Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders, MBA - Interview with Scott Edelman Founder of Edelman Wealth Management Group Discussing His 30 Year Anniversary in Business

Episode Date: May 25, 2026

Scott is the founder of Edelman Wealth Management Group and manages all aspects of financial planning and employee benefits, providing products and services for investing, retiring, insurance, and estate conservation for individuals, families, and businesses. He has a strong commitment to giving uncomplicated advice and unparalleled service and puts an emphasis on creating lasting relationships with his clients and within his community.A natural teacher and mentor, Scott is a member of Strategic Coach, an entrepreneur business coaching program. He is a thought leader in the financial field and a regular speaker at conferences. Scott is also active with local charities and is on several boards. Scott lives in Bucks County, PA with his wife and children.Learn more: http://www.edelmanwealthmanagement.com/1 Disclaimer: Securities and investment advisory services offered through Osaic Wealth, Inc. member FINRA/SIPC. Osaic Wealth is separately owned and other entities and/or marketing names, product or services referenced here are independent of Osaic Wealth.2 The Hall of Fame was an elite group of financial representatives of former broker-dealer Signator Investors, Inc. and the John Hancock family of companies. To be included in the HOF, inductees need to qualify for the ACE award 15 times. The Achieving Client Excellence Award (ACE) was granted by former broker-dealer Signator Investors, Inc. and the John Hancock family of companies. The ACE award was granted to the top 250 advisors each year based on total weighted premium from the sale of both proprietary and non-proprietary protection and wealth products. No other factors are considered. Third-party rankings and recognitions are no guarantee of future investment success and do not ensure that a client or prospective client will experience a higher level of performance or results. These ratings should not be construed as an endorsement of the advisor by any client nor are they representative of any one client’s evaluation.3 The Practice of the Year Award was granted by former broker-dealer Signator Investors, Inc. and sponsored by Fidelity Clearing & Custody Solutions in recognition of an advisor’s excellence in practice management. Candidates were evaluated by Business Health, an independent international management consulting firm specializing in the financial services industry, for client service, internal planning and structure, external relations, staffing and technology capabilities and overall practice performance. Sales production was not a criteria for winner selection. The competition was open to all advisors and of the applicants, 5 were selected to be interviewed and one winner was selected from that group by an independent panel. Advisors did not pay a fee to apply, to accept or to purchase materials related to advertising the award. Third-party rankings and recognitions are no guarantee of future investment success and do not ensure that a client or prospective client will experience a higher level of performance or results. These ratings should not be construed as an endorsement of the advisor by any client nor are they representative of any one client’s evaluation.4 Qualifying membership in the MDRT is based on minimum sales production requirements and gross business generated within a year. Each MDRT status designation is granted for one year only. All members must apply every year to continue their affiliation with the Million Dollar Round Table.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-scott-edelman-founder-of-edelman-wealth-management-group-discussing-his-30-year-anniversary-in-business

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of influential entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with the Scott Edelman, who's the founder of Edelman Wealth Management Group, and we'll be talking about their 30th anniversary celebration. Scott, welcome to the program. Thank you, Mike. Happy to be here. Hey, you know, these days, I think that a lot of times people, if they stay at their job more than three or four years, it's like, let's throw a party. And you've been in business 30 years, and that

is amazing. So first of all, before we dive into some of the key lessons and mission and vision that you've accomplished over the years, give us a little bit of an overview. How do you serve your clients and what is the main value that you're bringing to your clients as a whole? It's hard to sum it up into a sentence or two, but it's been the relationship that we built with each one of our clients over the 30 years. It's the ability to understand them, listen to them, and be able to guide them in the right direction. It's to really be their partner in their financial life. You know, it really is interesting how, how when you use certain of those words, relationship and partner, you typically don't hear

that when in a business context. It's mostly, I feel like I'm a number. I feel like I'm bothering, you know, my advisor when I reach out to them. But when you want to, when you express building relationships, that's huge. So three decades, looking back over 30 years, what's been the most rewarding part of working with your clients in addition to building relationships? But what specifically going a little bit deeper on that? Well, it does really stem from the relationship. It's the relationship that is a two-way street. We build with them, they build with us.

