Being in the Client's Corner with Justin Long

00:13
Charlie Van Derven
Thank you once again for tuning in to another episode of RIA Collective. I'm your host, Charlie Van Derven. I got a great guest today who has a lot of experience to lend our listeners but also has a pretty unique approach to how he serves clients. So, Justin Long, Diazo Wealth Management. Justin, thank you for joining me today out of Henderson, Nevada. I lived in the Valley for about a month, Justin. That's all I could hack, man. That's all I could do. 

00:48
Justin Long
Not the better of you. I've heard that happens. 

00:52
Charlie Van Derven
I think I went to the Strip once. I'll tell you, I'll give you the quick little background there. I was working for a company, and of course, like company, they were in five different verticals. I was taking care of their financial services vertical, and they wanted me to live in Vegas because with five verticals, of course, they had so many trade shows there, right. They figured maybe a cheap storage place for their booths or whatever. I was a winter sports guy before I married and moved to Florida. Vegas didn't really cater to that very much. 

01:31
Justin Long
No, not so much. 

01:33
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. It wasn't like I got burnt out on the Strip or anything like that. I went from there and I said, Guys, gosh. As much as Vegas is nice, I'd really rather be in Tahoe. Do you mind if I go there? Anyway, I love Vegas and went to the lake. 

01:48
Justin Long
Nice. 

01:49
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, man. Yeah. Justin, you've got a really unique story. Of course, what we're trying to accomplish here with our collective is help those people who are maybe I'll use the word stuck in a captive environment that are thinking about independence, help open their eyes to things that, different paths in the industry. I truly believe, and you and I expressed it together when we are kind of on our meet and greet call, it is maybe difficult is a light way to say it. Maybe it's impossible to both be a captive adviser at one of those major firms and be a Fiduciary. 

02:25
Justin Long
I agree with that. 

02:27
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. So elaborate on that a little bit. Why do you think it's so tough to be in a captive environment and. 

02:31
Justin Long
Also Fiduciary just because of the captive environments and pick the alphabet soup of names? Meryl, Morgan, Fidelity, Schwab, whatever it is. There's sales goals no matter what firm you're at. I've got friends that have left Meryl after 35 years. Hey, all your clients need credit cards. These that my clients worth $15 million. They don't need a house loan. That's, I think, where the justice position is, really. That if there's a sales goal and I hate the word sales in what we do. 

03:06
Charlie Van Derven
I'm with you. 

03:07
Justin Long
If there's a sales goal, how can you really be a Fiduciary? Because those two juxtapose each other. If I know that I've got to get to a certain number of annuities or credit cards or whatever that may be, that's going to influence my decisionmaking. When I'm doing an allocation for my client or having my discussions with my clients, I just feel like they're at ends with each other because it doesn't really allow you to really dive into the overall plan. I'm a planner at my core and really come up with what's best for the client, regardless of what that means for bottom line situations. 

03:45
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, I'll tell you. Having been working with advisors in different capacities over a couple of decades, right. I always knew there was a story to be told because over that time, I've watched people move to independence. Some do it really with very little friction, and others have struggled with it. I've got a handful of coaching clients now, and those who have listened to previous episodes maybe have heard me tell this story, but this podcast became a reality. Hinging one situation with a coaching client. Now, I'll keep firms and adviser names out of it. Just and here's what happened. With the coaching relationships, I coach twice a month, right? So it's every other week. I get on with this coaching client, and he serves a fairly affluent audience. He's seeking clients, $1.52 million. I get on with him and I say, hey, how's the last couple of weeks gone? 

04:44
Charlie Van Derven
We're just getting caught up with the last couple of weeks. We had spoken and he said, Charlie, I landed two new clients. Dang, dude. All right, that's great. Tell me about them. Well, they're a little smaller than normal. One is a quarter million dollars, the other is $300,000. I'm like, what are you doing? Why would you take those households? Well, I'll tell you. The firm had an incentive for the number of households, and so to hit that 2% or whatever it was, I brought on these households, and I was like, that's great for you. 

05:16
Justin Long
Great. 

05:16
Charlie Van Derven
You get your 2% and great, the firm's got a new household, and I'm sure that they're looking at nurturing those, but you can't even serve with those guys. That puts your client not first but third. 

05:29
Justin Long
Right. 

05:31
Charlie Van Derven
Justin it was that conversation where I was like, something's got to be done. This is ridiculous. Right now, I still coach some captive advisors, but really, we got a new mission and invigorated to help the industry transition to independence because I think that's where the clients get the best service. 

05:50
Justin Long
That's part of it, is the reality of depending on what captive environment you're in, there are some that are a little more independent. There are some that are pure retail, but it's all driven by metrics that don't necessarily benefit the client. At the end of the day and that was where my just close came in when I got my CFP, it was, Wait a minute, how do I be a fiduciary and I couldn't come to terms with it. That's ultimately what led me to start researching and granted, where I was at. I was compensated very well. I had a very good job. I was part of the leadership team. I had a great career there. What it came down to me was I'm not servicing my clients the way that I'm telling them that I'm going to service them. It was one of the most frightening things I've ever done. 

