The Many Career Paths in Financial Services with Jeff Barnes

00:12
Charlie Van Derven
Welcome to another episode of RIA Collective. Man, am I excited today. I'm your host, Charlie Van der Van. We've got a great guest, my new friend Jeff Barnes with CBIS here. Jeff, I'll let you jump in and say hello, and then I'm going to give my very informal introduction. You can tell us more about yourself. 

00:31
Jeff Barnes
Well, I appreciate that, Charlie. I am with CBIS Retirement Investment Services, and I'm a retirement plan consultant, specialist, and investment advisor to institutions. That's the technical version of it. I do a lot of other things, too, and I want to make sure and you and I were just talking about this Charlie, right before we started that who I am and my identity and who I am as a person is not necessarily who I am in my role. In my role, I service institutions solely. I don't work with individuals, but I work with them in their retirement plans. I couldn't be in a better place right now. So this is a great time for Us to have a conversation.

01:23
Charlie Van Derven
That is awesome. I'll tell you what, Jeff. I mean, we met a month and a half ago, something like that, right? Preliminary conversation. How do we feel about each other? I knew immediately because usually, we're interviewing RIA leadership, right? Your role is different than a normal interview. I knew immediately when we met each other that you had experience and wisdom that you could bring to a listing audience that was considering a change in their role in the industry. Everybody's got a different path, and that's what I'm learning more and more. I've been talking to advisors for 20 some years, but as we get deep into the interview process on this podcast, everybody's got a very unique path, and you certainly do. I you on the personal side, too. Right. Listen, I had a 02:00 meeting today, jeff postponed, and so it actually gave me an opportunity to jump out in the ocean. So this is not freshly showered hair. 

02:22
Jeff Barnes
That looks wet, freshly. 

02:24
Charlie Van Derven
I got to catch a couple of waves. I know you appreciate this because of who you are. I saw two tarpon and a manatee while I was out there surfing for 30 minutes. The ocean is alive, but I love the mountain biking we talked about. In fact, when we first met, you were nursing a broken clavicle. 

02:43
Jeff Barnes
I still am. This will be one of the longest periods I've been off the bike. I ride mostly mountain bikes. That's really my passion. I tell people I like my road bike, I love my mountain bike. I'm off of a crash on my road bike. It'll be, let's say, six weeks ago this coming Sunday, and it takes a little while to come back from that. Patience is not one of my virtues. I'm a patient guy, but I've had to be. I'm looking forward to swinging my leg over my mountain bike and hit the trail. That's a wonderful thing that's happening in our country. Since I've been riding mountain bikes, which I started back in the late 80s, mid to late 80s. So I'm aging myself. Now there's a lot more trails, there are more places to ride. One of the benefits of a business like this is it gives me the flexibility to go out and do that all over the place and to be able to work with my clients and my colleagues, my team, when I may not be in the office. 

03:52
Jeff Barnes
So I love it. I love it that you got to get out and spend some time outdoors, which I like to do as well. I'm so glad you got some time in today. 

04:02
Charlie Van Derven
The flexibility is one of the greatest things. We had an office right before COVID, and like everybody else, we shut that down and I say, I don't think we're not getting another office. I mean, like, our team has become more remote because of it. We're hiring maybe better, more talented people in other locations, so we're not just beholden to our larger Daytona Beach hiring pool and then the flexibility. I mean, I think we chat about it. We did our beach trip there in COVID. Right? Just the ability to do what we do from anywhere. I just happened to be in the house today, but could be anywhere tomorrow. 

04:41
Jeff Barnes
That's true. I work some out of my house. I work in my office. I'm in Memphis, Tennessee. It's scorching hot right now and humid. We're used to that in the summer, so I do a lot of my cycling in the mornings, earlier, late in the day. But that's just how things are. So I work from the house. I will say this, I do miss face to face meetings with my clients and prospective clients we all miss. They do, too. I'm looking forward to us getting back to that. This is great. It's good to see people this way. It's much better than just talking on the phone. All of us had to do this and adapt with COVID hip, but I think we're best when we're in meetings face to face. I miss that interaction. I'm hoping that we get back to that soon. I really do. 

05:37
Jeff Barnes
Charlie. 

