Welcome to RIA Collective. Taking the Fear and Mystery out of Going Independent.
Dec. 19, 2022

A CFP...with 2.8K Households? with Jude McDonough

A CFP...with 2.8K Households? with Jude McDonough

In this episode of RIA Collective, host Charlie Van Derven is joined by financial advisor Jude McDonough to discuss the journey of transitioning from the banking world to the financial advising industry. Jude emphasizes the importance of putting the needs of your clients first, and how crucial it is to fully understand the households you are serving in order to truly act as a fiduciary. He speaks about the challenges and rewards of making the move to independence, and how it allows advisors to better serve their clients. Tune in to hear Jude's insights on the importance of prioritizing client relationships and the benefits of working independently in the financial industry.

Jude McDonough
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Transcript


00:01
Charlie van Derven
Hello and welcome to another episode of RIA Collective. I'm your host, Charlie Van Derven. I am joined today by Jude McDonough. I would love to say we're on location at Jude's office in Scranton, Pennsylvania, with the Alliance Wealth Advisors, but we're not. Jude, I'm in a Bucky's parking lot in I think, Alabama right now, headed back from a week of meetings in Texas. Love this remote nature. Yeah, you can do it anywhere, right? 


00:30
Jude McDonough
It's great. Yeah, you can work from anywhere. The world's changed. 


00:34
Charlie van Derven
That's it. I'll tell you what, though, I had four or five meetings. I had a couple of meetings in Houston, one in San Antonio, one in Austin, and one in Fort Worth this week. Nice. Man, was it cool to be back in office somewhere and hanging out with people. 


00:52
Jude McDonough
Yeah, I enjoy the office. I'm in my office now. I'm still on of a hybrid model that I set myself, which is nice, but people are starting to want to meet again, and that's bringing me to the office more. I like being around people, and I don't see that changing. 


01:12
Charlie van Derven
Yeah, same here. I'll tell you, the next time this camper and if you're watching on YouTube, you can see the dogs in the background the next time this camper gets up north near Pennsylvania, we'll do this in person, too. 


01:24
Jude McDonough
Love it. 


01:25
Charlie van Derven
Yeah, it's just so cool. I met with a firm in Austin that is a previous coaching client. I've known him for five years, six years, something like that. Never met him in person. Even after five or six years of meeting at twice a month, there's just a personal thing that happens there. So that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. I'm thrilled you're here, man. Thank you so much for joining me. I was initially drawn to you on LinkedIn based on the experience that you had there on your profile. Of course, for those who are tuning in, maybe this is the first episode you're listening to RIA Collective. Our true mission is to help people move from that captive environment in the industry to an independent place where it's maybe easier to serve your clients first and not a firm first. Jude, I know you kind of echo that sentiment and you made that move in the past. 


02:30
Jude McDonough
Yeah, I love the independent space, and there's no looking back, that's for sure. I'm glad I'm here. No regrets at all. And it's refreshing to be here. Even that hybrid environment I talked about earlier, we make the rules ourselves, which is good, and ultimately we report to our clients. In some ways, they make the rules. If they want to meet me, I will be here. You still have a boss, but it's the right boss. 


03:04
Charlie van Derven
Yeah, like 60 or 70 bosses, depending on yeah, exactly. Of course, you got an extra boss. You're newly married, too. 


03:13
Jude McDonough
That's correct. 


03:14
Charlie van Derven
Yeah, that's a bigger boss. 


03:17
Jude McDonough
Yeah, she's the CEO and chairwoman of the board. 


03:24
Charlie van Derven
Very cool. Now I truly believe the industry or the clients are better served and the industry is more independent. The other thing is, I've watched people for 20 years make that jump, and some people have had very little friction going independent and others have left a wirehouse and got caught in litigation for quite a while that really never even made that leap. Right. The other thing we're trying to uncover is the things that you did well in making that transition and retaining assets. The flip side of that question is there anything in there that you're like, gosh, if I had done that differently. Let's start with the things you feel like you did. Well, let's get the story out there . You and I got acquainted and I know you started in a captive environment. You went bank side for a little while. Walk us through that journey Jude. 


