Find Work-Life Balance Through Independence with Derek Notman

00:00
Charlie Van Derven
Thank you for tuning into another episode of raa Collective. My name is Charlie Van Derven. I'm your host. I got a great guest today, a guy I've been getting to know for the last year, maybe more than final. Derek Notman cfp. His RIA is intrepid wealth partners. And Derek. It says Madison, Wisconsin. You're a Florida guy just like me now. 

00:19
Derek Notman
Yeah, I tend to be all over the place. I've been coast to coast, spent some time overseas. I tell you, the cold winter months up north, they're just too much, man. Like, I grew up in Minnesota. I spent time in Duluth. Yeah, we have the Duluth connection. 

00:41
Charlie Van Derven
We do have the Duluth connection, too. Yeah. 

00:44
Derek Notman
It's just like I like surfing and I like flip flops, and I can't do either of those to Wisconsin or Minnesota. 

00:53
Charlie Van Derven
No, I have surf Lake Michigan. I surfed out of Shabbogen one time. Hoodie, booties, gloves. And here's the hardest part, right? Great waves, right? Wind was offshore. There were head high waves, three second intervals. 

01:14
Derek Notman
Oh, really? 

01:15
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, all wind waves, right? You get shocked by 40 degree water, 45 degree water, or whatever. It was just enough time to come up, catch your breath for the next one. 

01:24
Derek Notman
Agent, please. That reminds me real quick. I know we're way off topic, but. 

01:28
Charlie Van Derven
Then that's all right. We'll get into it. 

01:30
Derek Notman
It's fun. Have you seen the movie Step into Liquid? 

01:33
Charlie Van Derven
I don't think I have. 

01:35
Derek Notman
Okay, well, you need to write it down and go get it. Step into liquid. It's, like about 2021 years old, and it's about surfing all over the world, but they have a specific bit about shibuygun. 

01:48
Charlie Van Derven
Awesome. I'll tell you, shabboygan, shocking enough. What about the guys in Duluth that surf the point out there? 

01:55
Derek Notman
Forget it. 

01:56
Charlie Van Derven
Dude. 

01:57
Derek Notman
Dude, I had seven years up there. That was way too cold. 

02:02
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. I enjoyed Duluth so much, man. You got to bundle up for the weather. And I really enjoyed that town. I wish were a little warmer because I'm like you, man. My blood has gotten thin. I chased snow out west, Alaska and BC, and met my wife in South tahoe. And she's a Florida girl. Yeah. That's how we ended up in Florida. For those listening, derek and I are maybe 60 miles apart as the crow flies. Something like that. I think so. 

02:32
Derek Notman
Yeah. You're just north of me. 

02:33
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, not too far. So awesome, man. Well, listen, the people who are listening to RA Collective with Derek are mostly that captive advisor who's kind of looking for a way out of that environment. You're a big advocate of that. I'm stoked to tap into that. They don't care if we serve for snowboard or what we do, so maybe we get down to some conversation. 

02:53
Derek Notman
Yeah, totally. 

02:55
Charlie Van Derven
You and I were chatting before I hit the record button. I was like, Where do you find the time. Right? You've got the RIA. You've got connector. You're on podcasts and webinars all the time. I just got done listen to Red Tail webinar recording, so we'll go through a lot of the same stuff. Your hat says coupler. I know that's a new project of yours as well. D***, dude. I know. You got kid, right? 

03:24
Derek Notman
You're traveling. 

03:26
Charlie Van Derven
How many hours are in your day? I got 24. I don't know what you got? 30. 

03:29
Derek Notman
30 moving to Mars. Because Mars has longer days. 

03:33
Charlie Van Derven
There you go. There you go. Well, I don't know. I think you're doing enough, dude. 