06:42
Justin Long
Me and my wife talked about a problem for six months on a nightly basis before making a decision. It really led me to I'm part of a CEO group that had discussions once a monthly basis. It really came down to the three things who are you? What do you want to do, and what price you want to pay? Because there is a price, no matter what the price, to stay where I was to continue to sell products to my clients that I didn't necessarily believe 100% was right for them or continue to get hammer on. If I didn't sell them and compensation cuts and this, that and the other or the price to go independent was I don't know what the outcome is. The first two lines a lot more with going with independent. When I looked at the price, was this something I could do? 

07:36
Justin Long
I could keep selling the products or keep getting yelled at by management, but it was scary but not impossible. I've seen people do it. I really went to my core of who I am and what I want to do, I want to create the best financial services experience for a client, wrap a concierge white glove experience around every client that I deal with, that was impossible in the situation I was, no matter how hard I tried. That led me to where I am. 

08:05
Charlie Van Derven
I love it, man. We're going to talk about that concierge experience in here because that is a big differentiator for you. I want our listeners who are considering this independent move in their career to understand that there are different ways to serve clients. And you embody that. I dig that you're talking about your experience in that captive environment. I think it boils down to one word, and that's inauthenticity. Right? Like I'm not who I tell my clients I am. I'm not serving them the way the CFP designates that I do. 

08:33
Justin Long
Right? That was a big struggle for me because when clients ask about taxes or trust, the company line was, well, you have to consult your CPA. I took the courses, I know enough. I'm not going to file their taxes for them, but I know what tax loss harvesting looks like. I know what tax efficiency looks like in macro allocations, asset location versus allocation. I can't have those discussions because you don't like it. That was, who am I and what do I want to do? Ultimately, when I had that discussion with my wife and myself, it was like, look, I can never be my true self over here, and yeah, I make a great living, and yeah, we've got a great life, but at what cost? And ultimately we made the leap. And I wish I tell everybody this. I wish I'd done it ten years soon. 

09:20
Charlie Van Derven
I knew what was going to come out of your mouth because I have never spoken to a person that says, gosh, I regret that move. Everybody says, I wish I'd have done it sooner. That's awesome, man. As we get going here, just I want to dig into your experience in the industry and my research and stuff. Now, 2008 looks like when you kind of start in a production kind of role, that's a tough time to join this industry, man. What's that like, 2008, jumping into a new experience. 

09:53
Justin Long
I've always been in finance. I have a master screen economics, my VA's in economics and finance. And so I started many moons ago. I won't bother you with how old I am. I fresh out of college. I was a finance manager at a car dealership that didn't taste very good coming out of the gates, I bet. I got into mortgages and that was a lot of fun, but it was really transactional and I ended up actually starting my own firm. We did huge volumes to refinance booms in the early two thousand s, and that just wore on me. About 2005, I just kind of got tired of the transactional nature. I wanted to do something relationship based, sold that company, decided, okay, what am I going to do? Where do I want to go? One of my employees at the time actually had some friends out in Boston that were running an insurance based BD, flew out there, talk to them, they're like, okay, took a year or two off. 

10:55
Justin Long
Basically. I was actually driving a truck here in Las Vegas just for something to do, because I told my company I was sitting fairly well financially and wanted I'm active, I'm up at 04:00 A.m., I go to bed at ten, and I run all day long. I was driving a truck for rock and roll bands, delivering their equipment to the strip. Cool experience. I finally decided, okay, I started digging into the CFP and what that meant, and ultimately that's where I started my career, where I wanted to do that. Coming out of college, different things happen, and chased a girl out in Florida and needed a paycheck and things went a different way. When I had control of my situation was like, okay, how do I help educate people and how do I get people in a better place? I started out with an insurance based BD I was there in eight from the time I got license, it might have been two years. 

11:58
Justin Long
I was actually in production for about nine months and boiled down to me and the managing partner having a blow up over me telling a client not to buy annuity because it wasn't right for him. He's ready to sign. You need to have him sign that for $200,000 right now. I said, but he flat out just told us he's got to take $50,000 out for his daughter's wedding in two years. I said, that's not right. There will be surrender charge. It doesn't make sense. So I went back in. I told the client, hey, let me revisit this. Let me rerun your plan. Let me see where we're at. Walked into my office and wrote my resignation letter. Walked out that day. Started a big box broker dealer, retail firm and spent ten years there. Loved the experience of the firm to this day, and about three years ago decided, okay, it's time for me to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. 

12:53
Justin Long
That's what led me to the creation of the Ozzo. 

12:57
Charlie Van Derven
I love that we go all the way back to 809, maybe 2010 where you recognize that you're being pushed in a direction that isn't true to who you are. You're not serving the client. This isn't something that came up somewhere along the line. This is from the very beginning. 

13:16
Justin Long
You love what you do. You never work a day. And I love interacting with my clients. I love being there for them in their moments of need, to be honest. That's what we get paid for. I tell clients all the time, I said, the market is up 25% year to date. You're probably not going to hear from me. They ain't broke, don't fix it. This year, we've talked to every single client, probably every two to three weeks on average. Just communication, communication. 