It's the fact that our clients know that they're our friends as well, their clients, their friends, that they can come to us for anything. And we get a lot of folks coming to us, you know, whether they're going to buy a car, I introduced them to my relationships. maybe they need a doctor, maybe they need a realtor, they're moving to another area. It's really coming to us for kind of everything in being their partner. It's not just about what we manage for them and their assets or their insurance. It's lifestyle.

It's managing all those things and being able to share my relationships with the relationships of my clients and vice versa. I've become a client of some of my clients. I know when I need something that the relationships that we built were very strong, that I can go to those people in the same way that they come to me. So those are really important because it's not just business. And that's what we like because the business is always going to take care of itself. but having that deep relationship knowing what they do, what they like, what sports teams they root for, what their children are doing, what their parents. It's tremendous because we're friends.

Yeah, that's huge. You know, it's kind of like when you are a transactional relationship, you just, you know, or an order taker. You know, oh, I need this. Please set up this. Please do that. But when you start becoming friends, it transcends. past that. You know, and I'll bet 30 years ago when you started in the business, it was a lot of uncharted territory. What was the moment when you realized this is the work I was meant to do?

I mean, that's a great question. And I think he comes down to enjoying the people, being able to have these really good conversations with people and the sense of knowing that the conversations are helping people. Like they're helping to protect them. They're helping to plan for education. They're helping to plan for retirement. Just knowing that we can do something that is helping other people is phenomenal. Yeah.

What are some of the lessons that you would say that looking back, you've learned in addition to building relationships and treating people the right way? What are some of those other personal and professional and professionals? lessons that you picked up along the way? I would say that, and this is something I talk to people that I mentor, it's listening. People want to be heard. They want you to listen to them. They don't want you just talking at them.

They want you to listen to them. They want you to understand what's really important. And I believe listening is an art. And I believe that most people want to be heard. but they never really take the time to listen. I believe that by listening, you'll get all the answers to the questions that you're going to ask anyway. So I would say that listening is the number one. And I would even venture to say you would agree with this.

Sometimes when you talk to someone and you can, you almost can tell that they are just waiting for their moment to interject something. And they're not really listening. They're just kind of thinking in their mind. is churning and their wheels are spinning while you are talking and they're not really listening to you. They're just waiting for a pause in the conversation. So true listening, active listening, that is an art form. And like they've said in the past, I know it's cliche, but we've got two ears and one mouth. We should listen twice as much as we talk. We say that all the time. I've told my kids that. I've told other kids that I mentor. We say that all the time. I love that

phrase. Yeah. So think back at some of the biggest moments of your career. What are some of those highlights? Well, I mean, some of the unofficial highlights are the highlights of watching our clients, children be educated, watching them help them to provide the education to get their kids through school and grad school. Being a part of watching my friends and my clients and people I work with retire, you know, taking them through so far a 30-year life cycle and watching all the changes that they go through watching from when the babies are born to when they go through school or watching even some of my own school teachers that I had in teachers in the Philadelphia Public School district, at this point, they were my teachers and I've now retired them out and I've helped set them up

for success in retirement. Then, you know, having these relationships that are three generational. And we have a significant number of those. So the grandparents, the parents, the kids, and even the kids having babies. So it even becomes four generations. It's tremendous. this. And then, you know, some of the other things is being recognized in my industry. My industry is very important to me. Being a top of the table, a million dollar roundtable member, being on the advisory board of top of the table, meaning not only is it my success, but it's helping other people succeed, being inducted into the John Hancock Signature Hall of Fame. That was really important to me.

And I think the one that stands out was being named Practice of the Year. That was tremendous to us because we were recognized by our industry as being one of the best. And that means everything to me because that goes to my team. That's not about me. That's about all of us and the team that we've built. That was a tremendous honor. You know, and it's interesting that I know that I do a lot of reading and personal development and business, and they say if you chase profit, you'll always be running around in circles.

But when you chase relationships and value, the profit follows. So it's very apropos that you mentioned some of those accolades because we're talking about the accolades after the fact that you have built the foundation of serving clients, being their friend, building relationships. Well, the net result of that is some of those other accolades, but you didn't strive for that because then all of a sudden you might be tempted to treat people like, oh, just another number, let me sell that deal. Never, never.