03:37
Derek Notman
Yeah, it's by design. The early days of being an adviser is really tough, whether it's independent or at a wirehouse broker dealer or whatever. Just like any entrepreneur, if you put in the hours early on and sometimes those hours have to be consistently done for years, eventually build this machine up, that starts to work with you not having to be there all the time. With my RIA, that's what I was able to do. Especially this is actually a really good point because we're talking about going independent, is that when I got out of the insurance BD space, I was able to spend even less time on my practice while increasing the service to my clients, oddly enough, because I wasn't worried about production anymore. I was truly focused on just doing what I needed to do for my clients, having those great meetings with them, which are all virtual, by the way. 

04:32
Derek Notman
It's one of the ways that saves time. I don't need to spend a lot of time on my practice now, so it's enabled me to go do other things like Connector, Coupler, the podcast, stuff like that. 

04:46
Charlie Van Derven
I think that's true. I'm sure Connector too, right where it feeds the space, but it's not in the space, if you will. 

04:56
Derek Notman
It used to be, right? 

04:57
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, but the same thing. I mean, even social advisors right now, I still put a lot of hours in. I don't have all the time for the other projects, you'll see. This being able to take on RIA Collective and some more fun things speeds the soul . It's not all about making money. Speeds the soul a little, so that's cool. 

05:15
Derek Notman
You're a waterman, you're by the beach, so you get to get out and enjoy that now, too, which is super important. That was another reason for going independent. Yeah, I'm sure we'll jump into that. I'd love to answer your questions. Get too bored. 

05:31
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, we'll keep it concise, man. I know we got a sweet spot between 30 and 35 minutes. We'll try to keep it to that. And if we can't, that's okay, too. They can click away if they want to. You kind of answered my why already, right? Flexibility is part of that why. Derek, when you made that departure out of that insurance broker dealer world. What was that about? Other than flexibility, what was that for you? 

05:53
Derek Notman
It's really a couple of reasons I'm a big proponent of work life balance. What's my shirt say today? 

06:00
Charlie Van Derven
Right? Yeah. Listen, if we pause for a second because I wouldn't do it on camera, I could go put my shirt on too. We could beat Balance Advisor twins. 

06:09
Derek Notman
I love it, I love it. 

06:13
Charlie Van Derven
Both fans of Travis. 

06:14
Derek Notman
Oh, totally, yeah, Travis is great. I was just talking to him earlier today. Work life balance is really important to me and our industry is notoriously really bad at that. You're told that this job of being an advisor is, oh, it's flexible and you can make all the money in the world. I drank that kool Aid, man, and I got in and then I was like, man, I'm working 60, 70 hours a week and I'm making okay money, but I'm not having a lot of fun. My life isn't I don't have a life. Yeah, so going to independent was partly that, but also we have this trend, Charlie, where the entire industry is transforming into a profession now. The industry won't go away. That's one of the products, like manufacturing side. We're going to have products. 

07:04
Charlie Van Derven
Right. 

07:05
Derek Notman
Advisors are moving to this advice led approach first and it's really hard to be a holistic and or fiduciary. That word is thrown around all the time now. 

07:18
Derek Notman
but it's really hard to do those things if you have to worry about production requirements or being limited to what you can and can't do. I wanted to have that freedom and I'm probably late to the game, to be honest. I should have gone independent a long time ago, but it was one of the best decisions I ever made. It was scary, which we can get into, but it was good. Also it allowed me to pursue some of my other passions like you talked about, like connect your couple or the things that I'm working on now, which I just couldn't do under the old situation. 

07:48
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, and you bring up a good point, right? I mean, you're working 60, 70 hours because of course it's about taking care of clients, but really what the firms are really looking at is production. I'll share with you a really quick story and honestly, this was the catalyst for starting this podcast. 

08:02
Derek Notman
Okay? 

08:03
Charlie Van Derven
We chatted about but I don't want to share firm names or advisor names, but a coaching client who is with the major big broker dealer, big wirehouse broker dealer, mentioned he had taken on two clients between coaching calls and they were much smaller than his minimum. I was like, what are you doing, man? You're not really set up to service that. He said, Well, I got a 2% bonus if I take on X number of households in this given time frame. I was like, pardon my French, but man, it's kind of bullshit, right? We'll leave that in the audio, too, by the way, for sure. But he's still a coaching client. We're good with each other. It was like the quotas were actually driving these people. The clients land with this guy who's got a good brand in his area. He's a big producer, and they think, gosh, I landed with the absolute best advisor I could be with. 

