Listen in as Equitable Advisors partners with Barron’s Advisors in a special two-part podcast series.

Podcast transcript: 
Sarah Ogle: The opportunity has really never been greater for women to come into this career because so many women are needing what we do. They’re living longer. They are making more and more of the financial decisions in their household. I see more and more women interested in this profession.

Todd Johnson: It’s been really neat to see the support that’s there from Equitable Advisors to help women and to help other diverse groups get into the business and become very, very successful.

Ogle: Todd, I can imagine over the last 34 years you’ve seen a tremendous amount of changes. What are some of the biggest changes that you’ve seen?

Johnson: If I had to point to one thing, it would have to be technology. That has really enabled us to have access to more information and better information. It’s also helped us to be more efficient. Now we can work from our phones, that are much more portable and easier, and it’s easier to stay connected. And it’s also allowed us to do a better job for our clients and offer them better advice because of the tools that we have. What about you?

Ogle: I remember being out in the field meeting with clients and filling out a 40-page paper application with them.

Johnson: Painful.

Ogle: And I think now, just based on the technology that we have, and even fast-tracking that during COVID with being able to do those virtual meetings, tools like Asset-Map where it’s really visual and easy—a lot of my clients love that, and I can put it up on the screen and interact with them.

Johnson: Talking about the 40-page application, I can remember those days, but thankfully, we rarely touch a piece of paper now. I think Equitable Advisors has done a great job of giving us the tools and resources we need to build our practices and to operate even more efficiently. The new marketing suite is something that we’re really excited about. It enables us to set up those regular touches to our clients that are personalized.

Ogle: We are doing something with a marketing suite right now around an event that we’re hosting, and I love that I can send out the invites, get RSVPs and everything through that centralized tool. What do you think has really helped lead to that success and then ultimately, your transition and building the team that you’ve built?

Johnson: I think first, having a great trainer, having a great manager that was willing to, I think he used to call it sewing our shirt sleeves together. He taught me how to find clients, how to network. And in 34 years, thankfully, I’ve never made a cold call. I’ve done everything through referrals and just getting involved in things that I enjoy. Equitable Advisors has really done a great job of helping initially build a marketing and a business plan and then giving me the education and the training to become a successful advisor.

Ogle: For me, hands down, it’s the people. One of the reasons why I wanted to join Equitable Advisors was really, first and foremost, the people. Everybody I met when I was trying to decide where to go, I could tell that they genuinely loved what they did. I remember starting out in this career and looking around our office, and I think I saw maybe two other women, and they were phenomenal. And now, after being here for 16 years, I have seen this growth in women coming into this career.

Johnson: It’s been really neat to see the support that’s there from Equitable Advisors to help women and to help other diverse groups get into the business and become very, very successful and build teams and organizations. We get resources and training constantly to help us build our firm and grow our firm and also create succession plans for those next generations of clients and advisors coming into the practice. And I know in your role as a leader, you see that every day. What’s been your experience with the resources that we have to build teams and firms?

Ogle: We believe so much in teaming. From day one, an advisor is connected to a team that comes in inexperienced. And again, as a district manager, I always told my new advisors, you’re mentored by me, I’m your built-in mentor, but you’re also mentored by our entire team. So I would love to hear more about what that experience has been like for you and now building your team. And I think that you’ve brought your son into the business as well.

Johnson: We have 10 advisors right now with one new advisor coming on board. And then my son is actually a senior in college and we’re in the process right now of working out that transition plan for him. But it’s been a lot of fun to build a team. We have different talents and different skill sets, and so we’re able to really address all of our clients’ needs in a better way and provide the expertise that they need in different situations. I think our youngest right now is 28 and our oldest is 67, so it’s a good age range.

Ogle: That’s fantastic. So do you feel like having that big age range within your team has helped really bring on more clients and different next generations within your client base as well?

