The #1 Mistake Advisors Make (And How to Avoid It) | AFG Update Ep. 10

Yeah. protecting from those catastrophic events. Like people don't really Yeah. Living at the same time in the same place, like let's try and let's try and make it the best the best we can. So Keith, welcome back. We uh Had you on when was it like a month ago maybe? Maybe two months ago. I think it might have been longer than a couple months ago. And just really r you're wrapping up your first year with AFG, which is really cool. Kind of a big

the business. So back with us today, Keith Smith, who has been with us for a year now, full time. Yep. And I think we talked a little bit about your journey when you came out how you met us and and how you came to to be part of the firm. But talk about what this first year has really been like and and kind of what it was

In in kind of a more professional setting. I don't want to call them more professional setting, but like a more formal work setting. And then being with us, and now that you've kind of

Yeah, I think it's been a great experience. I've had a lot of fun this first year. Um, I think it's been very rewarding and um it it always gets me exc excited when You know, we we get off a meeting together and and somebody texts me and says, Oh man, like I like I need that's that's what I need to hear or, you know, thanks for reaching out and

Um, you know, it's been a a great learning experience and I'm I'm excited for um you know the years to come. I wish I could fast forward to year five, but um, you know, it it takes a lot of of learning and um, you know, growth within in my role and I think it's been a great year, but um I'm always looking to to get better and and learn and um Yeah, bring my best every day. Yeah. So one of the things I heard, I I can't remember who said it, but kinda The first five.

when the boats like storm the beach of Normandy. And you just like you get out and there's just people firing at you. Right. And you're just kind of running through bullets and then you you get to the other end and you look back. This entire Like fallen soldiers and everything that happened. Right. And you're like, I have no clue how I got to the other end and how I made it. Yeah. But now I've like survived in this business.

Yeah. That's the first five years of this career. Yeah, things things are getting easier too. You know, like like I feel like like the learning curve maybe isn't as steep for me with somebody, you know, who has sort of a finance background. Obviously what I'm doing now is a lot different than what I did prior to. Right. But um

Yeah, it's just kinda about figuring it out and you know, helping other people, I think, you know, it it's already growing upon itself. So it it just it just takes a little bit of time and um some determination, but you know The objective is to to be out there every day trying to help as many people as you can. I think I I think you can't fail.

Right. And it's all about being you. I think that everybody in this business needs to figure out, okay, who am I and and what can I do? And people look at my practice or or some of our other experienced advisors' practices and they're like, Oh, I wanna Don't yeah. Like that that worked for us because of who we are. You've got to build it based on who you are and how you're gonna meet potential clients and how you're gonna

what you feel like you can help them with. And I think that one of the big things where you do really well is like the social you're you're always out and about, you're constantly doing stuff. I know that we we play pickleball together and and we're meeting a ton of people through that. Like it's it's crazy kind of the community of people that you you go a few times, you start to see the same faces, you start to pick up names.

you start to become friendly with these people talk a little bit about just kind of your your interaction in the community and just kind of going out being social and and not having there really be like a business aspect to it. Right. But just how being around has helped you

Yeah, I think that's the key. Um so I'm working with a colleague of ours, Brawley, uh Brawly Adams um for the alumni group and we're really excited about that. We actually have our first watch party tomorrow. What what alumni? um the the Central Florida, University of Central Florida um alumni group down here. So um in Southwest Florida Florida, yeah. Okay. So so from Naples to

You know, covering Bonita, Estero, Fort Myers, even Cape Coral. There's about 7,000 alumni down here. So we're really trying to capture everybody and kind of build a community. Um and like you said, like you you don't go into it, you know, thinking business kind of at all. That that sort of maybe will happen naturally. Right. Um, but it's our goal to to build a community.

So um that's something that we're really excited about. I think we're going to I don't know how good the football team's going to be this year, but that's fine. You know, it's it's we're we're welcome to everybody who's an alumni and and friends and family. Um so we'll just

we'll gather and and um you know kind of kind of come together. But uh I think that's important, you know, like we we live around people and we interact with people every day, you know, in the community. Like why not why not try and have good relations? you know, be there for other people that you're around. Like we're we're living at the same time in the same place. Like let's try and let's try and make it the best the best we can. So that's that's kind of the idea. Yeah. And and I think that

Really interesting because there are so many people looking for what and they just have no clue who to reach out to. Absolutely. There's there's so much, there's an abundance of information out there. There are so many places online to go. And people just they want to work with somebody that they know. And any c common thread of

Okay, this person is like me could be the opening of them feeling comfortable and saying, Okay, Keith, I want to work with you. Like we went to the same college, right? Or we're involved in the same organization, or we like Or we have some of the same values, or we're part of the same church, whatever it is, those are just the little things that open up the door and say, okay, this person is enough like.