13:41
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, that's awesome. Now, you shared, as were again a few weeks ago, just getting acquainted with each other, making sure that this is something that was pure to you as well. In being on the podcast, you'd mentioned that when you left the big firm and you went to a broker dealer briefly. Let's dive into that because there's got to be something in there that you make another leap of faith right away. 

14:09
Justin Long
Well, I went to a broker dealer. They were managing, I don't know, three and a half billion dollars. About $500,000 was AUM. The other 3 billion was Aua or commission based up. 

14:20
Charlie Van Derven
Sure. 

14:21
Justin Long
I went there and I told them when I went there, I was going to be a fe only fiduciary on their platform. The thought process with the CEO was, hey, I've got 56 advisers or so. I'd love to convert them to the way that you do it. 

14:35
Charlie Van Derven
Cool struggle. 

14:36
Justin Long
There was most of these guys are in their late 50s, mid 60s, make a good living and aren't ready to upset the apple cart. 

14:44
Charlie Van Derven
Sure. 

14:45
Justin Long
I spent a couple of months digging in with those guys while I was waiting for licensing and all that good stuff from the state and came to a conclusion. Well, Tiger doesn't want to change its stripes and you can't strongarm somebody. The CEO and I had a long discussion about it and he actually ended up getting an exit offer on the broker dealer side of the world and decided to execute that. We spun up an RIA, which was just my business. Basically I was the only one that didn't go with the broker dealer side. From there we kind of formulated this bespoke concierge. I'm really fortunate that I've been able to craft this entire thing. In my one, I built it out one clients first, advisor second firm third, with clients always being the paramount. Not forgetting that the advisors, if you got happy advisors that are serving their clients in the right way, the firm makes money. 

15:46
Justin Long
That's just the way I've looked at it. At the end of the day, that's kind of been our North Star for the last couple of years. 

15:54
Charlie Van Derven
You take care of that team, the team takes care of the rest of it. That's great, man. I love it. Let's talk Justin, about that concierge approach. Right. Because now you told me again when we're getting acquainted, you told me you help out with car purchases and not just obviously the dollars and cents behind the car purchase, but relationships within that industry. How far does that concierge approach extend? What else do you guys do? 

16:27
Justin Long
Is probably shorter. My firm I was at for ten years. I was kind of always known as the guy who always had a guy. Whatever you needed, I've got a guy. It comes to the concierge approach for me, I am here to solve problems for you. The first problems I solve start with dollars and percent symbols. The next problems are anything that you need. I tell my clients, call me with whatever it is that comes up. I've had clients that have called me. Like you said, I've got great relationships in the car industry because again, I was a finance manager. I got a little bit of there. Hey, this is the deal they're offering me. No, put me on the phone. Okay, I just pulled it up. Here's the invoice. We'll give you $100 over invoice the hold back on it to 2500. I know you guys make that in the kitty. 

17:22
Justin Long
Drop the warranty from 3300 to 1500. I'm leaving $1,000 for you there. And here's the deal we'll do. If not, I can call over to the other dealership I know and we'll get this done today. My clients lean on me heavily for that. We've got a wellness consultant that will come in and talk to them about the sandwich generation, because a lot of my clients are in there. Call it fifty s and sixty s. Fairly well off generational wealth and dad are now looking at assisted living facilities. They've also got kids in college. I just take things off people's plate and I present them with options without them having to research. Hey, I got a busted water lake. What part of town are you on here's? A plumber I know. That's a good guy. He's right around the corner. Where it extends is obviously, regulatory wise, our bias sticks to investments and planning, but finding people for you so that you don't have to Google a veterinarian, hey, look, I know these two vets. 

18:21
Justin Long
One of them is a client. Here's what he specializes in. It's never, hey, you should definitely use these. It's, hey, here's some options for you to consider. I tell clients, no matter what it is, pick up the phone and call me. I'm willing to talk about anything. You guys are my for lack of a better term, you're on my art. I'm only going to have 100 clients on my art because my former firm, I had 600 families to take care of it. 

18:49
Charlie Van Derven
There's another issue. 

18:51
Justin Long
Yeah. It was a $3 billion book with 600 families in it. 

18:56
Charlie Van Derven
Wow, man. 

18:57
Justin Long
Untenable. At the end of the day, I've got about 52 clients currently. I'll stop my personal book at 100 clients, and I'm done. Because the minute that I can't up and run to my client's daughter, who's got a home inspection, that she wants somebody there with her, I'm not doing what my promises. And to me, that's the biggest seat. 

19:19
Charlie Van Derven
I love that man. 

19:20
Justin Long
From the cool side. And I've got professionals. Obviously, we have trust attorneys and tax professionals and all that normal stuff, but I think far too often people get caught. Well, I don't make money or I don't benefit from this, because if I send you to a trust guy, maybe he sends me somebody back. I don't even set those arrangements up. What I'll look for is, will you take care of my client the way that I do? That's where the buck stops me, because I've got mortgage guys offering, oh, hey, we can pay. No, I don't want to be paid. I don't want anyone I'm fine financially. It's not about that. What it is about is, and there's a great book out there called The Experience Economy, which is just how does your client feel about your interactions, because they're never going to remember what you say, but they will always remember the way they feel when they walk out of your room. 