08:54
Charlie Van Derven
The reality is they're probably with the worst advisor they can be with. He brought him on for the incentive, and he can't even service them. He's not set up to service a client that small. That really derek I'll tell you, I called a couple of podcast guys I was kind of in conversation with about starting something. I was like, I know what we're talking about. That was really the catalyst, is how do we help the industry go more independent? How do we bring advice to those advisors that need it, that are scared to take that leap? RIA Collective was born kind of out of that conversation. I mean, it was a pivot moment, for sure. 

09:31
Derek Notman
Well, I think that's really important. I don't think you or myself or a lot of us are bad mouthing like life insurance industry or other product. I think that those are really important. If you're going to sell life insurance, annuities, then go do that 100%. Be that rock star. Like, no, I don't do your financial planning. No, I'm not going to manage your AUM, but I will give you the best darn life insurance and annuity experience you'll ever have and then work with a financial adviser who's independent. I can see that happening, so I'm not against that. When you bring the two together and you've got these compensation things and incentives, like, there's this major conflicts of interest that who gets hurt. At the end of the day, ultimately. 

10:14
Charlie Van Derven
The client does agree. So now we know why. Derek, let's kind of talk through again. I listen to redtail, right? The Red Tail webinar is awesome, and in the show notes I'll get it for you later, but in the show notes, we'll put a link to that awesome, because it's really just an hour of really diving into some of the questions that we'll touch on today. So obviously the grass is greener, right? I can say that you said something I haven't done an interview yet where anybody said it was really hard to do and kind of I don't know if I made the right decision. Everybody I've spoken to said, I can't believe I didn't do it sooner. Right? 

10:56
Derek Notman
Same thing. 

10:58
Charlie Van Derven
Now, you made that move quite a while ago, right? You made it where it's easier to make that move to an RA today than it was years ago when you made that leap. You had a lot to do on your own. As we kind of go step by step and bring some advice to a listening audience that's thinking of making that same move, let's walk through that. 

11:22
Derek Notman
Right? 

11:23
Charlie Van Derven
So we got the why. What are the steps? Before you go out, you get in contact with a consultant that's going to help you make that move. What are some of the things that you felt like you did well in preparation? 

11:38
Derek Notman
So one was by accident. I was operating under a dpa beforehand. 

11:44
Charlie Van Derven
Okay. 

11:45
Derek Notman
My firm named now Intrepid Wealth Partners was a dpa. I already had a brand established, an email address, a website. All of that stuff was established previously, which actually is a lot of work to figure that stuff out. So I had done that already. That sped it up. As a side tip, if you will, if you think you might go independent someday and you're listening to this, consider getting the dba sooner rather than later. If you don't go independent, it still helps you. If you do, it's work that you don't have to do again. Another thing early on is my wife and I had multiple conversations. What are the pluses and minuses of doing this? What are the risks? Is this really help? Where I wanted to go as an individual, like, does it support my why does it help me do what I really want to do? 

12:33
Derek Notman
Once we figured out that yes, it does, then you got to get into the weeds, and it's everything from, like, bank accounts and corporate paperwork. And do you have a non compete? What does that look like? 

12:46
Charlie Van Derven
Big things, the contract, right? 

12:47
Derek Notman
Yeah. It enforceable, or do they actually like, is there a history of it being enforced? Because I've heard horror stories and I've heard other firms that didn't bother because it just wasn't worth it. All those little things, you have to think about communicating with your clients in a way where you're not because you have to be careful here. I'm not an attorney, so I'm not giving any guidance here, but my understanding is that you can't tell them you're leaving and ask them to leave, because that will usually be in violation of a contract if you're under one. As a fiduciary, especially if you are under some type of fiduciary capacity, especially if you're an iar, for example, you owe them at least the information to say, hey, this is what I'm thinking of doing. I just wanted you to know. If they want to know more information or they want to come with you, that's on them. 

