Mastering Client-Centric Financial Transitions with Anthony Mlachnik

Charlie Van Derven: 0:16

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of RIA Collective. I'm your host Charlie Van Derven. I'm joined today by Anthony Mlachnik who is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, not too far from my old stomping grounds in Green Bay, Wisconsin. So we can talk packers and stuff maybe offline Anthony. Anthony is growing an office for North Rock Partners in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So we're going to learn what that means and get a little flavor of Anthony's journey from a more captive environment into this independent and actually pretty impressive role with Northrock. Anthony, you were sharing with me where the asset levels are getting to, man, and the numbers are blowing my mind. Before we dive into that, Anthony, welcome and thanks for being my guest today.

Anthony Mlachnik: 1:01

Charlie, appreciate it, man. Good to see you.

Charlie Van Derven: 1:04

Yeah. Other Wisconsinites, man, we got kindred souls and spirits. For those of you on video, I got the packer logo hanging on my wall back there somewhere. Yeah. I haven't lived in Green Bay, Anthony, for like 30 years, but it's still home, will always be home and I bleed green and gold, I guess. Yeah.

Anthony Mlachnik: 1:23

That's awesome. Yeah. I recently moved back to the area after almost twelve years of being in the Chicago area. So good to be back.

Charlie Van Derven: 1:32

Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Different environment even. You're like what, 80, 90 miles north of Chicago right now. But the whole world changes a little bit, right?

Anthony Mlachnik: 1:41

It does, absolutely.

Charlie Van Derven: 1:43

You get north of that border. We're preparing a post for next Friday, maybe it's this Friday. It's National Cheese Day. So we're preparing a cheese related post for LinkedIn. I like to do fun stuff on Fridays, right? Business stuff on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Anthony Mlachnik: 1:58

There you go.

Charlie Van Derven: 1:59

Anthony, I want to learn from your experience, right? We got a limited time so I'm not going to take up cheesing packer talk anymore. Listen, you were at, like a lot of people, you land at one of the big bank brands. We'll leave the brand name out of it. Doesn't matter. You land at one of the big bank brands. When you and I were getting to know each other a couple of weeks ago, you mentioned that you had just kind of outgrown them. Right. You were working with maybe it was a higher echelon of client. I don't think so. But there's a limited scope as to what you can provide when you're in some of those environments. Lend me your knowledge on that.

Anthony Mlachnik: 2:34

Yeah, you're exactly right. I mean one of the things that we often talk about is just knowing that most people are busy and the busier you get, the more complex things can become and the more people kind of think through what their financial future looks like and all the moving pieces that come with that. And so when we were going through this, we're kind of looking at different ways to service our clients at the end of the day. And if our job is to organize and simplify and provide clarity and peace of mind, to us it just became pretty clear that we needed to be able to have a little bit more flexibility in things that we could provide, that clients were asking us to do. And so, at the end of the day, allowing us to kind of be able to service them and provide our clients peace of mind and enjoying life and hopefully getting a little bit of time back was kind of the goal there.

Charlie Van Derven: 3:42

Cool. Awesome. So you land with in 2019, Northrock partners. I'm sure you're a guy who does your diligence. Just getting to know you a little bit these last couple of weeks. It's not like you jumped to the first opportunity. I imagine you kicked some tires. What was it about Northrock Partners that provided that ability to better serve clients?

Anthony Mlachnik: 4:09

You and I kind of touched on it a little bit, but one of the things that we really thought made a lot of sense was a personal office model. And at Northrock, it's just being able to truly understand a client's goals, values, objectives, and then tie in their investment plan wherever they have assets that's in coordination and in alignment with their tax plan, their estate plan, their risk and asset management across the board. So it was kind of the all encompassing personal office.

Charlie Van Derven: 4:47

That's awesome, man. I've identified six reasons Anthony and doing this show and a couple decades of serving advisors and knowing the captive side of the industry and kind of that hybrid independent side and then RIA. I think there's six reasons people move. We don't even have to dive into a lot of them. Flexibility is one of those things. Client service is a huge one. Right. So it sounds like that's kind of where those two things are, where your mind went. You had to get out of an old environment into a new environment to be able to provide those things, not only for you, but for your clients.

Anthony Mlachnik: 5:24

Yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, client, the more that you get to know about me, the more I believe in servant leadership. And being somebody that really kind of put the client's interest first and knowing that was out there became almost a no brainer for us to just service our client better.

Charlie Van Derven: 5:48

Yeah. Cool. You've already touched on it. But tell me a little bit about that personal office. I see on the website it's actually a trademark term, so I'm stoked about that. What does that mean at Northrock? What's that personal office aspect mean? Is that more, is that geared up like, traditionally in the industry, we call it a family office, same sort of thing?