20:15
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, I love that. The cool thing is, much of this industry is founded on those COI relations where there is an expectation. Right, I'm going to send you four. You're going to send me four. And if you send me three. I'm looking for the next guy that's going to send me four. Right. There is an inherent bias even in that relationship that might not be the best person for your client, but I know they're going to return that referral. 

20:40
Justin Long
Right. 

20:41
Charlie Van Derven
Again, go back to the beginning of our conversation. Where's the fiduciary there? 

20:45
Justin Long
Well, that's where the juxtaposition is. I'll be honest, I probably get more referrals not on the front end, but over time from my because there's not that expectation. They don't feel that, so it ends up being anybody that comes to them, not from a source like me. They bring them to me because they understand that we work the same way. I'm all about planting seeds for long term growth. I love the George Washington. If you plant a tree today, somebody else to sit under the shade. I'm perfectly okay with that. If it takes five years to develop a great relationship, that's what it takes. That's a real benefit to your clients, because I've had it out. Please don't get it misunderstood. I've gone through people. We move to the next one. It's never about, hey, you didn't send me a referral back when I sent you one. 

21:40
Justin Long
It's more, hey, my client called me and told me that their experience was not what they expected. We've got an issue, and that's not what my expectation was. I appreciate your time, but we're going to move on from this relationship. That's, to me, the client experience is it. That's the end all, be all. I talked to buddies that work at some of the captive agencies. Some of them have lost between eight and 10% of their clients in this downturn. We've lost zero and added 37 new clients this year. 

22:15
Charlie Van Derven
H*** yeah. H*** yeah. 

22:19
Justin Long
Performance is a very small part of the discussion that we have. Our performance is good, and we make sure that we've got a CFA that we leverage. We've got another CFA that's our chief economist. It's all great stuff there, but 95% of clients just want to know they're okay, and they want to know they've got somebody to talk to and somebody that reaches out to them without there's nothing worse than the client calling, like, well, I haven't heard from you in a while. If I ever heard that from a client, I'd be sick to my stomach. 

22:50
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, well and it's times like this, right, where the economy is at right now, and we're recording at the end of October 2022. If you're listening to this sometime in the future, where we're at economically right now. That's a lot to be said for that, right. I think and you're speaking to it with just about everything you say, it's about being in the clients corner. Right. It's, of course, your financial expertise and setting them up to fulfill on their vision and goals and the next generation and everything that comes with financial planning, but just knowing that they've got somebody that has their back. 

23:28
Justin Long
Well, what you said, the financial expertise, the financial planning, we use software. I'm a CFP. I've got another guy in my office that's a CFP. We know how to run a plan, but for me, that's table stakes. That's where everybody should live when it comes to this industry. How we separate ourselves is the 11:00 phone call at night because their kids got in an accident and they don't know where. So I literally have this situation happened. I had a client call me. I'm down at the hospital. My son was in an accident. I don't have my medical power of attorney. They won't talk to me. Do you have it? I have it in our digital vault. And you send it to me? Because they won't tell me that he's even here except for a nurse. Kind of winged and nodded at me and was like, but they won't give me any information. 

24:17
Justin Long
That was 11:00 on Saturday night. They were an hour from their home, had no idea where their power of attorney was. You're talking probably 3 hours of stress that I was able to relieve in two and a half minutes by jumping up, jumping on a computer, sending it to them securely, and letting them have it presented to the people at the hospital. 

24:38
Charlie Van Derven
That's awesome, man. 

24:39
Justin Long
To me, that's a differentiator that's me knowing that my clients know that I'm there. That's what drives me every morning. That's what gets me out of bed, is having those people that count on me and understand that you're never a bother, you're never a problem. How do I help? 

24:57
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Good. I love that. That's so cool. Such a giving nature. Justin, as we switch gears tell me about the name Diazzo. 

25:06
Justin Long
So, Diazo has been an interesting story, obviously with my experience in the industry. I've got probably got 150 friends spread out across the country, different firms, and have left here and gone here and done this and done that. Financial planning has been a buzzword, and Holistic Financial Planning has been a buzz. 

25:28
Charlie Van Derven
Dude, I've written a lot of website copy. I know. 

25:31
Justin Long
Yes. I've also seen it in Holistic financial planning. Every firm uses it. Very few execute on it. I was reticent to utilize the term Holistic Financial planning. I was thinking of a name, I was like, hey, what's more detailed than a plan? And I came up with blueprints. I was like, okay, so our process is called Financial Blueprinting. 

25:59
Charlie Van Derven
Cool. 

26:00
Justin Long
I looked up Blueprint Financial because that was going to be the original name. Problem with that, there was a firm down your way in Florida that committed about $300 million in but when you Google it, that's all you see and all you are ever going to see steered clear of that. 

26:20
Charlie Van Derven
Good job doing your research and I. 

