Retirement Planning and Beyond with Alan Ray

00:00
Charlie Van Derven
Thank you for tuning in to another episode of RIA Collective. I'm your host, Charlie Van Derven. I've got an interesting guest today and I think that my buddy Allen, who is with us today, is going to resonate with a lot of our listeners out there. A quick little story about when I got started in this industry doing websites for The Wirehouses, I stopped in I don't know how many branches, but all along the west coast of the US. I stopped in Morgan Stanley branches, smith Barney branches with dates me prior to their merger, gosh UBS. Anyway, Mare Price and doing websites for advisors, I'd go and I'd do my dog and pony for 30 or 45 minutes to the branch and then I'd travel around and I'd meet everybody in the branch. In the corner offices, you had probably the most gregarious people, the most outgoing people, not necessarily the best advisors, but the best. 

00:58
Charlie Van Derven
Let's call them and I don't mean to be derogatory, but let's call them asset gatherers. Got those corner offices and they had staff and they had teams of people around them, right. In the middle or maybe even in the bullpen, you'd find the people that you actually wanted as your advisor, but they didn't necessarily have that bigger than life personality that was going out there and shaking every hand and kissing every baby. They weren't what I would call sales oriented, but data driven people who were probably going to drive better results for you. My friend Alan, who's joining us today, he admitted to me when we got to know each other, he didn't like the sales side of it. He was not a salesman. If you find that as you as well and maybe the quote is tough for you and you're not hitting the benchmarks that the firm you're with wants you to hit. 

01:49
Charlie Van Derven
Alan is going to talk to us about how taking that non sales personality still was able to carve out a really nice career in financial services. Without further ado, Alan Ray, thank you for joining us. Alan's with Square Peg Financial. His firm is Square Peg Financial and he's in Columbus, Ohio. Alan, thanks for being here. 

02:10
Alan Ray
Thank you, Charlie. I'm really looking forward to just offering whatever I can to help people make. 

02:15
Charlie Van Derven
Up their minds and that's all this is. Right. Alan, I think so many people get scared away from this industry that certainly there's that difference, right. That corner office was rarely the best advisor, just the best asset gatherer, which means they were probably the person the firm loved, but not necessarily the person that was doing the best for the client. 

02:39
Alan Ray
Well, to be fair, if they had a good support team with them good point. I don't want to take everything from them, but I hear what you're saying, especially in the large sales organizations. 

02:55
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, so many times. Allen, I met that person in the bullpen who certainly needed the website and whatever were working on at the time but was less outgoing. I don't mean to characterize you in that way because in the conversations we've had leading up to this interview, I love knowing you, but to your admission, you weren't that sales guy. Alan coming through some of the large financial planning organizations and insurance organizations in our industry, and we'll get to your story here. How do you deal with that? Right? How do you stay true to who you are, not trying to adapt to that space and still be successful? 

03:41
Alan Ray
It's very stressful. It can be extremely stressful and sometimes you just have to pack up and leave. Other times, if you happen to be fortunate enough to run into a good center of influence, things can go well. My greatest success inside a large sales organization was when I was working with school teachers many years ago, quite a long time ago, and I happened to obtain some centers of influence. One in particular, he was extremely helpful in opening doors for me and getting the introductions to teachers who needed excellent help and education on their 403 B plans. That particular situation worked quite well for me for a good handful of years. 

04:32
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, very good. One key relationship are multiple centers of influence. 

04:40
Alan Ray
Yes. 

04:42
Charlie Van Derven
Very cool. Well, certainly those are important in anybody's business, but if you're not the type that's going to be out shaking the hands and kissing the babies all the time, I think you're right. Those relationships become infinitely important. 

05:00
Alan Ray
I was very lucky that this person appreciated my approach. He appreciated the fact that I wanted to know, that I wanted to help, that I was not trying to push something on him and his colleagues. Also, another thing that's important in that particular situation is that the scope of available solutions for the teachers was limited. It was very frightening. Only a few payroll slots, as they were called, for teachers putting money into these programs were available. I happen to be working at one of the most competitive firms for that. 

05:49
Charlie Van Derven
Now, you got started in the industry as analyst, which is probably more natural role before going. 

05:56
Alan Ray
Into the I started in finance more as analyst than a commercial banker. Yes. The financial services industry, I actually started as a life insurance agent. 