Engage with them and and start to work with them. And there's tons of people that are looking for it. They just don't even know the first place to start. Yeah. Or maybe Maybe they're not even looking for it, but when they, you know, come and are introduced to what we do, they're like, Wow, this is like actually s you know this is this is a lot bring a lot of value to my life and is is useful. I'm I'm happy that that we're doing this, you know. So uh

That's that's what I'm really excited about. Just just getting around other people and being involved in the community, um, is is something that's naturally gonna help my business. That's kind of my my angle for things. Um yeah, it's just things that that kind of help you hone your craft and and things that really make you good. In in Cleveland, we were heavily driven by sport So the Browns, the Indians, the Cavs, those were kind of a a big part of the community out there.

So would constantly go to games, would constantly have watch parties. Uh coincidentally tomorrow the Guardians now in Tampa. So friends are coming in town. Oh, you go to the game? Yeah. So go up there. A couple friends play on the team. So we go up and and see them. And so just just cool stuff that's like part of the community. And again, I can bring clients and

with other clients and then like you said, like just just be you. Like like I feel like kind of like that's what I was trying to figure out in my first year like You're you're taking things from, you know, senior advisors and, you know, trying to kind of mold them to yourself and it's really just about being authentic. I mean, that's that's what people want. They want the authentic you. And and they like that that's a way somebody can trust you. You know, you're not you're not putting on

you know, some sort of facade like like they know you, they're around you, they interact with you outside of work and then, you know, they're they're introduced to you personally and then sort of introduced to you kind of on the professional side. It just makes things lot more you know easy kind of easier in the process for them. Yeah. And there's there's a lot to the just the genuineness of of what we do. When people just know the type of person you are, they're like, oh wow, like you are a

kind of well abiding citizen in in the general world, you're probably not gonna be a crook in business. Right. Yeah. Like that's that's really good. I mean we like like I go back to like playing pickup Like we'll play people and there's times where we'll hit shots and people

And I'm like, oh, was it really it? And we're always like overly generous Yeah, like how can I trust you if you're if you're calling the pickleball thing out and I saw that it was it? Right. And and we're always like overly generous. Like there were times where like things are are iffy and we're like, yeah, we'll play it. I'm like, dude, I'm blind. Right. So so I think that there's things like that where it's even very, very little things

There's there's a bunch of studies that talk about like if you're gonna go into business with somebody or if you're gonna do something, like go play around to golf with them. Yeah. If they're cheating on the golf course, like they're probably And I think that that is to some extent true. Yeah. Just if if you practice and do normal things in the way that you conduct your normal life, you're probably going to be a pretty good business person and have pretty

Yeah, I'd agree with you. And and that's really what you you put out there is you're you're going out, you're meeting good people, you're showing people what you do. Our philosophy is like pretty basic. So like our our firm's motto is to protect and provide That comes down to like a couple things. It's like protection, saving, and investing. Yeah.

So if people aren't on board with that, like you're probably not great with money. Yeah. So if if you don't want to take the risk off of you and and put it onto somebody else for If you're not into saving money and if you're not into the money that you saved growing, like you're probably not gonna retire comfortably. You're probably not gonna be like winning the final

The odds are you're not going to. Right. Yeah. So outside of hitting the lottery and being one of the few people actually makes it work and doesn't go broke. It's just you're you're you're not gonna do it. So pretty much everybody is in the demographic of listening to what we do. Yeah. And it comes down to there being a a good person on the other end to help them. It's it's all about being a good

Right. So I don't think anybody comes in and they're like, I hate saving money and I don't want to do it and I'm never going to do it. And my family's in terrible shape and I hate them. Yeah. People I think really love their families. They just don't know where to start and they need somebody to be comfortable with to share these very personal things with. Right. So whenever they find you in the community or whenever they know you and they start to have that likeness.

again that comfortability with you, they'll share.

