New Hosts & Fresh Takes with Dean Thurman and Candace Byrnes

VoiceOver (00:00.686)

Welcome to the FAST Podcast, your go-to source for financialadvisor strategy talks, hosted by me, Candace Byrnes, the Lead CreativeDesigner on the marketing team at White Glove. And with me, I have DeanThurman, Cofounder of both White Glove and Invest Wise Financial. Join us as wedive into valuable insights from industry experts, providing actionable tips toaccelerate your success.

Candace Byrnes (01:44.847)

Hello, thank you for joining us on today's episode of theFAST Podcast. We are super excited to start a new chapter of the podcast with you.So, without further ado, we are excited to introduce ourselves. I am CandaceByrnes and with me I have Dean Thurman.

Dean Thurman (01:44.897)

Hey Candace, how are you?

Candace Byrnes (01:44.847)

I am great. I amexcited to do this with you.

Dean Thurman (01:44.897)

I am super excited too.

I have always wanted to do a podcast.

I have been around forever in this industry, and I know Ican really help a lot of advisors with their practice management, and someother things.

I have been there and done that, but you know, just throughall my years and all my coaching and everything else, hearing from so manyother advisors out there and all their struggles and hearing their solutions, Ihave never had an outlet where I could share some of the other folks' stories.

And so, I am excited to do this with you, Candace.

Candace Byrnes (02:49.616)

Yes, me too.

That's definitely one thing I think that is huge that youbring to the table now as we kind of make this switch or kind of a shift forour audience for the Fast Podcast, is you bring a lot of knowledge from notonly the advisor side, but also marketing and everything you've done along theway, starting your business.

So, before we get into all of that, I will introduce myselfa little bit. So, I am the lead creative designer here at White Glove.

I love it, what I do, and it is cool because what broughtDean and I into these chairs today is that we spend a lot of time going backand forth in the office.

I make a lot of our content. I ask a lot of questions and Iam constantly learning. I did not have a finance background before, so it iscool to have somebody I can go to, and you know just bounce questions off.

If you follow us on Instagram or Facebook, you have seenthat we have started doing the advisor insights.

So, that is just me going and asking Dean questions. Andthat's stuff that happens behind the scenes that we started throwing out there.And that led to the podcast, which is a deep dive into those, you know, coffeetable conversations and turn it into something that can be valuable andeducational for other people in the industry.

Dean Thurman (04:05.087)

Yes. And you know, why us? Why are we here? And what is ourgoal of the FAST Podcast?

The goal is to provide, you know, somewhere between 20 and40 minutes of valuable, sometimes entertaining content all around practicemanagement. Nothing to do, not directly with seminars or what White Glove does.We are not here to sell anybody anything.

It is really to talk about practice management, increasingROI, how to manage sub-advisors if you want to go that way, how to grow yourindividual or solo practice. We can talk about ensembles, we can talk aboutdifferent broker dealers, FMOs, what all that looks like, maybe what are someadvisors, myself and other ones I work with, speaking with our clients aboutthis week or this month, what are the hot topics, but mostly it's about how torun your practice as efficiently as possible so that you don't make the samemistakes that I've made over the last 33, 34 years of being a financial advisorand starting a very successful and growing financial planning practice.

Candace Byrnes (05:19.16)

Yeah, I think One thing I am excited to see is not onlylearning the steps that you took, and like you said, the things that did notwork, try to avoid people from making those same mistakes, but also just whatare things that right now are going on? Right now, what are you tackling withyour clients? Because I feel that the day-to-day for you or for any financialadvisor, it is never the same. The world is constantly changing, especially inthe financial realm.

I mean, even with politics and all sorts of world events, itis never ending. Like, you are constantly given a new challenge. So, it will becool for myself and our listeners to hear what they can do better with theirclients based on your background and knowledge and how you would approach thesituation.