06:07
Charlie Van Derven
Okay, so how do you make that transition? You go from the commercial banking to life insurance. Talk us through that transition because it seems like it would be an unnatural transition. 

06:21
Alan Ray
At the time, it was supposed to be a much more natural transition than it was. For people who are more sales oriented, it can be a fantastic transition because they were talking about something called natural markets. We'll probably touch on some things here in our chat here that many of your listeners and viewers are being told that they must have or do have. In my case, all my work with small business owners and wealthier individuals as a banker was supposed to be a natural market for me to transition to as a life insurance agent because of their obvious and quotes needs for different life insurance programs and the planning advantages for a small business owner. That life insurance. The fact was that I just wasn't a natural salesperson. I could not adapt to the so called sales process. I could not adapt to the kind of rhythm that the sales process demanded in terms of specific contacts per day. 

07:40
Alan Ray
The so called ten three, one method of ten approaches, three appointments, one sale, repeating over and over again that part of it was most unnatural for me and really always has been. For all I know, the numbers might work out that way in the long run over the course of my life, but I'm certainly not going to measure them just to prove somebody else's point. 

08:05
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. I think I believe we've got a lot of listeners. That exactly what you just said there. Right. The 1031 or your $150 a day are listing out your friends and family, and the 200 people is closest to you. Someone walks out of let's say they walk out of college with their finance degree and interested in helping people have a more successful financial life and attain the goals that they've got throughout their life. Yes. But then they land at a wirehouse. Right. All of a sudden, it is the ability to dial that phone and make those contacts that becomes the most important skill they have. 

08:42
Alan Ray
Yes. 

08:43
Charlie Van Derven
It's not that four or extra years of financial education, it's not their designations. It is literally being able to hit the formula. 

08:54
Alan Ray
Right. 

08:55
Charlie Van Derven
I expect, Allan, that you're speaking to some of our audience that is nodding their head right now. Yeah, but I hate it. I can't do it either. Right, right. What do you do in that situation? You leave commercial banking. The natural network doesn't pay off. Like, the expectation is how long do you last in that role? How long do you try to swim against that current? 

09:20
Alan Ray
For my personality, it lasted less than a year. 

09:23
Charlie Van Derven
Okay. 

09:24
Alan Ray
I was at a leading firm, and one thing I'll say about that firm was that the best thing I got from them was the value of being extremely knowledgeable in what you were providing to your clients. 

09:42
Charlie Van Derven
Wonderful. 

09:42
Alan Ray
They were outstanding in that, I mean, quality of information and knowledge and understanding. I've been able to explain life insurance, the principles of it, and how policies work so much better than many people out there. That part of it was a distinct advantage for the rest of my career. The fact that I'm naturally a risk manager, that also was a good thing. That came out of that start. 

10:14
Charlie Van Derven
That's good. Again, speaking to the listeners, even if it's a bad situation, there are silver linings. 

10:20
Alan Ray
There are things absolutely. 

10:22
Charlie Van Derven
You are learning today. Even if you feel like you're stuck in a situation that isn't for you are still learning things today that will benefit you throughout your career. 

10:31
Alan Ray
Absolutely. Yeah. There's never a question about that. Keep your eyes and ears open and as they say, your mouth closed a little more. 

10:40
Charlie Van Derven
There you go. It's only a failure if you don't learn something, right? 

10:44
Alan Ray
Yeah. 

10:46
Charlie Van Derven
Get us then. Allen, too. Of course. I want to ask about square peg. I know what that's about, but I want to learn. But get us there. Right. There was a couple of other kind of larger let's call it broker dealer type positions, right? 

11:00
Alan Ray
Yes. 

11:01
Charlie Van Derven
You realize that it wasn't for you, but you went back to it. 

11:06
Alan Ray
I did. Interestingly, because there were certain elements of it that I was very good at. There's a certain hard headedness that's part of my personality that they quitting and giving up. One of the most pivotal things that led me to where I am was actually working inside a small credit union. Their dedication to their credit union members was tremendous. Absolutely tremendous. Their thoughtfulness in deciding what to offer to the credit union members, how to deliver it, and their sincerity of wanting to bring value was a real inspiration to me. 

11:57
Charlie Van Derven
That's cool. 

11:58
Alan Ray
That's when I decided to rededicate myself to financial advice and I finished the major registrations, the Series 66, the Series Seven, and I also finished my CFP studies and passed that exam. It really lit a fire under me because all of this occurred in six months. 

12:23
Charlie Van Derven
Wow. 

