NoB$ Wealth: Episode 4: Sheryl Hickerson – CEO of Females & Finance

[00:00:00] Stoy Hall: All right. Welcome. Our first guest ever in our No Bs well podcast. The best guest, the best. That’s why she first, Duh. Cheryl Hooken, Cheryl Brown when I originally knew her, and now she’s married to a beautiful wild guy and he’s just amazing. Yeah, 

[00:00:23] Sheryl Hickerson: she’s wild. Yeah, sure. We come 

[00:00:25] Stoy Hall: on our show, um, in the spring when they come in here in, in office.

[00:00:28] But, um, Cheryl, welcome. Thanks for coming. Um, we’re excited about this. Uh, I think this will be a great one specifically because of females in finance and our theme of the topic of the day, which we’ll get to, um, is going to be choosing, uh, a professional and, and why people are not choosing financial professionals.

[00:00:49] Sheryl Hickerson: So, yeah, no, I’m excited to be here. I’m so proud of you. Thank you. I am, I’m so proud of you. I tell, I tell people all the time, like, you’re my family. I met along the way. Yep. Sure 

[00:00:58] Stoy Hall: am Sure I am. Um, so we start everything off with, uh, when you’re in office, obviously, uh, your favorite beverage. So you said your favorite beverage is what?

[00:01:07] Good old fashioned 

[00:01:08] Sheryl Hickerson: sweet tea here in the 

[00:01:08] Stoy Hall: state of Missouri. Good old Southern Sweet Tea. So the reason we bring that up is, one, we want you to describe what it means to you, what it tastes like, et cetera. And then what we do is we kind of say, Hey, what does this say about who you are as a person? So why don’t you tell us what it tastes like and what it means to you?

[00:01:28] Uh, 

[00:01:28] Sheryl Hickerson: yeah. So good sweet tea. Now there’s, we have different levels of it, you know, So my husband likes diabetes, sweet tea, like, so teeth ro. Like, you could literally like go ahead and drink it and schedule the dental appointment cause you need it. Uh, not so much for me. I have a tendency to like it so that it’s kind of like half and half, like half sweet, half.

[00:01:50] Just a little hint of sweet and, uh, it, it’s, you know, just childhood. I remember growing up in Missouri, uh, hot summers and I didn’t come from a well to do family and like any my, um, I had a, I had a, a notebook that used to keep all of my, when I’m rich one day on and it was from the JCPenney catalog. I used to go through it and I’d tear things out and I would paste them into this notebook of the things I wanted.

[00:02:15] One of the things on there was I wanted refrigerator that had an ice maker. Not outside where you put it outside your cup or something like that. Mm-hmm. , I was totally good with reaching into the little thing and I’d go to people’s homes who had that and they were so rich. Ooh. They were rich . And uh, you know, and it’s true, but the ice tea was something that we had a lot of times.

[00:02:35] Cause it was very inexpensive and you always knew who the person in the family is who makes the best. It it you just, that’s who’s gonna make it. Uh, and they would bring it to every family, get together, supper. And, uh, so it’s, so when I travel, one of the things, here’s my work around for anybody who’s a sweet tea fan like I am, uh, go into the thing and ask them for some simple syrup from behind the bar and put in none of that granulated sugar on the, and sugar in the raw.

[00:03:06] Stop it. I don’t, don’t come at me and send me anything. I don’t want it . I want the real. Teeth. I’m sure it’s got corn syrup and modified whatever. I don’t care. Put it in the tea. It just feels great. I love it. Hey, I 

[00:03:19] Stoy Hall: love some sweet tea too, but I’m more like you. I don’t want it over. Sweet. I even like it a little Arnie polymer style with the little lemonade like those cuz it cuts.

[00:03:27] Oh yeah. I’ve done that too. That’s usually what I go with. Yeah, that’s, yeah. 

[00:03:31] Sheryl Hickerson: That’s interesting though. That’s like you tricks of the trade there with the, with the uh, yeah, with the simple syrup right there. That’s tricks of the trade. I, I, not necessarily the biggest sweet tea fan. I like, again, like Arnold Palmers and different stuff like that, but maybe it’ll be better without just regular sugar and use the simple syrup.

[00:03:50] Yeah. Don’t, Oh, like people here, if you said you gave a sugar packet, they look at you like, , what am I doing with that? What is, They’re like, No, no. And we get really disappointed in the restaurants if we go to and we say we want a sweet tea and they say they don’t have it. We’re like, Why are you in Missouri?

[00:04:07] I don’t understand. How are you, 

[00:04:09] Stoy Hall: how are you below the border of the United States and then the 

[00:04:12] Sheryl Hickerson: south at all? And you don’t have, if you go into a quick trip here, and I don’t know if y’all have trip, we do Quick trip. Do you? Okay. So if you come here, there’s literally an ice tea station and it has like, I’m not, no joke.

[00:04:23] I think there’s at least 10 different kind and you can get the flavored this and this and go along and you get the, the little kids, they think they’re really, you know, crazy cuz they’ll go to each, every one of ’em, fill up a cup and tastes terrible. Don’t do that. Okay. Bet they’re kids. I remember doing that as a kid for sure.

[00:04:38] Yeah. Oh yeah. We a 14 year old. Do those that with the icy machine, like the blue one. This and, and they come out and you’re like, when that melts you’re still drinking it no matter what color it comes out. Just evening . I didn’t know Missouri was known for tea. It’s a south tea tea. I had no idea. Uh, our flat pizza, you know, our Emos, our tea RAVs, our toasted raviolis.

[00:05:02] Yeah, 

[00:05:03] Stoy Hall: I can get behind somet though, but let’s talk about what that sweet tea means and how it, it comes out in your persona. Right. 

[00:05:11] Sheryl Hickerson: Well, I think, Yeah, and I do think that, it’s funny when you ask that question of me, the, I think that it’s, I, it roots me so when I go places, I feel like it’s home and, and I think that each of us look for a little bit of that when we go travel.

[00:05:25] I mean, it’s funny, I was just at this personal development thing down in Fort Lauderdale and they were talking about your operating system. I really believe in that, and my operating system is, I’d love to feel comfort. I like comfort, I like things that are comfortable. Uh, not ever wearing heels to a conference again, Sorry.

[00:05:43] If you invite me, me and the tendencies are coming for you. I’m like a mullet. I’m, you know, business here, party on the, so, but, you know, I think it brings comfort and, and I like that. It’s like the one thing that whenever I go someplace I can ask for that and go, that’s a little bit of home with me. And, and it’s a little bit of, I, I am proud to be a missourian.

[00:06:04] I grew up here and it’s not always the, the highlight of everybody else’s life, but for me, you know, we have amazing things. We have the, the, the, you know, the tallest nat, you know, manmade national monuments. Um, I know lots of weird things about the art, uh, but stuff like that I think is, it just brings home to me.

[00:06:22] And as far as how it makes me, uh, I think that how it relates to my business with females in finance, for example, community. There’s no place here in Missouri that you can go to. You go in anyone’s home. If you came in my home, I would have tea. We always have it like it’s just staple in our house. And if I go into someone’s home and they don’t, I I am, I’m totally judgy, , I’ll leave and get the car.

[00:06:49] I will get to the car and say to Darrell, I’m like, They didn’t even have tea. And like, you don’t even know if you can trust them. Are they? Are they really s if they don’t have their tea? So it’s funny how, you know people do that, but I would, But it is, 

[00:07:03] Stoy Hall: it’s community. I would definitely say the community, um, the home feel family, right?