Johnson: Absolutely. Equitable Advisors does a really good job of giving us an opportunity to bring new people in and to mentor them, but we’re not responsible for everything. They actually provide the training, the support, the education, the accountability, and we provide our years of expertise and knowledge. And our clients have really responded very well. They want to make sure that there is continuity. If I decide to retire and move to the beach one day, there’s somebody there that’s competent, that’s really good, maybe even better than me, that’s going to take care of them and their businesses and their families. And I think that supported independence model of owning your own practice and having an open architecture, providing the best advice to the client, and then being unbiased in the recommendations that you make is so key. Sarah, what’s your approach to working with clients? What do you think is key in those initial relationships?

Ogle: I have always found that developing trust is the most important thing, and really getting to know them: who they are as a person, not just their finances, and what’s most important to them. Who matters most? What goals do they have? What dreams do they have? And then I think the other really big thing is staying in touch and having a system to stay in touch with clients because so often you’ll hear from clients, “This advisor was great until we did business, and then I didn’t hear from him again.”

Johnson: I think a lot of advisors are great at getting that client relationship and then they don’t do a great job of servicing that client. We have really good tools to stay in touch with clients.

Ogle: How do you feel like having the diverse team that you have, from age ranges and male/female and ethnically diverse, has helped you serve clients in a more holistic way?

Johnson: We want to be able to understand and have empathy. And I think one of the best ways to do that is for our team to be a reflection of the community. So that’s something that we’re constantly working toward, and I think that makes us all better and helps us serve the community in a more impactful way. I know in our firm, it’s been great to be independent, but not to be alone. And to have those resources to cover us and to help us, whether it’s compliance or marketing or education, it really makes us better advisors and also helps our clients.

Podcast transcript: 
Bill Degnan: I think we’ve been ahead of the curve, and I think that became pretty apparent during the COVID years when we were really prepared from a technology standpoint a lot better than a lot of our competitors. And I think that really gave us all maybe some conviction that, well, we’re the right team at the right time. How about you?

Cindy Price: I tell my clients that I work in alliance with a large broker-dealer that’s one of the largest in the nation, but yet I’m able to have my own d/b/a—Price Financial Services—and operate my practice in the best way possible for my clients. And then, with all the tools that are available on our desktop, I really feel like I spend 80% of my time in front of the client, and that really is a good feeling.

Degnan: One of the real differentiators I find between Equitable Advisors and other firms is the culture. And it’s not just the local culture or our office culture, but I think the corporate culture is not one of, no, we can’t do that, or here’s the reason why we can’t proceed. There seems to be a real culture, which has been prevalent as long as I’ve been here, which is really what’s best for the client, what’s best for our advisor, and then how do we make that happen? When you’re an advisor today and your goal is to build an independent business, I think that a lot of people find that it’s really rewarding to have a great corporate partner that will let them function independently. When you think about where your practice is headed and the things that are important to you and your clients, what do you see?

Price: I see that people are interested in the whole picture and holistic planning and growing their wealth, protecting their wealth.

Degnan: Yeah, I agree with that.

Price: Keeping up with inflation, the idea of longevity and they want to know, I want to make sure that my money outlasts me and that I leave a legacy as well. And I really think that the personal financial planner is not going away, because people really do want personalized advice because everybody’s different. I mean, your practice is different from my practice, and that’s what’s so neat when we go to conferences and we meet people, other advisors, that have completely different business models than we do, but somehow Equitable Advisors’ system is able to support whatever that is.

Degnan: In my role as a leader, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to and to bring advisors into Equitable Advisors from other firms. And what I find interesting is that there’s three things they’re always looking for. They’re looking for technology upgrades, they’re looking for mentorship and coaching, but they’re also looking for holistic planning for their clients. More and more, as clients are getting more savvy and are getting more mature financially, they’re looking for an advisor and a firm that’s committed to holistic advice. And what I’m finding with these advisors outside of our firm that are interested in joining us or have joined us, is they don’t necessarily want to change what they’re doing or what they specialize in, but they do realize their clients have other needs and they need resources to address those, like estate planning, like wealth transfer, like corporate benefit planning. If you look at the tools—our aggregation tools—some of the financial planning tools you mentioned and our CRM, it’s all about being able to address a lot of needs for the client or at least be able to have a resource for the client around those needs.

