Advocating for Financial Advisors: A Talk With Larry Roth

VOICE OVER: [00:00:00] Welcome to the FAST Podcast, Financial Advisor Strategy Talks with Lara Galloway, head of advisor education programs at White Glove. Lara provides advisors with the opportunity to hear from some of the best minds in the business. Follow along to learn quick tips to help you grow your business from gaining new leads to keeping current clients engaged and everything in between.

Aric Johnson: Now onto the show. Hello, and welcome to The FAST Podcast with your host Lara Galloway from White Glove. Lara, how are you? 

Lara Galloway: Hey, Aric. Doing great. Good to see you. 

Aric Johnson: It's good to see you too. And here's the thing, for those that have not heard it, your last podcast was your very first and you're on your second podcast, but anybody who has not heard that first podcast go back, you get to hear a little bit of history of White Glove.

You get to learn more about Lara, your host, but I knew from that podcast, you were going to hit the ground running and you've already got a guest in the hot seat today. 

Lara Galloway: We sure do in the red hot seat. I'm so excited. 

Aric Johnson: Yeah, me too. And you've given me the honor of reading his bio. It's robust. It's amazing.

I know why you brought him on [00:01:00] the show because of this. So let's get started. You have Larry Roth with you. Larry Roth is managing partner of RLR Strategic Partners, the consultancy and M&A advisory firm affiliated with Berkshire Global Advisors.

Larry serves R L R's clients by leveraging the expertise and relationships built over time as a CEO of some of the largest independent firms in the industry, including AIG Advisor Group and Satara Financial Group. He's a current and past board member of widely respected public and private entities, an investment banker who has structured dozens of value-creating transactions and an entrepreneur who has personally acquired early stage retail, financial-advice, businesses, and grown them to achieve highly successful liquidity events.

And if that wasn't enough, Larry is a board member of White Glove and interim CEO, Lara. That was an amazing bio. 

Lara Galloway: Yeah. I'm [00:02:00] so excited to have you here, Larry. This is awesome. So thank you so much for taking your time today to be with us. We're excited to have you on the fast podcast.

Larry Roth: Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Lara Galloway: Well, I just wanted to start off today because you have in the time that I've gotten to know you been such an advocate for advisors, been such an advocate for our company, teaching all sorts of people, the things that we need to know about how to grow our business and how to be better based on some of the relationships that you have in the industry.

So I'd love to just start off. I mean, that wonderful intro that Aric just did for us gave us a background, but I'd love for you to just share a little bit about your expertise in the industry. And just tell you to tell us a little bit about why we're here. 

Larry Roth: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

As was mentioned, I've been in the financial services industry my entire career, I grew up in Michigan, which is where our company is headquartered White Glove. And through my entire career, I've been acquiring and growing and running retail, [00:03:00] financial service companies and other firms that are kind of in our space, including financial technology and investment companies.

I love the industry that we're in. I'm very excited, frankly, to be here today, for a bunch of reasons which we'll get into, but I've known the founders of White Glove from before they founded White Glove. And I'm just really happy to be here and I'll share what I've learned and hopefully it'll be useful to some of the listeners today.

Lara Galloway: It's been amazing, you know, Dean, Mike and Jeff, when they founded the company, they ran their own advisory firm and they've had to suffer the slings and arrows, just like everybody kind of growing that business and going through some significant changes least of which was COVID that we've all had to get through.

But I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about some of the most significant changes you've seen.

Larry Roth: Well, let me start a little outside the question with how I met the founders, because it's really relevant, I think to our whole conversation today. Sure as I'd mentioned, I've been [00:04:00] in the financial services industry for a long time, early in my career.

After I was with Deloitte for a number of years, I acquired a broker dealer and hybrid company, and I was fortunate enough to recruit and work with the founders of White Glove at that time. Going back now, I'll say 25 years. They were one of the fastest growing firms in our entire family at the firm.

Most importantly for today's conversation, they were doing seminars and involved in all kinds of other marketing activity long before most advisors. And at that time they were working with the large automobile companies and other national international firms, helping people who are nearing retirement, understand what they needed to understand about their retirement plan and their options later in life.

And so I hope you don't mind me mentioning that at this point,  that's kind of how I'm here and now I've forgotten the rest of your question. 

Lara Galloway: Perfect. Well, I was going to say what compelled you to be here as a part of White Glove, but I mean, I think you [00:05:00] kind of just mentioned a huge part of it that you guys go way back.

And what I was looking at what I think is so important right now to talk about with advisors is we are going through a lot of changes. Our industry is going through a lot of changes. White Glove is going through a lot of changes. You're going through a lot of changes. So I wanted to hear a little bit about from that history.