[00:07:08] It’s your culture is part of it. But also the reason you don’t like it super sweet is you’re kind of that way too. You’re sweet, you, you’re sweet enough, but also you’re gonna get, you’re gonna get shit done, right. You’re gonna get the job done right? And so I think that’s the way with you and your tea is also enough sweet.

[00:07:23] I have, I have enough sweetness to me, but also I’m also going to whatever needs to be done, get done. And that’s to me who you 

[00:07:30] Sheryl Hickerson: are. Aw. Oh my God. Now don’t you make me cry in this podcast, . Don’t you do it. Don’t you do it? You’re crying. It’s first guess. Shoot, do it. No crying in 

[00:07:39] Stoy Hall: Podcasts podcast, Steve. But, but if it happens, it happens.

[00:07:43] But that’s truly who, um, who you are to me. And I think that’s, it’s hilarious, that sweet tea and how it all comes out to be so, um, now let’s give 

[00:07:51] Sheryl Hickerson: you, we did that, or vodka, So I thought the sweet tea sounded better, but No. Hey, vodka’s 

[00:07:55] Stoy Hall: great too, but it’s 9:00 AM There’s nothing wrong like Donald Palmers.

[00:08:00] Yeah, that’s, We can add the vodka to it, depending on how we feel. Well, I 

[00:08:03] Sheryl Hickerson: think all Jeremiah for alcoholic, when we talk, So Jeremiah Wheat is a, is a tea, tea flavored vodka. Yeah. 

[00:08:12] Stoy Hall: Yeah. And it’s pretty delicious. It’s okay. I mean, it’ll get the job. Yeah, 

[00:08:17] Sheryl Hickerson: there’s actually a sign, I think I’m gonna take a picture next time.

[00:08:19] Caroline go down the road and it says, we like our tea. And, and what it is, it’s, it’s like it’s alcoholic tea, but they knew when they put that sign up in Missouri, we were like, Yeah, yeah, we do, We do. I need some of that Well in build it, they’ll 

[00:08:33] Stoy Hall: come. Yeah. In Missouri you guys like to drink too, so let’s, let’s be honest.

[00:08:37] Yes. This isn’t just a, that’s not dry state by means. Yes. So 

[00:08:41] Sheryl Hickerson: we do. I like that. T equals trust. 

[00:08:44] Stoy Hall: T equals trust. There you go. 

[00:08:46] Sheryl Hickerson: You go just, you know, going into someone’s home if you didn’t even know them, but they had tea. Yeah. It is open. The thing that breaks it for you. Yeah. That’s pretty, My, my daughter just had her, she’s on the ver they’re getting ready to, to get married and uh, the, the boyfriend brings his family to the house this weekend.

[00:09:05] And the very first thing I was, It’s so funny, I stopped everything and I’m like, Do we have tea? Do we have everything? You’re like, Yeah. So they come to the house and sure enough, First thing, we’re a little thirsty. I’m like, Would you like some tea? Yes, Yes 

[00:09:19] Stoy Hall: I would. And if you didn’t, guess what? It would’ve been awkward forever.

[00:09:22] Sheryl Hickerson: They get a car and they’re like, Guess what? Nope. She didn’t have tea . I know. And if mom wrote on the Facebook post, like, the parents have met and she’s like, They’re real nice. And I said to my husband, I said, They wouldn’t have said that if he didn’t. Teeth . Yep. Cuz you had tea. Yep. Uh, that isn’t like, they’re okay.

[00:09:40] They’re good people, but they didn’t have tea, so it’s like, you actually can’t wear 

[00:09:44] Stoy Hall: her parents didn’t have . Uh, they’re not one of us. We you got, We gotta move on. Find another one. . Throw that one away. That one away. All right, let’s get into, um, female, some finance, which is one of the most important things about today.

[00:09:58] Um, and I want you to start from the grassroots of it all right? Yeah. And kind of where we’re at today. We’ll be sure to obviously post all your links and all that stuff. But, um, let’s, let’s dive into that. 

[00:10:11] Sheryl Hickerson: So, 2017, January, 2017, I was at an event in San Antonio, Texas. I had been asked to speak normal conference event, uh, about 300 people in the room.

[00:10:23] It’s pretty average. And I was going there to talk about marketing cuz I got a bunch of awards that say I do that really, really well. And I was sitting, I’ll never forget, you know how when something’s really important, you have that ability to remember Exactly. And I remember they had, you know, clam shell tables we’re all sitting in rounds looking up and I was sitting, there were, uh, not a lot of women that’s shocked.

[00:10:46] And so I, it was my turn to talk. So I go and I get micd up and as I’m standing there, the event coordinator and I said, How, how many cheeks and seats a day? And she says, three, about 300. I’m like, I said, How’d you get here? How’d you have to get here? And she’s like, You’re supposed to qualify, but it’s always about who they invite or whatever.

[00:11:01] And I’m like, Okay, sounds. So I walk up to the podium and I get behind the lectern and I start to say hi. And I took pause. Because I looked out, and there were two things that were just glaringly obvious about that room. One, there were four women and I feel like they tried to diversify it like a portfolio, like one in 25% and one in 25% and one in 25.

[00:11:23] Like they had put us at these tables very strategically. Uh, but then, you know, two, there was not a single person of color. Not one. And I stood there for a minute and I thought, How on earth are we in San Antonio, Texas? And there’s not for, I mean, I don’t even understand this. So I’m looking around the room and I’m like, Okay.

[00:11:43] So I, I start to do, you know, and I’m talking about it. And I’m real interactive if you know me by now. So I just like to bring the crowd in with man, you know, And, uh, we have a good time. I’m high energy. That’s always the number one marks on my speaker cards. Like she really brings it. And, and I leave and I go back down.

[00:12:01] I sit down on my seat, I take off, you know, and the gentleman who get up gets up next is actually who changed my life, whether he knows it or not. He got up and he said this, Wow, San Antonio, this is great. You guys have a lot of shopping here. And, uh, if I wanna hold onto my retirement account, I better hold my wife’s hand and you know, all through the stores.

[00:12:22] Otherwise she’s gonna spend it all, all the men laugh. The women did not. And I was very, very, cuz I thought, Who you, what are you talking about? You know, I’m the one who manages the money in the house, right? I don’t know what you’re talking about. And that kind of, we, I left San Antonio that day. Forever changed.

[00:12:39] And I got on a flight, I went home. And I want you to imagine somebody who’s in pretty publicly in social media. And I erased a hundred percent of my content as in every single post I’ve ever made. It took me days, every post, every article, every single thing, and said, From this day forward, I’m only going to feature women and people of color in my stuff.

[00:13:02] And that’s it. And a way we went. And so females of finance was really birthed from the idea that I was tired of looking for what I needed. Because what I didn’t need was a club. I, we do not need another middle, you know, middle aged white women’s club either. I wanted a community of professionals who.

[00:13:26] Want to have an abundance mindset and come back and give back, who want to take some for themselves too, because we all wanna, you know, move up to that next whatever it is that rung for us. And then the third part of it was how do we get everybody to get along? Because I was really tired of the fee only planner yelling at the insurance commission person and acting like neither one of their work is either, doesn’t matter or theirs is better.

[00:13:51] How do we bring all of that together and structure it in a way we went. And so I just randomly one night, uh, I started actually calling women. We started doing a, um, sort of like a, an in informal research. I wanted to understand. Really four main elements. And I had a couple bonus questions. So the first one was, how did you get here?