05:38
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, I agree. I had my first conference was the Jolt Conference out in Vegas, which is probably six weeks ago now. That was the first one since March of 2020. It was wonderful, that interaction, sitting on a panel. That was great. We got two coming up this fall, one in September and then one in October. I agree with you, zoom is great. Zoom is convenient. That's wonderful. Listen, I can't wait till I'm passing through. If you got a spare mountain bike, because I do beach cruisers now. 

06:11
Jeff Barnes
I do have two mountain bikes. I've got one to share and we'll go out and do of that. 

06:17
Charlie Van Derven
I like it. 

06:18
Jeff Barnes
So I think that's great. I love being outdoors. I'm in Memphis in the winter. I do a lot of water fouling at duck hunt. That's pretty common around here. So I'm outside a lot. My kids are outside people. I like traveling. I like being around. I have a good friend that lives out in Washington State five months out of the year, and he's very successful in his real estate practice. He has a sprinter van. I did this last October, flew out to Portland. He picked me up and we drove from his house, drove the sprinter van back and spent nine days on the road. Eight of those days we rode and we spent three days in Moab. It was great. I love being outside, I love exploring. I like camping and being out. So there's just nothing quite like it. This type of business, and certainly at this point in my career, that's one of the benefits of choosing to do something like this. 

07:24
Jeff Barnes
People start thinking about what I want to do and how would I benefit from being in the business that somebody like Jeff Barnes is in, one of them is having that flexibility. With that it requires a great deal of discipline too, because you have to do difficult things to get into a position like this and have some success. Like many of us, I keep thinking my zenith's out. I'm in a great spot in my career, but there's so much more to it. It requires a great deal of discipline. With the flexibility and freedom on the other side of that, you got to pay attention. You got to stay involved and stay focused more than anything. 

08:08
Charlie Van Derven
Absolutely. You did mention before we hit the record button, you said, I can't wait to talk about the future. We're going to get there, but let's start with the past first. So, Jeff, like I said, everybody takes a unique path in this industry and there are so many paths to take. Yours is unique to most of the people that we interview and that, we're talking to. Most of the people we talk to start on that maybe wirehouse side, right? Their first job is with a big firm, and maybe they're lacking flexibility or whatever, whatever their situation is, they're moving towards an independent route. But you went the other way, right? You were with an RAA and then started your own RAA back in 2007. 

08:52
Jeff Barnes
So here's what happened. I want to make sure I put that up. I'm a CSP by background. I've been doing that for quite some time. I started out with Johnny Hancock selling life insurance back in 1992 and quickly got became a registered rep. I got somewhat of a securities license. I could sell variable products, which is what they wanted me to sell, and life insurance. Started out doing that, working with individuals and enjoyed it to some degree. But I moved to Memphis. I was living in Jackson, Mississippi. Finished up I was an undergraduate graduate degree from the University of Mississippi. After I did that, I moved up here to Memphis to work for a boutique firm that did qualified plans for banks, ESOPs for four and K provisions and a lot of surf supplemental executive retirement plans. I learned about the qualified plan side, and it intrigued me. 

09:52
Jeff Barnes
I started realizing what it meant to be a third party administrator. I started learning about a lot of this, but still had all this background, being a financial planner. I've worked for a couple of different companies before. In 2004, five and six, I became an independent contractor with the largest accounting firm in Memphis. Really what they wanted me to do was to kind of be a jack of all trades. Accountants get all kinds of questions and problems and issues that come across their desk that may not have anything to do with audits or tax and a lot of planning issues. The partners in this firm saw me as somebody that could help them solve problems. I started doing that, but I still had this pull towards the qualified plan, the retirement plan side still understood them very well. Was accounting firm audited a lot of retirement plans? 

10:48
Jeff Barnes
A lot. 80, 90 retirement plans. When a retirement plan is large enough, 120 employees, eligible employees, you have to have a third party, an independent audit come in when you file your return with the Department of labor and Department of treasury, it's called a form 5500. You have to have an independent audit of that plan. Well, this accounting firm did a lot of audits, and before I knew it, the audit department was asking me to help them with some of their clients that were very inefficient that they weren't able to build. They were losing money on the accounts. They're very sticky in terms of what they could charge for their services. So all you have is your time. If you have more time than you were able to build, that was problem. I came in and started looking at some of those plans. Before I knew it, I was solving problems that were helping the accounting firm. 

