Advisor Spotlight

Welcome to our Advisor Spotlight Series. This is where we spotlight individual advisors who have great talent and skill, and volunteered to share their story.

How did you start to build your business?

The base of my clients (many of who are still with me today) are from my time at Ameriprise Financial. From here, my game plan was always to ‘pound the pavement’ and dial leads. I was always looking for ways to expand my lead source and early in my humble career, I was fortunate enough to connect with my local school district/403(b) market, along with a couple of local state colleges. This resulted in a solid base, reputation, and referral of educators who, in turn, trust me to serve in their best interest.

Another lead generation source is through my affiliation with the Dave Ramsey Group as an ELP/SmartVestor Pro. If you’re not familiar with Dave Ramsey, he is an eight-time national best-selling author, personal finance expert, and hosts a nationally syndicated radio program for The Ramsey Show that is heard by 23 million listeners weekly. I have been affiliated with Dave Ramsey for over 12 years.

My typical client age range is between 40-65. I primarily focus on pre-retirees and retirees.

As with my constant need for learning and development, I find that the same holds true with prospects. I always try to learn as much as I can about the prospect prior to our introductory meetings. LinkedIn is a great source. I also try to ascertain the prospects primary financial concerns or their reason for seeking financial advice – also, to determine if they might have a unique circumstance that I might need to research ahead of time.  

Another great piece of advice given to me by an estate planning attorney and friend early in my career was to never change my phone number. Prospects will store that number and call you out of the blue. Sometimes, even a year later. This has proven true many times.

Finally, I always try to provide a concise summary of myself and my team and what makes us different from the many other advisors that will eventually call them. 

Regardless of where the lead comes from, recognizing that before a client becomes a “client”, they are a prospect, and their journey starts well before they call you (or you call them). They go through a journey of awareness, consideration, decision, and delight – often referred to as the “ClientJourney” and each touch point in this journey builds (or deters) from the last. 

What makes you and your pratice unique?

What makes me and my team unique comes down to the value I add to my client relationship, their performance, and our interaction.

As a CFP®, I am enthusiastic about doing comprehensive financial planning for my clients and working closely with their tax advisors and estate planning attorneys. It provides deeper insight and understanding of my client profile, and foresight of potential areas to address.

I am also an avid reader and love doing investment research. This has resulted in building customized portfolios for my clients. Currently, I have also been researching and learning about option trading strategies, and have incorporated this into my practice, as a value-added service for some of my larger clients to generate extra portfolio yield. 

My day/week is always structured and maximized. I find this to be very important because it affords me the focus to best serve my clients. My first hour of the day in the office is usually spent catching up on the news and responding to emails. Most of my day is typically spent either in prospect or client meetings. If I am not in a meeting, I am actively dialing new leads, following up with prior leads, or consulting with Rob Alvarez on a client case or potential solutions for a case.  

As a team, we segment our book of business between 3 tiers, mainly A, B & C ratings. We try to meet with A clients on a quarterly basis, B clients, on a semi-annual basis, and C clients on an annual basis. But there is always a monthly touch point via a newsletter. 

We strive to be as proactive as possible. I believe that clients appreciate a proactive approach. We also try to position ourselves as our clients most trusted and knowledgeable experts. We have gone above and beyond the basic education level to be an advisor and we always strive to put our client’s best interest first.

I believe that investing in my education (in particular the CFP®), has provided an invaluable return that has uniquely set me and my team apart from the competition. 

How do you use technology?

I encourage my clients to use RBC Investor Connect and RBC Circle Black technology.



I find myself, more and more, texting with clients through RedTail Speak. Form the client’s point of view, it is just a regular text message, but it makes the advisors life easier as all the messages are in a single interface.

FactSet is the newest application that will be a big part of my practice going forward.

A modern website with proper SEO marketing is a must. As I mentioned earlier, we do actively market ourselves through the Dave Ramsey SmartVestor Pro network among other online lead services. 

Where possible we encourage clients to physically come into the office to meet with us. Also, now with Zoom and utilizing Calendly as our Digital Assistant, we do most of our meetings virtually, both for service meetings and prospecting.

With that said, every client is welcomed to speak with us via telephone or Zoom call as necessary, and we make this known during periodic newsletter communications.

If you would like to be considered for our Advisor Spotlight Series, please get in touch and let us know!

This information is provided for internal use only by NBC Securities Financial Advisors.