[00:14:10] I wanted to understand how did you get recruited? And I called everybody from people who were, uh, creating the life insurance policies in the, you know, in the gooey, on the gooey system at insurance companies, all the way up to including CEOs of very, very large, you know, investment in insurance organizations to ask them, How did you get here?

[00:14:31] So what did the recruiting process look like for you? How did you train yourself? Was it proactive? Was it reactive? Uh, do you have a mentor? What does that relationship look like today? Are you now still a mentee? Are you mentoring? And then I wanted to understand, did you advance, How did you advance your career?

[00:14:49] Because I was really interested in the retention. What did that look like on the, on the inside that they keep telling us is so terrible in a way, we went 383 women. I interviewed over the course of 14 months, and when people ask me Why that number? I said, Have you ever called 383 women? It’s enough. . We’re good.

[00:15:08] It’s enough, we’re good. And I didn’t actually know that I’d done a pretty fair amount of research at that point. Pretty much anything over a hundred would’ve been a good, uh, decent base. Two 50 for sure is a good foundation. So almost 400. That, that was enough that we were able, So I met with Professor Monique, Greg, who uh, had dinner with her down.

[00:15:28] She’s at, uh, university, uh, North Texas University. She’s a gender equality specialist. And I wanted to understand, and we talked and dialoged over and went through some of it, the two bonus questions that I didn’t mention were, became actually some of the most impactful part of the work. I asked them, Have you ever worked or has said man ever been, uh, either your mentor, have they ever championed your efforts and do you feel successful today because success is intrinsic, how you feel successful?

[00:15:56] Soy is gonna feel different than how I do, or Ryan or Lisa. All of this. And what I found was really interesting. 100%, not 91, not 73, not nine 100% of the women who answered the question, I feel successful also said I had a male ally along the way who helped with that trajectory. So I knew that we needed to have male allies as a part of the group.

[00:16:21] What I do also wanna add though, I heard some very interesting dialogue from the women of color that I interviewed, and they were very, uh, certain to be, uh, answered the questions, you know, very firm and, and gave, but they were very quick to say, also, I just wanna be seen for my work. I wanna be seen for my work.

[00:16:42] I thought that was really, really interesting because I thought, I do see your for, that’s why you’re on my call log and why I’m calling you. But that was a learning thing for me because as a woman who also, by the way, I have two children of color, um, I see my children. I just see them, they’re just my kids.

[00:16:59] I never dawned on me as adults how much that was transferable over. And now all of a sudden I’m seeing like, whoa, okay, we really got, I still have lots of learning to do. And a way we went and I remembered the day that I pulled up Facebook and I just thought, I’ll just create a group. It’ll be sort of a re repository of getting people there.

[00:17:20] And I said to Darrell at the time, I’m like, If I get a couple hundred women together and we could really talk about change, I said, Think about what we could do. Eight days later, no joke, I had way more than 200 people who had already come and said, Hey, I wanna be a part of this. And I do vet everyone I’m looking for, and I’m very clear with them.

[00:17:40] I wanna see abundance minded people. We’re here, uh, to lift one another up. We are not a club. I have no time for that. You know, uh, I’m, I wanna know how we can make more money, how we can get more women involved, et cetera, and away we go. Um, I think that about nine months in is when we started the MAN initiative.

[00:18:00] A man stands for male ally network and we had our inaugural panel of men and I was out there asking them, if you’re a great male ally, who do you know is another one? Generally speaking, you, we all tend to hang out together. Like we’re in the same area and they were doing that left and right. And I will say this, um, today we are a community.

[00:18:25] Fast forwarding, we actually became a formal organization April 2nd, 2019. And so just to little over going into almost, you know, our third year now we’re, uh, you know, 30, 3300 people. Woo 3,246. I always know my number and it’s because, and I think that’s important. Uh, if there’s any one thing I ever learned, I was not successful at Weight Watchers myself, this all right, I like me.

[00:18:51] I’m good. Don’t need that. But I did learn one very important. Thing that they do at Weight Watchers and I built everything around a lot. What they’re doing, they build a community of people, they do a lot of technology. They’re very tech advanced. Every pound counts because every person counts. Everybody matters in this.

[00:19:10] If we’re gonna do this, and I think that sounds kind of silly sometimes if you think about it, but every time that I’ve looked at community, true community, whether it’s, you know, using example of Weight Watchers, using the example of Ellen De Jenners and her community of people and how it’s built, they’re all do gooders.

[00:19:26] She’s got her tribe people what it looks like. Um, even to the point of my friends who are really involved in like the LDS community, the community is always about the community. And I thought that’s what we need to do. I don’t want a club. I want a community. And then here we are today and we’re doing business and doing things together.

[00:19:45] And do I have all the answers? Hell no. I do not. But do I know great people who do? Yes, I do. And those who choose to help and I wanna keep working towards making those a premier organization of individuals. Not all of them. We don’t need all of them. I don’t want all of them. 

[00:20:02] Stoy Hall: Yeah. And I, and I think that’s a, a very big point cuz um, I think it was, it, it was last year.

[00:20:08] Um, and this is gonna attest to who you are and who the community is. Um, there was some comments and some things that had happened, um, in our Facebook chat and some other things. And, um, you had gotten rid of those people from the community. And I think that’s a huge proponent of you in how real you are.

[00:20:26] Because females in finance is not designed to be, Hey, we want a hundred million people involved. It’s designed to, we want the select few who actually care and who are going to demonstrate. What we want. And that’s being real and helping people, not only advisors, but clients and all of the above. Um, and none of that other BS that’s involved.

[00:20:46] And I’m, I’m glad, like I know we talked in depth about it and you were stressed during that time period, but it was a, it was a very simple answer for you to be like, No, they’re not part of us. That’s not who we are. That’s not what we represent. And if that toxicity is in our community, then, then what do we really have?

[00:21:02] And I, you know, I applaud you for that. Um, and I think that attest again to what this community is all about and why it’s growing, you know, by a thousand people a year, basically 

[00:21:13] Sheryl Hickerson: and even foster. Yeah, I know. It’s kind of crazy. It’s, it’s funny because now I never, and you know, I don’t, I don’t know if a lot of people realize it.

[00:21:21] It’s just me that talks about the community. Like, I don’t have paid advertising. I don’t have money for that. I don’t have, uh, you know, I don’t, and I don’t want it, like, I don’t need it to be popping up on your, as a sponsored ad someplace. Uh, I do, you know, and as we’ve grown. I adopted principles of how membership organizations work, but I adapted ’em to what we need, what do we need out of it.

[00:21:45] Uh, and I think that’s really critical. And one of the things that I needed was, I needed an advisory board to make certain I was staying, you know, focused on what our, your principles. I needed really good, you know, marketing input as far as like a third person, even though I’m a pretty good marketer, I wanted to have another person, you know, looking over and saying, Yes, this is a good idea, or, Hey, did you think about that?

[00:22:08] Because the extra set of eyes always, always, always is better than your own. Uh, but, you know, measure twice, cut once. That’s what I’m map writing on. I want to hear, am I doing this, you know, correctly. And, uh, when I remember when I first started females and finance, one of my very first phone calls was to Joscelyn Wright at Ascension Wealth.

[00:22:26] And at the time, you know, she’s with the American College. And I said to her, I said, I need your assistance on something. As a fellow, you know, speaker, we show up at a lot of Vincents. She’s like, Yeah. I said, And this is awkward for me to ask, so I need you to help me. And she goes, Okay. And I said, How do I make certain I don’t just build another white women’s club?

