Who Comes With You with Stacey Hyde

00:14
Charlie Van Derven
Welcome to another episode of RIA Collective. I'm your host, Charlie Van Derven. I've got a great guest today when I'm booking guests for RIA Collective. Most of that starts with either referrals or LinkedIn, and I'm looking for a few specific things. Our guest today has seen a lot in our industry going back to the late eighty S. I don't want to date you, Stacy. Really late 80s. We'll say that. I got a funny story about that in a second, too. I don't want to date you, Stacey, but I do want to emphasize the longevity you had. You've been in so many channels in our industry that no doubt when I saw your profile, I reached out to you because one of the things we want to bring to listening audience is there are so many options for your financial services career, right? You go to the career fair and UBS and Merrill Lynch are there, and you think that's the path. 

01:08
Charlie Van Derven
We've all done it differently. So, Stacey Hide, welcome to RIA Collective and thank you for being with us today. 

01:15
Stacey Hyde
Thank you. Delighted to be here. 

01:16
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, you've got a great story. We got to know each other a couple of weeks ago over a 30 or 45 minutes phone conversation, and the experience I thought I saw on LinkedIn didn't match up with what's actually there. Stacey so you shared so much with me about your path to forming your own RIA and all the steps along. I'm sure I'm going to learn even more about you today, but you got a wealth of information to bring to our listeners. So again, thanks for joining me. 

01:44
Stacey Hyde
Happy to be here. 

01:46
Charlie Van Derven
Here's my funny little anecdotal story about I dated you a little by saying you got started in the late eighties. And we'll ask about that. 

01:56
Stacey Hyde
Oh, it was Ernst &Whinney when I started. 

01:59
Charlie Van Derven
I was going to say not even names aren't even around anymore, but Ernst & Whinney. I don't even know if I heard that before. Stacey so here's the funny story, right? I was traveling last week in Pennsylvania. I hope it's funny. I don't know. It's funny to me. I was traveling last week in Pennsylvania and Delaware. It just turned out that the timing was right to meet up with a friend in DC to go see the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing at Nationals Park at the stadium in DC. There. And we're recording this September 14. That must have been like September 8 or something. Just last week we saw and we had to take the metro from where we're staying into the park, and we didn't know exactly where we're going. We asked somebody, and they said, yeah, we go this way to Nationals Park. Are you going? 

02:42
Charlie Van Derven
To the Chili Peppers. We're going to the Chili Peppers. They were younger than we are. Just for reference, I turned 50 yesterday. 

02:49
Stacey Hyde
Happy birthday. 

02:50
Charlie Van Derven
Thank you. We get on the subway with these guys, nice guys. We're chatting and one of the young, they're all about 31 of the guys says, well, did you see him in he kind of smirked at me like he's calling me old Stacey. I had to say to him, Nope. The dated myself that way too. Anyway, I got to chuckle out of it. I hope everybody else did too. It dates us a little bit. Tell me about that first job, right? I mean, you get into this industry. Was that a conscious decision? Were you just looking for a job? Was it really, I want to be in financial services, or you just kind of happened into it? 

03:31
Stacey Hyde
I had a degree in finance from Ole Miss, go Rebels, and I had interviewed with a bunch of the banks, but that didn't really seem like the right fit. Exxon offered me a job in Houston, but actually, at the time, my mom was sick and ultimately she ended up passing away that summer from cancer. I wanted to be in Memphis, or so I thought. At the time, Ernst & Whinney, the predecessor to Ernst and Young, offered me a job in their consulting area, and they paid a lot more. I was like, wow, this is great. Little did I know when they handed me a legal pad that said “Ernst & Whinney's, Evenings and weekends, whatever it takes.” I should have figured out my hourly rate. I would have been better off with the bank job. 

04:20
Charlie Van Derven
Bring in young person. Right. It must be kind of a grind. They're getting everything out of you that they can. 

04:26
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. It was a great experience, though, from the standpoint of learning how to work with others, learning how to check your work, and really just an introduction to at the time, it was Big Eight, then quickly became Big Six, and now the Big Four accounting firms. Were the weird consultants up one floor higher than everybody else who kept vampire hours during the week but rarely worked weekends. 

04:55
Charlie Van Derven
Well, at least you got your weekends. 

04:58
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. 

04:59
Charlie Van Derven
Well, very cool. Well, that's a great place to enter the industry, but of course you can stick there all that long. 

05:05
Stacey Hyde
No, I was there five, six years and then left and kind of meandered a little kind of did bank on life insurance for a year. If I thought that doing municipal finance transactions was boring, bank on life insurance was even more so. Wound up working for a local financial planning shop and actually learned a ton there. Great experience. Went to work for an insurance company that was definitely not my favorite thing. Moved over to doing investments insurance for original bank. 

05:48
Charlie Van Derven
Okay, so there was of movement earlier in your career. Do you think that set you up. Well, I mean, was it good to learn from those different locations or was it difficult moving into new roles? Speak through that because I think a lot of people, they get out of college to get their finance degree, they land at a firm, and they're there for 20 years. 