26:22
Justin Long
Started to dig in on what blueprinting was. In today's world, blueprints are actually white with Louis. I have a bunch of clients and they always point that out to me when I tell this story. Years ago when blueprints were actually blue, so when they would hit the paper with the blue cyanotope ink, that was called the diazo process and it's the creation of a blueprint. 

26:49
Charlie Van Derven
Cool. 

26:51
Justin Long
Creation of a blueprint in our pending trademark tagline is financial independence by design. Because I think far too often advisors and individuals, especially given if you're in your mid sixty s and you went through the market in the, locked into having a million bucks in your account and kind of being set, I don't know if that's the market and the environment I see going forward for the next 20 years. I want our designs to be intentional and by design and really intentional to get you to financial independence. 

27:28
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, I dig that. Here's what I like about it too, right. I get the opportunity, the honor, whatever it is, to talk to a lot of advisers. You and I met each other via LinkedIn, right. Which is how I meet most people I know these days. Right. I see so many firm names that the moment I close that profile, I don't really remember the firm name, I probably remember the advisor's name, but this kind of asset management or that kind of regional asset management, that type of name comes and goes, you forget it very quickly. Diaz is unique and it stands out. 

28:07
Justin Long
Well, that was part of what I was going for. I thought of uber, I thought of things that are, for lack of a better term, a little weird because you're right. My first client when I started the firm came in and said I thought it would have been long financial. I was like, yeah, my clients will remember that. Nobody that ever talks about it exactly. Is never going to remember it. I get the what the heck is the Ozo? All the time, love it. That lets me know that it's sunk into people because it's just strange enough that it's like, wait a minute. And I love when people ask questions. That creates a question almost immediately and I get to tell a fun story. 

28:44
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, well, we booked this conversation a few weeks ago. I still knew the name you had stuck with me even three weeks, four weeks later. Okay, so now this one's going to hurt my heart Justin. Alright. And this is a good learn. You've gone through some experiences that our listeners get to learn from as they start to think about independence. Hey, tell the world how you feel about marketers in general. 

29:18
Justin Long
I'm resident to be too harsh because I've actually found some and I'm going to use the. Term that we talked about a little earlier. Find business development people, not marketers. Be very careful with the dollars you spend when you're independent. On marketers, I probably get ten LinkedIn messages a week about how people can go on LinkedIn and get me ten high net worth clients a week. If that was the case, I'd be retired in two weeks. Just do your research. Facebook funnels aren't the greatest thing in the world. They work. You got to understand how they work and why they work and have the right people doing them for you. I have earned more money on marketing with a zero ROI, six figures at least in the first year and a half with zero ROI. So my thought is, develop your relationships. Focus on your SEO, your branding, that kind of stuff, because that's what leads to long term success. 

30:23
Justin Long
Those relationships you built. If you're going independent, you need to really get going. Vet these marketers, find out who, and talk to some of their other clients. Say, hey, you got three clients I can talk to that'll vouch for you. And if they don't move on. Marketers are a tough world. Marketing marketing is the lifeblood of any organization. Because if you're not growing your diet right? At the end of the day, you got to market. You got to really do your research. If anybody that listens to you has questions about who they're working with or thinking about working with, I'm open to a discussion about it, because I have been swindled, for lack of a better term, far too many times. I'm fortunate. I was in a position that I was able to say, okay, that didn't work. What's next? A lot of guys that are getting started may not be in that position. 

31:16
Justin Long
They may need it to work. No matter what, any of these marketing guys promise you, there's never going to be somebody that can fill a book up in six months. I promise that's, right? 

31:26
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. 

31:27
Justin Long
It's slow and steady. One to two times ROI on annual basis. Lifetime value of a client is huge in that aspect. If anybody tells you we get 32 times ROI, just walk away. I've been there, done that, and seen it. For me, it didn't work. I feel like I've been at this long enough. We have a good enough value proposition that if it's not like I had a bunch of meetings and client said, no, thank you, that's not what's happening. We're just not getting meetings. We're not getting in contact. That's my warning about marketing. 

32:04
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. And it's a long term play. Thank you, by the way, for that designation between marketing and business development. Right. It is a long term play. Certainly you've got to know that to your point. You've got to know that you're working with a company that's reputable enough based on testimonials, based on the interaction with current clients. Now, I'll say this right when someone asked to speak to one of the clients and social advisors. Now first off, all kinds of testimonials out there on the work that we do. The first thing I tell them is if I give you three numbers, these people are ecstatic about me. It's not like I'm going to give you a number. So that's a good conversation. You need to ask specific questions when you talk to that person because the person you're talking to is going to go, yeah we like those guys, they do a great job. 

32:51
Justin Long
They're absolutely the handpicked top three. You can also dig in . Well, tell me about your closure. Tell me about this, tell me about we're still kind of getting it going. 

33:07
Charlie Van Derven
Exactly. At the center of that business development strategy and probably the most important business development technology is CRM. Now I know you're proud of the tech stack that you've built and that's certainly something when someone's making a transition that they have to consider. HubSpot is your CRM first is not a cheap ticket man. That's an investment in and of itself. HubSpot is a great tool for automation. You can spend a lot of money with it. They've got some tiered services. Justin, tell me about the tech that you use. 

