right. two concepts. Number one, there’s plenty of business to go around. And number two, how did they receive you? Were they like, honored? Or were they like, Hey, get this guy the hell away from me, because he’s gonna steal my business.

11:57

I think it’s a lot on the approach. Rob, you’re right, I think on both of those points, but, you know, if there’s an opportunity for a win win, I think that’s where Lance and I and also have a commonality is that, you know, I’m okay with you doing better in your business. In fact, I’ll help you. And I’ll be trying to do the best I can in my business for my clients. And I think there is an opportunity for both of us to get what we want from that. And that’s what I saw last two, I think he did it very effectively.

12:29

Yeah, I would approach the person and, you know, it’s always nice to start with a compliment, hey, I noticed you’re pretty high up in the list, I really, really would like to dig into, you know, why are you doing so well. And if I could spend in this shadow and talk to you watch you do, there’s a compliment there indirectly, just you know, somebody is willing to spend their time and money going to their, that advisors environment and just learn, and you got to be careful about, you know, just being quiet and reserving and writing notes and then when the right time to speak, but I would sit in appointments with those advisors, and just watch them do their thing. And that and I was willing enough to take notes and observe things that were patterns in processes that I would write down and try to implement immediately. And, and it was fun for me. And they they kind of took it as a compliment. You know, a lot of them, some people would see there would be a 20% that would be like, why are you doing this, they didn’t see themselves as successful, even though they’re high up in the list, and they were fearful the processes. But you know, the you gravitate to the other people. And it was fun. It was one of the best things I thought that separated myself from other top advisors is I was willing to admit that they were better people than me and I just wanted to absorb their knowledge.

Adrian  14:02

And I love that better. I love that observation too, that the people who pushed you away you you realized we’re not realizing how big they were. There’s no competition among whales. It’s it’s something for the little fish to squabble over the scraps when you get to a certain level. Rob, I think it’s true in our, in your business and my business, right in financial word, it seems to happen a lot that when you get up to the top, it’s there’s a mutual respect. And there’s the it’s a big ocean. So why pick each other apart when you can, when you can find a way to keep each other alive, you know that you’re at the top of the food chain. Yes, elaborate.

14:39

And some of the some of the things maybe we can elaborate on were there anything that you notice specifically, and I’ll give me an example. I’ll give you one that I thought was we both embraced a business or client acquisitions. So we can organically grow Client acquisition, through referrals and so forth doing good work. But then also buying and selling practices was because we were confident in our ability that a average advisor has so much success. And we felt that I remember there was a number that they coined velocity, and our velocity numbers were greater than the average. So for us to purchase a practice, we knew over time through our processes, that we would be more successful gathering more assets, having them do more business. I felt like that was a very, very close commonality that we would talk through. Any, any from your perspective?

15:42

Yeah, you know, I remember a conversation, I think, you know, all these are coming back plants that we had these tough talks about, I wish we could be the financial advisor for everybody in the world. You know, obviously, that’s not, you’re not capable of doing that from a bandwidth standpoint. But the idea is, we did provide a real value add, and you get to be in your business, such that you feel like, okay, I should be the advisor for a lot of people, a lot more people, I’d like to share the concepts. So how do I do that most effectively, in some of times, it was purchasing existing practices, and being able to bring these best practices that you have to those clients, and you’d immediately see them embrace and goes, Well, this is what I’ve been looking for. I’ve been looking for an advisor that could do this. For me, I just didn’t know it existed.

16:34

Now, one other thing that I think we both embraced was the concept of slowly increasing monthly contributions to Roth’s savings, you name it. And the reason why I bring it up, Adrian and Rob is that that was some of my message to the BMA group was make small changes more often than big changes less often. And I believe Bob and I both embrace really early on, what if, you know, we’re growing assets under management? Well, when I started, there was no money coming in monthly. But if I could get everybody every quarter, increase their monthly contributions, 50 to 100, every quarter, and all sudden, at the end of the year, you’re adding 400. And in my case, when I left the previous previous company, I had 2000 clients, and let’s say 1800 of them, were putting 400 bucks more, you start to do the math on that, and you realize there’s 10 50 million coming in. And then if I was to do 401, K’s and stuff, and and people naturally put most amount of money in those, we realized that our incomes would grow just because our clients assets are growing, because they’re putting. And so that was kind of a common kind of commonality that we both embraced is what’s best place practice on that.