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Yeah. I liked what Ellie talked about yesterday and I like checked out his website and stuff. Like he was a good uh person to sort of learn from at the AFG Fall Forum and he's like his kind of thing was like we're educational. Like that's we're we're educators first. You come in, we're gonna provide you information. It's up to you to take with that information and and you know do with it as as you please. So I think that's really important. And also another thing that I like what we do is

I think the importance of it is just protecting from those catastrophic events. Like people don't really understand or realize'cause it it might not have happened to them. Right. That that is something that can just completely derail everything. And like we've we've seen it with some people that we've worked with and you know, fortunately we were able to

you know, um, get in touch with them prior to to some of these things happening. But I mean, people they just they're not they're not thinking about that type of stuff. And I I don't know what it is. Like I'm I'm I'm still trying to learn

um you know sort of why people are doing the things that they do um and how it relates to the work that we do. You know, just to sort of get better and and kind of know your client a little bit better. But well I think the the general thing is I mean there's there's just a truly cognitive dissonance where we see things happening

We see people getting sick, we see people getting in car accidents, we see people dying. It's never gonna be us. Right. We just have this like superman complex of even though I see all of this stuff around to friends and family and and people that I know and love, it won't be me. Like I'm not gonna be the statistic. And like we don't get to pick.

Yeah, all of us would pick not us. Like like yeah, right. Like Ellie was talking yesterday about like, all right, if this is a good thing. That went over my head too at first. I was like, What is this guy talking about? I was like, Oh Yeah. So one of the things that we do to kind of like bring the For people that that don't know is

At our firm, we have a summit multiple times a year where we bring in people either from the business or people from Guardian or people from other companies to come and speak. Just really, really good people at the top of their game. to come into the firm and and talk to our Because as as good as we think we are, it's really good to hear from people outside

Yeah, I think that's great for us. It's yeah, it's it's really good. I mean, I've seen Ellie multiple times and and he's been a counterpart for years and and spending a day with him and just hearing the same stuff. that we preach is awesome to hear. I'm like, okay, this guy's really, really good and he's saying 90% of the stuff that I'm saying. Like that reinforces what I feel about how I'm working with clients, working with advisors, and and really getting people up to speed.

But like you said, our job is to educate. It's to put information out there and to give clients facts. Right. It's not our job to vote. It's their job to vote. Yep. And whatever they vote is completely up. Again, I don't think people are bad. So I don't think people come into a meeting being like, I want my family, I want to save the least amount of money and set us up for total disaster. I think people are just completely under or misinformed on what they need to do to have.

And then whenever we educate them, most people take action. Now, does that mean that you go from saving zero to saving zero? the proper amount of money day one? No, not often. Does it mean that you go from having no insurance to the maximum amount of insurance day one? Probably not. But it's getting better and getting to a place where okay you're eliminating catastrophic You're starting to run the engine of saving money.

And and you're starting the system of of making it go. And then you're building habits for the future. And I think that that's the biggest thing with our younger clients is time. Yeah. It's it's not about how much money. What can you do with the time and the available at this point to get this moving because five or ten extra years could make up for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in the future if you wait. Yeah, absolutely. Saving. Savings is is very important.

Thankfully I my parents were always great savers. Shout out to my mom and dad. I gotta shout them out once. Yeah, you got to. But now they're reaping the benefits of all their their hard work. You know, they worked at FedEx for forty years, both of them, and they were always diligent about putting money away and

You know, and so that's what that's what I'm trying to go out and I'm I'm trying to touch as many lives as I can, you know, for the people around me. So, you know, I genuinely care about them. I'm like, hey you guys like this is this this is stuff that we need to take care of.

'Cause if you do it now, you know, your your future will be a lot better. You know, I want that for them and their families. And I think one of the big things that we talk about with with our together mostly young people are it's not all about sacrificing today for I'm a gigantic proponent of life. Yeah. So yeah. You have to enjoy the the hard work that you're doing today and and then still put stuff away for your future. You just can't overindulge in today's

It's very easy to they make it very easy nowadays to do so too. Like like in terms of just like overall consumption and and wasteful spending. I mean they make it so easy. I literally laid in bed. And on my phone just went.

like bonkers buying pickleballs. Exactly. Like didn't even leave my bed. Right. Just on my phone scrolling in the middle of the night the other day. And I'm like, Yep, I want that. I want that. I want that. Oh, my credit card's already saved in here. Click, click, click. Yeah. It'll be here in like two days. Yeah. Like it's way too easy to just go spend a ton of money. Yeah. I got I was at Starbucks the other day and I was sitting in the line. I ordered.