06:15
Stacey Hyde
I was definitely on a fast track because at 25 years old, I was already a manager. At the time, I think I was the youngest manager in the Ernst and Young system. But I hated my job. I didn't want to do it. It was interesting because when I went in to resign, the partner said I couldn't quit because I was the best they ever had at it. All I could think was, if I can be really good at something I dislike this much. Certainly if I can find something that I enjoy, I'm not going to be terrible. 

06:50
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. 

06:52
Stacey Hyde
It was hard because when you get to one of those big firms with the big reputations, they tend to pay pretty well, too. So you almost have the golden handcuffs. I actually took a series of pay cuts and then worked back up because I knew that I needed to do something different and I knew I didn't have the knowledge, so I took a pay cut in order to learn. 

07:19
Charlie Van Derven
Well, that says a tremendous amount about you and who you are as a person. Right? Because I think a lot of people the golden handcuffs, right. You get into a certain lifestyle, it's difficult to leave that high paying job. Even if you're miserable, you can justify that by whatever you're doing with that growing wealth, if you will. That says a ton about you as a person. Also you as a manager at 24, 25 years old and in such a now, it's still a male dominated industry. Right? We're talking about wealth managers. I think women make up about 15% at this point. Just not too many years ago, that stat was 11%. If we go back to the late eighties and early nineties, that's single digits. 

08:05
Stacey Hyde
Yeah, it was. All the partners were male at the time. I was there in the Memphis office. 

08:13
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Wow. So that's awesome. We're going to talk about not only what kind of cruise through the career piece of it, because I want to get to the advice that you have. It's not all about just the history, but of course, that kind of lays the pavement for the advice to come. I don't know. I think you're cool. I thought you were cool and we chatted a couple of weeks ago. I think you're cooler now. The fact that you would sacrifice the high paycheck for life, for peace of mind, if you will, or for mindset and climbing ranks in a male dom, even more male dominated industry decades ago. So kudos. Stacey that's awesome. 

08:52
Stacey Hyde
Yeah, it was an interesting place. Like I said, I learned a lot. And I was glad when I left. It actually took a terrible job, but it led me to meet people that kind of bounced me over into the financial planning world. 

09:06
Charlie Van Derven
Is that the job were just discussing? 

09:09
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. The bank on life insurance? Yeah. That was terrible. 

09:12
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. You had mentioned the independent broker dealer, so you learned a lot. I had a job with a company when I first got into this industry. That was a good company. Lots of great people, lots of learning lessons on how not to do things. You learned of learning from the positive that they instill you go, oh, gosh, don't do it that way. Look at how bad they did that. Right. 

09:35
Stacey Hyde
I didn't really know anything at the time. When I was at Ernston Young, I got my CPA license and I started my CFA. At the one year Stent doing bank on life insurance, I got my CFP, I got my second part of my CFA, and then when I was at Compass, I finished everything up. 

10:01
Charlie Van Derven
Cool. Were you then in wealth management roles prior to joining the bank side? 

10:08
Stacey Hyde
Yes, when I was with Compass, the local independent broker dealer, that's where I was basically. I guess you call it Logan social advisors role. Although that wasn't what it was called then. But yeah. 

10:21
Charlie Van Derven
Okay, so support staff and on the wealth management side, I'm curious, Stacy, what's different when you look at work in the wealth management side and independent broker dealer versus an established bank in Memphis? How did your life change when you made that transition? 

10:40
Stacey Hyde
I don't know that it changed too much because especially early on in the bank channel that I was in, it was very product driven. Like, they have mandatory, you'd have to go show up for this product pitch or that product pitch. That was kind of similar to the independent broker dealer because he was very the owner really got excited when different people come in showing a product he could sell. Whereas our mindset today is the product is kind of irrelevant, we're trying to figure out what is keeping you up at night, where are you stuck? And then move past that. And the products are almost an afterthought. 

11:21
Charlie Van Derven
Isn't that amazing? The transition that you to a greater degree, me lesser, but the transition we've witnessed in this industry over the last 2025 years from I mean, I think that's kind of a microcosm, what you just said, right? It was so product focused. Now it's so client focused. Of course, we're going to talk about your RIA envisioned financial planning here in just a bit. The ability to serve client versus serving the firm is a conversation I like to have because I really think when you're in kind of a bank environment, a captive environment. A lot of what you're providing clients is on behalf of the firm as opposed to maybe necessarily what's the absolute best thing for the client is that echo your experience. 

12:10
Stacey Hyde
I think that's true. We didn't have too much of a push. Like I remember during the financial crisis and there was a lot of concern about banks going under, were not supposed to remind clients about being over FDIC limits, but of course I still did because and there was some other products that they were coming out and trying to get us to push. My husband's in real estate, and I got him to look at the offering documents and he said, I see how the company that's offering this makes money. I don't see how your clients do. I would recommend staying away. I did, and he turned out to be pretty spot on that. It's having that just I hear what you're saying, but at the end of the day, I answer to my clients and they are just really nice people. That as I have migrated away from the banks to having our own firm, it's also given us the freedom to say no to certain clients. 