Adrian  18:01

Well. And the incredible thing about that is, you know that this goes back to what you said, Bob is you could be the financial advisor for everyone on the planet. Literally, it’s so simple, of just saving, and then saving a little more and saving a little more and saving a little more. And I mean, every person on the planet, every financial advisor on the planet could could and should be saying that in my opinion, of course, right? Obviously, you guys did and do in your case, Lance. But it’s so simple. And that’s why you say brilliant at the basics, right? Yeah. Because your client will win. And as your client wins, of course, obviously, you guys, you know, win also. And that’s that’s just it’s, it’s amazing to me that more people don’t do that. So anyway, I’ll get off that soapbox. But personally, thank you guys for have for having that 30 years of experience because it’s it’s caused me to win. Incredibly. So that’s that’s a common dichotomy though, too, right? It’s the it’s, it is simple. It’s like, you know, planes fly themselves, but pilots have the experience for when stuff goes wrong, the one out of you know, 100,000 flights or whatever it’s going to be. So it’s it’s interesting, you know, you guys have all these higher level conversations, but at the core of it, the advice of the clients is still pay more money. Exactly. So the next question I have for you. So obviously, Bob, you’re working now in independent consultant capacity for Lance. And you’ve known him for 30 years, and you guys have worked professionally. And then of course, personally, what’s different about him now, compared to when you first met him? And, you know, obviously, this relationship, you know, you, I’m sure you’re just incredibly proud of his growth.

19:49

Yeah, definitely in Rob, there’s, there’s nuances to that question that I don’t know if we’ll be able to completely uncover all of them because at the really big basic level. Yeah, I’m just really proud of my friend. You know, he’s been able to carry out a vision that he talked about 25 years ago that he’s been executing to more and more success over the years, and is really kind of coming to the point now where it’s the true win win win, you know, he’s doing well, his clients are doing well. The people that are fortunate enough to be working for him are doing well. It’s, it’s, it’s really a perfect situation.

Adrian  20:29

He does well, I do well, literally based on Lance taking care and serving his clients. Yeah. Amazing. So sorry. Go ahead. Yeah, I

20:41

think, you know, some people could go into business and be a Chief Financial Officer for a big company, you know, and we put a lot of accolades, maybe on the Chief Financial Officer for Amazon or Google. And I just think of Lance as the Chief Financial Officer for 200 people that he serves, you know, it’s like, I, I think he has that level of knowledge, and can apply it to making sure that they do the right things that puts them in a position to win. And I just think that that position in itself is, is so important in our society. And we want people like Lance to be able to be there doing that, and he does it very well.

Adrian  21:24

Yeah, that strikes a chord with me, actually, because I, you know, in my job, I need to work with multiple people in multiple roles. So I do talk to other financial advisors. And one of the reasons that I gravitated towards Lance’s my number one was that when I talked to other financial advisors, they would ask me, kind of more what that could do for them. And Lance seems much more focused 100% of our strategic conversations are about what we can do in best interest for the clients. And it I mean, when you leave that foot forward, you will the success will make its way to you through natural order of things. Right, which is just incredible. It’s it’s all about serving the serving others, the checkbook, our personal checkbook takes care of itself. Right? You know, if if we’re doing doing it right, would you say? So? So, Bob, final question. Where do you see ROI financial?