And I opened the app and it's like you don't have enough money. Do you want to put another like fifty or hundred dollars on And I was like, sure, click the button, boom, it just hits my credit card. Yeah. Like in seconds. There's just money that is going and and being spent. And and again, in a world where I'm saving the proper amount of money first and everything else can be spent in in whatever way I want. Yeah. It's still like very hard for me to be like

I just did this, even though I have the permission slip to spend it because I saved the right amount of money up front. Right. But it's still like I look at it from the from the perspective of our clients or people that aren't. And I'm like, this is just you're set up to fail. Yeah. It's just way too easy to get into credit card debt. It's way too

just get into a lifestyle that you can't maintain depending on the amount of income that you have and then kind of trying to keep up with your friends in in spending. And I think that's really where we help regular people is

building this model where okay, save some money first and then you could do all the guilt Mm-hmm. Whatever's left, go. I don't care what you buy. Absolutely not. Obviously, like take care of your housing costs and your your fixed expenses. But if there's money left after you save. Go blow it on whatever. Yeah. Like you save the right amount. Yeah, what do what do people normally do? Is it is it sort of Like we have a process of of how we help people to save money and we're doing that.

You see most people... When they come in it's kind of spend, spend and then at the end of the month they say, Oh, this is, you know, how much I have to kind of put away or Or like what are what what have you kind of seen from the opposing difference? It's all over the board. I think I think people try to consciously put away some amount of money. One they don't know where to put it and they're picking up.

So they're like oh I took two hundred dollars or three hundred dollars and I move it from my savings or my check And I'm like, okay, what's the thought? And they're like it was better than zero. I'm like, Okay, you're right. Like that that's better than zero, but you make two hundred

So saving like three hundred dollars a month is like not it. Yeah. It's not gonna I mean it's not gonna do much. No. And they're like like yes, it is better than zero. Like that's a fact. But whenever we run numbers and we look at okay, what is the impact?

is it doing? Like we need a real plan. We need to figure out a percentage of your income. We need to set that aside and and actually build a model of when do you want to retire? Do you want to work forever? You want to work forever. Yeah, you could Coming in and Like, okay, that that's a plan. Yeah. I don't know that it's a very good one. No. But it's a plan. Um, yeah, there's there's people all over the spectrum.

crazy to think the amount of things I mean at this point I don't I don't So you've met with a thousand. Thousands at least. Yeah. And yeah, I've I've heard everything from just like I said, I put away this much money in a bank account. This much I spend, whatever I spend, and then whatever is left gets swept to my investment account. And and I think people are kind of grasping at straws because they just they don't know and they've never been given.

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When do you see people normally like um kind of coming in to us and seeking our help sort of like in the pre-retirement? Like is there like a general age like Oh you know they can look at forty or forty five, it is. I know I should probably go talk to somebody. Like I'm like I'm kind of for sick of working. Like what does that kind of look like in terms of like our process and and what you've seen kind of throughout your career? Obviously seen, you know, many, many people. Yeah, so I think

kind of most common entry points are pretty big life events. Yeah. People get married, they're like People have a kid and they're like, I really now need to think about protecting. And then we should probably start seeing the right. Um those are the two big entry points where we see a lot of people. And then it's an income jump. So it'll be kind of that thirty, thirty five, forty Pretty substantial. So they go from making, I don't know, say seventy

Two hundred to two fifty. And and these big jumps where they're like, Okay, I I have this house, we're comfortable. in cash and we know we're being inefficient with it. Yeah. And that's that's really the biggest thing that we've seen over this last year is the stock market has performed really well the last few years and we have tons of clients coming We we were sitting on cash, we didn't know what to do, we were trying to do it ourselves and and we really need to meet

Yeah, they they missed about. Yeah, we l we lost out on opportunity. Now if you're in your twenties or thirties, there's gonna be more opportunity in the future. Right. The market ebbs and flows and and like you can't look at a small sample. But you do need to have a plan. So those are kind of the the the main places where people come in. Um I think once people start to think about retirement, we we get a lot of people that are I hope that's a good idea.

Because if they didn't, the runway is just too short for us to to fix a mess. Right. So if there are solid pieces in place, we can typically make it work, but it becomes very very, very uncomfortable and hard conversations with clients that maybe Yeah, that I mean that's what they need to hear, right? I mean it's you don't want You're not being honest.