13:16
Stacey Hyde
Like, I don't think we're a good fit, or we don't offer. You want somebody who's going to pick a hot stock? That's not me. There's people out there and you can go find them on Twitter. But that's not what we're about. We're about, what are you trying to do and what's the next best step? 

13:36
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, and it creates such a purity in the relationship. It's a fun industry. 

13:42
Stacey Hyde
It really is. 

13:45
Charlie Van Derven
The regulations have become so heavy in the decades, in recent decades. Yeah. It's just fun to watch the evolution, even with the way that we price from commission to fee based, and now a lot of advisers go on subscription based and I don't know, interesting, always changing, always exciting. And you drive a lot of that. You kind of left the bank side and formed a partnership. Talk a little bit about that. I know that we're going to talk about the split of that at some point. Here. 

14:22
Stacey Hyde
I was at one bank and I had a quasi business partner, and we left to start the wealth management group for a local bank that had never done it. At the time, I had decided I was going to just go out on my own, but a former coworker had gone over there and convinced us to talk to the management of that bank. We did, and we made the decision to go in that route. I think that what happened over the nine years is I kept steadily moving toward more advice centric and wanting to do things different that even to the size of the TV screens that we had in the conference room to show our clients, were getting pushback from bank management. Like, we shouldn't be doing that. I don't understand. We're doing financial plan. They need to be able to see the numbers, and they're like, you shouldn't be showing them numbers. 

15:20
Stacey Hyde
Like, okay, I don't understand. My former partner one of the most wonderful human beings on the planet, but he just really was more in the traditional investment type role. Wanted to talk about investments, and that really was not where were going. I'd always wanted to have my own firm. So in November 2019, made that jump. Scariest thing I've ever done. 

15:49
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, no doubt. Maybe you can hear it and if you're watching on YouTube, you can see it, but if you're just listening, I'm clapping right now. So you said a mouthful. Scariest thing you've ever done. We made a similar change nine years ago. Started social advisors, quit the job, jumped in with both feet, sank our personal savings into it, and luckily, nine years later, we're statistical anomaly and have done well with that. But it's a scary leap. Right. I mean, all of a sudden, you're dependent only on yourself. 

16:20
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. You're on the hook for rent and people's salaries and all that kind of copyrights. Yeah. 

16:29
Charlie Van Derven
It's so funny you say, copy your laces. I had an interview that hasn't published yet with Rachel Burns, who was in Folsom, California, and I think Morgan, if I remember, Rachel and Morgan, Maryland, before Morgan, Maryland, then making her leap to RIA. She did it for family health reasons, but one of the things she said is that the firms always scared us. Here was the thing that they would say is, well, Rachel, you're going to have to fix your own printer and come to know it. Rachel said she never had to fix a printer. So anyway, I found that humorous. Right. It's like there's this ingrained, I don't know, the preach against that independent side from the captive firm side, right to the point where, well, gosh now. Yeah, sure, you get a higher payout, but now to what you just said, stacy, you got your office, you've got your printer, you got staff. 

17:29
Charlie Van Derven
I mean, whatever, you go from being an advisor to a bank to a CEO. Wow. 

17:39
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. I had to figure out how to run payroll, too. 

17:44
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Listen, I outsource payroll. Accounting, those are not my strong suit. So I know what we're good at. So we do all the fulfillment. We do all the sales and marketing. The accounting side, yeah, I got good help for that. But, yeah, there's a big learning curve there. Let's talk about that because anybody who's going to make that jump is going to have to go through that from producer to business owner, CEO. Can you talk about any, like, payroll and the different components of running the business? What was that? Learning curve. 

18:21
Stacey Hyde
Like I probably had the advantage coming from an accounting, being an accountant, and my husband is also an accountant, so we had some of that piece of it. I think what was overwhelming, at least initially, was just the magnitude of stuff that I had to deal with in addition to dealing with clients because didn't really have an office manager or anybody like that initially. I was chief cook, bottle washer, advisor, accountant, payroll coordinator, and also trying to get the office furnished. Luckily it was right before the pandemic and luckily it came in shortly thereafter, otherwise we'd probably still be sitting on card tables. 

19:09
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, exactly. 

19:09
Stacey Hyde
Exactly. 

19:12
Charlie Van Derven
We started ours in our master bedroom. My wife and I moved went from a three bedroom house to a two bedroom house so we could open up an office. We actually our first two employees were coming to work in our master bedroom. There was no bed in there with a conference table and whatever else. Right. Before we got an office, everybody showed up in my house for work. So, you kind of feel your way through it. I went from business development roles to same thing. Now I own a business, I got to figure out how these pieces fit together, payroll and everything else that comes along with it. That's a great leap and it teaches us, I think, a lot about ourselves and resiliency because it's tough until you figure out the processes behind it. 