The relationships and the listening and the understanding, the financial rewards come. But the idea is we're your partner. So where it's rewarding to us is watching our clients succeed. And we tell if they're succeeding, then we know we're succeeding. But we have to have them succeed in order for us to succeed. And our clients get it. It's a marriage. We're partners.

It's a marriage. We're on the same team. We're working together. And that's really what people want. You know, they want that love. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You know, these days, I think that you see brands or companies, you know, like, I don't know, whatever,

just companies where it's not a personal brand. And I know that with the name of your company, you know, that's your name, Edelman Welfth, Benazer Group. So there has to be a personality associated to that. And maybe you've even have, you know, strategically been developing that. Talk a little bit about the personality of your firm and what you're looking to accomplish with that. It's amazing. It is my brand. So it's always my reputation.

It's my last name. But I think that brand stands for a firm. that's a family. We are all a family in the firm. We all use the same brand. I might have been born with that name, but we've all adapted that name. And working collaboratively and working together and creating that family environment on the inside translates to the relationships on the outside. So we are, we're friends, we're family, we participate in each other's lives. We know what's going on with each other's children and what's important to them and the good times and the bad times of being a support system for each other and working together for one common goal. One of the things that I think is phenomenal is, you know, our chief operating officer, Stacey Brilliant, has always taken a role with all of our children as they grow up.

and it's, you know, it's been 30 years in helping them with their college essays. And they all know that when it's time to put their college apps in their essays, they all go to Stacy for that. I mean, she's the one. She takes pride in that in the fact that she doesn't have to do it. She wants to do it. She expects them to come to her. I work with some of our team.

teammates, you know, children that are already in school or coming out of school and giving them some guidance on, you know, our industry or what things they should be looking at as they move on to their, the next phase of life. It's enjoyable. We all have sports affiliations. So we all, you know, do some interesting stuff around sports and we can tease each other and have fun and keep light. And I think that those things translate to our clients. I mean, they, they can see when we are talking to them or working together. They can see how much we all like each other. I don't think it, in 30 years, I don't think there's ever been one argument or situation in the firm that was a problem. We just all like each other. We all respect each other. And we respect

everyone's family boundaries, and we're always there to support. So people know when they come to us, the warmth that we have as a firm and the fact that it translates to our client relationships is paramount. Yeah. I think that's hard to create. I love it. It really becomes very hard. In fact, that becomes a competitive advantage, because if all you did was produce one

product for one target audience, that's easy to replicate and knock off. But what you're describing becomes a strong competitive advantage. And I want to dive in a little bit of one of my favorite terms in life is balance. Because I think that if we want to be your 30 years in business, you probably have learned this over the years, which is you can't work 24 hours a day or 23 or 22 or 21. You got to have balance, family, physical, financial, emotional, all of that. So you could in your firm take an educational approach or a relationship driven approach or a relationship driven approach. analytical. And if all you did was focus only on the becoming a friend and supporting people, then you'd never get any business done. So how do you balance teaching and educating,

having a little bit of strategic analysis, talking a little bit about the money stuff, and then sprinkling in the relationship driven. How do you keep all that imbalance? Well, I think it's from the start, making sure that you put the right people around you. It starts right from the beginning. I think I'm a pretty good judge of character, at least everybody tells me that I am, and it's putting the right people in the right places that everybody can win from. I believe that everybody has their own unique ability and understanding everybody's unique ability and utilizing that to help each other in the firm.

and in our clients is tremendous because you want to make sure that everybody fits the culture. We know that we're going to bring in competent people that are going to be able to do the job. But there's a lot of competent people. We need more than competent people. We need people that can integrate well with who we have. Because, you know, on a sports team, for example, you can have a championship caliber talent team. But if in fact the

you bring in one talented player that doesn't fit the culture, it could kill everything. You know, it takes a championship team to not a championship team. So I think it's the same thing in our environment. You can't bring someone in that kills the culture, kills the vibe, doesn't really get it. So we

we try to make sure that that doesn't happen. And I have to say that with the long-term relationships we have in the firm, that that hasn't happened. And I think that's, that makes me very prideful. Yeah, I love it. You know, one of the things you talk about and we'll wrap up with this concept, but tell us about the Edelman lifestyle. The Edelman lifestyle. It's great. The Edelman lifestyle is about people accomplishing what they want. The Edelman lifestyle is about helping people to live their best life. We want our clients to share with us what their financial world should look like, what their retirement, what they want out of retirement, what they want out of their money. And we want to understand that because you don't want to boil it down to just numbers.