Dean Thurman (05:51.747)

Sure. I mean, right now, I will answer your question quiteliterally. There are three massive things going on in our office right now. Thename of our firm is “Invest Wise Financial” in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

The biggest thing that is on our minds is we have made a bigchange in our broker dealer from one broker dealer to another in the last sixmonths. And it has been just a massive undertaking, not just with our staff,but all our clients and the new broker dealer and learning all those newsystems. So, we have a lot of struggles with that right now. And I think mostadvisors at one time or another kind of changed their practice, went to adifferent broker dealer, or IRA, different platforms, or different FMOs. So, weare dealing with that right now.

Also, it is tax time,right? We happen to be recording this just after-Tax Day and tax, you know, oneof the biggest values that we can provide all our clients is how to proactivelystrategize their taxes.

And the key word there is proactive, right? Anybody canreact to; hey I pulled money out for this or that out of this kind of account andyou react to it the next year when you are doing your taxes, but how do you beproactive?

Candace Byrnes (07:41.166)

Right, it is a littlebit too late if you worry about it on April 15th.

Dean Thurman (05:51.747)

Yes, so those two things and then of course we have anelection year.

So, some of my clients are asking about the election yearright now and are we managing money differently?

So, those are some things on top of the mind for us.

Candace Byrnes (07:41.166)

Yeah, I mean, those three things could be their own wholedeep dive conversation.

I will say one thing I want to focus on and really get intotoday is a lot of people, (not necessarily everyone listening), but have hearda bit of the history of White Glove.

So, I would like to go into more of the history of Deanwithout making it sound too spearheaded or whatever you want to call it.

But I would love to get to know more about young financialadvisor Dean, where was your mindset for what you wanted your future to be? Andthat was broad, or it was very pinpointed to You knew where you wanted to be in50 years from that point or what, but I would love to hear that journey andwhat all the puzzle pieces that were put together.

Now you're here as a co-owner of your own practice andseminar marketing company. And many more hats, you know? So, I would love tojust kind of start from the beginning of what were your initial thoughts Howdid it all get started? How did it all begin?

Dean Thurman (09:00.097)

I will keep it short.

I have been in the industry for 34 years now. My admin,Andrea, has been with me now for I think 28 years, almost 29.

But starting off, and just like many people listening tothis podcast right now, with no plans, no clue. Not knowing what to expect. Iknew it was a great lifestyle. I knew you could make a lot of money as afinancial advisor. You can help a lot of people. And I said, okay, well, I am goingto be a stockbroker. That is what I was thinking. And in fact, I was atcollege, Central Michigan University Finance. And a stockbroker came in, and hewas a little frazzled and all this. And he was talking about how much money hemakes and how he is helping these people. It was just very intriguing.

Well, there was nothing, what I thought I was getting intoand what I got into, two different things.

love helping people, but started out driving around, youknow, my 1984 blue Chevy Cavalier without a muffler, driving to people'shouses, cold calling, you know, with the big flashlight, because, you know, itgets dark at 5:30 in the evening in Michigan- and getting on somebody's porchand knocking on their door And then watching the TV go off or the porch lightgo off, you know, and move on.

Candace Byrnes (10:15.676)

Nobody wanted to hear from you back then.

Dean Thurman (10:23.549)

This industry is a struggle, but we started, you know,working for somebody else initially, then spun out into our own firmeventually.

Candace Byrnes (10:37.706)

And now was that “Invest Wise”?

Dean Thurman (10:23.549)

Uhm no, we are just on year like three of 34. Invest wisehappened around 20 years ago. But more importantly, I do want the audience toknow that not only did I not have a plan, but you also know, my dad was not in business.Nor did I have a CFP.