11:42
Jeff Barnes
I was charging fees just like their accountants, billing my time and doing a lot of other things. I was still a CFP. I was still selling insurance, employee benefits, helping with planning, estate planning, business planning. Before I knew it, I was being pulled back into the retirement plan side, and I helped solve the problem of a client of theirs. They wanted to hire me, and we ran into something called an independence issue that resulted from Starbanes Oxley, which came out of the Arthur Anderson debacle that happened many years ago. The accounting firm said, we can't really have you working here in doing that and also being the broker adviser on that plan, you've got to make a decision. 

12:31
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. 

12:34
Jeff Barnes
So I did. When I did, I went to the guy that headed up the accounting firm also, and he still does. He works across the hall for me, manages an RIA that works with independent RIAA, Wealth Management. I went to him and I said, what would you do? And he said this. He goes, you should not form your own RIAA. You'll spend all your time fully with that. Find somebody that understands what you're doing, which is just retirement plans. Find them and see if you can get on with them. And I did. I found a group called Financial televises. If you're in the retirement plan business, you might be aware of them. A group called Retirement Plan Advisory Group or Arpegg and I met through a coach named Charlie Epstein who you and I discussed. 

13:21
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, it's a familiar name for sure. 

13:23
Jeff Barnes
So I opened myself up to Charlie. He said, here's what I think you should do. I found an independent RIAA that worked mostly or almost exclusively with retirement plan consultants and advisors. Got my Series 65 right before I did that, I got my Series 65 because the same guy that told me, don't form your own RAA said, you've got to be independent. You have direct expenses being paid to you, and this is the only way you can do it. You stop being a broker, a registered rep, or at least do less of that, become this. And that happened pretty quickly. That was 2007. That's when I started my own practice. 

14:03
Charlie Van Derven
Wonderful. Of course, that data is always instrumental. In fact, I put it as were prepping for this, I was like, 2007? Wow. That was a crazy time for all of us. Of course, most of my experiences on the retail wealth management side. Tell me how those 2007 singing? Everybody's doing great. I'll tell you. Jet bought my first house in 2007. Terrible idea. Terrible idea, man. So we got hit by that time. Hits me personally. Yeah, listen, that's a long story, too. Single guy bought a house, found out I had my first child on the way. Anyway, so life happened very quickly for me at that time of life. How did that talk about how that period between 2007 and 2009, you are hanging your own shingle, right? For strategic reasons. How did that impact the plan side of the business? How did that impact the same way that the individual wealth managers out there, the retail wealth managers felt it. 

15:09
Jeff Barnes
I didn't have a whole lot of AUM at that time. I was starting out. I was lucky that financial television believed in me, because I was on a really small side for people they were bringing in. I had income coming in from other sources. My wife was very talented attorney. She was working. We were just starting to have kids. I had a young one and another one on the way in 2006, I guess I had two. I had a baby. And so we had a baby. What benefited me the most was that client that I told you about that I picked up. I'll never forget what pushed me into this. I had done some due diligence on their plan, decided that they need to move from one recordkeeper custody into another. Did all the paperwork for them. Came in, and I had checked the box on the funds, the investments. 

16:04
Jeff Barnes
Sat there, slid that paperwork across the table to the CFO. The CEO said, what am I signing? I said, do you have to sign his paperwork? He said, Why am I signing this? The CFO, before I could speak, looked at him and he knew he had a pretty good grip on things. Smart fella. He goes, Jeff's not a fiduciary. He's the worst. He's not his fiduciary. The CEO said, then what the h*** are we paying him for? And that really bothered me. Really bothered me. I thought he's right. Why am I the one that really selected these funds? Why am I not signing off on them? That really pushed me off in this. Well, it was perfect timing. When I met Charlie Epstein and started talking about this, he said, Let me tell you what's about to happen. This industry is about to go through a change in upheaval and transparency and responsibility. 

17:02
Jeff Barnes
These two factors are going to shape what you just described to this instance with this client. They'll shape your career. If you can provide that, if you can provide transparent responsibility, you're going to be held to that standard here soon. Because things are changing. Laws are changing, rules are changing. And they did. They did. Disclosure came out in 2012 that required plan sponsors to tell planned participants what people like me were charging. I had to start making disclosure to my clients that said, here's what I'm charging. Here's how my fees are coming out of your plan, and here's what I'm doing for you. Even though were in a very difficult time in terms of markets and uncertainty with our country and financial institutions, the Congress and the Department of labor, we're all pushing towards this idea of transparency and responsibility. I positioned myself for that. 

