The Compound and Friends - The Real Lives of Financial Advisors (with Josh, Michael, and Nina O'Neal)

Episode Date: December 9, 2019

Nina O'Neal stops by The Compound to discuss the work-life balancing act of a financial advisor. Nina is a Partner and Investment Advisor at Archer Investment Management in Raleigh, NC. Follow Nina and the Female Advisor Network on Twitter: https://twitter.com/noneal510 https://twitter.com/female_advisors Read Nina's blog: https://www.ninaoneal.com/ 1-click play or subscribe on your favorite podcast app   Subscribe to the mini podcast on iTunes or Spotify    Enable our Alexa skill here - "Alexa, play the Compound show!"   Talk to us about your portfolio or financial plan here:  http://ritholtzwealth.com/   Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice just for you or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. Please see this 3,000 word terms & conditions disclaimer: https://thereformedbroker.com/terms-and-conditions/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm downtown Josh Brown. We are live from the compound. I'm here with Michael Batnick and our friend Nina O'Neill from the firm Archer Investment Management in Raleigh, North Carolina. Welcome, Nina. Thank you. I'm so excited. advisor, running a practice, trying to manage our lives. I find that you're one of the most authentic people I know. And you just tell it like it is. And you did that on stage at Wealthstack and people absolutely loved it. How long has Archer Investment Management been around? And what is your role there? So we've been around for 12 years, actually 13. So 2006, my partner founded it. And then I partnered with him in 09. Okay. And so we celebrate 10 years, actually 13. So 2006, my partner founded it, and then I partnered with him in 09. Okay. And so we celebrate 10 years, which is exciting. And my role is we're 50-50 partners on every

client, every expense, every bit of revenue. So even though he founded it, I came on board not too long afterwards and really helped to expand and grow the practice. So you're working with primarily high net worth investors in the North Carolina area? No, actually, we have clients in either somewhere between 13 and 16 states across the country. Actually, our largest relationships are not in North Carolina at all. And so we're from San Francisco, New York, Chicago, a lot are going to be based in North Carolina, just because of the nature of the beast. That's where we are. But we work with a range of individuals. So from high

net worth down to not a lot of net worth yet. So 55% of our book of business is high income earning professionals. And a lot of those are going to be still in their income earning years. So Gen X, Gen Y. And then 45% of our book is boomers, but they're young boomers. So our average client age is 52. I love the way you say boomers. Young boomers. Wait, say it one more time. Boomers. Boomers. All right. So here's the deal. You did this really cool video series for Investment News called The Juggle is Real, which I've just learned you have that term trademarked. I do. All right. I'm jealous. It's perfect. But what you were basically trying to get across is like this is not easy.

And what made me so interested in that approach to like telling your story, yes, I'm an advisor, but then I go home. I have the kids, my husband, my house, all the, you know. You very rarely see that when advisors are public facing, there's like this illusion of like how in control they are of everything and how easy everything is. And I think, you know, a lot of that is important for the marketing, but it's very rare that someone's like, look what's going on.

So talk a little bit about like what made you want to do that. And when you film that and what the response has been. Well, the response has been huge from men and women. And we were intentionally making sure we talked about working parents because it's not just the moms. So you guys are the dads. And I've heard a huge amount of feedback saying like thank you for including or recognizing that it's both parties. And so the concept came around a long time ago, and I started using it as a hashtag because I got really irritated with the Pinterest mom look, honestly.

And not just in our industry, but across the board, this high expectation of parents to be, you know, working on all levels at an incredibly high energy and perfection. And I just didn't think it was fair, because I always felt like I was failing at that. And so I thought, why don't I mean, I know I'm not the only person dealing with this. And when you talk about advisors, you know, go to industry events or talk to people locally. And it's like trying to prove how smart you are. You know, everybody's got their opinions on things. And a lot of times, it's just a little bit of a one up. And you know, my AUM is bigger. And I just, you know, kind of got a little frustrating and frankly, boring. Because I'm like, let's just talk about

real life this, you know, the reality is, it's hard to grow your business, it's hard to be this perfect parent. And I just kind of wanted to shatter that expectation because I think it's caused a lot of depression and anxiety and a culture that's really not fair. As women have entered the workforce, we have this mental load that I've talked about recently. I finally found the word for it for what I've kind of looked for for years. And all working parents do, but I think women carry it a little heavier as the lead parent usually. And just kind of starting to put names to things and a little bit of relief. And so I've had this overwhelming response, emails, social media messages, people coming up to me that I don't even know, like at Wellstack and different events and saying, you know, thank you. It was such a relief to hear

that it's real and that it's authentic. When you started to do these videos, were they for yourself, for your clients, for prospects, for advisors? Like, who was the intended audience? Or was it just for yourself, like to just vent? So Matt Ackerman at Investment News is a friend of mine. And he has always told me, he's like, I love your posts because I feel the same way. And I'm traveling a lot. And he has two boys as well. So we were just kind of shooting the breeze, talking about it.