Price: You’re in a branch location where you have support there if you need it, and people get to be mentored by you, which is great. At the same time, when I started a family 25 years ago, I wanted to be closer to home, so I was able to open up my own smaller office, but I get to still see people from the branch and with our meetings. And then I have my study group, which is the other Top 5 women in the country, and we can share ideas. And I think that being a part of Equitable Advisors really becomes like a big family and they’re there to support you with whatever is happening in your own personal life. And so, fortunately, again, you may have experienced the same thing. It’s like an extension of the family. I was fortunate to be able to write a book, and in that book I talked about life transitions and that there’s always money in motion; people are going through a divorce or they just got laid off from their job or their parents passed away. And I started to have a lot of clients go through divorce or lose a spouse. And so I started to utilize all the resources that we had to help those people. And then I had my own life transition two years ago when, after 29 years of marriage and on a wonderful all-inclusive vacation with our best friend couple, my husband passed away the last day of our vacation of a heart attack, and so it was devastating. And then, about six months later, my business partner, who we had been together for 15 years, he passed away suddenly. Didn’t come into work. And so we had, with the support of Equitable Advisors, everything in place. We had been mentoring younger folk to do the same job that we are doing. And so it’s been a seamless transition. Our clients definitely enjoy the fact that they can see that there is continuity and also see that there is some youth and innovation going.

Degnan: Cindy, you mentioned that you’ve got a study group that you get together with the Top 5 women in the firm in the country. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Price: When we get together virtually and also in person, we are able to share best practices with each other and also walk through some of the stages of life. We’re able to share how we are guiding our clients through their life transitions and also how we’re doing that in our own practice. For example, I specialize in women in transition through widowhood and divorce, and also couples that are employees of major corporations in town. Other women advisors that I know specialize in working with business owners, women business owners. And we know that women are starting up businesses at a record pace these days. And so as we see women advancing in the population, then we as women advisors have the opportunity to come alongside them and guide them.

Degnan: There’s a lot of money that women are in charge of within the family structure, and getting more and more women on the advisor side is really aligning with the goals and culture of our clients and what it is that they want in an advisor.

Price: I think that a woman becoming a financial planner has so many advantages because you want to help your clients implement what you’ve already implemented yourself.

Degnan: I think the greatest financial advisors in the industry are looked at as a resource—period. Many clients, they are looking, they’re really measuring, I think, our worth on the value we bring. And it comes back to being more than just somebody that manages my money and helps me with wealth creation. I think that culture is really what differentiates us. Equitable Advisors is committed to holistic planning.

Price: I heard about how you had brought in a large team. For a team to make a decision to come over to Equitable Advisors was obviously a big decision. Can you tell me a little bit about why they chose Equitable Advisors?

Degnan: We’re very, very excited about this team. They’re a very large firm from an assets-under-management perspective, but what really came down in their decision-making, number one, was culture. They met our corporate leaders. They had family in common. What I mean is their families were important to them, and our leaders’ families were important to them, and being able to talk about that. The other thing they were struck by was the number of people they met, not only in leadership, but also our advisor ranks where they had been with our firm 25, 30, 35 years and saw great value in the model and were very loyal to the model and saw great value to their clients in the model. And then technology was another big piece that they were looking for, as to upgrade technology, have the technology that clients not only expected, but that top advisors expect today from their business partners. And then I think, lastly, they’re interested in providing more services to their clients on more of a holistic platform. And after doing their research, they really felt that Equitable Advisors with supported independence was really the model that could take their practice to the next level.

Price: Bill, this new team that you brought on, I’m sure they feel very welcome to the Equitable Advisors family.