Candace Byrnes (11:08.205)

I feel like that is a huge thing. I feel like a lot ofpeople, it is more like, like my dad, or my grandpa, like everybody…

Dean Thurman (11:31.969)

I did not buy a practice, I had to build it from scratch-cold calling. That is what I did. And, and but everybody listening to thispodcast has a story and a struggle. This industry, this career is an absolutegrind. For the first 10 years, it just is, and I am no different than anybodyelse. It was a grind. And at one point, I had to decide, am I going to be asolo practitioner? Am I going to partner with somebody? Are we going to hirefolks?

Candace Byrnes (11:08.205)

Right.

Dean Thurman (11:31.969)

So, I went through that journey and then eventually, wedecided our marketing was going so good through seminars.

A different seminar company than White Glove because WhiteGlove did not exist back then. “Successful Money Management” is the one that Istarted with. And we got so many leads, we had to expand our practice. And thenjust kept growing from there.

Candace Byrnes (11:43.338)

Okay, great. I mean, you raise a good question though, whenyou came to that fork in the road of these three options, you know, partnerwith somebody, start your own thing. What Are some differentiators would yousay for somebody who is in that position right now?

Of course, I am there where I do not know which path I wantto take. Like without, you know, without going too deep I feel like you could talkfor an hour on that. But what are some things that really stood out to you thatmade that decision?

Dean Thurman (12:37.991)

You must do the math, right? You only have so much time andyou want to think, you know, who do you want to be? Do you want to be a bigbusiness owner and have subadvisors and receive overrides and kind of be theprovider of rent and support and payroll for a lot of these folks?

Or you just want to be your own individual entity with allthe freedom and flexibility and low stress that comes along with that. And youknow, I chose the former. And there is one path versus the other is not better.It is not the one you should do. It is not the one I would, or anybody shouldtalk you into. It's what's in your heart.

Candace Byrnes (13:04.656)

Sounds like you have a very entrepreneurial mindset to takethat business owner step.

Dean Thurman (13:07.901)

Absolutely, that is a very heavy entrepreneurial risk-takingmindset, but even being a solo practitioner, there are a lot of risks withthat. And there is a lot of lack of guidelines and guidance. I mean, it isthere. And whoever you partner up with will say we will help you with that. Butat the end of the day, everything falls on your shoulders because our industryis driven by commissions and revenue. There is not a mothership that just sendsyou money, you know, on salary, not for a lot of us.

Candace Byrnes (13:48.764)

So, I've got to ask because I'm curious, when you were inthat kind of like maybe the first ten years, is that kind of where we're atstill, would you say, did you feel like there was a really high importance innetworking and being friendly and kind of having connections with otheradvisors? Or was it more so a kind of like dog eats dog world? What is theoverarching, like is there a major network in the financial industry or is itmore competitive?

Dean Thurman (13:58.869)

We are going back 23 years, so my first 10 years in it, thatwas believe it or not like before the internet, the smartphones and all thatkind of stuff, Candace. That was not before the internet started. I was outhere just you know; we would just go to conferences.

And back then, they could fly you wherever. France, youknow, they would send you to Hawaii, whatever. That was back in the day. And thatis really where you did all your networking. And you tried to hear what otherpeople are doing that is successful for them. And how are they helping theirclients and growing their practice? Or how are they being the most efficientsolo practitioner that they can be? So really, there was not as much networkingthen. It was a fraction of what there is now. Now we have these podcasts. Wehave social media

Candace Byrnes (15:02.764)

We have so many resources

Dean Thurman (13:58.869)

It is just that it is coming at you from everywhere.Newsletters and it almost makes it more difficult, you know, because you haveso many different choices. Which one do I pick?

Candace Byrnes (15:57.534)

Yes, my question came, I just got a phone call from somebodythat I went to college with who is now a brand-new financial advisor, and hehad asked me, like, hey, what should I do? Like, what do I do to get to thenext step? And I was like, pretty flattered that I was being asked thisquestion, to be honest, but I was like, you know, just from what I'veexperienced through, you know, last year I got to experience Host You, which isour event that helps advisors become better at seminar marketing, but alsogives advisors like a really great opportunity to hear from other advisors andlearn from what they're doing.