19:56
Stacey Hyde
It was and there was a lot of stuff and I think for me, the thing that got me through it is I had like a very small group of people who knew what was going on. There were some people at my church, finance elder, there was some folks from that group and one or two very good friends and they were really supporting me, praying for me, if that was there. Bent and it really made it, especially on the day that I actually resigned, I could actually feel it because when I resigned, it was not taken well. My normal reaction to somebody being in my face and yelling at me is usually one of two things. Either I jump back with both feet or I just start crying. That particular day, neither of those occurred. I just got really calm and it was like as though I was watching it in slow motion. 

20:57
Stacey Hyde
I remembered what my husband had said. He's like, you're not going to convince anybody of anything. Just be nice and get out of there. And so that's was what I did. I'm very glad that I had that support and I'm very glad I was able to get out of there. 

21:15
Charlie Van Derven
That's awesome. From our conversation a couple of weeks ago, I took a guess as to what the title of this podcast episode might be and what I wrote down is you're going to be surprised by who comes with you and who doesn't. Stacey, that's a direct quote from you. 

21:30
Stacey Hyde
Yeah, and I think that was true. Not so much on the employee side, although there was one that I thought she would have found and she didn't. On the client side, it was definitely because there were a couple that were very good friends with some of the bank management. There were some that had been clients for a while, and I really felt like they were my clients and they didn't move. There were some that I really kind of thought they might have been more bank clients than my clients and they moved. I think you're always going to have a couple on either side that you're surprised about. There was a big group in the middle that it happened exactly like I thought it would happen. I guess the coolest thing for me is more came with me than I thought would. So that was good. 

22:26
Charlie Van Derven
Well, that certainly helps when you're starting a new venture. Right. 

22:30
Stacey Hyde
My agreement was I couldn't call them. They had to reach out to me. Luckily, Memphis is probably the biggest small town ever. You've heard that seven degrees of Kevin Bacon in Memphis. It's really one. Even if you're new town, it might be two. 

22:49
Charlie Van Derven
I've heard of social media makes it like 3.6 degrees of separation now or something like that. Just because we're all intertwined at this point with LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and the like. 

23:01
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. 

23:02
Charlie Van Derven
The world is getting smaller as we speak. 

23:04
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. LinkedIn pushing updates on people's job descriptions was quite helpful. 

23:09
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Well, no doubt that's the playground we play in a social advisors as we do a lot of work on LinkedIn and content marketing on LinkedIn. It's a pretty great tool, isn't it? 

23:21
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. I probably only barely scratch the surface. 

23:25
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, great tool. Offline. I'll give you more than the surface. 

23:32
Stacey Hyde
Okay. 

23:33
Charlie Van Derven
We'll dive a little bit deeper. I don't know if you are using Sales Navigator. LinkedIn sales navigator. 

23:37
Stacey Hyde
No. 

23:38
Charlie Van Derven
Oh, my gosh. Stacey best tool I've ever used for business development. Single best offline. We'll talk about it really honestly, it will change the way you prospect. It really will. A lot of it happens from desktop. Now, of course, I love being out and meeting people. I had meetings in Delaware, in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania last week, then back to one conference. I love the in person and the face to face. For efficiency sake, this thing is awesome. We'll do a quick little tutorial after we stop the recording button here, because it really is you'll get a lot out of it. 

24:18
Stacey Hyde
My clients have really always been my best source of referrals. 

24:22
Charlie Van Derven
That's great. Listen, that says you're doing something right. 

24:26
Stacey Hyde
Yes. It usually means I'm going to like them because they're referred from an existing client. 

24:32
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. When I'm coaching, I talk a lot about asking for the right introductions. Most advisers are not very good at asking for referrals. It's kind of an awkward conversation for a lot of people. Some are great at it, don't get me wrong. For most people, I find that sourcing names, gaining of social intelligence around who they spend time with and then finding a way to casually get introduced, whether it's over something that are the common person likes or whatever it is over dinner. The referrals I love because most of them come unsolicited. When they come unsolicited, you're in great shape. So that's good. I want to ask about 2019. What month in 2019 was in November? It was November 5 months. Oh my gosh. 

25:26
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. 

25:26
Charlie Van Derven
Oh my gosh. What's that like? I mean, so all of a sudden you're all pumped up, new business, right. Scared, probably, figuring out what you don't already know and then the whole world shuts down. For practical purposes, we had been a. 

25:42
Stacey Hyde
Little concerned about the market in late 2019, early 2020. We had done something that really helped us. We had gone ahead and we'd reached out to our clients and we had raised the projected cash distributions that they need. We didn't send them yet, but went ahead and had freed up that cash preemptively because we felt like the market had done really well for a long time and it's probably due for a pullback. I wish I could say I for saw the meltdown coming, but I didn't. We had that once we got the lockdown, which was scary. I had to send people home. We weren't really good at. We had the advisors had VPN, the support staff didn't. We were trying to get in that there were capacity issues, but to be able to tell clients that it's going to be okay, we've got enough money to take care of you for the next and by the way, you're going to be spending less because you can't go anywhere. 

26:45
Stacey Hyde
Can we maybe reduce that ? It really helped people just stay calm and stay in their seats. That's really, to me, that's the hardest part about being an advisor is keeping people calm when the world and the Financial Pornography network I think of it is telling them they need to do something. In almost every case, the answer is you just need to not look and just be calm. We don't know when this is going to stop, but I do know that selling out after the markets already gone down 20% is not the right move and it's going to be okay. 