[00:22:47] She goes, Oh, thank you for asking. Thank you. And that’s a really, I, I like to bring that up because it’s, we, we can’t keep acting like things don’t matter. They matter. Our words matter. Our actions matter. Representation matters. And here I am, even though I feel. Strong ally in that space. I’m always vulnerable to the point of, am I doing the right thing?

[00:23:13] Am I saying the right thing? Am I being, am I being authentic? Cause I promise I’m coming from that space. It’s not fake or, you know, contrived or, uh, and, you know, she was very instrumental in being an advisor in that space early on for me. So I’d like to give credit words due. And it was Jocelyn, she’s, she’s a rockstar.

[00:23:32] And that’s actually how I got involved with learning about Quad a, you know, and I had started learning more about what, you know, the work they were doing and, uh, how I met, you know, got really more involved with Renee. So Renee Norris is on my advisor board second year coming up. And, uh, she was somebody I just admired from afar and now she’s, you know, just one of my, my greatest friends and personal advocates.

[00:23:56] So I just think that we need to be having open dialogue and just because I’m gonna tell this really quick, just because my focus is here. Does not discount other people. And I really hope that there’s anything. I don’t care. You wanna come join females in finance and we will love and hug on you and bring you in.

[00:24:17] Great. We’ll meet you where you’re at, but if there’s any one thing that I promise that I want you to hear, anyone who’s listening to this, whether you are an advisor, you work with an advisor, equity equity is the most important change factor out of anything we can do. And equity doesn’t come at the cost of anyone else.

[00:24:40] I have 10 grandkids. My two older boys were getting ice cream one day I told you the story, but this is the way I realized. This is how easy it is. I scooped the ice cream into the bowls for the boys, I hand it to them, and Avery came over their little sister, she’s six me two, grandma, I want some. And I’m like, Okay.

[00:25:00] So I grab another bowl down, scoop out, and as soon as she starts to walk away, She looks over and she comes like, Hey, Jason Carter got more than me. And I said, Oh, I’m sorry. And I reached in and I scooped it out, evened it out. And I said, Does that look? And she goes, Yep. And she bye. And she’s off. You know, can’t wait to find ice cream in my house, everyplace else.

[00:25:21] keep it real around here, you know? But my grandson walked over to me and he says, Grandma, he says she’s littler than me. Why should she get the same? She’s, And I said, What do you care? Didn’t come outta your bowl. Why are you worried about that? She got the scoop out of the, the ice cream bowl, and as soon as it, it literally, you could see the light click in his head.

[00:25:40] It did not come at his cost. So he let go and was like, Oh, you’re right. Off he went. I thought, how do we teach grownups that? That’s what equity is? It didn’t come out of your bowl. So that to me, like I said, if there’s anything you hear out of this today, I want to be in rooms of people who believe. And that kind of changed.

[00:26:03] It’s 

[00:26:03] Stoy Hall: huge too. Um, because that, that philosophy in our industry is really, really poor. Right. You had mentioned it with FI only and, and, and insurance commissions. Um, I mean, we, we look around even in Des Moines, around the world, advisors fight each other because we’re competition when in truly we’re not, not even close.

[00:26:23] Right. What we do at Black Mammoth is nowhere near close to what they do down the street. Right? Yeah. And so how do we, I mean, that’s a great question. Um, I’d love to get anyone’s answer on that. How do we achieve in our industry that equity of, Hey, I want to help you, or we can work together because the greater good is our clients, right?

[00:26:48] Right. We’re all gonna win in that situation. If the client wins, we all win. There’s no way around that. Right? So what is everyone’s thoughts on how we can achieve that, or at least work to achieving that? It might take us. 15 decades, I don’t know, but how can we work towards that? 

[00:27:05] Sheryl Hickerson: Yeah, I mean, I guess from my standpoint here, I think the one thing that you mentioned is everybody, we all have the exact same goal, right?

[00:27:11] It’s, it’s helping the client and we all understand it, or we all might say that to, you know, a client or something. You know, as a society where we’re not as educated in finance or we, we don’t do a good job, good enough job in the industry. We, we say this all the time, but the thing is, do we truly believe it when we’re going around and saying, Oh, hey, well that person, ah, I wouldn’t go there or I wouldn’t do that.

[00:27:37] If they’re doing something, if somebody’s going outta their way to get educated in some capacity. I think we need to applaud people for that. And I think that’s what it really needs to come down to is no matter where somebody goes, no matter what their experience has been to this point, if they’ve even sat down with somebody, we need to acknowledge that as, as an industry as a whole and say, hey.

[00:27:57] You’re doing the right things. You understand that you need to make a change for your future, and you’re on a great path regardless if it’s with me, if it’s with Lisa, if it’s with soy, if it’s with any of our past, you know, our past employers that we’ve been with, you’re making a change and you, you did that on your own and, and kudos to you.

[00:28:19] Yeah, and I think you talked about mindset early, like the abundance, mindset, abundance versus scarcity. And I think that is in a lot of people’s mind, um, as an advisor, as their company, that they’re trying to get as many people as they can versus, you know, we’re trying to find people that wanna work with us or excited to work with us.

[00:28:39] They’re diverse in thought and opinion in all kinds of different things. And I think the abundance mindset, if we go at it in that way versus scarcity, and we, there isn’t. I think it’ll be better for everybody and we can collaborate more, we can work together more, and in end it serves the client and the people and the company if we go that route.

[00:29:00] And I think that’s typically what’s missing. Yeah, I think it’s really interesting because there’s dialogue that could be happening in every community today at varying levels. And a lot of them are not happening for a variety of reasons. Representation. We don’t have people even to serve communities. And what I find is really interesting about that particular comment, uh, a good example of this is that I had a very high end, very high end attorney get very aggravated with me because we offer, if females of finance, we have, uh, access to a state documentation services.

[00:29:40] Okay? These are for everyday people. These are some people that live in communities. The subdivisions can keep their home. I’m, I’m so sick of the GoFundMe. I’m not kidding. I’m so tired of GoFundMe because it’s awkward. Let’s be honest. Yeah. You, the person who sets up the the GoFundMe, it’s awkward cuz you gotta tell your friend like, I’m gonna help you.

[00:29:59] And the friend’s like, it’s awkward for them. Like, don’t do that cuz I don’t want people to know that we don’t have money. It’s awkward for me who’s scrolling through the Facebook and like, I’ve already made, set up my donations for the month. I mean, I don’t, I don’t wanna have to, you know, and I shouldn’t be put in a position where I wanna do that.

[00:30:13] You know, let me make those choices. And the whole reason is that’s representation. They didn’t have somebody there that looked like them, sounded like them, that connected with them on a level that they needed. And yet we have professionals who will fight to the death of their brain and mind and soul.

[00:30:29] That state documentation is of terrible service. Just as an example. Terrible service. You’re not gonna serve them for $500 and get them stuff. They can just, We’re just trying to keep ’em out of probate. Right? You know? Or you charge $2,500 starting just to come in and have a discussion and put things together.

[00:30:49] These families have very real needs. What is so wrong with our profession that your scarcity mentality is coming out at these high end levels, and you’re not even serving the people that are in regular, everyday sleepy communities that you’re driving by. That’s this insane to me, and instead, and I see it a lot happen on fwi.

[00:31:14] I love a lot of you people on Twitter, but boy, I sit back and watch insurance. People are terrible, da da da da da da, fee only. People are terrible, da da, da da. It’s like, stop. Stop. Because that, I promise you, it affects our equity 

[00:31:31] Stoy Hall: problems. Absolutely. And the whole theme of today of avoiding hiring professionals, us fighting each other on some petty bullshit is the reason that people don’t wanna work with us.