Like what you just said, but that was the best thing I couldproduce to tell him was I was like, it sounds like you need to just talk topeople who are a little bit ahead of you. And as long as you just keep taking somethingfrom people who have like already surpassed whatever step you are at, then youcan build yourself and get to the next.

Dean Thurman (16:16.563)

That was great advice. He called the right person. You donot give yourself enough credit. That was spot on.

I would not be anywhere without some mentorship. I lovementoring the younger advisors now that I am in my mid-fifties and there are somany people just getting started and do not know where to go. Just like back inthe day for myself, you asked earlier about, do you just go out there and tryto network or build your practice that way and be friendly to people and allthat. That is a great way to improve your practice.

But that was not my way because I do not know if it was, youknow, back in the day there was no such thing as social anxiety or anything,but I had it.

Oh yes, I graduated high school 5'1", 110 pounds. Imean, that is no joke. I could not give blood my senior year when I did theblood drive. I got an I tried sticker because I did not weigh enough.

Candace Byrnes (16:44.681)

They give you and I tried sticker? I feel like it is almostworse.

Dean Thurman (17:13.507)

Yeah, I tried it and walked around with that. And so, when Ifirst got out of the business no one really took me that seriously. I lookedlike the paper boy in a suit, you know? even though I was in my 20s, you know. So,it was not easy for me to be friendly and network. I had to find other paths.

Candace Byrnes (17:21.694)

It's got to be regular for anyone younger starting out.

because they are like well what makes me want to choose youas opposed to someone who.

It is the whole experience thing. How are you supposed togain experience when you need experience? So, that's interesting and a bummer,but it's cool to hear how you navigate it.

Dean Thurman (17:41.507)

I must tell you. Something shocking, humbling and a littledepressing for me is that the younger advisors at our office are getting higherclosing and call to action ratios than the senior folks in their 50s. When theydo a seminar or any kind of network marketing, people really seem drawn to thefolks in their 20s and 30s. That is because they know that my runaway might be10, 15 years at the most so that they can help manage their money. Whereassomebody in their 20s and 30s will outlive the client and therefore be able tohelp the journey up the mountain of saving and down the spend down, down theother side of the mountain in retirement. eventually whatever is left over handthat to the next generation. They look at me and I'm not that guy.

People with millions of dollars in complicated scenarios,they'll usually go with somebody that's more experienced. The average upper middle-classperson that's looking for an advisor, I think a lot of them are reallyintrigued by people in their 20s and 30s.

Candace Byrnes (18:47.448)

Yeah, I mean I thinka lot of that goes with something that you and I talk about all the time, isthat being a financial advisor you're almost also somebody's like therapist oryou know who they you're running the one of the biggest parts of somebody'slife their money their finances so unless you like somebody's personalityyou're not gonna go with them so I guess it just depends on whoever's in thataudience.

If you have people who can better connect with someoneyounger, or if maybe they have this opinion about their younger, so they'remore tech-steffy, or they're older, and I trust them more because they've beenaround the block and seen money move and things like that.

So, there is really no, it's kind of cool. It's an industrywhere you don't get shoved out either way, but you just have to find yourclientele.

Dean Thurman (19:20.387)

do. And you brought up another, as we're talking about mypractice as it evolved, about six years ago, I decided to turn my own practice intoa big service by a team.

So, it's myself at the head of the team, and then Scott,who's in his mid-40s, and then Mason, who's in his late 20s. So, every one ofour clients gets to see, gets to meet with all three of us at some point. Andthat's our succession plan that makes clients feel very comfortable, but theycan also, I guess, you know, some people would rather connect with somebody intheir 20s or a older client of ours that has adult children might feel morecomfortable referring their adult children to Mason, who's 27, 28, versus a 56year old guy.