04:17
Jude McDonough
Yeah, so I started my career in 2004 at Merrill Lynch and went there thinking I was going to go into marketing and ended up deciding that I liked financial markets more than I thought I ever would and love dealing with people. Next thing I know, I'm taking my Series Seven and trying to get out to a branch. I was in one of their call centers in New Jersey, one of their home offices, and it was a great place to get trained and get acquainted with the business, get your licenses, but ultimately you needed to get out to a branch if you wanted to be an adviser. I was able to do that and go work with a team there and just learn more from them. That was down in the Philadelphia area and then made my way back here in 2010 here to Scranton, which I know it's a national audience. 


05:12
Jude McDonough
Scranton is about 2 hours north of Philadelphia, and that's where I was born and raised and wanted to get back here for some personal reasons, and some of it didn't work out. I ended up sticking around, though, and I'm glad I did. I ended up with a bank where I spent the last prior to coming to Alliance, I spent just under ten years at that bank, which went through a couple of broker dealer consolidations and ended up with LPL. That's kind of how it all happened. I really kind of cut my teeth at the bank and started to build up a meaningful book there. And here we are now. 


05:59
Charlie van Derven
Yeah. Something that you shared with me in our meet and greet was, and I think our working title right now is wow, 2800 Households. How the h*** can you be a fiduciary to 2800 households? 


06:14
Jude McDonough
Yeah. 


06:15
Charlie van Derven
Wow, man, that's the biggest number I've ever heard. I've worked with plenty of capital advisors at 4500 households, and that's too much, but 2800, dude. 


06:24
Jude McDonough
Yeah, it was tough. I mean, the good and the bad of banks, everybody thinks you go to a bank and you sit there and just, the business walks in the door, and a lot of it's business, you don't want the business. I had some great mentors there and had a good team. My direct boss, she and I had a lot of fun bringing in a lot of business, and she was a phenomenal salesperson. We worked together to build up a lot of the relationships that I wanted to work with. And it was a good thing. Along the way, reps leave and they need an advisor to handle relationships, and next thing ten years go by and I have 2800 households rolling up to my name, and it was scary. People would call, ask for advice, and it's the first time I ever talked to them, so how am I going to give them advice about what to sell here or what to do with this? 


07:38
Jude McDonough
Some of them you get to know a little better, but you can't be everything to everybody. I knew that I wanted to get the people that I want to work with and be the best I could be for them. Unfortunately, you can't do that for 2800 people or 200 families. 


08:02
Charlie van Derven
Exactly. That's 2800 households translates to probably double that as people. 


08:06
Jude McDonough
Right. 


08:07
Charlie van Derven
That's wild, man. I've walked into the bank branch before where they've said, mr. Van Dervin, you've got too much money in your checking account. When I say that it might be four or five grand right. What are you doing with that extra money? Let me have you sit down with one. Let me have you sit down with dude. Right, right. All of a sudden, a lot of those households are like, $3,000, guys. If I said, yeah, cool, let meet with Jude, that would have been me. $3,000. 


08:32
Jude McDonough
Right. 


08:34
Charlie van Derven
You don't get paid to even get on the phone with someone like that. 


08:37
Jude McDonough
Yeah. The one thing I liked about those conversations is I didn't have a lot of money. My family didn't have money when I was growing up, and people need help, even if I can't profit from helping them. There were a lot of situations where I was able to just give somebody advice and basically gave them my time for free, but I felt like it felt good. It was rewarding to be able to give people some advice that really helped them, and maybe it didn't translate into a relationship for me or any money in my pocket, but it was the right thing to do, so I didn't mind those combos, I guess I'll say, but most of the time it was, what? Keep it in there, because you might need that one day if your hot water heater goes or something happens at your house, or your car breaks down. 


09:39
Jude McDonough
You're going to need money there, set aside for those types of things. 