[00:31:41] That’s right. So it’s the reason that they are taking it upon themselves now to make all these financial decisions, which we all can agree to, is a, is not a good idea for the majority of people. No. We are the professionals. We’re the experts. We put in, I don’t even know how many hours we put in. Too many probably, um, to be experts in what we do.

[00:31:59] And I think us fighting each other, specifically the insurance versus, uh, fee only is the fact that they want to speak on something that is not their lane. And I don’t, I don’t get that right. Um, insurance people, you know, your lane don’t over, don’t overstep don’t go in a different lane. Fee only. Yeah. You chose to be fee only.

[00:32:18] So stay in your lane and you know, let the rest of us who are fee based do both and be okay with it. But, um, truthfully, that’s the reason people don’t wanna hire us is because we are fighting with each other. Now they’re going. Who do I trust? What do I do? I 

[00:32:33] Sheryl Hickerson: mean, I think, I think you make a good point too, if, if we’re sitting here going back and forth with, you know, bashing each other, like in my eyes how I was always taught is if somebody has to talk bad about somebody else, then that kind of discounts what they’re actually doing on their own, right?

[00:32:49] If you’re trying to sell me something and you have to bash another product, is your product really that great? Or is this other product better because you’re bashing it and you have to bash it to try and make yourself look better. And I think why bash each other, hype each other up a little bit and show how you’re different.

[00:33:05] If you want somebody to work with you, make it somebody who actually wants to work with you and show them, Hey, this is what we do. There’s other options, but this is, this is us. And any, any route that you choose to, you know, provide a better future for yourself is gonna be a great route. But this is what we do.

[00:33:22] Stoy Hall: But I think that com Go ahead. 

[00:33:24] Sheryl Hickerson: Oh, I was gonna say, to your point, Ryan, here in Missouri, There’s a, a free 94, there’s a, there’s a big billboard sign that I love that says, we’re the number two HVAC company. Don’t joke. We’re the, we are the second greatest HVAC company in the state of Missouri. And it, and we like the people.

[00:33:47] It says, I mean, it’s the best billboard I’ve ever seen because I wanna do business with ’em just cuz they’re so honest. We’re the second best HVAC company in Missouri and the other guys are just really good, but we are too, kind of thing. And it’s like, it’s so honest. It’s like, who wouldn’t give them a shot?

[00:34:03] Just because it’s like the underdog, You know, You just wanna, But they didn’t, they didn’t do it at the other person’s expense. I said, Yeah, they are. We’re good too. We’re good. And we’d love for you to also give us a chance. And I think that that’s, um, the wind beneath the wings kind of things. Like why can’t we not, why can I not?

[00:34:21] You know, Andy Andrews always talks about the butterfly effect. Why can’t we not just flap the wings for someone if it means that later on Lisa’s gonna lift up and be that moment of lift? You know? And I read a lot of books, so, you know, that Melin talks about, you know, but it is, it’s that moment of Lift.

[00:34:39] And Melinda Gates talks about that. It’s when somebody flapped that wing and it lifted her, It’s not mine, it gave her more momentum in that moment. Uh, that doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me, and I, yet I see people who are pushing against it all the time that, you know, don’t, you know, I not, I’m not helping any of you.

[00:35:00] I’m out for me. You should have done better. You should have gone to school better. You should have, I don’t wanna hear the shit of coulda would. Is it really gonna be like so much that we can’t just say, Hey, you know what? Cause I’m a pretty big insurance person, I like insurance and it’s okay. And you know what?

[00:35:18] Um, I do a pretty good job at it. Did it for years, three decades worth. So I’m okay at that. Is it really so bad to say, Hey Cheryl, you did a good job helping this family stay in their house, helping the, helping that woman when her husband prematurely died and she’s got enough money to stay in her house.

[00:35:34] That’s what I’m always looking at. Cause I don’t want, you know, I don’t want anybody ending up homeless and bag, you know, bag ladies and cat. How do we always end up with those names as women or bag women, cat women, or, there’s always something like that, right? men are like studs later on in life. Like they’re all, they’re living the batch of life.

[00:35:53] But we’re a bag lady and a cat lady. I say that I got three cats, 

[00:35:57] Stoy Hall: so, Yeah. Well, I mean, Typically the, the male dies and then you come up with my cats’. So I get I get it right. Look out Dar, I 

[00:36:05] Sheryl Hickerson: wasn’t gonna say it, but you did. That’s good. There’s Lisa, what were you gonna say? No, I, I just think, and we were talking about scarcity and abundance and then I think rep representation matters.

[00:36:15] I mean that’s, that’s the other thing, being an advisor on the side of it, I’ve been in the, the only woman in the room many, many times. And then I can feel also on the client side, representation matters whether you’re a woman, person of color, um, being able to see someone that you can relate to, I think that’s a huge problem right now.

[00:36:38] Um, cuz you talk about like also being part of your group belonging, like that was something as a new advisor I was looking for. Um, and clients too wanna feel valued and like they belong somewhere. And I think that’s just as important and I don’t think our industry is really great at it. Oh no. And, and I can tell you right now, and people say that they wanna improve their bottom line and grow their practice, I can without, without reservation, say, then you should have an advisor who has a specialty in pretty much every area.

[00:37:09] For example, I remember once upon a time before I was divorced, I didn’t work with people who are divorced. I didn’t understand what they were going through. And I would say to them, You know what? I’ve been married for 24 years. I, I, I don’t understand. So I wanna bring somebody who knows that space. Well, it’s really important.

[00:37:25] Like you don’t bring a podiatrist in to go do what a gastroenterologist does cuz he’s on your feet and the other person’s in your tummy, they don’t you, you don’t do that, right? So you should be bringing those people in. Embracing more people in will create abundance. That was not there before. And when people see you being able to be brave and bring somebody else and, and be vulnerable and say, I don’t know much about this space, but let me do, let me bring story in.

[00:37:56] Who knows this space. They’re gonna be like, they feel taken care of. You know, like, okay, you know, that, that makes me feel more confident. Not that there’s an idea that you feel less confident. And then when I got divorced, now I can serve all those people because I went through it myself. And, uh, it’s interesting because the, the, I looked back, I took time to kind of sit in myself to say, what advice would I have given somebody before if I had, I worked with somebody divorced?

[00:38:24] No, no, no, no. So you go through it, you do not know. You do not know. You do not know. And now I feel much, you know, more confident to be able to dialogue in that space. But I’ll tell you right now, um, if I. Somebody came to me and said a good example of this. And I think I might have had a dialogue when I wanted to build something that was very inclusive.

[00:38:47] So let’s talk about inclusivity. Cause I think this is important too. Inclusivity comes with the, the, uh, going back to like when I talk to Jocelyn, how do I bring people of color in cuz I’m not, But that dialogue needed to happen. That would be the same as me maybe mentioning, you know, somebody with, uh, an LGBTQ plus background.

[00:39:07] I do not live that life. I’m not there, but I appreciate it. My sister’s gay. I want her to feel like she has representation and financial matters and things like that. But I don’t know that space. Well, who does I need to, to go and get them, you know, them to help me be better there. So I, I, I think this is a really interesting time right now where advisors are sitting.

[00:39:31] At the top of like the most financial crucial thing that could have ever happened in any of our lives, and yet we’re still operating so small. Yeah. We’re so small and inside our own space. Instead of expanding out and saying, Hey soy, you know what? I have a feeling practice too, and I really need some help with this, and you do this well, would you help me?