And he's like, it would be such a cool video series. Because I was actually going to make a blog post or a book. So I actually have the stories in book form. So you had cameras in your house? Yeah. Okay. It's like a reality show. Yeah, yeah.

And it was funny because they filmed me going to school, the first day of school for my sons. And so I had a lot of text messages from moms like, have you started a reality show? Yeah, what's going on? I was like, just wait. You found the right medium because that would not resonate in writing.

It just wouldn't have the same message in a blog post. I don't think so. And that's kind of where when he said video, it was the first time I'd ever thought about it because I'm not going to produce that myself. I don't have the, I don't know how to. Yeah, we're financial advisors. We're not.

Right, yeah. And so I'd never thought about it. And then it was kind of like, well, what's the purpose? I mean, there's nothing investment related in it. But the relatability, I think, was, it overrode that. That's what I was going to say to you. Because if people that are not financial advisors, but they're just like potential investors in your firm, you know, they would, they're the type of people that you would normally bring on as clients. But they do something else.

They work in, you know, a bank or a software company or an oil company, whatever. If they come across you in that setting, like living your real life, carrying one kid, feeding the other one, people seeing you in that setting, it just, for me, it feels so much more relatable. Like this isn't somebody on instagram who's claiming to be an influencer and cultivating this like platinum version of themselves this is somebody that's like look it is what it is i'm doing my best i'm doing a pretty good job considering everything i'm dealing with somebody seeing that i feel like if if they're smart and they get it they would be like

that's somebody that i trust with my life decisions, my money. And I'm guessing you got that response. Yeah. And a lot of our clients are living that life. So they are most of the time to income earning households and they have difficult jobs. And so I love the response from a client that I don't get to speak to a lot because she's a doctor and her hours are insane and her husband's a traveling sales professional. And so, and they have two girls that are young, probably, you know, 10, 12 years old. So, I mean, they're juggling all, it's the same story.

They get it. And so she would always respond to me after we put those videos out and she's like, I love these. This is my life too, you know? And so. How old are your kids? So they're five and eight, two boys. Okay. I have 13 and 10 what what are you what are yours i'm like 0.3 and three almost that's the real juggle yeah yeah when uh so i loved your i've told you i loved your post yesterday it was so real and so relatable and i just have looked at the last 10 years lately just hitting a milestone for

me and um i know you've put out like your last kind of few years and moving out of the broker you know the reformed broker and so there's a lot of sentiment to that and and kind of seeing how far things go but man you're really in the the throes of the the juggle because i would i would tell you it gets easier um but it doesn't it doesn't it's just different and well so we so I get this all the time. How do you find time to do all these things? Yeah. And you adjust around your kid's schedule.

So I went to the movies on Saturday night. I saw a 10 o'clock movie. That's how I did it. Put the kids to bed and then go out. Yeah. Right. And it changes. I mean, now I love doing stuff with my kids.

I'm not as much dying to go, you know, just my husband and I eat alone. I mean, that stuff's great, but we love the four of us to go out together. And like my kids love sushi. I love sushi, you know, experiencing new, we just went to a Korean barbecue restaurant together. Like that's fun to me. Whereas when they were, you know, zero and three, that was my version of hell. So you're kind of a reform broker also. Yeah. You and I don't have that dissimilar of a background. Right. Prior to becoming an advisor, how did you get into the business?

What was your start? So I call myself the accidental advisor. I was working in fashion PR in New York, actually, and hated it. And had a lot of cool experiences, but just really didn't find that a long-term picture for me. And so worked with a recruiter and took a job right nearby at Jenison Associates, which is an institutional money manager. And so I was kind of the liaison between the clients and the firm and really learned that this can be a relationship business, which I don't think on the institutional side you find all the time. And I really learned how to work with people and the relatability. I became very close to a lot of the clients.

And I watched the wedding video of one of the client's daughters on the phone with him. And he was the CFO of a huge company. And I just found that they taught me a lot about not only working in finance, but that it was about managing the personal relationship. And I love that. And so when I wanted to move back to North Carolina, I was an advisor at a wire house. So I took an opportunity there. And then in the financial crisis, they completely terminated my training program that I'd been

in for just three years. They did you the biggest favor imaginable. Oh, yeah. At the time, you know, you think it's the worst thing and I wanted to get out of the business. But I met my partner whom I'd known for three years already we met in 06 right when i moved back to north carolina he's from new york so it was kind of this interesting and he's only three or four years older than i am so we were both really young um i was 28 and he was in his

early 30s he had just started the his own firm kind of gone off from a group so um he was like i just can't watch another young person get out of the business. I was like, but I don't. I just, I'd interviewed and felt like I was just going from one sinking ship to another and kind of had a bad taste in my mouth for the business. And had a lot of great experiences starting out, but had a lot of just felt like I couldn't do what I wanted to do, which was just for the client. Well, that's what I was going to say.