18:09
Jeff Barnes
So I started growing business. Even though these plans and assets were down a great deal, they were new clients to me, because the people around me either weren't willing to do that, or because of their existing relationships with their broker dealers and or their registered investment advisory firms were precluded from being fiduciaries, from acting in that capacity. I had positioned myself very well to be able to work still pretty closely with the accounting firm, even though not formally with them because of all the audits they did. We started doing webinars and seminars. I did them in conjunction with the audit firm and some local ERISA lawyers here, which provided credibility for me during that time period, I was actually growing business. 

19:01
Charlie Van Derven
That's wonderful. I'll tell you again, my experience being more focused on the retail side of the business, there's catalyst. There's catalyst moments. Right. Every change, everything requires timing. 

19:19
Jeff Barnes
Right. 

19:20
Charlie Van Derven
You've got these big upheavals in market and economy, there's a lot of change that happens at that time. It sounds like, Jeff, you were ahead of the curve. 

19:30
Jeff Barnes
I watched Charlie, but looking back, I'm not so sure that I was really rewarded for that because of my constraints on capital and me being by myself. Eventually others caught up to that. 

19:48
Charlie Van Derven
Sure. 

19:48
Jeff Barnes
They didn't like losing plans. The industry was moving in that direction. They knew they were going to have to do that. They being people I compete with now, those my particular competitors that got more than the business at that point probably did better than I did because they had economies of scale, they had colleagues, people around them that were referring business to them, and I had less of that. While it was fortuitous and it's where it shaped me and put me where I am now, I'm not so sure that being one of the pioneers, I guess, at least around here, I'm sure others were too. As I found out later, I was relatively new at this, even nationally. I'm not so sure that I've benefited as greatly as some of the people that compete with me did. 

20:45
Charlie Van Derven
Someone's got to cut that path, man. And that's not always easy work. Right. People who come after you have an easier time. 

20:52
Jeff Barnes
Yeah. There are books being written about that I've read that might have been me to some extent. At the same time, the results were and are that our local market, our local businesses are better served. Even if it's not me and it's some one of my competitors, most of the people that I consider competitors are really good at what they do, have their clients best interest at heart and are transparent and are taking fiduciary responsibility. The market did move in that direction. Thankfully here in Memphis, there are other people that do this and do a great job doing it. I don't take credit that they saw me doing it and did it. They may have noticed me doing it, but they were either going to get into that and do it or they weren't going to be in this business. 

21:47
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Legal obligation at that point, yeah. Makes sense. I don't want to spend so much time on the past yet that we don't get to the future before we expire here. Things evolve. You end up with CBIZ, talk about that current role . You had mentioned, what I love is that, yes, we learned about all the stepping stone from the past, but your excitement is where you're at. It's not where you've been. 

22:16
Jeff Barnes
Absolutely. I had to find another home eventually because I had reached my point where I could not prospect and bring a new business and service what I had. I had to find another place to work. I wound up inside of an RIA local RIAA that worked almost exclusively institutional, mostly an endowment, foundation, space, governmental. They're called Gavion and I became part of their RIAA, brought in on my retirement plan business. They were a target more so than I was for CBIZ because of what they do. They're really smart, very talented analyst consultants. You have to be if you're managing a billion dollars of an endowment or a big pension plan, you have to be able to vet fund managers and sub advised funds and all those kind of accounts. They do a great job of doing that. That was what Sebastian noticed. I just happened to be here, so I was along for the ride. 

23:29
Jeff Barnes
What I found out, though, was when they got to know me and I got to know them. What I'm able to do now, I was not able to do prior to this one with Gaby on, but I'm able to do what I had envisioned a long time ago, which is we do everything other than custodian or record, keep plan assets, record keepers and custodians in our world, the largest being fidelity. That's what they do. If you're in a retirement plan, fidelity may be the statement that you get. Vanguard, Empowers, a really large one. Hancock, Voya, some of the big ones in the nonprofit tia Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association. So that's what they do. We do everything but that. We're third party administrators, we draft documents, we're compliance experts and we're advisors and advisors. We provide a great deal of employee education and assistance with the employees once they choose to start saving into a plan. 