Anthony Mlachnik: 6:09

No. Personal office really just goes to the ability that we can do what our clients are asking for and whether it's helping them on their tax planning, tax advice, tax preparation, tax filing, or being a resource to them on private investments or private real estate, allocating capital across public markets and private markets. Being able to integrate their estate plan with their investment plan, with their tax plan at the end of the day is what we strive to do through the personal office model. And if we do our job even dropping financial, a lot of times clients are coming to me with things that aren't even financial. And we encourage each other and our employees and our colleagues and all the great people that we have to lean in. Right. And the more we know about our clients, the better we can help them make good financial decisions. And when you have all of this complexity around us and then you add in the behavior element that is here and it's real. We know that if we understand our client better, we know what's going on in their life, that we can actually lead them to better advice over long periods of time too.

Charlie Van Derven: 7:39

I love it. So it's really more about the flexibility versus when I think of family office related to a lot of other firms, that's an upper echelon type brand. This isn't necessarily that, but more of the flexibility to serve them as a fiduciary as opposed to maybe the constraints that were on at the previous firm.

Anthony Mlachnik: 8:00

Yeah, I would say both. It kind of depends on the client. Right. We're able to help all sorts of different clients achieve what they're trying to achieve in life.

Charlie Van Derven: 8:12

Awesome, dude. Now you're building a personal office in Milwaukee right now. First off, how's it going?

Anthony Mlachnik: 8:18

Yeah, good. Yeah, really well. I mean, circumstances that led me back to Wisconsin were not ideal family. But I have great partners at Northrock, and when I went to my team and talked to a couple of the other advisors and leaders, they were 100% in support of having regional presence here in Wisconsin, which I had already had a lot of clients from this area. And we have quite a bit of presence, but, yeah, it's going really well. We're very fortunate to just have good people around us helping us get this project done. And I'm actually in the office today and hopefully pushing this down the stretch and should be completed by mid February.

Charlie Van Derven: 9:06

Right. Man getting close as you grow that, anthony now, of course, we're all growing our businesses. Right? So there's helping more families and more people. Do you foresee a day where maybe there's more than yourself as far as advisors working out of that office? We are, as much as we can, bringing advice and maybe cushy landing spots to people who are looking for change. Is that something that you foresee in the Milwaukee office?

Anthony Mlachnik: 9:36

Yeah. For me personally, I get a lot of job satisfaction out of obviously helping my clients, but also my colleagues, peers, other advisors. I was fortunate to have great mentors early in my career, and so being able to be a resource to others that are in this industry, and then from a partnership or an opportunity that comes along, that's definitely something that's in the back of my mind, cool.

Charlie Van Derven: 10:08

Awesome. So growing team, very cool. As your willingness to be a resource. Thank you for that, by the way. Before we wrap up, we'll get some easy ways to contact you. I know LinkedIn works. That's how we met. So we'll grab that information a little bit later. Before we wrap up here. Anthony, you said something I asked you a couple of questions when we got together to get to know each other and just feel like make sure that this was the right fit for everybody. One of the things I asked you was, in a career that you've been in now on the wealth management side of things for more than a decade in this transition period, is there anything that you did that you were like, gosh, I wish I maybe would have done that a little differently?

Anthony Mlachnik: 10:54

I wouldn't say differently. I would make sure that we did an incredibly professional approach to this decision, and a lot went into it before we actually went down the path of that. So you just be making sure that you're really checking all boxes, crossing T's, dotting I's, and just kind of thinking through how that looks and feels and making sure that it's really professional as you embark on that. But then I would say maybe the hardest part was not being able to really talk about with my partners. We could talk, but like, our colleagues, our peers, even our spouses, were very confidential because were dealing with our clients livelihood, and we knew it was the best decision for our client. But I would say I wouldn't change it. But as I reflect back on that was probably the most difficult thing, is not being able to talk to people about it.

Charlie Van Derven: 11:58

Yeah, no doubt, man. I can't even imagine. Right. When you've been serving clients, and of course, I've gotten to know a lot of people through the podcast in other ways, people in your position who have made that change, and I think they probably all echo that, right? As you know, change is on the horizon. You know, it's better for them. But because of your agreements with the prior firm, you got to be pretty careful with the way that you communicate that. Flip side of that, right, something and you brought up something that I haven't heard somebody say before when I asked, what's something that you did well, Anthony, that maybe you didn't even know you were doing it well, but was pivotal. You said patience, like this industry in a lot of cases, is go, hammer, hammer. Right. Patience. That was a little bit different. Elaborate on that. Why was patience so important for your success moving forward?