Like your life would have been totally different had that training program survived the financial crisis and you stuck it out. First of all, you wouldn't be doing videos and blog posts and speaking on stages. You wouldn't really have that much control over where you get your clients from. Like, your life would have turned out very differently. So, like, it's a similar thing. Like, I changed from being a broker to an advisor during the crisis also. So like, I can very much relate. And I shudder to think like, what would happen if I was still a series seven registered rep somewhere? Like, you know, my life would be very different too. And I and I look back and I'm so

grateful. And but you know, kind of the point of where you were saying, like, I share that it's hard. It was so hard. And I got married. I've had two children, three pregnancies, renovated a house three times, moved and built an advisory firm, started another business this year. I've done a lot of,

I did the video series with Investment News, tried to be a good mom. My oldest son played 70 baseball games this year and I was at all of them that I could. That's right, you're a baseball mom. Insane baseball mom. Yeah. But it's not easy. And that's the message that, because I have people all the time say exactly what you said. How do you do all these things? I joke, I don't sleep a lot. I'm a night owl, but it's, you figure it out and you find what's most important to you and you follow the passions. You find time for what matters. Yeah. You make your own priorities. Yeah. The last thing I want to ask. And you follow the passions. You find time for what matters.

Yeah. You make your own priorities. Yeah. The last thing I want to ask you, you last year or earlier this year started an organization for women who work in, I think it's mainly financial advisory. Just financial advisors. Okay.

And basically it's not like this incredibly complex thing. It's like conversations and a community with people that are on the same path and want to help each other. Can you speak a little bit about what that's all about? Yeah, it's the Female Advisor Network. And it really just came out of me and the experiences we were talking about not feeling like I had a network of women throughout my career. I do now.

But I kept meeting with women that we had the same or similar shared experiences separately, and I just felt like we could probably do better as a community and figure out a way to work together. So I started with a retreat, which I had someone from, a friend from your organization attend. Yeah, Blair. Shout out to him.

No, not Blair. Dina. That's right. Dina Kim. Yeah, Blair couldn't come this year. And so I just loved being with those women. But in planning that, I thought, you know, this is amazing, and I still want to do it, but I think we could go bigger.

And then started to kind of formulate with some, and I called you when I wanted to launch it, and some friends and saying, you know, what do you think? And, you know, how can we get the word out? And so it's been amazing, and the feedback's been huge. There are a lot of programs to help women network as a community together. And so wherever you are in your career, and I think we have between 30% and 40% have over 15 years in the business within the community. So it's not just for new advisors.

And I think those women are getting as much out of it as new ones. It's really wherever you are. And whether you want to connect in person or digitally, there's a way for you to experience it. You should have hundreds of members. People that are looking for their community, whether they find it in person or online, there are just so many things that are unaddressed. And I hope that this thing really takes off for you. Do you remember the first time you and I spoke? Yes, it was about around the same thing. You posted a blog post looking for women

and I loved that you owned, you had kind of created an organization that you were proud of the people here, but they didn't really reflect exactly what you wanted to and lacked some so you so i right i did this thing like i'm struggling to um find and hire more women in my organization and i feel like like i'm failing in a in an important area and like a bunch of people reached out and it was almost all encouraging um but you were like dude you're a mess let's get on the phone i was like no dude, you're a mess. Let's get on the phone. I was like, no, we exist. We're not unicorns. But like, I can help you. Let's talk. But you did help.

You did help me. You were awesome. So I will never, I will never forget that. I really appreciate it. How do you want people to follow you and find your stuff? So you're at, are you N O'Neill? N O'Neill 510. At N O'Neill 510 on Twitter.

Yeah. So I'm on linkedin as well and then i'd love for anyone guys or girls to follow uh the female advisor network which is at the female advisor on twitter and there's also instagram facebook linkedin so you can just search for the awesome thanks for coming by appreciate it all right let us know uh what you think is balancing running any business, financial advisory or otherwise, and family, is it hard? Is it easy for you? What makes it hard?

What makes it easy? We love your feedback. Go ahead and subscribe to the channel if you have not already. Follow Nina on all of her channels, and we will be back with you soon.