You want to boil it down to the lifestyle of, hey, when I retire, I won. It could be a boat, it could be a vacation property. I want to move to a warmer climate. All of these things, it's understanding that and helping them to not only achieve, but visualize it along the way, not look at everything just as a number on a piece of paper, but put the vision in their mind so they can focus on their vision. Everyone's lifestyle and retirement is going to be a little bit different. But I want people to live the luxury. I want them to have what they want.

And we want to make sure that on our end, we stretch every dollar as far as we can stretch it so that they can achieve that. And that's it. You know, everyone's a little bit different. But the idea is when you can kick back in retirement, put your feet up and look at the ocean or get in your sports car or whatever it is, we want to be part of that. We want them to feel that lifestyle and feel that we help them to create that vision and we help them to achieve that vision. You know, and it seems like that becomes you're like a life coach of sorts because if you ask 10 people, what does retirement look like to you, you could get 12 or 15 different answers.

You know, like I use this example a lot. I'm the kind of person where I can't sit still and I always got to have something going on. But I've got two uncles that when I was growing up, they were in like the trades and the construction and getting asbestos out of buildings. And they worked hard. When they retired, they went to Florida and they literally sit on the beach or go out on their boat or play pool. That's it. And that would drive me nuts.

So the life coach. aspect that you're describing there is, hey, let's lock arms and figure out what you need to have a successful retirement. And then when you talk about that dream and that transformation, now we can figure out how we can get you there. 100%. I mean, send me a picture of you putting your feet up in retirement, looking at the ocean and talk about rewarding. That's rewarding. That is rewarding. It's exciting and rewarding. Well, especially when you can sit there and have in the back of your mind, I am at this place because of the hard work and the wise work that I've put in decades before. If you're sitting there on the ocean and you've got four mortgages, $30,000 in credit card loan, you know what I'm saying?

There's a lot of people that you can see, you know, I used to be in the mortgage industry and I could look at the credit report and go, wait a minute, you're 65. You still have two mortgages, two car loans and $40,000 in credit cards. Wow. So there's a difference between someone sitting on the beach with their hands behind their back, taking a deep breath, that it did it right. Yeah. 100%. And along the way, you got to have those hard conversations with their clients. So that doesn't happen. So that when they get to that point, we've helped to alleviate some of those things. And it's hard conversations. And it's helping people make the hard choices along the way to get to where they want to be. We want to, we're the person at the table. I always say, You know, you're 50 years old now, you're 40 years old now, but what does your 70-year-old self look like? What do you want? I say, you know, if you sat here, we're the people at the table that are representing the 70-year-old you because someone's got to. And that's how we have that conversation.

Well, Scott has been really exciting learning a little bit behind the scenes of what has transpired over the last 30 years. So congratulations for that. If someone is interested in learning more about the Edelman Way and lifestyle, what is the best way they can reach out and connect with you? Certainly our website is Edelmanwealthmanagement.com. That's usually going to be the easiest way to get to us. And we're always excited to help someone achieve their best life. Excellent.

Thank you so much for coming on. Scott. It's a real pleasure talking with you. Thank you. The views expressed are not necessarily. the opinion of the interview guest and should not be construed directly or indirectly as an offer to buy or sell any securities or services mentioned herein. Investing is subject to risks, including loss of principal invested. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. No strategy

can assure a profit nor protect against loss. Please note that individual situations can vary. Therefore, the information should only be relied upon when coordinated with individual professional advice. Securities and investment advisory services offered through Osayek Wealth, Inc., member of FINRA and SIPC, Osac Wealth is separately owned in other entities and or marketing names, products, or services referenced here are independent of Osceic Wealth. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.com.com.com Radio.com.