33:45
Justin Long
I went through several iterations at the beginning. I started with Redtail, moved to WELLFox and settled on HubSpot because it does all the things everybody else promised us to do but it actually doesn't. You're right, there has been a significant investment on the front end on tech. And I felt that was important. And I tell the story like this. When I bought a house ten years ago in a neighborhood and they told me, hey there's going to be a park here and a baseball park here and this and this. Two years in they started building houses where they told me there was going to be a park because they can make more money. My wife and I went out looking for houses and we found a gigantic dirt lot with parks and baseball fields and a couple of houses around it. They make the upfront investment to attract the right clientele. 

34:42
Justin Long
I feel the same way about technology. Technology is an investment, not a cost. When it comes to same thing with marketing. When it's done right, it's an investment not a cost. Because there should be a return. It may be time, it may be redundancies, it may be automation. There's always a benefit to an investment versus the cost is just dollars. I looked at our tech stack it was okay, how do I create the best client experience? That's where we started. Help with that because there's automation when it comes to email, there's blog automation. Like when I write a blog, it sends all my clients an email says, hey, here's the first paragraph. If you want to keep reading and click on, it takes you to the website that goes to 1200 people on a weekly basis. It also is very interactive on the website. Hey, fill out this form. 

35:38
Justin Long
You get this white paper that says, hey, here's the top ten questions ask financial adviser. I didn't say, here's the top ten things to work with me. If you're going to talk to somebody, here are the top ten things that you need to ask, regardless of who you work with. So that was a big investment. We also use Orion. That was a big investment for a firm that didn't have any clients at the time. Orion is a fixed cost. They say, hey, it's X amount of dollars per year and this is what you get. It costs that much whether you have zero or 200 clients. And we had zero at the time. To me, it was an investment I want. I didn't want to go somewhere else and then train my staff to redo another one when we hit, oh, now we need Orion. It also gives our clients a portal for their statements and their performance reporting and all that things. 

36:27
Justin Long
On top of that, Orion gives you planning. We also opted to pay for right capital because there's additional benefit to the client. We can link things, we can see things. There are other things that we can do. From that standpoint, we also have Pontera that used to be Fiat. We can help actively manage 401K without moving them. So we connect directly through there. At the end user started with, how do I make this as easy for my client as possible? I worry about paying for it afterwards. Unlike marketing, my tech stack has worked really well. At the end of the day, everything that drives me is starting with how is it easy and a great experience for the client. I'll figure out the rest as we move this way. That's kind of where I started with it. We use Risk Alyce, not a cheap software when it comes to risk analytics, but the output is really easy for a client to understand. 

37:28
Justin Long
And I looked at all of them. It was the cleanest. It put the numbers side by side and it provided an environment for clients to understand. Hey, here's where you are, here's where we want to put you. Where are the benefits and the drawbacks? Where's the performance difference? Where's the cost difference? It lines that out really well. Yeah, I could have went with one that was $100 a month. I went with one that's $400 a month because it was a better experience. At the end of the day, that's great. To me, all of those have taken us from $0 to 140,000,000 in three years. 

38:02
Charlie Van Derven
Wow. 

38:03
Justin Long
To me that was an investment. Far, I think that's been a fairly solid investment, and I will continue to grow the firm with that in mind. Client first. How do we drive an experience? And we'll figure out how to pay. If it's good for the client, I'll figure out how to pay for it. 

38:21
Charlie Van Derven
All right, here's a tough question for you, because at this point in our conversation, Justin, everything is pretty d*** positive. Moving in the right direction? 

38:29
Justin Long
Yes. 

38:30
Charlie Van Derven
As you're getting rolling with the Ozo, is there one or two things that one or two pitfalls? Of course, marketing is one of them. 

38:37
Justin Long
Right? 

38:37
Charlie Van Derven
We already kind of chatted on that. There any decisions that you've made along the way that you would caution our listeners to? I did this. Don't do that. I've already spent the money. I've already done this. Marketing, of course, is out there in the open. Anything else you put on there? 

38:51
Justin Long
The tech stack development is a big one because I tried a bunch of things when I was at the broker dealer. Like I said, I was an RIA on the side of it, but connected through it. I put my own tech stack together, and I went cheap and I went easy and I went there. That's kind of what I was speaking to when it comes to tech stack, that was a pitfall that I saw. Custodial relationships is another one that you really want to be conscious of. We custodian with TD, Fidelity and Schwab because that provides SIPC insurance reinsured through the Lloyds of London. No trading costs, no additional cost to the client, even though other custodians offered, hey, we'll give you X amount of dollars and soft dollars to come over here, and you will pay for part of your tech stacks. It didn't benefit the client. 

39:47
Justin Long
It didn't make sense. So I would caution people there. Marketing again and building your brand, that's something that is, I think people miss on, because your brand is not necessarily who you are, but it's definitely who people think you are. I always want my brand to be who I am. And be very careful. There's not a bifurcation or a disconnect there. You don't want to be known as the insurance guy. You don't want to be known as the investments guy. When clients refer me, most of them are like, hey, I've got this guy that solves every problem in the world for me. When their clients call, they're like, can you tell me what you do? And I was like, I solve problems. They're like, no, but what's your business? I was like, well, we're an SEC registered RIAA Fiduciary. I'm a certified financial planner. Here's where the base of our business lies. 