09:43
Charlie van Derven
Yeah, no doubt. Well, listen, that speaks to who you are as a human. That's cool. The fact that obviously it's a business, but that speaks to who you are and kind of lending that time and lending that knowledge and expertise to somebody that can't even pay you. So that's pretty cool, man. Yeah. Finally you make this jump to alliance wealth advisors. Right. And tell me the story like Chris. You got paired with Chris and A for some time as a competitor. Golfing? 


10:15
Jude McDonough
No, not exactly. 


10:19
Charlie van Derven
Why don't we do that? Because, listen, when I tell that story, you and Chris are duking it out on the green. 


10:24
Jude McDonough
Yeah. 


10:25
Charlie van Derven
I want that affluent guy. You can't have that affluent. 


10:27
Jude McDonough
Right. 


10:28
Charlie van Derven
I tell that story differently than you do. How'd that go down to you and Chris? Me? 


10:32
Jude McDonough
Well, so we always knew each other and just casually say hello if you see them out. It's a pretty small area that we live in here. 


10:44
Charlie van Derven
You're right near Dunder Mifflin, too, right? 


10:47
Jude McDonough
We are actually sidebar here. I had lunch that was probably more than two weeks ago, a couple of weeks back with the owner of the company that Dunder Mifflin is basically, built around, and there's no real Dunder Mifflin here. That's that's one little secret. 


11:08
Charlie van Derven
Yeah. 


11:09
Jude McDonough
Our national audience might not know Pennsylvania Paper, but he had some nice stories, a really nice guy, and he's a sharp guy, but he obviously a fan of the show. But, yeah, small town around here. The show depicts that I think does a pretty good job of it. Chris and I knew each other, but not more than a hello. I joined a country club in 2010 and started playing golf. Never played golf before my life. It's one of the hardest courses in the area, and I learned that over and over. Still learning it today, but in 2012, I think it was, I finally got the guts to join the league. I was like, all right, I could keep the ball in play and not look like a complete idiot. I joined the league and just asked to be randomly paired with someone, and I was kind of hoping I'd get the guy who just sold his business or something like that, or CEO of one of the bigger local companies. 


12:16
Jude McDonough
Unfortunately, I got paired with another financial adviser, and that was Chris. We got to know each other very well just throughout that. He's still my league partner today. Well, golf is pretty much over here, but he's still my lead partner. Every year. It's a marriage at our club, but we got to know each other well. I started to realize very quickly that he was a very unique advisor because most financial advisors, myself included, in some ways, we're kind of all over the place. We've got, like, ten things going on at once, and some days it's organized chaos. Chris is not that he's very organized and very detail oriented, but he's also a great financial advisor. He's great with his clients, and you just don't see that with every financial advisor. I thought, I'd love to figure out how the heck I could work with this guy, because he and I compliment each other so well. 


13:28
Jude McDonough
He and I joke. I run to a networking event, he runs from them. He's helped me a ton with the organizational aspect of my practice, and I drag him to dinners and stuff with me, and we both enjoy that, but he and I just complement each other very well. He was partnered with Perry and Doug, who were, who are also our partners here at the firm, and the three of them were at Wells Fargo. And so he and I were talking. We both thought the independent space was where the world was going, and it was just like, how does he get there? How do I get there? He and Perry and Doug made the move in 2017, and that's essentially when alliance was born. 


14:21
Charlie van Derven
Okay. 


14:23
Jude McDonough
He and I had talked, and I wanted to do it. At some point, I was sitting at a bank, and it was getting frustrating having all those households and not being able to properly service people and felt like I was always swimming upstream. At the same time, I had relationships with people at the bank in management that were very meaningful to me. It was hard because it was do I wait this out? Maybe the bank gets sold, and then that's a good time for me to move, because then all of us don't know what's going on anyway. Do I see if some of the people I love and respect there want to do this with me? There's a lot of thought processes that kind of went through that I went through. It made the most sense that to me, if I wanted to continue to be a good financial adviser and be well respected in the community, I had to make the move sooner, because otherwise my service levels to people were going to fall off. 