24:30
Jeff Barnes
I have a huge team that works with me that I didn't have prior to this. I fit very nicely with this group. CBA does just about everything except for banking. We're not bankers or attorneys, but just about everything else. That firm that I told you about, that accounting firm that I was the independent contractor, the Jack of All Trades in 2004, five and six, they were bought by Cbus. Interesting, they're an accounting firm owned by CBEs. Me and my friends were founding members of that accounting firm. Most of them have retired or doing different things. One is running the RIAA that's on the same hall that I'm on, completely independent and separate from CBIZ, but they do that. I walked in once were acquired back in 2019. I knew most of the accountants that worked here. They were friends of mine. We have a really big employee benefits presence in Nashville. 

25:29
Jeff Barnes
One of the nice things that's happening now is I'm getting more referrals from my CBS colleagues. Not only do I have a huge team of support and we can do just about anything other than custodian record, keep assets for the retirement plan and any plan size. I met with a plan that has one participant in it today and I was on a call with a plan that has 100 participants in it with their committee today. Really wide spectrum, both clients of mine, both clients have brought in the last year. Both of those came in as referrals through my friends, my colleagues here at Seabird. For me now and me in the future, this relationship is the best relationship that I've had. I wouldn't say I stumbled into it, but if you had talked to me three years ago, I would not have known or been able to realize how important it was and it is now. 

26:31
Charlie Van Derven
Well now, you make an incredible point, right? All those relationships from the past that have come full circle and now affect your life today, I can speak to that too. We got started doing websites for the large firms back in 98 with a company out of Minnesota that I don't know if we knew what the heck were doing back in I think they were probably founded in 96. I joined them in 98 as like employee number twelve. Right? And then we grew that significantly. The people I worked with back then, a lot of them are part of broader today, right. They've got their hands on all kinds of firms that we've got some crossover there. People I worked with, there are now at FMG Suite for those not familiar with the brand big marketing firm out of San Diego that serves the industry. I go back 20 plus years to people who frankly seems like were having more fun than the work were doing. 

27:25
Charlie Van Derven
We were young and enjoying ourselves at the time. They still affect my life to date, 20 years later. The impact of those relationships you create early on in your career that you never know. 

27:39
Jeff Barnes
That's what I would say to any young person starting out. Make sure that you remember those people, stay in touch with them. It's a lot easier now to do that with social media, with LinkedIn and Twitter and Facebook, everything I'm available to you, that's really important. That's vitally important to your long term viability. It's not just getting, in my case, referrals, it's having people that can essentially vouch for your credibility. And that's a big deal. And that's one of the important factors. One of the things that benefited me greatly with the accounting firm, they're trusted advisors. They can help open the door for somebody like me. The years of working really hard to identify, to be a specialist, I'm hesitant to call myself an expert. Sometimes people do. But I'm still learning. I learned from I learned from the young people in our business. I learned from my kids. 

28:46
Jeff Barnes
I hope that I continue learning the rest of my life. Having that kind of credibility and having people back you up and see you as a problem solver is crucial to you being able to do this for a really long time. The relationships that I've had for a really long time now still come back to pay dividends. I hope mine do to them as well. I hope I'm giving back to the people that give to me. That's a very important concept and something that I've taken to heart for a really long time. I think Charlie Epstein, a former K coach a long time ago, would say things like, make sure you put capital back into somebody else's business. 

29:30
Charlie Van Derven
I love that. To that point, it's not just the relationship you keep with the brand you build within that relationship. Right. 20 years of building a brand, a couple of mistakes here and there, that all goes away. So you make a very valuable point. It's not just the people, it's the impression you leave on them. So important. Jeff, it sounds like it's been a wonderful career. You certainly are an energized person. It can't all be roses and honey and everything nice, right. If you look back on this, we'll get to the future in a second. I know we're excited to get there, but in providing some advice for those people who are looking for a different path in this industry, is there anything you did that you're like, gosh, if I only pivoted this way or anything I don't want to use the word regret, I'm kind of dancing around it, but is there anything you would change from your coming up? 