27:32
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Something tells me, just getting to know you you've got a calming way about you. Something tells me those clients had just put their trust in you five months earlier. To move with you and your new RIA. Something tells me you didn't have a lot of panic amongst your clients. 

27:48
Stacey Hyde
You could kind of tell how long somebody had been my clients. The ones that had been with us through the 809 crisis, they were like, so I guess I need to sign up for online statements, and you'll tell me when they're okay to look at again, which now we're going through that whole conversation again. Newer clients, you really find out whether you did a good job of figuring out their risk tolerance or not. 

28:14
Charlie Van Derven
I suppose. Yeah, that's a good indicator. 

28:16
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. 

28:17
Charlie Van Derven
Nothing else. So, Stacey, you got all this experience leading up to the start of the RA. Now we know you're working your way through that adviser role into a CEO leadership role within your new firm. There anything that happened with that transition that when you look back on it, you're like, Gosh, I wish I had done that a little differently? 

28:39
Stacey Hyde
Well, we formed our own firm, and were duly registered at that time in November 2019, in September of 2020, because we didn't have enough going on with the pandemic and everything. We gave up our federal licenses, mostly because the whole idea of commissions just wasn't us, and we felt like we needed to just formally say, we don't do that. The next evolution, which we just did this July 1, was we became our own RA, and we have been with Commonwealth. I've personally been with them since November 2010, so almost 22 years now, and we're still with them, but it just gives us more flexibility. Were struggling under turnaround times for social media and have a podcast and some stuff that were trying to communicate with clients, and it just simplified that. Plus, the Commonwealth is a broker dealer. You can never say your fee only as long as you're affiliated with them. 

29:53
Stacey Hyde
By launching our own RA, we now have that ability and can do that. 

29:59
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. That's great. I've got several clients that are Commonwealth advisors, and I'll say that about their compliance. Excuse me. They're slow. Things don't move fast when you've got to submit to Commonwealth. 

30:12
Stacey Hyde
Yeah, they're pretty reasonable. We had one where I was actually recommending against crypto, and they're like, you can't say that. They're like, can you just not do this at all? I was like, no, I'm getting too many questions about it. I need to put something out there. We kind of got this funny, tightrope walking compromise, and as Courtney, our office manager and also our social media person, said, she goes, you do know that crypto peaked the day you said we put out your podcast. 

30:56
Charlie Van Derven
I haven't listened to the podcast yet, Stacey. I will, but listen, it sounds like your predictions have kind of come true with both markets, right? 

31:06
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. 

31:06
Charlie Van Derven
I should say all markets, crypto market, and. Our traditionals talk to me about the podcast . Let's get some press out for that. Let's get some of our listeners talk to me about what the premise of the podcast is and what you're accomplishing with that. 

31:22
Stacey Hyde
What we're trying to do is through our wealth management practice, we can't really help everybody just because of the economics of it. I think one thing that is abundantly clear, if you understand the math of compound earnings, is that it's about starting young and it's about avoiding the big mistakes. What I was trying to do is to put out called Better Financial Health in 15 Minutes or Less. What I'm trying to do is put out a short one topic piece each week to just help people if they've got a question about Series I Bond, Buying a House, setting Goals, saving in Your Employer 401 case. So they're short. I've also talked about markets, what to do in scary markets. What we're trying to do is basically build our future client base. Because if people do the things that we are recommending in our podcast, they're going to be great clients for us at some point. 

32:30
Stacey Hyde
That's what we're trying to accomplish with that. Because I guess the takeaway I had, and once again I'm going to date myself, is nobody wants to buy a Cadillac too much anymore because the Chevrolets weren't very good. They were buggy. Whereas the Toyota, the Corollas were great cars, the cameras were great cars. When they wanted to upgrade, well, of course I want a Lexus because that's their best car. We want to try to do that and not alienate those people that are very difficult other than maybe through a some meetings of that nature, but really give people the tools because early on it's really about setting habits. 

33:16
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, well, that's a great analogy, right. As you're in a certain stage of life and you can't afford that Lexus or Envision for that matter, right. You still have the opportunity to provide service and value to hundreds or thousands of people, even though you can only really provide financial planning services for dozens. 

33:42
Stacey Hyde
Yes. 

33:42
Charlie Van Derven
That's awesome. Love it. 

33:44
Stacey Hyde
The other thing that we've done is for people that have reached out and wanted to talk with us, I've encouraged them to listen to a couple of episodes before the meeting, just let them see if it feels like that we're going to be a good fit. I found that people have self selected very well after that because they kind of find out, oh, she's basically telling me to ignore individual stocks. She's definitely not going to be in this Robin Hood type environment. 

34:15
Charlie Van Derven
Yes. For our listeners again, better financial health in 15 minutes or less with Stacy Hyde. Stacey they can get that anywhere. They listen to podcasts. 

34:26
Stacey Hyde
Yes, it's on all the streaming platforms awesome. 