22:24

Let me let me interject something. First of all, if that segment could go for an hour, that’s really no, but but one boy, CFO, cio, CFO, what does the CFO do for a company makes recommendations to the President. So if my clients are the president of their own small companies, the important part for me is, and you guys touched upon it, but I want to make sure we just from my perspective is my goal is to educate clients. My goal is to provide them choices. My goal is to make them good decision makers about their future. And only they, I feel like only they can make decisions, because it’s their money. And so I’m helping them through the pros and cons of the choices, and helping them flush out those pros and cons so that they make the decision, I know what I want them to do, I want them to explain why that’s the right way to do it, so that they may, and then thereby ends better. So as being that CFO, my role is really help educate and help them make better decisions so that when I do retire, they are better stewards of financial planning. And that’s pretty important to me. And I think they, they they feel the love around the education and how important it is that they do well, but that they’re in control.

Adrian  23:59

The so so what you’re digging into is basically the fact that yes, you already know the answer. But if the client comes to that, then they’re 100% bought in. And that is so much more powerful than you telling them the answer and then putting it down on the test, right? Yep.

24:20

Yeah, if I as advisor, what I watched with Bob and myself as we got better and our careers, is that it wasn’t so much as proving to you that I know what I know. It’s helping you come to the conclusion that the decision that they need to make is the one that I wanted them to do, but instead of telling them, I have them tell me why it’s the right way. Now, that’s when I know when I will look at other financial advisors and other professionals. You know, are they in a position to try to prove their worth to themselves or are they good enough that they can help clients through questions and answer come to the same conclusion without telling him what to do. And I think Bob and I, I feel like that’s where we excelled. Which is an incredible definition to me of the difference between selling someone and serving someone. And I mean, that’s,

25:18

I don’t know how to wrap it up and easier than that. Yeah. What would you have any more thoughts on that?

25:24

Well, I would say just to your earlier question that kind of, to summarize and bring this together, Rob is, you know, the other piece of Lance is he is a visionary. And so when you ask kind of where I see ROI, financial going 10 years from now, is I think legacy comes to mind is, you know, can this process that he’s, you know, really be, you know, becoming more and more of an expert on all the time, can this be brought in with other advisors so that from a client’s perspective, it seamless, you know, they’re going to continue to get this from ROI. And I think that’s his vision. And I’d love to see that carried out, because that’s back to the win win win. So,

Adrian  26:09

so so so perpetuating the process, right? Yeah. When Lance retires his clients, well, obviously, a lot of them are going to be retiring to successfully but this, this continues, yep. God, yeah,

26:25

that would, that would be a huge legacy is of if I could take what Bob and I learned and apply it to six other advisors to keep ROI and ROI tax going. And my clients benefit from that type of knowledge. That’s, that’s a great compliment. And I hope I can accomplish that in the next 10 years.

26:48

Every everything that you’ve gotten to this point, just just almost three decades, right. You just need to perpetuate we only need your lands for another three decades, right? Yes. After that you can write off into this

Adrian  27:02

way I’m losing here. I’m not sure you want me now. Just love it. Well, I wonderfully appreciate the time, Bob, you’ve really provided some insight here. In getting to know Lance, a little bit more, we’re just keep, we just the goal here is to keep peeling back the onion. There’s some incredible knowledge and and vision. You said the word visionary. And that’s the piece where Lance has pushed me. He’ll have this vision and he’s playing chess 12 moves ahead. Everybody else thinks they’re playing checkers. But they’re actually playing chess too. They’re only one move out. And it’s it’s incredible to just see, see that and then have that person on your side. That’s, that’s the biggest piece for me. And you guys are still doing it. You’re still here, picking apart each other’s process and making sure that you’re doing the right thing. Yeah, constant improvement.

27:57

It’s been great. Bob’s been awesome to me he is he’s been just that bird on my shoulder. Just always challenging me always, mentally always. You know, I don’t want to say sparring but just good, good sounding board and see what we’re doing now. He’s helping me You clearly think out things that I only see one point of view and he sees it from a different angle. And it’s a lot of fun to have that camaraderie. So Fantastic. Well, thank you guys shade.

28:32

The time today by Lance Adrian. This, there’s so many concepts here we can unpack in future episodes. But appreciate you guys all and everybody being in our lives and sharing with all of our future millionaires out there. So

Adrian  28:49

thanks, guys next time. Thanks, Bob. All right. Bye bye.