Candace Byrnes (20:22.324)

That's really interesting, is that something that you'd sayis common across a lot of financial practices, where they have you meet with acouple different advisors to see who you fit with?

Dean Thurman (20:38.821)

Yeah, some places have what they call a right fit call, seewho they could mesh with. And maybe this is a good time to just kind of explainmy practice a little bit and how it's set up. Because between this episode andthe next episode, please reach out to Candace on social media there on ourWhite Glove Facebook page or Instagram. Feel free to put it or email Candaceand any of your questions for upcoming episodes.

Candace Byrnes (20:46.334)

Absolutely.

Dean Thurman (21:13.277)

And I know that I'll answer every single one of thosequestions as best as I can. You know, our practice is set up a certain way, butit's evolved over time and it's not necessarily the best way for you. But forus, you know, it's myself at the head and then we have four other senioradvisors, if you will, that kind of I've worked with for decades.

And then five or six junior advisors, some of them aren'teven fully registered yet, are providing a service role. And then about 10support staff that do the paperwork or the receptionist and the communicationsdirector and all that. So that's a pretty big office and that's not realcommon. They call that an ensemble. But I've been through every stage from asolo to a partnership, what I want partnership, five partners to having peoplefresh out of college being a sub advisor, to hiring experienced sub-advisors.

So, I believe that I could be helpful answering questions ifanybody's kind of at a crossroads of, should I hire somebody? And if so, howshould I pay them? What about the non-competes? What should that job position lookslike? you know I learn as much as I teach during those conversations.

Candace Byrnes (22:17.388)

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's just huge, even to justreiterate, I'm excited about your knowledge in each stage. Like you said, youmight be here, which is huge, and kind of at like maybe the top of where youwould want to be as far as owning your own practice that's got a lot of peoplea lot of support staff and then….

Dean Thurman (22:46.737)

And that was right for me, Candace, but that is not rightfor a lot of people. But I'm more than you know, each one of our sub advisorsis kind of a business within a business also, so we can get into that more onlater episodes.

Candace Byrnes (23:08.722)

Well, OK, so let's goback to our timeline. So now we've gotten to where you were working for a practice,or you had started one.

Dean Thurman (23:17.633)

Yeah, we started a practice and I decided to break out onour own. A handful of partners, just, it was basically just you shared theexpenses, the rent and that kind of thing, the common employees forreceptionists and all that. And then that partnership fragmented and a coupleof us went one way and a couple went the other way, which is fine. We were allindividual advisors as well. Then my cousin Mike and co-founder at White Glovealso He and I, our marketing was just really going great, even way before WhiteGlove.

And so, we had to hire some more sub-advisors, and that'swhat kind of growth to where we are today. And that was probably from year 15to year, to about year 33. Just every couple of years, adding another advisor,another support staff, and just kind of getting bigger and bigger.

Candace Byrnes (23:57.524)

So then let's sneak in there to kind of dig in. Where alongthat 15-year point did White Glove become born?

Dean Thurman (24:13.841)

Sure, yeah, what happened in, I guess it would be year like27 of my career and Mike and I, we always did social security seminars prettymuch since day one of, I guess, the first couple years.

Candace Byrnes (23:49.524)

After all the door knocking?

Dean Thurman (24:30.057)

Yeah, yeah, which was horrible using the old Bresser's Guidegoing to the library making, you know, Xerox copies, it was horrible.

Candace Byrnes (24:53.822)

you know, I don't think I would have it in me.

Dean Thurman (24:58.057)

‘Yeah, anybody listening to this podcast, they have a storylike that where it's just an absolute grind, you know, massive rejection. Ittakes a certain personality to stick with it. It's something like 80% of thepeople that get registered drop out of the business in the first five years andsomething like 90% within 10 years. So, there's a lot of people that spit outand it's all because they don't have a full lobby or somebody to talk to on theother side of the desk.