34:31
Charlie Van Derven
Wonderful. I want to dive into Envision Financial Planning. Want to learn about your firm and what your missions and values, and then kind of what your goals are, where you're headed with this machine you're building. I don't want to take the feeling, and, I don't want to take the humanity out of it, but, we got process driven businesses. Let's start with the name and vision. I mean, it seems like it's got some obvious connotation, but speak to the decision around that name, envision Financial Planning. 

35:04
Stacey Hyde
Well, I think the biggest thing when people are trying to come up with what they want their financial life to look at, it is a visioning, or you're envisioning where you want to be, where you want to go. What we tell people is that when you're in your twenties, retirement seems like this very far off space. All we're trying to do is to help you make the right decision now, and then it's likely to change. Because even personally, if you ask me, when I was in my twenties, if the place where I want to go most of all is Summit County, Colorado, I would have laughed at you at that point in time. I'd been skiing once in my life and didn't really even love it. It just goes to show that things change and people change, and as you help people, what's been super fun for me with clients that I've had for 20 years now is seeing their evolution. 

36:12
Stacey Hyde
We started out saving for this, and then this happened, and then we did this. It's super fun to see how that evolves, and it's fun to watch them get excited, because one of the things that I firmly believe in, it's not necessarily retirement. It's when do you become work optional? And it's getting to that point. I've had some clients who have done some of the coolest stuff of their entire careers when they could have quit, because they went into in many cases, they go into an employer, and they're like, okay, I'm done. The employer's like, you can't be done. And they're like, But I'm done. My financial planners check the numbers. I'm done. The employer says, well, if you could design exactly what you wanted to do, what would it be? I've had at least five answer that question. The employer has said, fine, that's your new job description. 

37:15
Stacey Hyde
And it's fun to see that happen. Because they have a ball, they usually make a good bit more money, and they're having a ball because they're doing what they want to do instead of because they have to do it. 

37:27
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, there's no more financial pressure on it. I mean, great, you're making more money, but you can make decisions without worry or fear of any sort. 

37:35
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. 

37:36
Charlie Van Derven
How great is that? 

37:37
Stacey Hyde
Yeah, that's a fun one. It's also fun when somebody gets to the end of their rope. This happened with a teacher client of mine that inherited some money and really had planned to keep going, but she just got a principal that they couldn't work together. And she's like, Can I? I'm like, yeah, I've looked at the numbers. It's okay. You can't go crazy. And she did. She still loves to teach, and she keeps her grandkids, and she teaches at this girl school like, twice a month for peanuts. I mean, like, less than people make working at Chickfila, but she likes it, and so she does. 

38:26
Charlie Van Derven
Like what you do for a living. Really what the purpose for a podcast like this in your podcast? It's about helping people. Right. And I preach that a lot. Right. You find yourself in a position where you're working for a firm and set your client, but it really, truly is about helping people. In her case, in your clients case, the payoff isn't the money she's got, the security of knowing she's got you in her corner and can now make the impact she wants to make on the people she wants to. It's a touch. That's amazing. 

39:01
Stacey Hyde
That's fine. What's not as fun is when you have to tell people you're overspending and we need to raise this back. Not nearly as fun. 

39:12
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah. Both sides of the coin. Right? 

39:14
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. Empowering people to, like, give money away or take the trip or to fly business class, but that's fine. 

39:22
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, I love that. I've got a good friend who's an advisor in the Detroit area, serves automotive industry almost exclusively, and he talks about all the plans that people share with them with him in their 50s. Let's say that when they finally retire never happen. 

39:43
Stacey Hyde
Yeah, right. 

39:44
Charlie Van Derven
They retire and, they kind of hang out the Lazy Boy and watch a lot more TV. 

39:49
Stacey Hyde
Yeah, we're trying to. I tell my clients that you can't retire from something. You have to retire to something. I love that, because if you return from something, your days are going to be pretty empty, and so you need to figure out where you're going to engage. Some people can play golf five days a week or seven days a week. Some people can't. 

40:15
Charlie Van Derven
I can. 

40:16
Stacey Hyde
I can play tennis on any day. That is but you have to have that. I think part of back to the connection, I think part of the reason that I love tennis so much is I love the community I've built around it and the people I've met and the people that are a huge part of my life do that and also my church. I think that's what we encourage our clients to do, is to figure out those points of connection. Really because if you've got a busy executive or you've got we see this more with women who stay at home to take care of kids. Once their kids go off to college, they have to figure out what their connections are and what do I do now? We try to help them do that. I've also had the ones where high powered executive retires wife calls me up and says, I don't care what you tell him, he has to go back to work because if he is going to use his day to manage me, we're having problems. 

41:22
Stacey Hyde
A couple of times after jokingly said, maybe you should start something else, but then they usually quickly figure out that, okay, she doesn't need my help, does she? Managed for 35 years to figure out how to order her day and buy what needs to be bought and do what needs to be done. You find something else. 

41:46
Charlie Van Derven
Not that this is news, but you're partly psychologist. 