40:47
Justin Long
Here's everything that we do get somebody that comes to me that says, hey, Charlie told me that you solve a lot of problems. That lets me know that my brand and what I'm doing are aligning. That's a piece that I've seen some advisers that will leave a situation. They'll go out on their own and they may be this, but people think they're this. Having that consistent voice and that consistent brand recognition and leveraging your brand, always being part of it, having to be part of who you are as a core tenant is another piece that I would caution against because I've missed that. I've missed on marketing, I've missed on tech. I've made mistakes that I don't want to see other advisers make, to be honest. 

41:34
Charlie Van Derven
That's cool. 

41:35
Justin Long
I consult with a lot of advisers. I've got buddies that are recruiters that are like, hey, I've got an advisor thinking about doing this. Great. Here's the thing to tell them not to do. Will you talk? Sure, I'll talk to him. Great. If there are great people that are stuck in a situation that they can't deliver on who they want to be, I love to see those guys. I've got a very close friend that just left another huge read. He was top 1% for ten years in a row at a huge captive agency and just struck out on his own. He me and him have talked every week for probably nine months and just, well, what about this? What about this? What about this? Great. I'm glad you're thinking of that stuff. I'll leave things off just to see if he comes up with the question the next week. 

42:22
Justin Long
Are you driving that thought process? Find somebody that you can lean on, somebody like yourself that has seen it, been there, done that, somebody you ask questions, clients, adviser, doesn't matter to me. In this world, there is no such thing as a stupid question. Because when I go to the doctor, I ask them stupid questions. They're not stupid because I don't know when. You don't know. 

42:47
Charlie Van Derven
That's right. 

42:50
Justin Long
I can tell you about an iron conduct and tell you about a strategy. I can tell you about all this stuff. My doctor has no clue what that is. The minute he starts talking about, well, you have a minor terror and you're only old. And I might slow down. Talk to me like I'm five, but medical is not where I live. That's my wife. She was going to school to be a surgeon. At the end of the day, no, thank you. Talk to me like I'm five so I can understand it. 

43:14
Charlie Van Derven
That's right. 

43:15
Justin Long
That's the way the communication should be. Gradually grow with clients, advice, whatever that looks like. 

43:23
Charlie Van Derven
That kind of leads right into the next question is, where's the Oswald going, man? What's your vision for the next few years? Obviously adding clients and adding assets and that stuff. And that's great. Yeah. Are you picking up advisers too? 

43:35
Justin Long
We are. So for me, Diazo, it's my baby. Ultra is number one when it comes to and I worked at firms that said culture was important, but they missed a couple of pieces of it because they talked about it three or four times a year, and they never talked about it the rest of the year. To me, culture is something that's both consistent and constant, and both of those are different things. The brand and the consistent culture, and then it's got to be something that you talk about or do. I mean, we do some silly stuff. We've got yoga Wednesdays, and we do I've got an advisor in South Carolina, we've got some folks up in Seattle, we've got people here in Vegas, but we'll do oh hey, we just had our chief economists came in and showed us how to and brand new experience. 

44:26
Justin Long
To me, do needle felt. I didn't know what that was, but it's taken a giant ball of wool and you stab it for about 4 hours and it ends up but when I bring an advisor on if it's a fit, it normally is a fit like a glove. There's not a lot of if or not. I've got one guy in South Carolina that is absolutely nails the same exact way when it comes to clients. To that point, he was there for we'll call the dust up in. He spent two days before going to his clients house to help them put wood up, to move stuff from their yard, to do that kind of stuff. To me that just reinforced I have the right guy in that market because of what I expect from our advisor. Yeah, I'm willing to add an adviser. Whether you've got 5 million or 500 million, if you're looking for a culture and if you're looking for a process like ours and the tech stack like ours, I'm always willing to have a discussion if it's a fit, literally, this experience most advisors take twelve to 18 months to move. 

45:36
Justin Long
My guy, South Carolina, we met over zoom. He flew out here the next week. We did the paperwork the next week, and it's not like he was running from a regulatory or a bad situation, which is the first thing I dug into such a fit. He was like, this is exactly what I'm looking for. I want somebody to bounce things off of, want I somebody who can help with clients, expand my knowledge, expand what I've got going on. And it was a custom fit. That's where we'll add people. When you believe in the mission statement, when you believe in what we've got going on, when your clients are always going to be your priority, I'll help you grow your business. I got a guy that came over to me with 22 million last August, and he's sitting on 50 today, and that's with a zero dollar marketing spent. 

46:27
Charlie Van Derven
That's pretty good, man. 

46:29
Justin Long
It was, hey, I've got a team. Hey, I've got somebody who's been doing this, and I've got somebody who can help me. I've got another voice. I've got all these other services, and people just started to walk in the door. 