You guys have a long one together. What are some of the big changes that you have seen.

Larry Roth: Well, thank you. So there have been as you've already implied, the industry continues to change over time, but one of the biggest changes that I've seen, and I know we're going to talk more than a little bit about today is that as advisors who have grown their practices, and as many of us know, if you've been in the industry a long time, you may have been trained at a regional firm or an insurance company, or one of the large firms. 

And you decided to set up your own practice and become an independent financial advisor, probably the best decision you ever made from a business perspective, it allows you to help your clients. Just in any way that [00:06:00] you need to help them with any kind of solutions that you need to provide them.

So, as it relates today to your point with the changes that are occurring is financial advisors, of course are aging. And the average financial advisor now is an, if not in their early sixties, near 60, their clients tend to be similar age. Although some of course would be a little younger or a little older, but one of the biggest changes that I'm seeing is financial advisors are working really hard to find ways to continue to attract new clients, continue to engage, and perhaps reengage with clients that they haven't been perfectly in touch with.

And I would say the biggest change is how they're doing that. I mean, some of it is still in person, which in a lot of the client acquisition work through seminars or through other relationships and referrals requires a few meetings, but a lot of it is really technology driven now. So it could be through social media.

It could be through zoom meetings. It could be through all kinds of means, but clients are interested in spending [00:07:00] more and more time with their financial advisor, but not across the desk. So, although we'll talk about a lot of different changes. I think today, Lara one of them is the way we interact with our clients.

And I think we need to interact with them more frequently. I think we need to do it in a way that's convenient for them at the time they'd like to interact and most of that's going to be from a distance. But that to me is the biggest difference.

Lara Galloway: Well, you're already leading into where I kind of wanted to go with that too.

So we've got all these changes that have forced us to adapt, right? Some of us have been more willing than others, and you certainly mentioned technology and that's had to be a big part of who we are and what we do as you know, with White Glove, we went from all in person seminars and that was just gone. That wasn't even a available. 

Our entire revenue model was off the table. So we had to pivot using technology. And, you know, you talk about the clients are wanting to meet more often, but not necessarily the way we used to. So what do you see as some of the biggest growth [00:08:00] opportunities for FAS right now?

Larry Roth: Well, one point that I would make about growth, because it's really important topic. A lot of financial advisors have really great practices. They make a very nice living. Their clients are happy and it's really easy, almost tempting for a financial advisor to say, everything's going well for me professionally.

Everything's going well for me personally, I'm not going to change a thing. And my experience, and as was mentioned in the introduction, I do a lot of work in mergers and acquisitions and sales of practices. It's really important if you really want to continue to grow your business, to continue to acquire new clients through various means.

That's the center of our bullseye. To continue to engage with clients, not just clients that are your largest clients, but also clients who might have a need that might be something to do with the passing of a parent or just a retirement or whatever the typical needs that you deal with, but stay in touch with people, even if they don't need to talk to you at every [00:09:00] given moment.

And I would encourage you to look at your practice in a way that if that you're adding a client or two clients a month as you continue to grow your business, even if you intend to exit in the next few years. And I personally, I think that's important for a lot of reasons. One reason it's important is it'll increase the value of your business dramatically.

If it's growing the other reason it's really important, frankly, to interact with your clients, is sometimes they have a need and they might not think of you and they might not do the right thing. And then lastly, and this is a really practical reason is you may have a junior or partner in your peer, in your business, or you may want to sell your business to someone down the street or a friend.

And in order to do that, you need to be in touch with those clients and engage with those clients. So when you do decide to transition, it's natural for you to get everybody together, either in a group setting or on an individual basis and have it not be the first time you've talked to them in two or three years.

So to me, the most exciting thing about White Glove [00:10:00] is not just client acquisition, but it's nurturing ongoing engagement education, and having a live and healthy relationship with the client, even if it's not your biggest client. And we all know in this business take really good care of everybody that we are in touch with, but sometimes you're not in touch with everybody and as we evolve the White Glove, not to make this a commercial, but as we evolve the White Glove business model, it's about client attraction, client engagement, client nurturing, and having a true relationship with your entire client base, not just those that are friends, family and the real big clients.

So that's what I'm most excited about, honestly.

Lara Galloway: Well I was going to talk a little bit about that. That's part of what I think is such a struggle right now is like, okay, we know we should do that. We should absolutely be connecting with these people. We want to be top of mind when a life event happens or when a question comes up.

But a lot of us are not necessarily staying in touch as [00:11:00] best we should. What do you think? What gets in the way of that? Like why aren't we doing what we know we should do? you know what I mean? That's obvious, right? 