41:50
Stacey Hyde
Yes. Interestingly enough, both of my kids have psychology degrees, and my daughter is working on her clinical psychology PhD. I'm like, don't you want to come work with me? 

42:01
Charlie Van Derven
She's like, no mom, no psychologist, marriage therapist, financial planner, tennis player, podcast host. Stacey, my gosh, the list goes on and on. 

42:12
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. 

42:13
Charlie Van Derven
Tell me about your vision for Envision. You mentioned, Courtney, what's the team look like today? Our listeners really made up of, let's say, younger advisers, or at least maybe their second career advisors. They might not be age young, but they're listening because, Stacey, they want to learn tips and ideas to make their transition to an independent world easier. There is a possibility that if you're growing in vision, maybe there's people out there listening that want to talk to you. 

42:45
Stacey Hyde
I would love an associated advisor or two. We definitely need it because we're kind of hitting capacity on the advisory side. We've got a good back office team, but we definitely could use an associate adviser, somebody who wants to run plans like the head of a financial planning department, something along those lines. So, yes, those two positions we definitely need because we've got clay is our chief compliance officer, also is our CIO. We've got Tank Parks, is also an advisor, runs his own clients primarily. We have an intern, Naya, and then Courtney runs the office, runs social media, make sure that I'm where I'm supposed to be when I'm supposed to be there. Thank God. 

43:40
Charlie Van Derven
Yeah, that's good. She sounds like a very valuable piece of the puzzle. 

43:44
Stacey Hyde
Yes, she joined us. She's been here almost a year, and that was one of my better hires. 

43:50
Charlie Van Derven
That's awesome. I'll tell you, and just theme that keeps coming up when I'm talking to folks who have just formed their RIA, and now they're trying to put a team together. For me, as social advisors too, that's the hardest part. It really is. I mean, you can have a vision for a great business but if you can't back that up with the right talent, it doesn't matter what your vision is. That has been we have a great team, we really do, but it has been something that we've really worked on for I think we made our first hire probably at about 18 months in the business. For the last seven and a half years, we've been creating the right team in the right culture. It gets better and better every time we add to it or change it in any way. But that's the hardest part. 

44:37
Charlie Van Derven
That has been moving anyway. 

44:39
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. I guess because we're so protective of our clients, we're pretty particular about who we would bring on in that role. We had somebody kind of come on as a part time person and then she just decided that the stress of it was too much for her. And that's fine. We definitely are looking to fill those two roles. Like somebody to do some of the more financial planning, preparation and then an associate adviser that can actually work with clients. I do want to say full caveat, no business development responsibilities. The only business development you have is not running people off. 

45:25
Charlie Van Derven
There you go. Yeah. Being a tractor, not a region. That's awesome. Very cool. What's the best way to learn more about Envision? Learn more about you, get in touch. 

45:36
Stacey Hyde
With you through our website. All of our contact information is on there. It's envision FP as in financial planning. TN because we're in Tennessee.com. 

45:45
Charlie Van Derven
Very cool. Very cool. Stacey Hyde, I think you're awesome. We've only had a chance to have two conversations, this one being recorded and who knows where those things go, right? The longevity in the industry, the roles you've played coming up at a time when maybe seven or 8% of this industry was female. Not only coming up, but also excelling amongst a highly dominant male counterpart. The purity to be able to say, what, this product based offering doesn't work for me and my clients. I'm going to take this huge risk in life and I'm going to do that on behalf of my clients. That's awesome. That's awesome. That's really what we're trying to create. This might upset people because I know lots of people at the warehouse is and in fact coaching clients of mine. I really think that the only way to be a true Fiduciary is to serve clients as an RIA. 

46:46
Charlie Van Derven
If you have any firm incentives, if you've got to send so many banking leads to the bank counterpart, or if you've got to open so many households that you're bringing on clients that you don't even want to service just to get your payout on that incentive, those are biases that detract from that fiduciary responsibility of an advisor. Being able to separate yourself from that product driven world and focus directly on what your clients need the most. Kudos to you. Thanks for doing that. Thanks for playing such an important role. 

47:20
Stacey Hyde
I think that one other thing I'd like to say, if we're not completely out of time, is not at all. 

47:25
Charlie Van Derven
No, we got all kinds of time. 

47:27
Stacey Hyde
You should very much I think clients have a 6th sense for do you do what you're telling them to do. I think it's important as financial planners to keep to all the stuff that we recommend to clients because then it's easier to say yes, I recognize that. One of the things that I try to come across to my clients is I'm never going to tell you to buy stuff. I'm definitely going to tell you to take the splurge and take your kids on that trip and spend that time with your family because that's something that is not going to gather dust or whatever. You're going to have those memories now. You've got to be smart about it and plan ahead. I don't want it on the credit card three years from now, but it's getting to that. I think it's imperative on us as advisors to walk the walk. 