[00:39:52] I know you well enough that it, I wouldn’t even ask him be like, Hey, story, would you like this introduction? He’d be like, Yeah, you’re not gonna be like, No, no, no. I don’t help other advisors with anything. Right. 

[00:40:03] Stoy Hall: I think that’s it. I don’t even know the words to say to this, but you’re right. We are failing as an industry specifically with the pandemic of when this happened.

[00:40:14] Obviously a lot of people got hurt, but also on the flip side, a lot of business owners made a lot of money and I believe in our industry, Didn’t take much of a haircut because our eight people’s AUM went higher. Um, a lot of their high end clients actually made more money. Money, and it created a bigger gap between middle class and lower class or whatever the classes are anymore.

[00:40:36] Um, it created a bigger gap. And in our industry, we love to flock to where the money is in, you know, in theory money, right? Um, and I think that’s more energy. Energy, right? I all think that’s tied to obviously aum. Um, but it also is tied to how all, most of these companies out here insurances, bds. Um, not your small RAs, but all your bigger ones.

[00:41:00] Guess what they’re going after. The only thing that their compensation is based upon, and that is people with money. And that is a piece that someone in those circles, I left that world so clearly not gonna be us. Right? Um, but people in those circles need to understand that there’s other places for you to go.

[00:41:20] You can start your own firms, it doesn’t matter. But there’s other people out there who can help you achieve and work with those people that you truly wanna work with, even in the realm that you are, you are in right now. And not be afraid of one compliance. Don’t be afraid of going out there and just talking to others, and you hit it.

[00:41:40] You hit it the nail. A hundred percent on the head of we as advisors need to grow our own networks to work with each other. Who cares? What does it matter? There’s things out there that we’re not good at. So why wouldn’t we tell our client, and this is how we operate. We’re a team. Our team’s gonna take care of you.

[00:41:57] We’re not CPAs, but we have a CPA firm that does. Or we can work with any CPA firms of saying, You know what client, We’re not the experts in this. We’re gonna bring the experts in, right? And get it done on the back end. Hey, expert, by the way, let’s come up with an agreement that we can share this revenue, right?

[00:42:14] Or whatever it takes, because you’re gonna make money. As the expert, you’re only giving this little piece that is part of it. As an expert, we have to handle all the phone calls and slacks and emails. And the day to days seems like a win-win, doesn’t it? Um, that needs to happen more, but advisors are too quiet and in their own little shelves, right?

[00:42:35] And I love the part about your energy and how loud you are is because we have to be louder. We started this podcast so we could be loud, real, and straight to the point for everyone out there. Um, because advisors inherently are not loud themselves because they’re scared. They are scared of compliance, they’re scared of putting themselves out there because the fear in our industry is always about getting sued from someone.

[00:43:00] Somewhere. Somehow I can guarantee you will go through an audit and you will get sued somewhere. Somehow something will happen. So why not do what’s in the best interest of all your clients? Take all of that out and just say, I’m doing this. Guess what happens when you have to go face an audit or an, um, a judge or whatever.

[00:43:19] If you laid out, Hey, I did this. I got this expert, I did this, I did all of these things because it was the, to, to my knowledge, the best thing I could ever do for these people. It’s not gonna come back and bite you because you’ve done exactly what your duty is to do. And if you’re not doing that well, then yeah, you might wanna be scared and run, um, or join a firm and start to, to relax and get forward with that.

[00:43:43] I bring that up, um, because, uh, Kylie, she’ll be okay with me talking about this a little bit, but Kylie’s in, I’m her mentor when it comes to cfp, which she passed by the way. Right. Woo. Yay.

[00:43:57] Sheryl Hickerson: I love that. 

[00:43:58] Stoy Hall: Um, her preliminary pass, obviously she has to get the final thing, but whatever. Yeah. Um, so she passed, which is great. Um, and she even asked and, and came up to the point of, and we had this conversation last week of, um, I feel like she asked, do we vet outside deals? Do we vet them buying a restaurant?

[00:44:16] Do we vet them buying real estate, a car, whatever? And she’s like, Or is it just a waste of our time? Cause we have to put in so much time, How do we build that? And I said, Well, it depends on your fee schedule. I don’t really care about that part. But yeah, it’s our job. Our job as financial planners is to vet everything financially that is going to hurt that client.

[00:44:35] That client potentially hurt that client. Whether it’s a restaurant, real estate, it doesn’t matter. That is our job now out there. Most AUM based BDS and all of that will not do that. And so in my mind, they’re not actual financial planners, they’re investment advisors. However, she was like, Well, that’s what we do.

[00:44:54] And I said, Well, it’s funny, isn’t it A restaurant an investment? Is it real estate an investment? So shouldn’t you be vetting that out? And now if you personally can’t, then you need to reach out to the experts who can. And figure that out because if you are not doing that, then what, what are we doing? As in this industry?

[00:45:13] If we’re only sticking to these mutual funds and whatnot, then in stocks and bonds, then what are we doing? And she went, Well, those are alternatives. And I said, First of all, get alternatives outta your mouth. Because alternatives is a marketing term that all of the wirehouses and all that came up with to deem them more risky, to make people afraid of doing alternatives.

[00:45:36] So therefore we have to have them as, um, investors that you can’t touch it. Well, let’s think about this. Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, stocks are of companies, right? But if you go invest in a company outside of those, it’s considered alternative. But aren’t you just buying stock in that company, Right? Or real estate.

[00:46:00] Real estate’s been around forever and will be around forever because people have to live and work. . Um, its actual overall risk is relatively low when you compare it to the market because tomorrow, if another Covid breaks out, if the world burns down, whatever, the value of the building that we’re in right now that we own is not gonna plum it because people, stuff to work, people still have to live that stock market.

[00:46:23] Who knows what it’ll do, right? Yeah. So how inherently is that alternative? Shouldn’t that be just an investment? Shouldn’t it be part of all of it? Um, and she’s like, I never thought about it that way. And I said, That’s because we’ve been drilled for years, all of us Yeah. In our industry, to deem those things like that because the inherent risk or someone, someone had a lot of money and told the compliance and SCC that you should deem these this way.

[00:46:50] And now look at us. What we do is the exact opposite. All we do is live in that alternative space. Alternative we do all the other. We’re gonna go as far as we can to take care of our clients no matter what it is. And I told her, I said, Just because you’re working at a firm that’s, you know, stays with doctors and whatnot and really doesn’t fit the mold, you should still be bringing on clients.

[00:47:13] Whether that’s through our firm, through other people, you know, advisors. You want to help the people that are like you, then you need to be doing that regardless of the where you’re at. Because you can still do that because there’s people out there that you can trust and can work with them. And then if you so happen to leave that firm and start your own or whatever, guess what’s gonna happen?

[00:47:33] Those people are gonna be like, Hey, those 50 clients that you sent, they’re yours. I was just helping them while you were doing what you were doing. And now, hey, here you go. Right? And that’s the way we all should be as advisors. We should all be helping as much as we can because some of us have the capability.

[00:47:50] And right now, while others are still trying to, to get to that point, 

[00:47:54] Sheryl Hickerson: and you just said something so poetic. in that you help get somebody set up and then you don’t give them a hard time about their clients, right. That you, you get them set up and then they’re yours. And then I’m sure that you would still be there as a mentor.

[00:48:12] Like, Hey, this question, you know, I came up and I wanna make sure. Yeah, that’s good. And you’re kind of, there’s a guiding light to kind of keep them going on. I’m gonna correlate that over to the risk management side. I used to go into and do a lot of, like going into fee only, fee based advisors and things of that nature.

