The Real Lives of Financial Advisors - YouTube

hi I'm downtown Josh Brown we are live from the compound I'm here with Michael

Batnick can our friend Nina O'Neal from the firm Archer Investment Management in

Raleigh North Carolina welcome Nina thank you I'm sorry

so here's what's gonna happen we're gonna take a quick break play the music

and then we get right into our discussion okay I asked you to come up

because I just feel like and I said this to you off camera every time I have a

conversation with you about being a financial advisor running a practice

trying to manage our lives I find that you're one of the most authentic people

I know and you just tell it like it is and you did that on stage a 12th stack

and people absolutely loved it how long have has Archer Investment

Management been around and what is your role there so we've been around for 12

years actually 13 so 2006 my partner founded it and then I partnered with him

in oh nine okay and so we celebrate yours 10 years which is exciting and my

role is we were 5050 partners on every client every expense every bit of

revenue so even though he founded it I came on board not too long afterwards

and really helped to expand and grow the practice

so you're working with primarily high net worth investors in the North

Carolina area no actual clients and either somewhere between 13 and 16

states across the country actually our largest relationships are not in North

Carolina at all and so we're from San Francisco New York Chicago a lot are

gonna be based in North Carolina just because of the nature of the beast

that's where we are but we work with a range of individuals so from high

net-worth down to not a lot of net worth yet so 55 percent of our book of

business is high income earning professionals and a lot of those are

gonna be still in their income earning years so Gen X Gen Y and then 45 % of

our book is boomers but they're young boomers so our average client age is 52

I love the way you say boomers yon say say Wade say one more time boomers all

right so here's the deal you did this really cool video series for investment

news called the juggle is real which I've just learned you have that term

trademarks idea all right I'm jealous it's perfect but what you were basically

drunk what you were trying to get across is like this is not easy and what maybe

what made me so interested in that approach to like telling your story yes

I'm an advisor but then I go home I have the kids my husband my house all the you

know you very rarely see that when advisors are public-facing there's like

this illusion of like how in control they are of everything and how easy

everything is and I think you know a lot of that is important for the marketing

but it's very rare that someone's like look what's going on so talk a little

bit about like what made you want to do that and when you film that and what the

response has been whether the response has been huge from men and women and we

were intentionally making sure we talked about working parents because it's not

just the mom says you guys are the dads and I've heard a huge amount of feedback

saying like thank you for including or recognizing that it's both parties and

so the the concept came around a long time ago and I started using it as a

hashtag because I got really irritated with the Pinterest mom look honestly and

and not just in our industry but across the board this high expectation of

parents to be you know working on all levels at an incredible incredibly high

energy and perfection and I just didn't think it was fair because I always felt

like I was failing at that and so I thought why don't I mean I know I'm not

the only person dealing with this and when you talk about advisors you know go

to industry events or talk to people locally and it's like trying to prove

how smart you are you know everybody's got their opinions on things and a lot

of times it's just a little bit of a one-up and you know my AUM is bigger and

I just you know kind of got it a little frustrating and frankly boring because

I'm like let's just talk about real life this you know the reality is it's hard

to grow your business it's hard to be this perfect parent and I just kind of

wanted to shatter that expectation because I think it's caused a lot of

depression and anxiety and a culture that's really not fair as women have

entered the workforce we have this mental load that I've talked about

recently finally found the word for it for what

I've kind of looked for for years where and and we're all working parents do but

I think women carried it a little heavier as the lead parent usually and

just kind of starting to put names to things and a little bit of relief and so

I've had this overwhelming response email with social media messages people

coming up to me that I don't even know like a well stack in different events

and saying you know thank you it was such a relief to hear that it's real and

that it's authentic when you started to do these videos were they for yourself

for your clients for prospects for advisors like who was the intended

audience or was it just for yourself like to just vent so Matt Ackerman at

InvestmentNews is a friend of mine and he has always told me he's like I love

your post because I'd feel the same way and I'm traveling a lot and he has two

two boys as well so we were just kind of shooting the breeze talking about he was