30:32
Jeff Barnes
Yeah. You can't avoid in my business what I am, which is really my highest and best use as a producer of additional business of growth. That's really what I do. You have to embrace that if you do either servicing or you're producing. I of course, do of both, but my highest and best use is bringing in new relationships and then making sure the ones that I have stay on. I have a team of people that provide a regular support. They do a lot of that heavy lifting for me and they still be involved directly with my clients. That's really what I'm supposed to be doing. I wish that I had hired my sales coach years before I did or at least had a system that was something. That I understood better and was more well thought out because it would have alleviated a lot of angst with me over things like, why am I being blown off or told no? 

31:46
Jeff Barnes
I would have felt differently about it. I would have had more success with the same amount of effort. I think that's important and that's the one thing I regret, is that I didn't pull the trigger on that earlier. I could have because the guy I work with now has been doing this for quite some time. I've known him for quite some time. That is the one thing that I think that if I could go back and do something differently and knowing that I'm going to be saddled with the responsibility of growing new clients and being in sales and embracing that, instead of saying, I'm a technician, I'm an investment adviser, I'm a salesman, I'm a salesperson, that's really what I am. That one thing would have made, I think, a big difference. I might be sitting on twice the number of clients today if I just pull the trigger on that three or four years before I did. 

32:45
Jeff Barnes
That's. 

32:46
Charlie Van Derven
Amazing advice. I've got a coach. I am a coach, and I limit the number, the number of coaching relationships I keep that I'm serving just based on, because we're growing a business outside of that. That's one piece of our revenue. Most of the people I coach are also working with us for the services we provide. It's not an expense. Now, you got to find the right person. You got to find the right mix, right? It's not an expense, it's an investment. I think that especially as people are young in the industry and maybe haven't reached the levels of production that they're looking for, waiting, waiting till they get to that is actually causing more harm than it is good. 

33:34
Jeff Barnes
It is. I pay for my coach with my money. One of the things that I try to make sure I do is have enough income to continue that relationship because my coach is very direct with me, and that's his job. That would be your coach, his or her job, whatever that is, and to listen to you and to say things like, perhaps you were talking too much, what kind of questions did you ask? Did you make it about them? Did you walk in and feature and benefit them? That was something that a lot of us were taught. I mean, selling insurance. You walk in, hey, Charlie, I know you have a need. You passed away. Your family really needs some money, right? You need this, and here's what you need. I don't know. I may walk into a situation, hey, Charlie, what's going on? You go, I'm independently wealthy. 

34:37
Jeff Barnes
I don't need any insurance. I don't know. Those kind of things I think are important. I know some people say I don't need something like that. 

34:51
Charlie Van Derven
How do you don't an accountability? I think that everybody I've ever talked to, whether they became a coaching client or not, accountability was within their first one of the top three things they were looking to achieve, which is something. 

35:07
Jeff Barnes
That you have to I mean that's something that's ongoing. I'm accountable to my family, of course. I'm accountable to the shareholders of the company I work for. We're publicly traded firm. I'm accountable to them. I'm accountable to management. I'm accountable to my sales coach. I even have a person within CBIZ that is my accountability partner and she and I get together every couple of weeks and go, how are you doing? What's going on? Where are you? This is what you said you're going to do. Have you done it, yes or no and how can we learn from each other? As I mentioned earlier, there's a lot I know. There's a lot I don't know. I'm a curious person so I'm always asking questions. I'm always hoping to grow and I'm willing to change my mind if I see that I have that kind of, I guess, courage. 

36:07
Jeff Barnes
I don't know if that's the right word to be that way the rest of my life. Those are the kind of things that I hope younger people will think about and realize that, hey, somebody, I'm 57, somebody who's 57 years old says he doesn't know everything, he's willing to learn from young people and he's curious. He's willing to change his mind if the facts and circumstances present that. 

36:36
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, that's awesome and what a wonderful mindset to go through life. You're a bigger person because of it, right? 

36:43
Jeff Barnes
I hope so. 

36:45
Charlie Van Derven
I think so. Our relationship is just getting off the ground and I'm excited to know you and we've got so many similarities and listen, Memphis isn't that far away and I golf with a buddy of mine in Nashville. Next time that happens we're going to make the trip over. 

37:00
Jeff Barnes
I have clients there. I was there this week so I go there at least once a month and sometimes more if it wants that. 