Larry Roth: I think you're smiling and I'm smiling too, because the natural thing to do is especially successful financial advisors who are the financial advisors we work with.

You're busy. So between your large clients and your family commitments, and hopefully taking care of yourself, it's pretty easy to fill your day. And so one of the things that we're focused on and I think is important for everyone is to take certain aspects of your practice and to for lack of a better word, find a way to stay in touch with them.

That doesn't take a lot of your time. And in the event that they have a need or they have a question that they'll reach out to you or one of your colleagues or one of your assistants and that need will be addressed. And I think there are a lot of things we're doing at White Glove that are kind of automatic will help.

When we do all the hard work in [00:12:00] terms of getting you in front of potential new clients, we also are helping you stay in touch with, or reengage with other clients. So that they're your top of mind, if they do have a need and it essentially takes the massive time commitment that you have been putting it differently.

You really can't talk to every client, every quarter because you don't have time. But you can stay in touch with every client, maybe even each month, certainly every quarter. And when they have a need, they'll pick up that phone and call you or send you a text or however you like to communicate. So I think it it really solidifies relationship with the client.

Increasing the value of your business makes your business much more transferable in the event. I mean, at some point we're all going to retire or something else is going to happen where our clients are going to need help from someone else and you want to be there and help them make that transition. So that's really where we are right now at White Glove, client acquisition, client nurturing engagement, not to repeat myself and then giving you the ability when you choose to sell that business or [00:13:00] transition it to someone else that it will move over very easily and your clients won't miss a beat and neither will you. 

Lara Galloway: So I think part of what you're saying here, when I say, why aren't we doing what we need to know how to do or what we need to do part of it is not knowing where to get started. As you mentioned, such a large part of the demographic of advisors we serve are 60, 65, right?

They've been doing this for a long time. Technology is not always the easiest thing, right. But technology actually is one of those access points that makes it possible to do what you're saying. So if we can, for instance, to use you, we're talking about nurturing, we're talking about engaging. If we can use some of the technology tactics that are available, like sending a regular email, staying in touch on social, making sure that we have social accounts at all, and making sure that we're using some of those ways to keep in touch.

Would you say, is that majorly one of the hangups [00:14:00] is just really not knowing how to do what we need to do? 

Larry Roth: I think it is. I think the part of it is we're happy. We have great practices. We're making a nice living. And when you're in that situation, it's hard to get motivated to do anything differently.

It's the old expression of if it's not broken, don't fix it. I think something like that. What you're saying and I agree with you completely is there are things you can do to better serve your clients better stay in touch with your clients.

You probably don't have time to do them, but you can partner with someone like us who are experts in technology and content and communication, and essentially outsource that to us. And when the time comes for you to really need to engage with then that client will be thinking about you and we'll know how to reach out to you.

And it's like most things that we all, I read different things about people kind of developing good habits. They say it takes about a month. We all know during COVID [00:15:00] most of us weren't on zoom very frequently. Most of us weren't going to the telephone certainly before COVID. But once you find yourself on zoom for two or three or four weeks, suddenly it becomes natural.

And the work we're doing with advisors in the various ways we're talking about become completely natural. It just takes a little while to understand what we do, see how it fits into your practice and help serve your clients and then you're on essentially autopilot and you don't even need an assistant that work with us because we do the thing here.

But if you have an assistant and you choose to hand it off to him or her, then let them spend that 30 day period. And I think they'll love it. And you'll love it too. 

Lara Galloway: Yeah, let's talk a little bit. So the technology and being able to stay in touch we know is important, but let's just talk a little bit about the overall holistic financial advising offering those services.

How does that benefit financial advisors? 

Larry Roth: Well I think depending on how you define holistically I think [00:16:00] just speaking kind of just as people and business owners, financial advisors, generally speaking over their lifetime will attract hundreds and hundreds of clients. And many of the largest clients are really well taken care of because they're frankly, to be honest, they're highly profitable.

Their needs are more sophisticated. You need to talk to them frequently. And in my experience, most financial advisors, larger clients are really well taken care of the need is frankly, with everyone else. And the benefit of serving everyone else is frankly a benefit for them, which I think is kind of obvious because they're going to be better off financially.

They'll be making better decisions. They'll retire more comfortably in all the things because that's what you do each day. But as a financial, as a business owner, as a practitioner, serving all those clients increases the value of your practice dramatically. And I mean, financially not only from a revenue standpoint, but from the [00:17:00] ability to over time sell that business.