like it would be such a cool video series because I was actually gonna make

it blog post or book so I actually have the story you had cameras in your house

yeah okay it's like a reality show yeah yeah and it was funny because they

filmed me going to school the first day of school for my sons and so I had a lot

of text messages from moms like if he started a reality you found the right

medium because that like we're not resonating and writing it just wouldn't

have the same message I don't think so and that's kind of where when he said

video it was the first time I had ever thought about it cuz I'm not gonna

produce that myself I don't have the I don't know how to been or financial

advisors we're not there right yeah and so I'd never thought about it and then

it was kind of like well what's the purpose I mean there's nothing

investment related in it it but it the relatability I think was that's why I

was gonna say to you because if if people that are not financial advisors

but they're just like potential investors in your firm you know they

they would they're the type of people that you would normally bring on as

clients but they do something else they work in you know a bank or a

software company or an oil company whatever if they come across to you in

that setting like living your real life carrying one kid feeding the other one

people seeing you in that setting I just for me it feels so much more relatable

like this isn't somebody on Instagram who's claiming to be an influencer and

elevating this like platinum version of themself this is somebody that's like

look it is what it is I'm doing my best I'm doing a pretty good job considering

everything I'm dealing with somebody seeing that I feel like if if they're

smart and they get it they would be like that's somebody that I trust with my

life decisions my money and I'm guessing you got that response yeah and a lot of

our clients are living that life so they're most of the time - and working

households and they're they have difficult jobs and so I loved the

response from a client that I don't get to speak to a lot because she's a doctor

and her hours are insane and her husband's a traveling sales professional

and so and they have two girls that are young you know 10 12 years old so I mean

they're juggling it's the same story good house so she would always respond

to me after we put those videos out and she's like I love these this is my life

too you know and so how old are your kids so they're five and eight - boys

okay I have 13 and 10 what would your I'm like 0.3 and 3 almost the real

juggle yeah yeah when so I loved your I've told you I loved your piss

yesterday it was so real it's like relatable and I just I've looked at the

last 10 years lately just hitting a milestone for me and I know you've put

out like your last kind of few years and moving out of the burger you know yeah

burger and so there's a lot of sentiment to that and and kind of seeing how far

things go but man you're really in the throes of yeah there's the juggle but I

would tell you it gets easier but it does it doesn't it's just different and

well so with like I get this all the time how do you find time to do with all

these things yeah and you would just around your kids schedule so I went to

the movies on Saturday night I hope Smiths I saw ten o'clock movie that's

like yeah yeah right and it changes I mean now I love doing stuff with my kids

I'm not as much dying to go you know just my husband and I eat alone I mean

that stuff's great but we love the four of us do you go out together and like my

kids love sushi i love sushi you know experiencing new we just went

to a Korean barbecue restaurant together like that's fun to me

whereas when they were you know 0 and 3 was my version of hell so you're kind of

a reformed broker also yeah you and I don't have that dissimilar of a

background right um prior to becoming an advisor like how did you get into the

business what was your start so I call myself the accidental advisor I was

working in a lot yeah I was in fashion PR in New York actually and hated it and

have had a lot of cool experiences but just really didn't find that a long-term

picture for me and so worked with a recruiter and took a job right

nearby at Jennison associates which is an institutional money manager and so I

was kind of the liaison between the clients and the firm and really learned

that this can be a relationship business which I don't think on the institutional

side you find all the time and I really learned how to work with people and the

relatability I became very close to a lot of the clients and I watched the

wedding video of one of the clients daughters on the phone with him and he

was the CFO of a huge company and I just found that they taught me a lot about

not only working in finance but that it was about managing the personal

relationship and I loved that and so when I wanted to move back to North

Carolina and was an advisor at a wire house so I took an opportunity there and

then in the financial crisis they completely terminated my training

program that I had been in for the biggest favor imaginable oh yeah at the

time you know you think it's the worst thing and I wanted to get out of the

business but I met my partner whom I'd known for three years already

we met in O six right when I moved back to North Korea and he's from New York so

it was kind of this interesting and he's only three or four years older than I am