37:09
Charlie Van Derven
You're going to see me soon? Jeff Barnes for sure, yeah man, absolutely. But I love the mindset. Right. Around accountability, we actually just changed the title of our former they were called account executives. Right? We'd bring on a client and they'd have a dedicated relationship with social advisors and their account executive would opportunity to get to know that person well. They get to know the account executive well so that the goals are aligned with the work that we're doing on the back end for them. There are some things that to be successful on our platform, there are things that our clients need to be doing consistently. We recently changed that account executive to accountability coach. It's their job anyway, right? It's just hold those clients accountable to the work that they need to do to support the services we're providing on the back end. Now, what I would tell a lot of the folks that were interviewing for that were interviewing us or us interviewing them as a coaching client. 

38:13
Jeff Barnes
If you. 

38:14
Charlie Van Derven
Need me to browbeat you to do something, great, I can do that as often as you need me to. Once you've got the skills in place, you're accountable to yourself. Whether that is because you're supporting family, whatever that is, whatever the motivation is for the activity, that's what holds you accountable. Now, if you want to get on the phone twice a month with me, so I can say, Why didn't you do this? Really, honestly, we're all accountable to ourselves. Whether that's supporting the family or hitting the metrics to keep the job, whatever that is, that's an accountability that we really have to embrace. So I love that. Jeff, that coaching is such an instrumental part of your professional growth. That's awesome. Along those lines, tell me about the future. You're excited about the future, man. That's the first thing you said when we got on today before we hit the record button. 

39:03
Jeff Barnes
What is that? I'm excited because I can see the growth potential that we have here. I love what I do, and the only thing will better is doing this for more clients. Cool. Bringing my team and our approach to that. We don't fit everybody, but we fit a lot. I'm excited about the new people I'm going to meet. Just about every call I'm on is somebody new, somebody I haven't met before, and I'm genuinely curious about who they are and what's going on and whether or not we can help them. We have a great deal of capacity. Our firm continues to grow. I have some just really smart, talented people that work around me, and that's really exciting to me. Charlie, one of the things that's most exciting to me is this is a job, this is a career. This is something I love to do, that I could do for a long time, and I plan to, as long as I can stay healthy, keep riding my bike and doing the things that I do. 

40:08
Jeff Barnes
I plan to do this for quite some time because I love it. I don't know what else I would do. I look out, I think, who's next? Who am I going to get to meet next? I'm very social. I'm very extroverted. I enjoy knowing that for the balance of this year, I'm going to meet a lot more people, take a note, more conversations. We may fit, we may not. One thing's for sure, I'm going to walk away remembering who that person was. I link in with them, I connect to them. You never know what may come up. That, to me, is the most exciting thing about what I see when I'm looking out in the future in this business. 

40:50
Charlie Van Derven
Jeff, I am absolutely inspired by your thirst, right? 57 years old, a couple of decades in the industry. Right. Your thirst for more, whether that's more knowledge through coaching, whether that's more knowledge through your team members, whether that's more relationships, your thirst for growth is inspirational, man. I appreciate that. 

41:13
Jeff Barnes
Well, thanks. My management team would like to hear and see that become realized as well. We have a lot of conversations about that. I have a great deal of support, and I know that it will happen. I'm confident it will continue growing. Our business is growing. I have my colleagues that are also in sales throughout the country that do what I do. There are some top notch stars that work around me that do this, that are producers like I am and that inspires me. I see them growing their practices and think I want to be at that point. I know that the tracks there, it's all ready for that to happen, and here I am. We keep doing this and we keep providing. If we can impact the employees that work for these companies. If we can help them make better decisions about how they invest their money. 

42:09
Jeff Barnes
If we can encourage them to save more money. If we can reduce the cost in their plan so they have more return. Even if it's small in terms of incremental progress. I'm doing something that impacts my community. And that's a big deal to me. I do that with my nonprofit time. I'm really passionate about trying to close the gap, and Memphis are relatively I'm not saying it's brown brick. We're a relatively poor community or poor city in terms of just per capita income. One of the things that I'm passionate about is closing that gap. I'm on the board of a charter school. We're trying to educate kids and give them an alternative and get them into college. They'll let me teach an economics class there. I really like that. I've done a lot of junior achievement work in the past, so those are the kind of things that, outside of this job and this business of trying to get people to be able to retire comfortably when they can't work any longer, those are the some of the things that I'm interested in, and there's some parallels with that. 

43:30
Jeff Barnes
There really is. As long as I can keep doing that, then I think I'll be excited about what's going on in front of me. 