And I don't want to over talk that point, but I think what we're seeing is given a large number of baby boomer, financial advisors, and you read about this in the press more and more firms are selling each year. They're selling for valuations. I can tell you from personal experience, those that are selling at the highest valuations are the firms with that are doing holistic.

Providing holistic advice are in touch with all their clients and they're growing. Otherwise the buyers look at them as a book. They like the expression is that's in runoff and those are valuable too. But if that firm is growing and your clients know who you are and care about you and you care about them, those practices are worth quite a bit more.

I frankly think it's better for everybody. And by the way, there's no downside to it because working with folks like us, we can make it efficient and enjoyable for you and a better outcome for the client. So in my view, there's no downside and there's all kinds of a tremendous amount of upside for you as a business.

Lara Galloway: To that [00:18:00] point. I think you're saying that the book of business for an advisor grows, if you have younger people, not just, I know I talk with a lot of advisors and I only work with high net for high net worth folks. And it's like, okay, great. I would imagine the average age of them is probably 65.

Right. And that they've got high net worth, but if you don't spend any time and attract some of the people from that younger demographic, your book age is as your clients age out, right? Yes. And then it's so that's the point. So can you talk a little bit about what is it that we need these, you know, what advice do you have for advisors to reach those younger audiences and what value can they provide to people who may not have quite the investible assets at this point?

Larry Roth: Well, that's a little bit unpacked there, but the points you're making are really, really important. It's kind of the macro point is that we've been talking a little bit about already today is you need to continue to attract new clients to your [00:19:00] business, because if you don't, your business over time is just going to dissipate.

People are getting older, they're starting to tap into their accounts. The markets have been more or less over the last say 10 years, but now they're a little choppy and you're seeing people dig into principle. It's not good for them necessarily. It's certainly not good for your business, but as it relates to younger and younger people, they need help too.

Now in many cases some financial advisors I work with find them to be kind of challenging because they have different questions, they have different needs, but the reality is they're trying to accumulate wealth. They're trying to save and they're pretty sophisticated around their 401k or four, three B investments.

They're pretty aware of what they're paying for the advice that they're getting, but they have needs. They're being married. In some cases they're raising children in other cases and over time they have the same types of needs as other clients. And frankly, it's not that different than when you probably started your career.

If you've been in this business, as I have for 30 years, a lot of the people [00:20:00] we attracted as clients back then were in their twenties and thirties are favorites, of course, were in their mid forties and fifties because they had accumulated wealth. But attracting these younger clients is important. And I think to your point, you're going to do that electronically.

You're going to do that with social media. You're going to do that with other kind of campaigns. So you don't really need to meet 20 or 30 year olds in order to get a client, you only need to be in front of a large number of them and let them find you. And it's not as difficult as you think.

And if you're not sure how to approach to talk to your kids, they can give you some lessons on how to communicate. I promise you it's worth it and it'll make you feel younger because you won't be working with everybody who's older than you. 

Lara Galloway: That's awesome. So adapting to change, learning how to use the technology, reaching the younger people.

These are all themes I'm hearing that are coming out from you right now. '

Larry Roth: Yes. And I know you know this because you've done it many times. It's not that difficult. In fact, it's not difficult at all. I [00:21:00] think the technology today, which we utilize here at White Glove, and you're using a lot of this already in your office and is not difficult to use.

And frankly, it's quite intuitive. A lot of the communication that we see in social media and other work that we do is actually fun or even funny, people are not offended by cute videos or audio work you might do, or it's just, frankly, in my personal opinion, it's really enjoyable.

And it is, and I don't know the exact way to describe it, but it is not hard work because you do something, you enjoy doing something that's natural and partner with someone like us. And you'll find yourself in front of hundreds, or maybe thousands of people. And they'll reach out to you and it will not be a waste of time.

In fact, it's really efficient. It's really enjoyable. And it'll keep you young. 

Lara Galloway: Well, the whole idea of adapting to change and having to use technology before COVID we could have maybe had a position on it. Like I'm open to change or nope, I don't want to change. Don't fix it. It ain't broke [00:22:00] is how we say it in the south, the version that you said, but, a little different, I think when the pandemic hit and it hit everybody at the same time, universally, that whole idea I'm resistant to change. 

I'm not going to change. I'm not going to fix it because it ain't broke didn't really fly anymore. Everybody had to change. And so to your point, we've been practicing that we've been learning how to change. We've been using these tools. We've been making them a part of our life, and we've also kind of maybe dropped an error of things have to be so overproduced or so perfect.

We actually have gotten a bit more interested, I think, to your point with social media in the right like what's really happening. How do I relate to someone and our younger audiences, I think really demand that too. So my last question on this before I have the final question is just, how do you think an advisor's professional and personal life kind of detail with some of these things that we're talking about?