12:24
Alan Ray
Yeah. It's amazing that my wife was able to live with me during those times, but he was so supportive. It was incredible. We put up one of those, like a thermometer thing or a bit more thing. Every time I checked off another past, another goal or another course or something like this, he celebrated with me. It was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. 

12:48
Charlie Van Derven
That's good. I put a blog out yesterday that talks about the six tips for goal setting, and you just hit two of them. What you just said, you got to track, got to be able to track, and you got to celebrate small successes. Those are two things I agree and completely if you're not tracking, it's hard to know when you start to know where you're going. 

13:07
Alan Ray
Yeah. 

13:11
Charlie Van Derven
Fast forward us a little bit, Alan. Let's get us to square peg because I want to talk about today without making our listeners sit for an hour and get there. Get us to square peg. Then, of course, we're going to talk about the name. Like I alluded to. 

13:25
Alan Ray
Okay. I've been a CFP professional now for 17 going on 18 years, I think it is. I've had my ups and downs interestingly. I had a hiatus in the midst of this, being a home office associate, actually as a CFP professional, supporting the activities of a large sales organization and being support to the representatives in the field. I enjoyed that quite a bit because I was doing a lot of analysis, working with them, collaborating with them and their sales organization on doing more and better for their clients rather than off the round sales. That was really a lot of fun. When that job got eliminated, I was more than happy at this stage of life to go back to working with clients because I really love doing it. That's great. I really do. I happened to get recruited by another major firm and it just didn't work out at all. 

14:29
Alan Ray
That was the point where I finally accepted myself as a square peg personally. My wife said, that could be a really good brand for you. It's been a very popular brand because it's authentic. People understand that I can not take myself too seriously, but accept the fact that I do see things differently, but I'm willing to see their situation as differently as necessary. So that's the fun part about it. 

15:00
Charlie Van Derven
Alan, you're a resilient guy, and I know that when you and I were getting acquainted, you shared deeper with me. We'll really go probably in this conversation, but there were some kind of dark times in there. 

15:13
Alan Ray
Yeah, there were failures trying to launch my own practice when the Great Recession hit. It was not just the Great Recession and the market downturn. There was also some changes in regulations about rollovers for college educators. That was going to be part of my major strategy that shut the door on that at a very difficult time. Really I just did not know enough. This is one of the great advantages that actually came out of COVID I think. I did not know a month back during the Great Recession about networking and other aspects of marketing that I have learned since COVID hit. 

16:05
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, that's cool. Maybe as we look at the difference between that really sales oriented person, COVID, kind of evens the playing field a. 

16:17
Alan Ray
Little bit, it did because you had to learn to be virtual. You had to learn to do things at a distance, but you also learned that you can do things at a distance, that face to face isn't absolutely necessary physically, in that if you have a certain niche or approach that's applicable to many people, the fact that they're dispersed all over the country is no longer an issue for you. You need to be afraid to commit to what it is that is really meaningful for you and your work and what you're truly good at, or as in my case, what you have the capacity to do. 

17:01
Charlie Van Derven
You're such a thoughtful guy. I appreciate that. One of the things that I love about COVID not only for our industry, but it's hard to say you love something about COVID Right. It took so many people that were not technical necessarily and fear to transition. They were forced. Right? They were forced like you and I were on Zoom right now. You and I have never shook hands. I hope one day we can make that happen. I travel enough with the camper that I'm sure I'll be coming through club. 

17:31
Alan Ray
Yeah. 

17:31
Charlie Van Derven
At some point as long as this side of the Mississippi, it's easy to do the camper for me, I start getting up. 

17:37
Alan Ray
We have a good chance. If you want to go to the Northeast, the New England area, I have many relations and friends up there. Let me know when you're ever going to be in New England because it's possible that will crisscross. 

17:50
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, I absolutely will. I get up to Wisconsin quite a bit, and so if I come up through Ohio or Indiana, it doesn't make a difference to me. Right, right. We'll make it happen at some point, for sure. I want a little kind of maybe learning portion of our show. There's a few questions I like to ask with each interview. 

18:11
Alan Ray
Sure. 

18:12
Charlie Van Derven
Because I really believe that this helps our listeners kind of learn without making the same mistakes or grab onto these things that propel a career. First I want to ask you, is there anything when you look back on difficulties earlier in your career with large organizations right. Finally finding your way and to square peg financial, when you look back on that career, is there anything that you gosh, I wish I would have done that differently? 