43:38
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, that's cool. Again, inspired. Jeffrey, any of our listeners who are really struggling with where they're at, thinking about how they're going to evolve their career in our financial services environment, maybe they haven't really thought about that retirement plan fiduciary role similar to what you play? Are you open to one conversations, giving advice along the way. Sounds like meeting new people is right up your alley, man. 

44:07
Jeff Barnes
Absolutely. I have no problem doing that. I think this is a great field to be in and I don't think there's enough of us. There needs to be another generation. I have some really talented young people that work with me. I love seeing them learn. Like I said, I learned from them, too. If there are people out there, you don't have to be young. I don't care who they are. If this is something that they're thinking about doing, I would be glad to take. The time I'll ask is that we set up a time to talk so that I can schedule that in because of all the things that I do. Yeah, I would be more than happy to help somebody out. 

44:44
Charlie Van Derven
That is generous. Thank you. What's the best way, Jeff, for them to connect with you? 

44:49
Jeff Barnes
Probably just link in with me. I have a LinkedIn, so I think you might have that information. If they want to get in touch with you through the podcast, that's probably the best way to get in touch with me. 

45:00
Charlie Van Derven
They sure can. I'm actually looking away from the camera real quick, so jeff Barnes. B-A-R-N-E-S. There's a couple of them out there, Jeff. 

45:11
Jeff Barnes
I can give you my email address. It's jeff J-E-F-F Barnes. Barnes at Cbizcbi Z.com. 

45:21
Charlie Van Derven
Awesome. I don't know that you get a flood, Jeff, but listen, you're an inspiring person. You really are. Listen, I don't want to put this cloak over our friendship, right. We've known each other just a few months. We've had a few conversations. We connected on LinkedIn. From our first conversation, actually from our 1st 5 minutes of talking a couple of months ago, I like you right away, man. 

45:47
Jeff Barnes
I was checking out your pictures in the background and it's all stuff that I think that I find interesting. So, good conversation. You gave me some good advice on what I should try out if I do in fact try to snowboard the next day after wrecking my collarbone on my road bike. I'm like, maybe I should, but I do of wakeboarding. We have a boat, so we do of that. So maybe it will translate. My sons would like for me to be on the mountain with them. I appreciate your advice on how to go about doing it if I choose to do so. 

46:20
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, if you've caught an edge, you've caught edges on that wakeboard before. You're either going to sling hard forward or hard backwards. Helmet, padded pants and wrist guards that will keep you safe and save you a lot of pain that evening. That's my advice for anybody who wants to try snowboarding, helmet pad, advance and wrist guards. That will keep you safe. 

46:42
Jeff Barnes
Anybody wants to mount Michael, ride any bike, make sure you wear a helmet, because when I went down in the crash, that was my fault and broke my collarbone, my head hit the concrete and my very nice it was a relatively expensive helmet. Saved my noggin. I was able to get up and text my wife and have her come pick me up. A day later, I'm working and had surgery the following week. I only missed an afternoon and I'm back at work. So make sure you wear a helmet. I love the helmet. 

47:19
Charlie Van Derven
Well, helmets weren't cool when I was a kid. I had a wreck at Arizona Snowball in 1995, and it was an ambulance ride down the mountain unconscious for, I don't know, upwards of an hour or whatever. That's the last day I snowboarded without a helmet. I was lucky to have another day of snowboard. It was a serious one. So good advice. If we're leaving with any good advice, Jeff, maybe it's not career, but wear a d*** helmet. 

47:51
Jeff Barnes
Yeah. Every time you get on your bicycle, every time you stay aboard, protect the knowledge, protect the noggin. 

47:59
Charlie Van Derven
That's right. Live for another day. 

48:00
Jeff Barnes
That's it. 

48:01
Charlie Van Derven
So, Jeff Barnes, my friend, I thank you so much for joining us today. For those of you listening to RA Collective again, my name is Charlie Van Derven. I'm the host of RA Collective and President over at Social Advisors. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please review us on the website raacollective.com. We're always looking for really quality people to interview. If somebody in a leadership role that's got good advice for the industry, if somebody who's young in the industry and is looking to connect with some leaders at RAA and gentlemen, like our friend Jeffrey, please hit us up on RA Collective or connect with Charlie Van Derven on LinkedIn. Thanks for spending your time with us. It's valuable. I appreciate you spending with us. Thanks. Bye.