13:40
Derek Notman
That whole process to have those conversation took me six months. You got to communicate with your clients. What clients do you want to bring with you? Which ones don't the ones that you don't want to bring, who are they going to go to hand offs to. 

13:54
Charlie Van Derven
Have a good landing spot even if you don't want them. That's a great point. Right. I think a lot of people leave that environment and hoping they're going to retain the majority of their assets, but of course there's assets they don't want and they just kind of go, okay, push that aside. Listen, especially if you're in a small town, you work with a tight knit of people that can hurt your brand. 

14:18
Derek Notman
It really can. So you got to be careful. I identified my business is pretty spread out. I've got clients coast to coast, but I had two more Hot Pockets, like one in New England and then one in Wisconsin. I identified local advisors in both of those markets to help service clients that I wasn't going to be bringing with me or that I'd be bringing some of the stuff with, but leaving the other stuff there. We wanted people there. There's a million and one things that have to happen and there's somewhat of an order there. I paid a couple of attorneys to look at stuff. 

14:52
Charlie Van Derven
That was my next question. That was my next question is, did you go to a breakaway attorney? 

14:57
Derek Notman
It wasn't worth it. 

14:58
Charlie Van Derven
Okay. 

14:59
Derek Notman
They're good, smart people, but I ended up spending a couple of grand for things I already knew. 

15:05
Charlie Van Derven
Okay. 

15:07
Derek Notman
For me personally, it just wasn't worth it, unfortunately. But it is what it is. I'll leave that up to your listings if that's something they want to pursue or not. But I did not. I did hire an RIA consultant that helped me do my RIA formation documents with the SEC and notice filings and getting me all of that stuff, getting all my initial adv docs and all the other things that we have to have. They helped me do that. I still pay them on a monthly basis just for support, other things that I need, that kind of stuff. 

15:43
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Part of compliance and that thing. I think I had details wrong coming into the conversation, right? Because I'm doing a little research and I look at Intrepid. It says Intrepid, 16 years or something, but that was part of a broker dealer then. Prior to what year did you start your RIA? 

16:05
Derek Notman
It was a month or I'm sorry, a year ago this month. 

16:08
Charlie Van Derven
Really? And this is a live conversation? Right. Again, we're not editing this stuff out. I feel stupid all of a sudden, but I look at that Derek and doing my research. I thought that was like a 2005, 2006 move. 

16:26
Derek Notman
Oh, no, I was with that insurance BD the whole time. 

16:29
Charlie Van Derven
All right. 

16:31
Derek Notman
You can see that's where that brand came in. It's funny, I had a number of advisers even say, like, oh, I didn't realize you weren't independent. It's funny, when I did make the switch. I had a number of clients say, it's about time. We were wondering when you were going to do this. 

16:48
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, awesome, man. Very cool. Well, it really takes the conversation a little different direction, right? Because having done it a year ago, obviously we've seen this migration speed up over the years. I've been watching since I've been doing websites for we did websites for Smith barney, so that dates me . Right. So I've been watching it happen. I've always been curious as what makes it happen. Well, and what I'll tell you what talking about the attorney. I know some horror stories, like people caught in litigation for two or three years never even able to open up the RIA. Depending on the environment you're leaving, I'll throw some firms out there. I'm not worried about that necessarily, but if you're walking from a Morgan or a merrill or Jones or a ubs, certainly check out those contracts. In those cases, I would definitely make sure that you talk to an attorney six months ahead of when you. 

17:44
Derek Notman
Want to make Planet way ahead. Maybe I was lucky. I don't know. The experience with the attorneys I worked with left a bad taste in my mouth. 

17:57
Charlie Van Derven
Okay. 

17:58
Derek Notman
And it bothered me. It frustrated me. It didn't feel like I was really getting a whole lot of help. 

18:06
Charlie Van Derven
Okay. 