When we're talking about building relationships, we're [00:23:00] talking about attracting younger people. What part of that change and showing is it suggested that we are dovetailing a professional life with a personal life more these days. 

Larry Roth: I love that question, I love it. The way you put it.

The part of the beauty of our profession today with all the technology that we're talking about, including social media, including a lot of the video, is it dovetail? Beautifully into whoever you are as a person and in your community. So there are a million examples, but think about what you care about, it could be charitable work.

It could be just sporting what you're involved in, whatever it is you care about, it could be animals and happen to be a dog lover and half my kids are cat lovers and same. So whatever it is, you can include it in your conversations. You can include it in your media. It doesn't need to be perfect.

In fact, it's better if it isn't perfect. And if you ever watch a video, that seems like it was some sort of a speech that was written [00:24:00] by a professional and kind of produced. You're going to not even want to look at it because it's going to be too perfect. Whereas if you sit down and just sort of talk to someone informally and share some of the things that you care about and they care about it's really enjoyable.

And it's also, as you would expect, people used to talk about affinity groups and different things that people like to do, whatever it is you like to do. I'm sure there are other people that have common interests. If you want to just focus on that kind of thing, you can do it. And frankly, even if you're not out directly trying to grow your business, you should be sharing what you care about because other people care about and at a minimum it'll make your existing clients feel good about being affiliated with you and consider you a closer friend, even if they've never had that conversation with you directly.

I think that's a really great point. 

Lara Galloway: Thanks. And I mean, for me, I know that we want to do business with people we like know and trust. We care about people first and then expertise, second. Sometimes we need expertise first that [00:25:00] gets us in there. We say, I know I need financial expertise, but then I really need to know that I can relate to the person a bit.

So I think that is such a great thing that you've said about finding that affinity or sharing. You know, a piece of who you are with the people that work with you. That's one of those great ways to stay connected. And we do try to incorporate that into our nurture and our engaged campaigns. Right?

Absolutely. We ask for that. So, absolutely my final question for you today, Larry, and I appreciate what you've shared so far. My final question for you is just, you know, a definition of success for your personal, for your professional life. I wanna hear what keeps you going and how you define success for.

Larry Roth: Okay. A personal question real easy. So thank you for the question. I mean, I'll answer it this way and it's because I think this is different for everybody. And for me personally and not to drag you into my personal career, but my kids are all grown and I’m happily married and we like to travel and [00:26:00] we enjoy life.

But to be honest I need a mixture of business and personal enjoyment. I love to spend time with my wife and I love to spend time with my children, but I also enjoy being with my colleagues here at White Glove, others that I do business with in my consulting business. There's something to be said for working with people that are 20 or 30 years younger than you, the excitement, the helping people learn, it's just really enjoyable.

 And I mean, you didn't ask me this question, but I'll tie you back a little bit to the  I've never been a financial advisor per se, but I've been fortunate to work with a lot of financial advisors.

Many of whom I have to say, I respect as much as any professional I'd ever met, but one of the things that they have, or you have in your practice that others don't have is the ability to work with people, kind of however, you'd like. So you have older clients, you have younger clients, you have wealthy clients, you have people you're just helping because they need help.

I'm sure you have clients who said, would you [00:27:00] mind talking to my daughter or son maybe who are contemplating either college or getting married or saving for their first house. And you can help people in your profession and enjoy yourself and get the personal and professional and frankly, financial fulfillment that very few professions offer.

And especially if you're independent and you're not really answering to an employer. So I'm in my stage of my life where I can do whatever I'd like to do day to day, and I like to work and I like to have fun with my family. And you can do that every day of your career. And that's a pretty good place to be.

Lara Galloway: I think that perfectly sums up kind of that personal and professional we were talking about when people know a little bit about you and can relate to you and understand that your work is part of what you do, because you enjoy it. That helps us know who you are. So, Larry, I really want to thank you for being a part of the fast podcast and sharing your insights with us today.

Larry Roth: Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. And I hope this was somewhat useful to even the audience. 

Aric Johnson: Well, I'm pretty much [00:28:00] I can't say the word guarantee, but I absolutely think it was a ton of wisdom shared in this podcast. Lara if folks are listening to this going, I could use a little bit of that wisdom in my own practice or in my own business.

How do they get a hold of you guys, so they can kind of start this journey with you? 

Lara Galloway: For sure. You can always go to our website, white glove.com or shoot us an email info@whiteglove.com.

Aric Johnson: Larry. Thank you so much for being on the show. Of course, and Lara, thank you so much for facilitating this and hosting such a great show and our last thank you always goes to you.

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