48:22
Stacey Hyde
If your personal situation, all your credit cards are maxed out and all you're living on fumes, I think it pushes you to maybe not be able to keep your clients interest top of mind because you're trying to get that next sale. If you are comfortable and you know that your family is going to be fine no matter what that person sitting across from you does, whether they take your advice or not, whether they become your client or not, you're going to be a better adviser for having it's going to help your objectivity, no doubt. I guess the place where I see it the most is when somebody has an option to take a lump sum or a pension. In many cases, I run the numbers eight ways to Sunday. They're better off with that monthly payout. I find that a lot of advisors will urge them to take the lump sum because they want to manage the money. 

49:25
Charlie Van Derven
Right. Fees based on that money. Sure. 

49:27
Stacey Hyde
I think if you manage your personal life to where you're fine either way, and you're really laying out to the pros and cons, I think that you'll be a better adviser for that. 

49:43
Charlie Van Derven
I can echo that in my personal experience too. When were young, when we started literally the conversation with my wife Carmen was, carmen, give me 60 days if I can't make something work and we can see something coming in 60 days, and I go get a job, no problem. Right. Our first few clients were advisors. We were focused on financial services from the moment we started. The neighbor says, Well, I got a bar. Could you handle some content for social media for me? I go again, young company, not positive yet, making revenue, but not covering our expenses yet. Sure, I can do that. Well, four or five years into this business, I was representing car dealerships, restaurants, bars, some financial advisers, a senior living place. I mean, were a car wash, a local car wash, were spread. Every client was different, which meant and every client is still different, but every client can be serviced in a similar way, so we can be a much more process driven company. 

50:47
Charlie Van Derven
Now, back then, we had a different process for every client. While the revenue was finally allowing us to start to live our lives again, I was working way too much. The small staff we had, it was just there was no efficiency to the business. It wasn't really until we got back to our core, which probably happened in 2017, maybe, where went, no, we don't do it for all these people. In fact, we fired a bunch of revenue. Were finally in a position where we could say, we don't do all this stuff, we do what we know we do well. I can't tell you, making that decision, removing all that inefficiency, it changed the business. Like, five years later, we're in a much better position than we would have been had we continue down that path. Right? Were looking for the next deal just to make sure that were renting at the time. 

51:44
Charlie Van Derven
We had to COVID rent, and we had one car payment and a couple of little kids and yeah, there was a lot of stress involved in were looking for that next client, to your point. It changed the way we did things because of it. 

51:59
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. 

52:01
Charlie Van Derven
Finally at a place now where we can be a little cheesy, so that's much better. 

52:07
Stacey Hyde
Like you said, you let some people go. We did that. We had a couple of clients which, quite frankly, weren't nice, and we just had to tell them, I think you need to go elsewhere. 

52:17
Charlie Van Derven
Those are liberating moments, aren't they? 

52:19
Stacey Hyde
Yeah, they're really scary. Sometimes people get very negative back at you, like, how dare you? When you realize that phone and that name hasn't shown up and you haven't had that, like, not today, it's just not worth it, especially if they're abusive to your staff. 

52:40
Charlie Van Derven
That's the point I was going to make. I know it's time when I've heard it from a bunch of staff members. I got four calls from this person today and they're p***** off about, whatever, I'm not a doctor, I'm not saving lives. You are saving financial lives. We are helping advisers help more people. It's a long process, but it's not like anybody has an emergency that has to happen right now. When they get upset about something because it's been 15 minutes and someone hasn't replied to an email, got to go. Yeah. I'm lucky to be in a position for that, as . I'm sure you feel that way, too. We're lucky to be in a position to be able to kind of mold what we're doing going forward because it wasn't always that way for us. 

53:32
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. 

53:32
Charlie Van Derven
So, anyway, Stacey, it's great to know you. I'm not too far from Memphis. I get there fairly often. We'll do coffee one time soon and get to know each other in person. 

53:42
Stacey Hyde
Well, listen to one of your other podcasts, and I understand you're a craft beer guy, so we have a dual tap cabaret in our backyard outdoor kitchen. 

53:51
Charlie Van Derven
Oh, my God. 

53:53
Stacey Hyde
If you get here before we winterized it, I'll have you over. 

53:56
Charlie Van Derven
That is awesome. So you listen to Brian Carney episode? 

53:59
Stacey Hyde
Yes. 

53:59
Charlie Van Derven
Brian is awesome. I love him, too. In fact, that's one of the people I was visiting with in person in Delaware. That's one of the great things about this, is you and I were strangers three weeks ago, and I'm excited to be in your backyard drinking a craft beer in the coming months here. 

54:13
Stacey Hyde
Yeah. 

54:15
Charlie Van Derven
Awesome. Stacey. Well, we're going to sign off from this episode of RIA Collective. Stacey Hyde, my guest. Thank you so much for being here. If you're a listener and you like what you hear, I'd love for you to subscribe, give us a review if you can. That just helps us reach more people and help more advisors. And, of course, if anybody that's in an RA leadership position that you think we should interview, or if you're one of those advisors or in a position that you didn't think you'd end up in and you're looking for independence, stacey is a great person to reach out to. Or, of course, you can reach out to us directly. RIA Collective.com. Thank you, Stacey. 

54:50
Stacey Hyde
Thank you. Have a good one. 

54:52
Charlie Van Derven
You're. You.