46:42
Charlie Van Derven
That's great. I echo what you say. Right. Culture and brand are largely about consistency. Right. It takes you a long time to build both, and you do it with everything you do every day, and you can crash it in about a second. 

47:00
Justin Long
If you do 99 things right and one wrong, you start up that's, right. 

47:05
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. It is a fickle beast, but when it works. 

47:09
Justin Long
Right. It's something that me and my teammates talk about every Monday. We intentionally set 15 minutes aside to talk about culture every Monday. It's consistent, because the message shouldn't change. 

47:30
Charlie Van Derven
I take it. 

47:30
Justin Long
We're here to help people. We're here to provide value. We give away massive value on a regular basis. We'll run a financial plan for a client. Never even ask them to work with us. Hey, here's your full plan. Let me know if you need and. 

47:45
Charlie Van Derven
I don't know if it was after we hit the record button or before I hit the record button. We were talking about, like I don't really like the word sales. Yeah, I really don't. I almost feel like Justin and somebody asked me the other day, and I kind of hope she doesn't listen to this, because I don't. Anyway, so she said, I was following up on a referral from a person, and she said, when you talk to next, I said, Friday or whatever. And she said, what's going on? I'm doing this and this. And she said, in closing it. And I said, Well, I don't know. I don't really like the word close. It kind of makes me feel like I'm doing something to somebody. I've got a good offering if they see the value in that to become a client of ours, I don't have to do something to make that happen rather than being present to what I promise to do. 

48:29
Justin Long
The language that I reinforced with the guys that work with me is if a client decides to move forward, they're hiring us, not closing anybody. If you close somebody, I've got a problem. If you tell somebody, I've got a problem. If somebody makes a conscious decision to hire us, and we also want to make sure everybody does this. Tell clients they can fire us at any time if they don't see value. That tends to really resonate with people. But, yeah, if I go, oh, hey, I've got this client on the hook. Stop. We need to talk. Ten people last week stop. You had ten families choose to hire. If you don't have that mindset, this may no longer be a fit, because that's not the way we go about it. That is not the Diazo way and shouldn't be the way that you feel about it, to be honest. 

49:28
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. I interviewed a gentleman who is a great resource for anybody who's looking to make a move. His name is Corey Kupfer Lies, a breakaway attorney, and he's a really good human, giving back in all kinds of ways. He wrote a book called Authentic Negotiating, and so I asked him about it in the interview. I'm like, okay, negotiating, but tell me about the authenticity. He said, you know what? If you're negotiating and you've got a relationship beyond that negotiation, if you're not authentic in that conversation, you've already screwed yourself. Right. I mean, the rest of that relationship is based on inauthenticity. I kind of feel the same way about sales, if you will. Right. If you're going out of your way to be inauthentic and tell me something that's going to make me take action versus being an authentic person, because we've got an existing relationship, so you got to be really careful as that goes. 

50:17
Justin Long
Well, like I said three years ago, we've never lost a client, and that's because people don't have buyers remorse. People don't feel like they were sold. That's something that's critical to my process, is the feeling when they walk out of there should be. Man, I am so glad that I hired these guys. Did they just tell me on them? That's a myth as far as I'm concerned. Far too many times in a captive situation, that's what people feel. Well, they talked me into this. Oh, how long do I have to send this annuity? How long do I have to get out of this? What does it cost me to if they're asking those questions, stop. If somebody says, okay, how do I get out of this? My answer is you fire me. 

51:04
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Be scared. Make it happen. Yeah. I bet you picked a lot of that up as a finance guy at a car dealership many years ago. Didn't you. 

51:15
Justin Long
Last long there? 

51:17
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Dude, can you believe we've been talking for an hour? Yeah, it flies by. I'll give you back part of your day, Justin, but before I go, sounds like you're pretty willing to be a resource to people who are listening that might have some questions, and maybe you find an advisor in there that you guys work well together. Who knows what's the easiest way to get a hold of you? 

51:39
Justin Long
Our website is@yahoo.com diaz.com. My email is Justin Long@yahoo.com, or my cell phone is 702-278-6560. If somebody needs something, if I can be of service, that's what I'm here to do. 

51:54
Charlie Van Derven
I love that, man. I love that. That's awesome. You're doing what's right for the industry. Just in an industry that traditionally is not looked upon very favorably, you're helping to change that. 

52:04
Justin Long
I love that. 

52:04
Charlie Van Derven
Thank you for doing that. Thank everybody, all of our listeners, for listening to another episode of RIA Collective. This has been a fun conversation with Justin Long, diazo wealth in Henderson, Nevada. He's a great resource. He's doing things the right way. If you like what you're listening to, please turn your friends on to it because we don't have a lot of big backing. You sharing the word helps us get in front of more people and hopefully help drive this industry to an independent place where we can service fiduciaries and, of course, all the stuff the podcasters say, right? If you like it, subscribe, give us a review, that thing. So, again, thanks for tuning into RIA Collective. Justin Long, thank you for being my guest today. I sincerely appreciate it. 

52:45
Justin Long
My pleasure, Charlie. I really appreciate you having me. This is fun. 

52:48
Charlie Van Derven
You got it.