Anthony Mlachnik: 12:50

Yeah, it's a good question, and it's actually something that in life, I value quite a bit. I think a lot of people are too eager to get something done and not patient enough to just kind of put the work in and then see what comes. And part of the transition that we went through was that delayed gratification. If we put our clients' interests first and we care through transition and think about what they're thinking about, how they're thinking about it, why they're thinking about the things that they're thinking about, and then allowing the client to, at the end of the day, make the decision that they think is in the best interest of their family. When you approach something that way, it can feel like you're losing control. But what I found in, you know, the 17 years of being in this industry is that patience, the more that you're patient, over long periods of time, tends to be the right thing for the client, and then at the end of the day, it can also be a good thing for your peers, your colleagues, and your organization.

Charlie Van Derven: 14:01

Yeah, that's awesome, man. In a world, and I think this is more on that captive side of the industry, but in a world where quotas and things like that are pushed so heavily from a sales management perspective, it's hard to be patient. So that's a breath of fresh air. That's awesome, man. Thanks for sharing that. Talk to me about your goals. You know, you're growing this office in Milwaukee right now, and I'm sure that your goals are coupled in part with Northrock's goals. Where are you going, Anthony?

Anthony Mlachnik: 14:30

You know, I'm just very fortunate to be kind of challenged every day by an incredible client base that has given me and my team their trust. I feel like if we put our head down and do a good job for our clients, that 2023 and beyond turns out how we want it to look, which we are growing. We are definitely bringing on new clients. The cool thing about bringing on new clients is that it allows us to add additional services or do additional things for our clients. So for me, growth is great, but if growth isn't impacting my team or my clients, then it's not that important. But there are three, four things that are in the back of our minds here at Northrock that we want to continue to add to even deliver better service to our clients and a better experience to our clients too.

Charlie Van Derven: 15:26

That's awesome. I find, even with Social Advisors, the company outside of the podcast and such, when you bring on a client that has a unique, specific need to your point, it automatically broadens what you can provide for everybody else who maybe didn't even know or you didn't know they had that need at the time. So that is pretty cool, and it gives you an opportunity to innovate a little bit and get better at what you provide as a result of it. So that's awesome, man.

Anthony Mlachnik: 15:54

Yeah, that is fun. That is kind of a fun part of being there is a lot of responsibility when it comes to being independent and working with a relatively smaller team at Northrock, but it also allows us to be more creative and always look to be innovative and bring different technologies or solutions to clients that help them make better decisions.

Charlie Van Derven: 16:23

Yeah, that's awesome. I love it, man. And you already offered it up, so I got to ask, how can people best get in contact with you, Anthony, if they've got a question about maybe Northrock, a question about how you went through your decision making, maybe they're looking for a soft landing spot there in Milwaukee somewhere. Now, Northrock's all over the place, I noticed on the website, but regionally, you're in Milwaukee, Chicago, and Minneapolis. So if someone wants to reach out to you, learn more about your journey, what's the best way for them to get in touch with.

Anthony Mlachnik: 17:01

You know, regionally, you're correct. Minneapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee. But we also have presence on both the East Coast and West Coast, and our clients are all over the United States and quite frankly, even international on certain segment of our business. So, yeah, anybody that is really trying to think about what their next step is, you can reach out via LinkedIn, like you had mentioned. The other way is through the website. You can also email me directly and happy to have a conversation and go from there. Anthony.Mlachnik@northrockpartners.com.

Charlie Van Derven: 17:51

All right. Spell Mlachnik for us, Anthony, because I can't.

Anthony Mlachnik: 17:54

It's not Smith, right?

Charlie Van Derven: 17:56

Yeah, exactly.

Anthony Mlachnik: 17:59

M-L-A-C-H-N-I-K. Makes sense, right?

Charlie Van Derven: 18:03

Not often, do we? Yeah, there's some combinations, I think Slavic combinations of letters in there that we don't often see pushed together. It's actually phonetically. It's freaking spot on. I didn't know that until I asked you, like, all right, Anthony, how do you pronounce your last name? Right. So, Anthony Mlachnik, thank you so much for being my guest on RIA Collective. You bring a lot of experience and a lot of wisdom. You're a very thoughtful person. Now, it doesn't take me long, it doesn't take me spending much time with you to know that about you. Even when were getting acquainted a couple of weeks ago. And in our conversation today, you're calculated, man. You stop for a second, you pause. So your advice on patience, I see it in you, even just in a conversation. It's pretty amazing, actually.

Anthony Mlachnik: 18:52

I appreciate that.

Charlie Van Derven: 18:53

That's cool.

Anthony Mlachnik: 18:54

Appreciate you.

Charlie Van Derven: 18:55

Yeah. Loved having you as a guest. And anybody who took some time out of their time today, that's the one thing you can't make more of. So when you share it with us, absolutely appreciate the heck out of that. If listening to my conversation with Anthony, or other episodes of RIA Collective has benefited you, I'd urge you to share it and of course, on the listening platform of your choice if you can give us a review that helps us reach more people. So, thank you so much for tuning into this episode of RIA Collective. On behalf of Anthony Mlachnik and Charlie Van Derven, we'll see you sometime down the road.