so we were both really young I was 28 and he was in his early 30s he had just

started the his own firm kind of gone off from a group so he was like I just

can't watch another young person get out of the business well I was like but I

don't I just had interviewed and felt like I was just going from one sinking

ship to another and can I had a bad taste in my mouth for the business and

had a lot of great experiences starting out but had a lot of just felt like I

couldn't do what I wanted to do which was well that's how they say like your

life would have been totally different had that training program survived the

financial crisis and you stuck it out first of all you wouldn't be doing

videos and like potion speaking on stages you

wouldn't really have that much control over where you get your clients from

like your life were to turn out very differently so like it's a it's a

similar thing like I changed from being a broker to an advisor during the crisis

also so like I can very much relate and I shudder to think like what would

happen if I were still a Series seven registered rep somewhere like you know

my life was very different too and and I and I look back and I'm so grateful and

but you know kind of the point of where you were saying like I shared that it's

hard it was so hard and I got married I've had two children three pregnancies

were innovated a house three times moved and built an advisory firm started

another business this year I've done a lot of I've did the video series with

investment news tried to be a good mom my oldest son played 270 baseball games

this year and I was at all of them that I could that's right baseball mom yeah

but it's not easy and that's the message that because I have people all the time

say exactly what you said how do you do all these things I choked I don't sleep

a lot I'm a night out but it's you figure it out and you find what's most

important to you and you follow the passions like you find time for what

matters yeah you make your own priorities yeah the last thing I want to

ask you you last year or earlier this year started an organization for women

who work in I think it's mainly financial advisor it's financial

advisors okay and basically it's not like this incredibly complex thing it's

like conversations and a community with people that are on the same path and

want to help each other can you speak a little bit about what that what that's

all about yeah it's the female advisor network and it really just came out of

me and the experiences we were talking about not feeling like I had a network

of women throughout my career I do now but I kept meeting with women that we

had the same or similar shared experiences separately and I just felt

like we could probably do better as a community and figure out a way to work

together so I started with a retreat which I had someone from a you know a

friend from your organization and no nowhere can come this year and so just

loved being with those women but planning that I thought you know this

this is amazing and I still want to do it but I think we could go bigger and

then started to kind of formulate with some and I called you when I wanted to

launch it and some friends and saying you know what do you think and you know

how can we get the word out and so it's been amazing and the feedbacks been huge

they there are a lot of programs to help women network as a community together

and so wherever you are in your career and I think we have between 30 and 40

percent have over 15 years in the business within the community so it's

not just for new advisers and I think those women are getting as much out of

it as as new ones it's really wherever you are and whether you want to connect

in person or digitally there's a way for you to you should have I you should have

you should have hundreds of members like like people people that are looking for

their community whether they find it in person or online like there are just so

many things that are on addressed and I hope that this thing really takes off

for you do you remember the first time you and I

spoke yes it was about around the same thing you you posted a blog post looking

for women and and I loved that you owned you had kind of created an organization

that you yeah you were proud of the people here but they didn't really

reflect exactly what you wanted to enlarge them so you

so I right I did this thing like I'm struggling to find and hire more women

in my organization and I feel like like I'm failing in a in an important area

and like a bunch people reached out and it was almost all encouraging but you

were like dude you're a mess let's get on the phone I was like no we're not

unicorns but like I can help you did help you did help me you're awesome

I will never I will never forget that I really appreciate it

how do you want people to follow you and and find your stuff so you're at and no

ru n O'Neill in O'Neill 510 at and O'Neill 510 on Twitter yeah so I'm on

LinkedIn as well and then I'd love for anyone guys or girls to follow the

female advisor network which is at the female advisor on Twitter and there's

also Instagram Facebook Linkedin so you can just search for this awesome

thanks for coming by and appreciated alright let us know

what you think is is balancing running any business financial advisory or

otherwise and family is it is it hard is it easy for you what makes it hard what

makes it easy we love your feedback go ahead and subscribe to the channel if

you have not already follow nina on all of her channels and we will be back with

you soon