15:42
Jude McDonough
You only get one shot with people, in my opinion. Maybe I built up enough trust and respect with my clients where if I screw something up, they give me a shot. Still, to me, I take it very seriously. I think in this world, when you look at everything that we offer as financial advisors, there's really two things that get you lifelong relationships with your clients, and it's trust and it's service. Markets are going to do what the markets are going to do. You have to obviously get their financial plans in order and make sure their income is there for those that are retired. At the end of the day, there's other good advisors in this area, there's other good advisors in the country. What, I have to have that connection with them and they have to have that trust in me and the service leads to the trust, what I mean? 


16:48
Jude McDonough
Because if I'm there for them every time they want me to be, that builds the trust and that builds the relationship. I made that decision thinking in that way. I was like, I'm going to start losing people's trust. That's I guess how I made the whole move and not looking back, like I said. 


17:09
Charlie van Derven
Yeah, and you're right. I mean, small town, I think if you're a good gatherer if you will, or a good finder, however you want to term that, good salesperson, whatever. I think if you don't provide good service and you live in a large area you can mask that for a while. Yeah, you get small town like Scranton, that word carries very quickly. 


17:33
Jude McDonough
Yeah, that's the truth. You don't want that out there because it'll spread fast. 


17:41
Charlie van Derven
Well, it's cool that you respected the relationships you had at the bank too because I've spoken to plenty of people who are like how does the thing go? Let the bridges I burn light the path in front of me or something like that. 


17:52
Jude McDonough
Right? 


17:53
Charlie van Derven
Yeah, which is a funny thing. Listen, again, small town, if you do that too haphazardly or too vindictively, of course issues can come from that. Yeah. Let's get to the certainly the story. Everybody's got a different story and it's so awesome to hear. I get a chance to talk to so many people in that independent space now and it's cool to hear everybody's unique path to independence. Anything in the departure from the bank that you did particularly well that you're like anybody listening that's thinking about going independent, here's something that I did that you should consider doing. Maybe it was helping to grow the key relationships in that 2800 household book before the departure so you can retain assets, anything, dude, you can think of that maybe you'd point to that was part of your success in that move. 


18:51
Jude McDonough
Well, you have to plan, you have to think it through and you have to be realistic with yourself because at the end of the day you could put legal contracts. The legal contracts obviously means something and I learned that in my departure. I had a contract that I had to abide by and we ended up going through some processes but it all worked itself out, thank God. I thought that making the decision to end the legal process early was a good one. It was good for both of us because the bank, like I said, I was in certain situations and these people at the end of the day, a lot of them were my friends. You have to do the legal the business side of it, too, and nobody wanted to do that, but you have to do that because I'm one of 30 reps. 


19:54
Jude McDonough
If they let Jude go because Jude's a nice guy, that they like, well, the next guy or girl is going to be like, well, they let Jude go do that. I totally see their side of it. I nipped it pretty early. So I think that was good. Some people let that drag out and say, what? I'm going fully, I'm going to arbitration and I'm going to do this. But you know what? That all is taking you away from taking away from your clients the people that chose to follow you, right? They chose to follow you for a reason. You don't want to be distracted with all this legal crap that is taking you away from them. You still are in an audition stage when you're there because the client could leave. They may say, I'm going to go because I like you, Jude, but now I'm testing the waters again, right? 


20:56
Jude McDonough
I need to get to know that. I want to be confident in the decision that you made and confident that decision is right for me, the client, what I mean? Because if not, there's other options. The clients could have gone somewhere else. I think I did that well. Maybe something I could have done with, maybe handle it more upfront even before leaving. I guess if you wanted a regret, that would be it, but that's a slippery slope. My advice to the person is, the people best that you work with, so you have to kind of make that decision of how you're going to handle the departure with the people you're with. I would say if you end up in some type of legal situation, I would address it, run to it, don't run from it, and get it taken care of and move on and follow the rules when you get it taken care of, which I did. 


22:08
Jude McDonough
We didn't have any more trouble after that was over. And everybody was good. I still talk to some people from there and everything's in as good a grace as it could be awesome. And I'm happy. 


22:24
Charlie van Derven
I think you talk about the time loss, but also the legal process can get expensive very quickly. 