It's not because they don't know how financial planningworks or whatever. So, around year 27 or 28 in my career, we decided to tryFacebook ads and social media to fill up a summer. As far as I know, and Ibelieve this, Mike and I were the first financial advisors to use Facebook topopulate a library or community center to talk about financial planningsubjects like social security and what not.

And couldn't believe how great it went. And after a year ortwo of doing it ourselves, we're like, man, we got a lot of friends in theindustry. I bet you, you know, we could start a little marketing division a sidehustle, if you will.

And we never expected there to be such a big demand for whatwe were able to do, change the business model, where you only pay for peoplethat show up and that kind of thing. And I think that was a real keydifferentiator between us and other summer companies.

But anyway, when White Glove went from zero to 50 employeesand 100 employees within a few years, that's really when I started that team. So,nothing, none of my clients suffered in their service.

Candace Byrnes (26:33.823)

Right because you are in two places at once you know.

You're already busy as a financial advisor and running theshow. And then now you're also having to run this other show. And keep itgoing.

So that's really interesting because I like that it ties, itkind of brings home why you made that next jump to get all the support staffand to have the other advisors come in and to pick up so that you can almostmake team dreams come true.

Dean Thurman (27:10.655)

Yeah, and I love both firms. I love our financial planningfirm. That's really who my heart is, totally. But our industry needs marketing,whether it's seminars or, you know, radio shows or billboards or, or like youwere talking about networking at the Rotary Club or something like that, or thecountry club. That's what this is all about. I've always considered myself avery, very good financial advisor, but an amazing marketer and you have to havepeople in your lobby. So, you know, and I made a lot of mistakes, by the way.And that's the fun stuff for people to hear…

Candace Byrnes (27:12.214)

Right…

Dean Thurman (27:33.865)

I mean, the failures are embarrassing and...

Candace Byrnes (27:41.488)

Well, so let's jump into at least one of those. So, I mean,so what was, like, you had to have had some pretty rough times in thebeginning. I mean, obviously all the door knocking stuff and all that, like yousaid, everybody goes through it and not knocking it fully, you know? Somepeople still do a lot of business from mailers and, you know, going door todoor and putting their name in books and stuff. So, I'm fine with them, I don'tthink I would say it's wrong, but it's just someone else's cup of tea maybe.

But where do you see kind of some of the major like, oh man,what was I thinking?

Dean Thurman (28:25.865)

I got five of them. I don't think I have five. I have fivevery embarrassing stories from my career. But since you're talking about thedoor knocking, I mean One of them was, you know, I used to cold call, “Hi thisis Dean Thurman, new advisor in your area. If I come across something you thinkyou might be interested in, do you mind if I send you some information on that?”“Okay, yeah, go ahead.” “Okay, do you consider yourself an aggressive orconservative investor?” I did that thousands of times, but you had to know whoto call, right? So there's something called a Bresser's Guide, which is areverse phone book back in the 90s before the internet, where you'd go to the,yeah, I'd drive around, find a nice street with, it looked like people had moneyin that street and go and look up that street in the library, make a copy ofit, and it would actually have the person's name and phone number that lived atthat address, right?

So, I’d call the hundred people that are on that street orwhatever and give them that pitch I just did and send them some information andgo through the process. Well..

Candace Byrnes (29:27.076)

so far it stillsounds good. Where does it go downhill?

Dean Thurman (29:03.559)

Because after, you know, hello, is Mr. Smith there, is Mrs.Smith, whatever. Every time I asked for Mr. or Mrs. Atty, there was like, I'msorry you have the wrong number. And it got to be like, why is this family withthe last name of A-T-T-Y, which I was pronouncing Atty, which made sense. There'sgot to be something with this family that they're incognito and they don'twant.

So, it's like, you know, after weeks and weeks of, once in awhile, calling Mr. and Mrs. Atty and hearing, I'm sorry you have the wrongnumber. Finally, some lady said, Finally, some lady said, you got that out of abreasters guide. And Atty just stands for attorney. That means that we'reattorneys.