18:40
Alan Ray
Well, I'm not the type to have specific regrets and want to retread. In science fiction, sometimes a person goes back to meet their younger self and it never works, by the way. Other things being equal, if I were to be able to change history, I would have left one large company much sooner when they changed the entire compensation structure and their whole approach because I had excelled. That was that one experience where I was really excellent with the fortunate meeting of the center of influence for somebody who's not very salesy. I actually made their top circle, the top convention or whatever it is you call it, my second full year there, which to me was quite a shock. When they turned the tables on their approach to managing the salesforce, I should have followed the first half of the people who actually left and gotten out within a few months. 

19:48
Charlie Van Derven
Maybe I summarized that as if, the situation is not right for you. Continuing to call and try to make it right is probably not the best option. 

19:57
Alan Ray
Right. And while we're on that subject. There is a book for anybody going through these questions, and even if you're not now, there is a great book that's very helpful for the rest of your life. It's called the go point. I'll give you the reference, Charlie, so you can attend it to this program. The gopoint by Michael Yusim, who I believe is a professor. 

20:22
Charlie Van Derven
Yes. 

20:22
Alan Ray
At the Horton school. 

20:24
Charlie Van Derven
Okay, cool. I sat in those classrooms for a week. I got a little certificate. I can't say that I graduated from Wharton, but I did get to go to University of Penn, I guess, right? Yeah. I can't even remember what it was way back in the day. So, flip side of that question, Allen. As you look back and maybe it's the same kind of point, right. As you look back and you think, what? Here's something I did that really was a catalyst for my future, is there anything that stands out? 

21:00
Alan Ray
Always the most important things were the commitment to what I really am wired to do. 

21:08
Charlie Van Derven
Wonderful. So knowing yourself is really instrumental to. 

21:14
Alan Ray
In terms of the concrete achievement, of course, it was following through with the CFP. 

21:21
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Very good. I love that. Tell me about where Square Peg Financial is going from here. 

21:27
Alan Ray
From here, we are actually I am gathering more connections and contacts in the senior market, which is my niche. There is a kind of a micro niche that's coming along as ancillary that can be very helpful to me in the long run, too, but I don't ever talk about it. I must say, it's something of an exclusive connection that I have with certain small business owners that I wasn't expecting. 

22:07
Charlie Van Derven
Wonderful. 

22:08
Alan Ray
That came out through my work in the senior and elder niche. Actually, we're moving ahead there, working with people who are at least close to my age, cohort or much older, as you can imagine, because I'm not elderly yet, but hopefully that day will come. But I really enjoy this work. There's a critical need for it, either to get appropriately staged and prepared for your retirement or to make critical adjustments if you had no help when you first got into your retirement. 

22:51
Charlie Van Derven
Wonderful. Let me ask you we'll cut this if you say no. Okay, sure. Assuming you won't say no, I'm going to ask it on recording anyway for those listeners right, who maybe identify with your struggles in the large organizations before you found your path to Square Peg. Are you okay being a resource? Do you mind if they reach out to you? 

23:13
Alan Ray
I certainly am. There's just an unhappy situation, career wise, is one of the most unhappy situations you can face in life. If there's anything that I can do to just help people realize that they need to take the bull by the horns or actually find a way to get the most out of the situation they're in. There you go. I've spoken to some younger people, and they've asked me about it, and I say, well, don't overlook what you're getting out of the situation right now, but here's what you might work toward. Here are some things for you to think about as you're doing it. Assess what's bringing you energy and zapping the energy right out of you. And then talk to lots of people. Sometimes I can make introductions for people for them to talk to. 

24:08
Charlie Van Derven
Very cool. It's really easy to get stuck in the negative of something to your point. Right. I mean, it's really easy when things don't go right to perpetuate that mentally perpetuate. That with your attitude, that with your words, right. When there's a whole other side. Right. It may be right in front of you may be experiencing it, but you're stuck in the negative. You make a great point, the ability to take a step back from where you're at and see where this is actually benefiting you, even for yourself, right. Going through those difficult times, but understanding the training you've gotten, working with a big team on the client side, there's certainly good things that are coming out of a bad situation. 

24:52
Alan Ray
Exactly. There are so many factors that people have to deal with. One of my greatest advantages right now, though, it's never easy to establish a practice from scratch. Having spent eight or nine years working inside a home office, that's exactly what I'm doing, is starting it from scratch with the registered investment advisory firm. I think we're supposed to talk about that, too. The advantage was that we're now empty nesters. Yeah. 