22:30
Jude McDonough
It could. The United States is run by lawyers and you're in a legal process, you will learn that very quickly. The whole system is set up for lawyers to make as much money as they can. 


22:46
Charlie van Derven
It's a great piece of advice that I don't think we've really heard on a previous episode, that if it's necessary to happen, make it as abbreviated as possible, because the time you spend in that process is time you should be spending with clock clients and growing that site, that new practice, that independent practice, it's great. 


23:07
Jude McDonough
Yeah, and just to kind of add on to that, it was kind of for myself, just getting kind of driving home that time element of it. There were clients that chose to follow me, and I'm grateful for those relationships. I just celebrated my three year anniversary here. So most of them started thank you. Most of them are starting to come up on theirs, the ones that chose to come with me, and so that's one element of it, ? The other thing when you're planning is like, how will you feel if, not as many people follow you as you think, or how will you feel if, like, you're starting over? Is it still the right thing? Where I'm going with this is having had 2800 households, I did not have any time to prospect at all, nor did I really want to prospect. Actually, one of my biggest fears every day was a client called me and saying, hey, my friend is looking for Logan Social Advisors, or like, one of my accountant friends call me and say, hey, I have a referral for you. 


24:13
Jude McDonough
Like, I didn't want referrals because I was like, how the heck am I going to onboard this and be a good advisor to these people? Getting that time back, I had time to work my network. If you look at my book right now, less than half of it well, now, probably a little about half of it, we'll say, are people that I didn't know before the transition. Yeah. I had a really good year last year, thank God, and this year, but it was working my network more, and it's kind of interesting. A lot of good prospects for our business are our business owners and accountants. Well, now I'm a business owner, and so the respect that I was getting from them was different. It put me in a different filing cabinet, if that makes sense. 


25:11
Charlie van Derven
No, you're absolutely right. 


25:13
Jude McDonough
Yeah. All that time, go spend your time working your network. Go spend your time servicing the clients that chose to follow you. Spend as little time as you can on the litigation side because you'll get the money back tenfold. It's easy to say now, but I'm telling you, don't waste time on it. 


25:37
Charlie van Derven
A question. You being a business owner now. Right. This came up in one of the meetings this week. The firm has three or four advisors and three or four support people. I think the firm is nine or ten people, and they're with an independent broker dealer. Were having a conversation over lunch, and all the producers were in the same I was saying with all the producers and having lunch and one of the guys brought up that transition. Yeah, but if we became an RIA, we're talking about those guys making a transition now all of a sudden, I go from a producer to a CEO. Now you've got partners in your business, but Jude, you're the CEO of your book, of your business there at alliance. What's that transition been like? Has that been difficult for you? Do you see a big difference? 


26:30
Jude McDonough
That's a really good question. One thing about working at a bank and honestly working at a wirehouse, my opinion, there's a lot of unnecessary meetings now that I'm the CEO, all the unnecessary meetings don't happen. 


26:51
Charlie van Derven
Good. 


26:52
Jude McDonough
That's one thing, I guess, and I say that jokingly, but it's just nice to be able to do it, to run it the way that I want to run it. I mean, obviously you have to be compliant, and that's the only way I would run my business anyway. But it's a liberating feeling. I was talking earlier about the hybrid model that I've built for myself. Ultimately, my clients are my boss. They're my bosses. It is a good feeling. I haven't thought about it as much until right now, but it's different. I plan my week, and I'm just thinking about what clients I have to call, what clients I'm meeting with, and it's all about the clients, and that's a good thing. There's not some pointless meeting that I have to go to show face at. All my meetings are, I guess, more meaningful. And that's a good feeling. 


28:06
Charlie van Derven
Yeah, that's awesome. I think there's an air of fear, right? Those advisors who are listening, maybe they're in a captive environment that doesn't feel right to them. There's a fear that I believe the firms create around, well, look at all the supports you've got here. That's why you get a 50% payout. And, oh, my gosh, now you become the CEO. Those were words taken right out of an adviser's mouth that I met with last week. I'll tell you what my reply was. It doesn't change your job. Now, ultimately, you're responsible for the decision making, but you've got a very set number of things you have to do as a CEO. Some people do them well. Some people do not do them well. There's good CEOs and bad CEOs, but it doesn't really change the job. 