[00:48:29] And I thought, one of the things that was really interesting to me was the ones who would tell me, Oh, we don’t do insurance. And I’m like, Okay. You know, and I, the early days, I would go in and go super shortsighted, but all right, whatever. One day it dawned on me. Remember marketer, I went into the marketing department and I said, I would like for you to create a form for me that I can give out to clients that said, I don’t do insurance and what I want it to be is that it’s something that they can have.

[00:48:57] They can white label it and it says we do not do endur insurance discussions. And I came back to those firms that told me we don’t do insurance. That’s great. Here’s a form that you can be using with your clients. You can get it compliance for proof, you know, approved. And it’s your language. You can have it, but at least you’ll be letting them know when their kids come to you and they died, something happened and you say, Oh, we don’t do insurance.

[00:49:21] You had them sign off cause I wanna protect you. And then all of a sudden they were like, you know, some people could see that as being smart, as in smart ass. Some people could see that it being smart as smarter because I was trying to be smarter about the business. Those kids will come to you cuz to your point earlier about you’re gonna get sick.

[00:49:42] That’s what hap it happens and you better be prepared. And it’s not, cuz you didn’t do your job right, You didn’t, you just didn’t, The expectation wasn’t met somewhere. Whether it was right or wrong, doesn’t matter. That’s for a court. You know, a judge to decide whatever that figures out what it was was they felt somehow they came up short.

[00:50:01] Better to have documentation in your possession that says, I did have this conversation with your family and they chose not to do it. Here’s their SI signature. I wanna show it to you. That feels very different from the client going, You told my parents to do this and they didn’t do it. Yeah, we did that.

[00:50:23] The minute that I flipped the script on having that risk management dialogue and saying to them, Have them sign this form, then they saw it as a protection as for them because, and you know what? I’m gonna work that back to how everything I do at Field and Finances always, what’s in it for them? What’s in it for Lisa to be a member of our organiz?

[00:50:43] She gets mentorship, she gets to hang out with people who are doing this work. She can ask questions and no, you know, no one’s mean to her about it or think, oh, what’s in it for soy to be a member of females in finance? What’s in it for him? He’s actually in the group of people that he’s already mentoring and being a part of.

[00:51:00] It’s seen as thought leadership in a, in v variety of different ways. I try to get, you know, speaking engagements, uh, they, when they come up, I think of you first. I think this is something that soy should be at. I’m always thinking, what’s in it for Ryan if we did that for our clients, is that really bad?

[00:51:17] What’s in it for you? Shouldn’t we we 

[00:51:19] Stoy Hall: do it 

[00:51:19] Sheryl Hickerson: in for that. Yeah, and that’s exactly what your point is about whether alternatives or whatever, what’s in it for them, You know, because I’ll tell you right now, my, my own personal insurance agent is Ian Freeman at Northwestern Mutual down in, in. And Ian said to me one time, one of the most powerful statements that I’ve operated off of it every day, this is the only job we’re in.

[00:51:42] This is the only job storeys in Ryan’s in, Lisa’s in I’m in. When our clients come to us and say, Am I going to be okay? It is our responsibility. It is our promise to them that we have an answer for that. And that’s really tough if you think about that. If you are a consumer listening to this right now, soy and them have to think of all the different ways that risk whatever it looks like enters your world and how are we gonna mitigate it?

[00:52:08] Okay? And that’s a variety of different professionals. You know, if this is an advisor, it’s a new way for you to think about your business. Have we sealed up all the little different avenues of places where there is risk? Have we mitigated everything for them? Because in the end, that’s all they wanna know.

[00:52:26] Am I going to be okay? Those are the questions that you have to answer, and it seems so simple yet. It’s a very complicated response that comes through planning. 

[00:52:39] Stoy Hall: Yeah. And, and which is where our world’s going to it’s planning. Right. Um, I don’t care if you’re investment only or working at a wire house, like planning is coming and it’s coming very, very hard and will be the thing out there.

[00:52:53] Um, AUM will always be there because that dog is really, really old and has a lot of money behind it. But planning is, is the purpose behind it in that way. That’s right. We could do our duty 

[00:53:03] Sheryl Hickerson: right. I’m gonna say something here too, cuz people ask me about market predictions. A lot of times I get asked like, where do you see things going?

[00:53:10] Here they are, and I’m standing behind them in 2022. There’s three things. One, if you’re not building a network or community of people that you know, like trust that you’re a go-to person for, you are not marketing correctly, you can put as much crap out on social media as you want. If you do not have eyes on the prize of what it is that you do, and people can say, This is what I do.

[00:53:34] You do not have a community. You must build your own community. And community can look and be the size, be whatever you want, but you gotta have your, your group of people. That’s the first thing. I think that the second thing that every single person should be listening to right now very closely is anybody who has a name that sounds like this, financial wellness, financial literacy, financial advocate, financial consultant, financial coaching.

[00:54:03] Promise you right now promise you they are the Trojan horse that is moving in and they’re doing it so slow and you think, ah, they’re just doing that, that, that Dave Ramsey stuff. They’re just doing that, whatever I promise you. And we don’t even agree with it. Like I gotta tell you right now, I mean, there’s a lot of that stuff that I look at and go, This is terrible.

[00:54:26] Everyday people don’t get time with a story. Everyday people don’t get time with. So try to be thinking about your business in bringing those financial educators into your planning practice, befriending them, working with them together. They could also be the people who junior plan out everything else that’s going on from a local community sense too.

[00:54:50] I think this is a very, very, um, big thing and I think you can really, uh, make your mark and your community as the go-to firm because you’re working with those individuals who have the ears. People make fun of ’em on Tic Tac and people make fun of ’em on Snapchat and people don’t. I promise you this, you know, there’s a difference in all.

[00:55:13] Very few people will know what it is. I hope and I wish, I wish for advisor. To listen to those individuals and befriend them in a way that makes sense to your practice. Do not belittle them because they are serving a very certain group of people who are following their advice. So make certain that you have somebody like that that can do that.

[00:55:35] You don’t have to do it, but find somebody who does. You know, And I, and I do think that that third piece of it is if you do not have a woman or a person of color in your practice, you have really missed the mark. It is something that is so simple and yet so not done. Still to this day. Those are my three things that I, I think that we can really change a trajectory.

[00:55:59] Financial planning today, financial services, which I call planning, is financial services. In my eyes, I think insurance is just a piece of it. It’s not all of it. And if that’s the case, if you can create community, Provide financial education through somebody who, that’s what they do. And then you work with women and people of color.

[00:56:22] What else more could we ever ask for you to do right now? I just don’t. Yeah. I don’t see 

[00:56:26] Stoy Hall: it. And, and when she means community, she doesn’t actually mean always. Just who’s around you locally, Like Yeah. Around where you live. No. Communities worldwide. Look at this right now. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Like we are, we are, we’re wide at this point.

[00:56:38] Like so your community is what you make of it. And That’s right. I think what you were talking about of this whole thing of having financial counselors, consultants, um, et cetera, is how complex planning and how complex our industry is. People try to make it simple, right? We, we discussed this one a couple weeks ago of like, you can’t just give someone a financial plan that you create and spend hours on and say, Good luck.

[00:57:03] You’re good for the rest of. Our thing is, so, like this world is so complex that every day changes, every minute can change how that plan would go. So the complexities of it are huge. And I believe that those, those counselors and all of them have their place for sure because they can reach more audiences and get them involved to then level up to working with someone, whoever they wanna work with, that is an expert at what they need.