18:07
Derek Notman
I think you're right, because there are some horror stories out there, and you want to cover yourself on things like that. There's no question about it. I know there's some tactics that they use that some of them could be pretty beneficial to help you make a transition. Also, what I would throw out there, if you are an advisor or thinking about becoming an advisor and you're going to go cut your teeth at Edward Jones or a wirehouse or whatever, and that's not bad because you get some pretty good training, great training experience and some financial support. There's a reason these firms have as many advisors as they do. Be careful what you sign. You can negotiate that stuff to an extent, so be careful on that. If anything go in, eyes open, for sure, right? 

18:51
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, no doubt. If you do have that long if you have that long term plan already that helps you prep what that day one looks like at the firm. 

18:59
Derek Notman
That you join, it totally does. This goes down to okay, so, like, entrepreneurs, right? You have to have cash flow to run a business, whether you're an advisor or a tech company or whatever. If you're thinking you might go independent anyways, why not just go independent? Know what your cash flow situation is? You're going to have to build your market and your brand anyways. I think a lot of the reasons that advisers join these large firms is because they just don't have the cash. When you're 22 and you're out of college and you got debt, like, okay, man, I get it. 

19:32
Charlie Van Derven
I understand. 

19:32
Derek Notman
I get it, man. That's great. If maybe this is a career change for you. You're in your thirty s or forty s or fifty s. I would take pause if you can financially and consider just going straight RIA or affiliating with an RIA own model, that there are some great larger RIA aggregators out there now. 

19:49
Charlie Van Derven
Really? 

19:50
Derek Notman
Like you've got carson hightower. I'm blanking on the other names with that journey wealth with Penny Phillips and some others where you could join up with these folks. 

20:03
Charlie Van Derven
Or even hybrid. Right. Still the opportunity. We love stratus up in Cleveland and there's a bunch where you can go in even as a hybrid or join a firm that's got 350 people working in different capacities rather than being that solo preneur right away. 

20:23
Derek Notman
Mariner is another one that comes to mind. Thinking of it, there's some really great options out there. Guess what I'm saying, Charlie, is like, just take a step back and try to think of what do you truly want in life, what does being an advisor actually mean? And then kind of let that drive. What happens? 

20:39
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Well, I've got doing this, I've had an opportunity to interview people from all walks of life in this industry, whether it's RA leadership or breakaway attorneys or technology side, whatever that is. It's funny because when I interview somebody I had a conversation, a prelim conversation yesterday that will lead to an interview in the coming weeks with a woman in Oklahoma City and she's, 60 or 65, started her R at 50 years old, had no financial experience whatsoever, was a dental hygienist. 

21:11
Derek Notman
Wow. 

21:11
Charlie Van Derven
Right. Went to work with a couple of wirehouse people and was completely underwhelmed. I was like, I can do a better job than they're doing. She joined an investment club at 50 years old, semi retired from a dental hygienist position and started her at like 52 or 53. 

21:31
Derek Notman
That's so cool. Listen out there, it's possible now more than ever. Tech makes it easier. It's been commoditized. It's less expensive, it's less scary. 

21:40
Charlie Van Derven
It's possible. Perfect segue because of what I wanted. You're kind of a technophile. 

21:46
Derek Notman
I fell into it, Charlie. My degree is an archaeology up from. 

21:51
Charlie Van Derven
I'm a history guy. I'm going to do it offline Derek, but I think we're not too far off an age. I lived in Duluth, of course, after my college years. You were there for college. It's possible. We know some a handful of people because I know a couple of archaeologists that came out of the umd program. Yeah, but we'll do that offline. We won't worry about bothering our listeners. Let's talk about technology a little bit. Beautiful that you already have the brand defined. Who's your custodian? 

22:25
Derek Notman
So I use Altruist. 

22:28
Charlie Van Derven
Awesome. 

22:29
Derek Notman
And they use Apex for clearing. That's the underlying thing. Altruist, I watched Altruist for a couple of years before jumping on but they have all of my assets. 

22:39
Charlie Van Derven
Cool. I like to recommend a bigger name. Sometimes altruist is climbing, but it's not that recognizable name. I often recommend a bigger name because if you're not working with The Wirehouse anymore and you've relied on that brand, bringing a big custodian name to somebody, maybe it puts a little trust in it. Why did you choose Altruist over the other big names? 