Yeah, there's no it's hard, it's a hard conversation, but like it's it's our job to like we get we have to tell you that. Yeah, there's no reason to lie. Yeah. So I would never ever lie to a client and say, like, you're gonna

great shape and then five years from now like, oh sorry, like you're not actually you're in total financial disarray. Right. Like we're gonna have real conversations with people and say like maybe you could work seven years or hey, if this happens then So we we have real genuine conversations with clients regularly and again most of them are fun because based on Kind of.

this group and Kelsey who who works with Troy had to create me an Instagram last week. Yeah. Like so it's like this is like groundbreaking stuff to help promote the podcast and to like start to get

Are you gonna be managing it yourself or that you need help from from them? Oh, I one hundred percent do you need help? Yeah, like I'm like learning. Like somebody showed me how to do something and I was like, Oh, I think I could do that. I couldn't do it. So it's um Yeah, it's just like a personal Instagram that is gonna be built to kind of just again, just get awareness out there, start to post stuff, start.

And but it's it's funny, just things where I've been in this business for fifteen years and now somebody fifteen years younger than me is like showing. I think it's gonna be a difference maker. Who knows? But it's just funny, like interacting with somebody that like really isn't that much younger and having them show all this technology and and we were talking about it yesterday. Just kind of like general.

We're gonna be living in a world where somebody like my daughter is gonna grow up where computers are smarter than people for the first time. Is that not already a thing? If in terms of like j maybe not general, like are you talking like just generally? I'm saying that like when she was born, that was a thing. Like when I when I was born The computing power was so low. Like people were still building things. My daughter will never know a world where people can out things.

And and that's crazy to think about like going through schooling like that. I mean, I had to use like encyclopedias to write books. in grade school. Like that's something where she can literally type anything into a computer or ask it. Yes. On a device. That's why. And it's gonna give her like probably a full synopsis, a movie. It's gonna give her every single thing she would want to know about any event where it took me hours and hours to go and find the book.

go to the right page, learn about it, and then write my interpretation of it. Yeah. I feel um it's it's a little intimidating, honestly. And I'm I don't know if I'm cynical towards it or like I don't I don't know how that's gonna work for everything, but I know it's it's arrived and it's here. So like I mean you know, I'm I'm I'm like kind of like yin and

Yeah, you know, like it's gonna be great, but like what are what are some other things that it's gonna bring? Like it's just like it with anything, but but this is just it it's so powerful. And and the the fact that the way it kind of works is it it builds exponentially. And so like you know, yeah.

It's cra it's crazy just to see and think about. And the world's evolving. Like the idea of running my practice the way I do now, fifteen years ago, is crazy. But with all of the virtual meetings and all of the time that I My productivity as like quadruple.

So something where we were forced into using tech in a way that our business probably never thought that it would, with everything being electronic signature, everything being digital, something that again, in in my career with the same company was probably never thought about now is the way that we do business regularly and it's made everybody so much faster. So I think all of this stuff is gonna help us. Like it's here, it's not going away. We need to

it but to what extent and and how do we do it is is gonna be crazy and and figuring all that out is is gonna be kind of an interesting journey. But

The first year that you've been with us has been really good. You checked a lot of boxes. I think you've had a lot of fun, made a lot of friendships. And and really heading into year two, what's kind of the biggest thing that you're looking to to build upon coming off of year one? Um I think just just more

Just having more of an impact, you know, like like the the first year, I mean, you're you're kind of building the plane as you're flying it. Um now I feel like I'm a little bit more established, um, you know, in terms of my relationship.

and people so just building upon the first year and just getting better, you know, and and it comes down to each and every day. Yeah. You know, I wanna look back on on every single day and and know that I put in Um, you know, especially in our business y you see that, you know, what you're doing kind of today, you know, leads to um, you know, success, you know, thirty, six

You know, kind of like in in terms of our process. So um just building and and getting better every single day, trying to help as many people as I can. And you know, I know if I'm genuine. You know, I do that and have people's best interests in mind, I th I I think I'm gonna win. So, you know, just um you know, just working hard and getting better and and helping

That that's the business. Yeah. I mean fifteen years in, help as many people as you can, get get as many people to to listen to the message. And again Yeah. It's it's very basic stuff. But but people are resistant to it and and there's people that just they're looking for a friendly face to to kind of invite them in to teach. it. So you've got the right approach. You're doing extremely well. And we look forward to having you back on

some point in the future. Yeah. So thanks, thanks for being with us today. Hope this makes it on your Instagram. We'll see. I don't I don't know how to do it, but maybe Kelsey will put it on. All right. All right. Thanks, man. All right. This podcast is intended for general public.

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