And their last name is so-and-so and your face right now AndI'm just like, this whole time, I didn't realize that meant that person wasn'tan attorney.

Candace Byrnes (30:21.076)

Oh my gosh.

Dean Thurman (29:03.559)

So that was just more personally humiliating, realizing justhow dumb I was back then. No, I mean, that was 30 plus years ago. And thenthere's so many more stories with, oh my gosh, I got to tell you one more. Iknow we're running out of time, but I just got to tell you one.

You know, one of these cold calls, I ended up at this lady'shouse. It was an apartment. I was trying to; I remember I was trying torecommend an IRA. She had $500. I was trying to put in an Oppenheimer fund. Andit was at this little table, dining room table sort of. And she had like an eight-year-oldson, you know, great, And, but now there's peanut butter jelly. The dog isthere.

Candace Byrnes (31:00.786)

Lots of distractions.

Dean Thurman (31:03.559)

Yeah, all this is going on. And so, to try and help me out,the lady, she gave her son a little bag of goldfish, you know, those littlecrackers or whatever.

And so, he's eating them. And then of course they go allover and so she stops and she's just like, I'm gonna do the vacuuming. So nextthing you know it was like like “errrr”, and I'm just like trying to pitch this$500…

Candace Byrnes (31:26.786)

You're like, she's not listening to a word I'm saying.

Dean Thurman (31:12.957)

And then out of left field

“Wham!”

Something just smashes me in the face. I'm sitting there, mylips are numb, my glasses, I was wearing glasses and by the way, my glasses arereal now, I don't know where they are, of course, I mean, everybody knows this,but my glasses were fake at the time to look older.

Candace Byrnes (31:26.786)

Oh my God.

Dean Thurman (31:39.241)

My sister's an optometrist and my glasses were sitting on myface like this. My lips were throbbing and the lady was like, so theeight-year-old, he was done vacuuming. So instead of walking over and pullingthe cord out from the wall, he yanked it from like five feet away and the cordjust..

Candace Byrnes (31:58.21)

It whipped you?

Dean Thurman (32:08.225)

whipped around and went, “whap”, right in there. Never gotthe sale.

Then I remember the dad calling.

Candace Byrnes (31:58.21)

Oh my god, I feel like she owed it to you.

Dean Thurman (32:04.225)

Oh, I know.

so the dad calls.

And she goes, oh, I'm talking to someone, and she goes, isthis a no-loan mutual fund?

And I'm just like, so that was like an awful embarrassingone. So I can see why 80, 90% of the people back out of this industry and why.

I knew there had tobe a better path...

Candace Byrnes (32:24.21)

A better way.

Dean Thurman (32:04.225)

Yes, so we went seminars.

Candace Byrnes (32:09.21)

almost became a babysitter.

almost, I think.

Oh my god. Well.

Candace Byrnes (32:09.21)

I know that we are close to our time here today, but I didwant to ask one last thing. I know that it's something that we wanna bringforward with us once we start having guests on, is to ask you if you know nowall that you've been through now, if you would have known back then, where orwhat would be something that you would change or maybe do differently that wouldhave maybe sent you on a different trajectory, would have caused things tohappen quicker, would have maybe put you in a different, whole different path,what comes to mind?

Dean Thurman (33:06.357)

That's a great question.

And it's one of those, my answer would be like, I wouldn'tchange anything because it led me to where I am now, all the good and the badand so on and so forth, but I would have told myself to have a differentperspective. Don't be stressed out, don't get so down on yourself, grind itout, don't quit, keep going.

Some of that stuff I didn't have to tell myself. But also Idid try and quit the industry a couple of times. I couldn't get a job somewhereelse because the economy was so bad a couple of times. And thank goodness I didit.

candace Byrnes (33:50.832)

It just kept suckingyou back.