25:27
Charlie Van Derven
Well, that's helpful, right? 

25:28
Alan Ray
Oh, yes. 

25:30
Charlie Van Derven
Mine are 13 and 14, so I know what's ahead of me. I think I know what's ahead of me. 

25:36
Alan Ray
Yeah. When you're an empty nester, you can be a little older, a little more crotchety, and say, I don't need to do this anymore. I've got to if there's going to be something. I enjoy the work so much that I have no intention of dropping this anytime soon. There's a history in my family of working well into what people would call advanced age. It's not so much advanced age as it was for my parents'generation, but that's right. We're still talking about what the economists and census takers called advanced age. I'm looking forward to doing this for quite some time. 

26:13
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Love it. It certainly allows that type of longevity and inspiration. What's the best way, Allen, for people to read, I met you on LinkedIn, so I know you're responsive on LinkedIn, but what's the best way if someone wants to get in touch with you, how's that happened? 

26:26
Alan Ray
The easiest for them to send me an email or find me on LinkedIn and message me that way. LinkedIn is one of those areas where if you actually send me a personal message, I'll reply to it. I get a lot of just quick click of the button, add me to your network, and quite frankly, almost all of them I hit ignore. I don't know this person. Please let me know where you found me and why you want to talk. 

26:57
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, I'm happy to reply. Allen ray CFP. I think you got CFP listed there on, if I recall, square Peg Financial in Columbus, Ohio. I don't know if it, I don't know if I know it. But this is a new perspective. This is a new perspective for our podcast because, listen, my story, at the top of it, when we got started, I've been in so many branches over the years, and it's less and less than the last decade, but 15 years ago, I was in three or four branches a week every week, right. I have thousands, thousands of advisers that I worked with. To you made the point earlier, that person in the corner office has a good support team, but they didn't get there with that support team. They got there in large part because they're awesome in a crowd. 

27:50
Alan Ray
Yes, absolutely. 

27:52
Charlie Van Derven
And not everybody has that ability. In fact, I would say that's a rare ability. 

27:59
Alan Ray
It is. Since we're on the topic, I don't want to make this too long for you. 

28:04
Charlie Van Derven
No, not at all. 

28:06
Alan Ray
For your listeners, don't let that discourage you. I mean, if there's one thing that can discourage and I'm a gregarious introvert, but an introvert nevertheless. You can't help if you're more analytical, if you love the planning part versus the closing part. When you see the recognition that the people at the top of the numbers, the sales numbers, charts, get their recognition and you can kind of feel bad, like, where's my recognition for what I do? I spend a lot of hours and gray matter and things like that trying to get this work done. Yet people always look at me like Mr. Slowpoke or something like that, or don't take me seriously. You may find that just tells you're not a fit for that organization. At the same time, depending on the organization, if you find a way to assert yourself, go ahead, but certainly you're going to have to let that one go. 

29:14
Alan Ray
I don't see that one changing. The only thing that changes it is when sometimes those folks land on with disclosures of their broker checks. We've got an unfortunate pattern here. 

29:30
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, right. That recognition you speak of, that's firm recognition, it's based on revenue, right. It's based on production, whereas the recognition that matters is the client recognition. That might not matter to the big firm, but that's the one that should matter to you. Allen, you're an inspiration, man. I want to thank you for being my guest today. Everybody who's taking of time out of their day to listen to RA Collective. Listen, we don't have big sponsorship. Maybe one day. We haven't really made an attempt to monetize what we're doing here, so we do rely on our listeners. If this is valuable for you and someone that could benefit from it, please share it. If you like what you hear, of course, give us a little review and subscribe, and that helps us climb the ranks in the listening platform. So, alan Ray Square, Peg Financial and Columbus, Ohio. 

30:18
Charlie Van Derven
Thank you so much for being my guest on RIA Collective today. 

30:20
Alan Ray
Well, thanks so much, Charlie, because I looked through this when we first met. I think it's a really great service that you're doing here. 

30:27
Charlie Van Derven
Wonderful. Thank you, man. I appreciate that feedback. The more interviews we do, the more I get that, the more energized I am to do more interviews. So I hope it's benefiting somebody cool. 

30:39
Alan Ray
See you. 

30:40
Charlie Van Derven
See you're.