23:06
Derek Notman
Well, a couple of reasons. One is their tech is absolutely amazing. Cool tech, in my opinion, should enhance human connection instead of trying to replace it or make it worse. So, Altruist, they've done a great job creating an experience where, like, a new account application takes two minutes. 

23:29
Charlie Van Derven
Awesome. 

23:30
Derek Notman
An acad takes 30 seconds. They have live chat support, so they've got this really amazing technology experience for an advisor where I can run my business efficiently. It's a lot less expensive than what I was using previously. I was on the nfs platform for years. Clunky expensive, just didn't work. Also, Altruist has got a ton of really great people where actually I have relationships with them. I don't know if the other ones are just too big, but Altruist, they actually come to me, and they've done this a number of times, like, hey, Derek, we want your feedback on this or that, we're thinking about doing this. They actually listen to their users, which I think is really important, and they're building this thing around. Those are the big ones for me. I wanted a nice seamless experience. I want my clients to enjoy it. I wanted to save money, and that's what they do. 

24:22
Derek Notman
It's all there. That was the first thing I had to really get sorted when I made that transition. Otherwise I'm not getting paid, right? 

24:32
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. More and more that name pops up when I ask the question, and so I love it. I've known of Altruist, of course. I don't know what the intimacy you do, but respect for Jason w*** and everything that's going to be over there. 

24:46
Derek Notman
Right. I've known Jason for a long time, so I've followed his path a bit. When I saw he started doing that, I was like, yes, I'm going to pay attention to this. 

24:53
Charlie Van Derven
Awesome. Love it. How about planning software? 

24:56
Derek Notman
Asset map? 

24:58
Charlie Van Derven
See, I knew the answer. 

25:01
Derek Notman
Yeah, I tell you, I wasn't allowed to use it at my previous firm. I was an emoney user for years because I didn't have an option other than emoney. Yeah, nothing wrong with emoney, but it wasn't really what I needed for my clients and the type of work we did. Emoney has got a great tool if that's what the type of practice you want to run. But I'm all in on asset map. It's the only planning tool that I use at this point. 

25:23
Charlie Van Derven
Love it. I know you and Adam holt are close. I see a lot of posts on LinkedIn and stuff, so awesome. Let's see, what else do we have here? CRM redtail. Redtail. Cool. 

25:35
Derek Notman
Love them. Easy. I have the bento engine like Bolton. 

25:38
Charlie Van Derven
Okay. 

25:39
Derek Notman
If you don't know Bento Engine and you're listing this, check them out, man. They've led to more AUM growth for me. They are a major value add for clients in a non sales manner. 

25:51
Charlie Van Derven
Awesome. 

25:52
Derek Notman
They're really easy because I don't have to have a separate login for bento. It just plugs right into my CRM. 

25:57
Charlie Van Derven
That just an automation engine that runs redtail? 

26:01
Derek Notman
No. Talk to me about it. Gives the advisor advice points based on life events. 

26:09
Charlie Van Derven
Cool. Okay. 

26:10
Derek Notman
Hey, your advisor or your clients turn this age. These are things I need to think about. And then they make it so seamless. So now it's education instead of sales. 

26:18
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. 

26:19
Derek Notman
We all know educated clients will buy, and that's our job to educate anyway, so why not educate them on things in a proactive manner? 

26:28
Charlie Van Derven
Bento engine, man, I'll dig deeper into it because that's a brand. You sent me an article to take a look at. I know when I read the articles, I said the same thing to myself. So I'll get educated on bento engine. Thank you for that. Do you have a more marketing how do I say this without being critical at all? We deal with automation a lot. Right. I know redtail is a great CRM for client relationship. I've helped advisers do quarterly fee disclosures and stuff and make sure that the mail mergers are working and whatever else. I don't see it as a great marketing machine. Correct me if I'm wrong. 

27:07
Derek Notman
It has the capability. I don't use it. 

27:09
Charlie Van Derven
Okay. 