Dean Thurman (33:34.371)

Yeah, it kept sucking me back. And I always wanted to dothis. So just stick with it. Don't stress. You know, grind it out.

Figure out a path to financially you know keep it alltogether. Which when I started you know even a year into it I couldn't buy twoboxes of cereal.

My wife and I would be like, just one box, it's all we canafford. You know that Cavalier didn't have a muffler and didn’t fix that.

So, I wish that Icould tell myself back then everything's gonna be okay.

Candace Byrnes (34:18.932)

I think a really cool way to look at that is bringing it allthe way back to the beginning is when you said, you know, you saw thisfinancial advisor walk in the room or a broker and you're like that guy, thatguy gots it. He gets it, you know? And I want to be there one day to maybeinstead of looking the horse right in the mouth, accept the difficulty and thehardship and know that you're not alone. You're not doing bad, but it's thatwhere you want to get is not easy.

Dean Thurman (34:38.981)

I love it.

There is no better profession on the planet as far as I'mconcerned. I can't imagine anything else. There's a lot of good otherprofessions out there. You know? You wanna be a rock star? You wanna be aprofessional athlete? Yeah, okay, great.

But as far as a professional, you can, yeah, it's hard, butyou can make your own schedule. You can be as big or as small as you want. Youcan be in total control of your time.

Candace Byrnes (35:40.648)

You just got to get there.

Dean Thurman (35:09.335)

you got to get there.

It's really hard, but it's awesome. So, if you're listeningand you're going through a struggle right now, stick with it. If any, if youhave a particular question, please get it over to Candace or myself, Dean atWhite Glove dot com.

email and we'll answer it in our next podcast.

Candace Byrnes (35:40.648)

Yeah, absolutely. We're actually going to open up a questionform on the podcast tab on our website at whiteglove.com. So please feel freeto throw any questions there. And again, if there's any other way you want toget it to us, you can always DM the White Glove accounts on any social mediaplatform. We would love to hear from anyone.

But with that, I think that concludes our very firstepisode. Dean, if you want to just kind of give the listeners just one lastidea of what they can expect moving forward as far as kind of topics and whatwe'll be going over in the future as we kind of narrowed down the FAST Podcastsstrategy itself in this new chapter.

Dean Thurman (36:15.863)

And like I said, I just want to provide as much value aspossible.

I want to share with you all the information, all theknowledge and perspectives and strategies that I've learned from otherfinancial advisors of being part of White Glove and doing so many hostuniversities and interacting with so many other advisors that do things alittle bit differently.

All of those best practices, I want to share them. Againwhether it's about being a solo or an ensemble, you know, should you changebroker dealers or not, what kind of phone systems do you use, I mean it doesn'tmatter it's like us as individual advisors we don't have anybody usually to askthose questions to or I'm having this issue or should I segment my book or whatabout communications or client appreciation events.

Candace Byrnes (36:55.176)

Right.

Dean Thurman (37:12.669)

Where is the industry going? All those types of things. I'lldo my best to either bring on an expert that could answer it better or answerit myself. So that's tip number one and number two. A-T-T-Y is not a last name.It stands for attorney. So, thank you very much Candace.

Candace Byrnes (37:30.78)

That's our tip for the day. I think that is the winner.

Alright, well thank you so much on behalf of myself and Deanfor listening in to the FAST Podcast today and we look forward to bringing youmore episodes every other week from here on out.

Dean Thurman (37:37.817)

First episodes in the books. Boom.

VoiceOver (00:00.174)

Thanks for tuning in to the FAST Podcast. We'd love to hearfrom you. Have any questions or comments about the show? You can submit them onour website at White Glove .com slash fast podcast. The views and opinionsexpressed by our guests do not necessarily reflect those of White Glove orInvest Wise Financial. The content is provided for informational andeducational purposes only and should not be considered as a substitute forprofessional investing advice. Once again, thank you for joining us on the FASTPodcast.

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