28:56
Jude McDonough
Yeah. I would also caution advisors like, be honest with yourself about your organizational skills, because I knew I joke. I mean, I tell my clients this. If I did this by myself, I probably would have fallen on my face, because there's a lot of stuff that goes into compliance. There's no doubt about it. If you're not a detail oriented person, I would say make sure you have a detail oriented partner in the group. If you have a team or talk to an RIA that might help you with that aspect of it. Chris and Kaylee is our operations manager. They do a phenomenal job of keeping us compliant, giving us the right tools to manage our client relationships. I tell my clients, I talk to them about it a lot, like how much more organized my life is here. I've had this conversation with some of them. 


30:04
Jude McDonough
I have notes on your account here where if, God forbid, something happens to me, someone else could pick up the ball and run with it. I'd love to say I had that in my past life, but I didn't have time to note every account. You know what I mean? Now in our reviews, there's notes, there's documentation that it happened, and it's a lot. I would just say make sure you're organized about it, because in my experience, most financial advisers aren't organized. I do know some that learned on the other side how unorganized they are and they figured it out. They don't have regrets. It doesn't have to be that way, I guess, is what I'm saying. 


30:49
Charlie van Derven
Yeah. The other thing I take away from what you said and something you said earlier about Chris is when you're going to make that change. If you're not going solopreneur on this, if you're doing that and something of a partnership, make sure you've got a partner that's complementary to your skill set. Too many people align themselves with people that see eye to eye or have the same strengths, and then you're missing huge gaps. I'm a big picture guy. If I didn't have Logan and Mindy on my side, dude, I don't mean to leave anybody out. Christie and Leanne and Benny, the list goes on. If everybody is supporting my ideas, if you will help me boil them down to an essence so we can execute on them, I'd be in trouble. Right. Surround yourself with, like, people that compliment you. The legal conversation we had a few moments ago. 


31:47
Charlie van Derven
The other piece of advice I'd give is six months, twelve months ahead of a departure, reach out to a breakaway attorney. Most will give you some time without charging you for that time, at least, initial consultations. You can know what you don't know. 


32:03
Jude McDonough
Yeah, I would totally agree with that. I did that, and I had good advice. Ultimately, clients followed me, and that's why we ended up having to go through of a legal process. I hurt some people who made some really dumb mistakes, probably because they didn't consult with the lawyer. One forwarding contact information for all their clients to themselves. 


32:29
Charlie van Derven
Yeah, exactly that's. The one I was going to bring up is like, don't download a list. They're monitoring all that. 


32:36
Jude McDonough
Yeah. One guy sent letters before he left, just dumped. Yeah, consult the lawyers do. I mean, I kind of took a jab at lawyers earlier, but they do serve a great especially in the process. They earn that money, it's worth it, and you should do it. To your point, Charlie, a lot of the initial consultation doesn't cost much. If it costs anything. At all. 


33:12
Charlie van Derven
Yeah, I interviewed. I don't know, it's probably episode five or six, corey cup for Law in New York. Corey is a great resource and his contact information is in one of the earlier episodes, but there's others out there like Corey. He's a heck of a nice guy. My little plug for Corey cuffer, but make sure you consult an attorney. Listen, Jude, I want to know you got a lot of great advice. You've gone through this transition recently, which I love because it's all still pretty fresh. Listen, if we got anybody that's listening that's got some questions and you're a h*** of a nice guy, you seem extremely approachable. I've enjoyed our conversations together. Are you okay with people reaching out to you? 


33:54
Jude McDonough
Absolutely. Yeah? Absolutely. 


33:56
Charlie van Derven
What's the best way to get a hold of you? 


33:58
Jude McDonough
You could call our office. It's 570-961-1516 or you could email me. It's jude at Alliancewealth Advisors.com. Awesome. And our website is Alliancewealth Advisors.com. You could find me pretty easily on there too. 