27:10
Derek Notman
This is where I would tell your advisors, maybe don't listen to me completely on this one because I'm not taking on new clients at this point with my firm. I've got my raa where I want it to be unless it's like a warm direct referral from a family member. 

27:27
Charlie Van Derven
Sure. 

27:28
Derek Notman
So I am not actively marketing. Yes, I have a website and I've done some seo and I'm very active on social, but I am more focused on promoting the other things that I'm working on at this point. Cool. There are some really great tools out there, like activecampaign. I don't know if you've heard of active campaign. 

27:47
Charlie Van Derven
For sure. Yeah. 

27:48
Derek Notman
I use them for connector and coupler and I absolutely love it. I have it set up for my RIA when I send out review meetings and things of that nature or if I wanted to do an ebook nurturing sequence. I'm not very active on the marketing side for that. So I'm not the best example. Although there's a lot of as you guys are the experts here, Charlie, but whether I'm marketing my RIA firm or my tech company, a lot of things are the same. 

28:18
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, absolutely. The strategies don't vary a whole lot, especially given the B to B environment of the technology. That you're marketing, right? 

28:27
Derek Notman
Exactly. 

28:30
Charlie Van Derven
Website through advisor websites, is that right? 

28:32
Derek Notman
It is, yes. I'm in the transition phase to actually go over to fmg, though. 

28:36
Charlie Van Derven
Okay. What led to that decision, if you don't mind? 

28:44
Derek Notman
There's a number of reasons, some I probably won't get into, but I think it's time for a change, and when I look out in the space and who's just crushing it has good people. Not that advisor websites doesn't, but fmg just seemed to be a really good fit for the direction I wanted to go, especially since I am promoting them in connector. We talk about that, right? If I'm going to tell an advisor, hey, here's a vendor you should check out, then I want to know that vendor intimately and make sure that they are there doing the things that they say they do. My advisors feel like they're actually getting taken care of. Does that make sense? 

29:31
Charlie Van Derven
Absolutely, it does. 100%. I worked for them for two years. No, man. I'll make it brief, but when I was in Duluth, I worked for a company called 50 Below, and were doing wirehouse websites at the time. 

29:43
Derek Notman
So we remember that name. That's that's a throwback. 

29:46
Charlie Van Derven
That is a throwback. They're part of broadridge now. Craig faulkner, fmg, craig's previous company, emerald Connect, 50 Below got 50 Below, gotten some they made some big risks, let's say, and those risks didn't pay off like they thought they would. I was close enough to nucleus to maybe get out of the way of the train. Dave christensen was at 50 Below once upon a time, also. So I called up Dave. Dave, what are you doing over there? 

30:15
Derek Notman
Another Dutch guy. 

30:16
Charlie Van Derven
He's another Duluth guy. You got it. Dave and Paul galanti had built a platform that Craig ended up purchasing that was the foundation of fmg. When the place was burning down at 50 Below, I went over to fmg for a couple of years. I was working out of Florida, and they were in San Diego, and I think that was ultimately what didn't really work out there, is it just was difficult to work for them from a remote perspective. 

30:42
Derek Notman
It works now. You were doing this a lot like, you're one of the og website social media guys for businesses, right. Back then, everything was in person still? 

30:51
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, it was. I was remote for 50 Below quite a bit, too, but I was on an airplane most of the time, so it really didn't matter. 

30:58
Derek Notman
Different type of remote. 

30:59
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, totally. Yeah, I was there a couple of years, and then 2013 needed to change and just spun up. Social advisors really focused on social media. That's cool. 

31:15
Derek Notman
Ten years, man. You guys should be proud of that. 

31:17
Charlie Van Derven
Ten years you've been almost yeah, just turned nine in October. So we're close, man. We're close. 

31:23
Derek Notman
That's cool. 

31:24
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. I still work the same. Well, I shouldn't say that I don't work the same hours. Earlier in our conversation where you get a business set up a kind of runs, it used to be like 04:00 A.m. To 11:00 p.m.. I hear that not quite those hours anymore. Let's talk about a couple of other here. Crm bentoengine email marketing. That all kind of runs through redtail then as well. 