34:22
Charlie van Derven
I'll tell you. Jude is also responsive on LinkedIn. That's how we got connected. 


34:27
Jude McDonough
Yeah, that's a good point, Charlie. Yeah, you could connect with me on there on LinkedIn. I am approachable. I appreciate you saying that. I like helping people. I've been given a lot of advice over the years from people, and so anytime I could give advice back to people who could benefit from it, I'm. 


34:52
Charlie van Derven
Happy to pay it forward, man. Pay it forward, exactly. Tell me about where Alliance Wealth partners are headed. Of course we want to help influence a group of people who are thinking about going independent. There goals to add advisors to the team? It purely adding clients at this point? What does that look like now? 


35:16
Jude McDonough
We're looking to grow. We're definitely in growth mode. We're looking for the right advisors. It has to be a cultural fit and that's very important to us because it kind of goes back to that reputation. I mean, even if it's an advisor in a different state or a different part of Pennsylvania, we don't want anyone on our team that could jeopardize the reputation that we built. So that comes first in our minds. Yeah, we're looking to grow our advisors where appropriate. We're adding new clients. We have Mike Cadaro. He moved back here a couple of guy, he's been here two years now. He spent about ten years in the industry and he's doing just a phenomenal job of getting our name out there and he's been building a nice book for himself and helping to grow our assets and grow our firm. We're in growth mode. 


36:36
Jude McDonough
Awesome. Very cool. 


36:38
Charlie van Derven
Very cool. Dude, you're a quality guy. I'm glad that I know. I want to thank you sincerely for coming on our a collective and sharing your story and got great advice around get through that legal process. The complementary skill set in your partners. I still think we're going to stick with 2800 households. Wow. How can you be a fiduciary? Maybe that title brings people in better, but I'll put that to my creative people and they'll figure out the best title for us. 


37:14
Jude McDonough
Yeah. 


37:17
Charlie van Derven
Awesome. Well, listen. Jude McDonough, Alliance Wealth Advisors. Scranton, Pennsylvania. Thank you again for joining me. I'm happy to call you my friend. For all of you listening in, thank you for tuning into another episode of RIA Collective. Of course, if you like what you hear, I would love for you to turn it on to somebody else. We're always looking for sponsors, but we don't have a lot of big backing at the moment, so it's hard to spend those dollars to advertise the podcast. I think we're helping a lot of people. Jude, advice from you and others that have been on the show, certainly it's changing people's lives, not only the advisors, but putting them in a position to serve their clients with maybe a little more purity without the firm. So listen to us. Find us on that, on the platform of your choice and all the other thing the podcasters say, right, leave us a review, all that stuff. 


38:09
Charlie van Derven
Thank you again for tuning into RIA Collective. Jude McDonough, thanks for being my guest today. I appreciate it. Thank you. 

Jude McDonoughProfile Photo

Jude McDonough

SVP

Jude McDonough is a Certified Financial Planner and Accredited Investment Fiduciary with over 18 years of experience in the Financial Services industry. Jude’s areas of expertise include retirement planning, investment management and corporate retirement plan consulting. He is very passionate about helping people and providing his clients with honest, objective advice. He takes great pride in responsiveness to his clients and always being there when they need him.

He began his career at Merrill Lynch in 2004 after graduating from the University of Scranton. After spending nearly 6 years in the Greater Philadelphia area, he made the decision to return to his roots in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Jude spent the greater part of the next decade as a Vice President for Community Investment Services before making the decision to join Alliance Wealth Advisors in 2019.

Jude is very active in the Northeastern Pennsylvania Community and has a strong interest in the growth of the region. He serves as the Treasurer for the St. Patrick’s Parade Association of Lackawanna County, First Vice Chairman of the United Neighborhood Centers of Northeastern Pennsylvania and is the Chairman of the Board for the United Way of Wyoming County. In addition to that, he serves on the Executive Committee of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of Lackawanna County. In his spare time, he enjoys golfing, skiing and traveling. He is a proud member of Glenmaura National Golf Club and the Westmoreland Club. He grew up in the Minooka section of Scranton and currently resides in Moosic w… Read More