31:49
Derek Notman
Yeah, again, I'm not doing much. I do use active campaign biannual review emails I send out, but I've got like LinkedIn business pages for my RIA, a separate blogging page. We've done some seo, but again, it's just like maintain mode at this point. 

32:15
Charlie Van Derven
That's awesome. Good for you, man. 

32:16
Derek Notman
Right. I have gray hair in my early 40s for a reason. Okay. It was tough. It was tough in the early years. There's no question about it. But it was worth it. It was worth it. As you're an advisor, if you're looking to build a business, especially independently, if you're willing to do the work, this can be an amazing lifestyle business where you can serve amazing clients. You can do it from anywhere, but also be with your kids, your spouse, travel, whatever you want to do. Right. You'll have that luxury, which is pretty cool. 

32:52
Charlie Van Derven
Before we close down, Derek, let's give a plug to the technologies that you're working on. Right? Tell us a little bit about connector. What that's about? And plug the website, if you would. 

33:02
Derek Notman
Yeah. Connector conneqtor Co, that's an online coaching training course. Logan Social Advisors, all things, and how to thrive in the digital world that we live in today. If you're tired of cheesy steak dinners and cold calling and snail mailers, working nights and weekends and all that nonsense, then you should check it out. It's pretty cool. We're in, let's see, the Us. Canada, South Africa, guam. Believe it or not. Just recently we added Ireland to the list. 

33:42
Charlie Van Derven
All right, very cool. All right, so moving on, let's talk about coupler couplers a. 

33:46
Derek Notman
Little bit more in stealth mode. Couplers fixing the lead generation problem out there. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how great your tech is or any of that other stuff, if you don't have clients to use it with, you will go out of business. I don't like the existing lead gen products and solutions that are out there. 

34:07
Charlie Van Derven
I agree. I'm with you. 

34:09
Derek Notman
We're coming at it from a completely different angle. You can learn more if you just want to go to Cupler, but we are a B to B enterprise solution. If you are a solo or small shop, you can't use us right now unless you get access to us through, like, a larger organization. Okay, there's reasons for that, but we are fixing it in mass. I'm not going to go into too much because we have no one in our sandbox, but there are other bullies in our playground that we're trying to stay away from right now. 

34:44
Charlie Van Derven
All right, listen, lock and key, man. And then rethink is the podcast. 

34:49
Derek Notman
Yes, that Adam holt of a** Map and I are doing that. It's been a passion project for, like, a year and a half. Just like what you're doing, right? You know, like, it's a creative outlet. We're trying to use it just like you do for your advisors as a mentorship, place to help lift up our profession and just tell advisors how it is, man. Give them a peek under the hood . 

35:12
Charlie Van Derven
That's awesome. And then the RIA is intrepid. Wells partners. If you want to work with Derek, you're not taking on any claims. 

35:19
Derek Notman
Unless you are a direct referral, and I still might say no. 

35:24
Charlie Van Derven
Well, that's a luxurious position to be in. My final Derek Notman man. I thank you for taking the time out of your day and being part of our suite here on RIA Collective. We're taking the fear and mystery out of going independent, and you've paved that path, so I thought you did it 16 years ago, but wow, man. Awesome. 

35:44
Derek Notman
Not even a year old. Not even a year old. 

35:46
Charlie Van Derven
That is so cool. 

35:47
Derek Notman
It was scary, Charlie, but to your listeners, it was worth it. I should have done it earlier. Thanks for getting the message out there. You're doing a great service for advisors. Listen, they need this. They really do. 

35:59
Charlie Van Derven
Awesome. Thank you, man. I appreciate that. That feedback drives us for another day or week or month. For everybody listening in, thanks for taking of time out of your day to listen to raa Collective. On behalf of my guest Derek nutton, myself, your host Charlie Van derven. Give us a review. Share us with people. We don't have the big sponsorship of these other big podcasts, so we rely on you to help us get the word up. Thanks for listening.