[00:57:32] Um, that we as a, as advisors and planners right now, probably we don’t have the capacity to deal with that. Now some of us have podcasts and go speak around, you know, the nation thanks to Cheryl. Um, and so we can do some of that, but most can’t. So you should friend them. You should be involved with them because they’re doing a service that right now our industry can’t handle cause we don’t have enough of.

[00:57:57] Now my thought is those counselors, consultants, and whatnot, should be part of our industry. Um, get license and be part of firms and whatnot. Um, my only, you know, knock on them would be okay. Uh, there you don’t have any liability. So you can say what you want and it could be fake and not real. So please, like, I would, I would love to see it grow.

[00:58:17] Yeah. Like at some point that they have to have something that comes back on them to make it real. But they have their point. They have their steps, and they’re a big piece of what, what the next phase is in this industry. 

[00:58:30] Sheryl Hickerson: They are. And I, and to your point about they don’t have anything coming back on ’em.

[00:58:34] Okay. Cause that is my number one concern about it. Like, I’ve sat, people think I’m, you know, well, sometimes I’m just farting around on TikTok, you know. There’s funny stuff. It’s the comments. It’s always about the comments. For me, I’ve never seen more, you know, I’ve just never seen more creativity than the comments.

[00:58:51] But I do sit out and I actually search for finance. Like today, I try, if you have Tic Tac on your phone, go up and search and just watch. If you’re a planner, watch if you’re a consumer listening to this, don’t listen to that. Just talk to them. Talk. Just like, because as you’re gonna see a variety of what they’re, that’s being done out there.

[00:59:09] And what they’re trying to do is meet people where they’re at. And whether an advisor thinks that t is real or not, it doesn’t matter. We went through a whole clubhouse thing and everybody had to be on Clubhouse and that was literally just a bunch of noise. Yeah. And I’m like, I’m not, People are saying, You gonna put your, I’m like, No, that’s a phase and it’s gonna who go?

[00:59:29] Alright. And, and it’s, it’s there, but it’s now it’s using it. You know, the things that are tried and. Have stayed the course, whether anybody likes Mark Zuckerberg or not. Facebook is meta is a real thing. And it’s there, It’s easy. People love easy. They can single sign on. Boom, they’re gone. Uh, Instagram, which is part of Facebook, um, you know, is it’s gonna stay cuz people like to share their pictures.

[00:59:54] If you’re not in a places where your people are at are even there. That’s the meta part of what they’re talking. I mean, it’s, it’s, you’ve got to figure out what those are. I love Twitter because I can talk during the day. Sometimes it’s just to be like vent and if the world wants to hear it because I have a single practitioner in an office by myself, it makes it, you know, But I have a community of people out there.

[01:00:17] I think you need to figure out what’s sticky, see what those educators are doing. And um, maybe somebody you know, is working with some organizations on how do we create designations and compliance around that. That’s the way females in finance as a leader, I think, Yeah. I’m not, I’m, I’m here to provide a really safe place for dialogue, but I’m about 17 steps forward in Right.

[01:00:46] Looking at where are we going and do we have a, Cuz to your point, I am concerned, I am concerned that some of the information is not as accurate as they would like, but we’re also not making education for it easily accessible. And two, are we holding them? Are they liable? Right? What is the compliance part of it?

[01:01:04] Can is our compliance light. And I, and I wanna tell everybody too, we all gotta quit. And I, one of the things I love about you story is you do not put all the one’s burden on compliance for doing things. You’re saying, we have this, we need to use it within our compliance. And you need to be having that open dialogue all the time around what the compliance looks like.

[01:01:29] They’re not, I, I get a lot of times as a marketer when I put that marketing hat on and people say, compliance said, I can’t do this, this, not this, this. Right. Pick this piece out. They didn’t tell you to scrap the whole plan and then it’s, the hearing is not so good. 

[01:01:46] Stoy Hall: Yeah. I mean, our, our compliance tells us this all the time.

[01:01:49] It’s, we work for you to get whatever you want done. We just get, we stop you or change something when we, when it’s illegal. Right. Basically, that’s their job. Now I know I worked an insurance company and I’m pretty sure that compliance actually worked more for the firm than it anyways. Oh yeah. Um, there is that, but that’s compliance’s job.

[01:02:08] It’s 

[01:02:08] Sheryl Hickerson: their job. I’m gonna also throw broker dealers on the bus. Right. Right now every b out, if you hear me, you can come at me and it’s fine. You’re compliance people. If you have a compliance person in your broker dealer who’s in charge of compliance and they hate social media, you are going to have unhappy financial advisors because their compliance person won’t let them do anything, anything, anything.

[01:02:32] They’re like, Are you breathing? That’s interactive content. , did you don’t breathe. Don’t 

[01:02:37] Stoy Hall: breathe. Did you say anything that resembles money on your personal Facebook ever? Yes. Yeah. I said, I, I bought a new truck. Like what the hell? Like, Yes. Yes, exactly. So that’s what compliance is and and there’s a lot of fun compliances out there.

[01:02:52] Ours is my ra lawyer.com. So if you guys want them, um, hit us up, we’ll connect you. But they’re amazing and open dialogue, and I think this is probably deeper than obviously we could have another show about this, but open communication to everybody, including your loved ones, gets you a lot further than not communicating.

[01:03:11] Right. And that’s definitely the way. 

[01:03:13] Sheryl Hickerson: Okay. Every marital therapist just said Yeah. Right. What he said. Right, 

[01:03:17] Stoy Hall: Right there. Said the same way with your, your compliance, Counseling knowledge. Counseling knowledge. Right. It is, It’s do the same thing with your compliance. You’ll be okay. . Um, but as we, we get to finishing this, I really want to answer the question of the theme.

[01:03:30] I think our theme today has been answered multiple ways and probably can shine some light, but directly to answering why are people avoiding hiring professionals is the first question. And two, why do they need to hire professionals? 

[01:03:46] Sheryl Hickerson: Oh my gosh. Can I, I can answer both of them. Very get it. Oh yeah. This is it girl.

[01:03:51] People are not hiring professionals. We don’t do what we don’t know. It’s, it goes back to our operating system. If I don’t know it, I’m not doing it. A good example, I have advisors who say to me, I wanna go work in a community, but I don’t even know if I’m supposed to say black or African American, which is correct.

[01:04:11] So what do they do? Apathy? Nothing. We are like the poster children for apathy. So we’re not hiring people and we’re not, we’re not hiring advisors. Cause we don’t know. We don’t know. I don’t know if you’re for me. I don’t know you. And even if you tell me you’re firming, you look good on paper or good in on a zoom, I’m turning to my best friend Holly and going, What do you think?

[01:04:34] What do you, And she doesn’t know anything. Okay. Because that’s why we don’t do things. We don’t do things. It’s always based in fear. We would lose weight if we could. Why? We don’t wanna go do the workout. Have you ever seen a happy runner on the street? Come on their face. They’re all. But they love 

[01:04:52] Stoy Hall: it.

[01:04:53] They’re the runner. No, I’m like, 

[01:04:54] Sheryl Hickerson: I’ve never, I feel that to a 

[01:04:55] Stoy Hall: different level. I’ve never gotten the runner’s side of, I 

[01:04:58] Sheryl Hickerson: feel that to a different level right now. Yeah. Yeah. I look at that and I drive by and my car going, Yeah, bye. Why? That my car, and I say that because I’m a really big person who uses analogies a lot, but it’s true.

[01:05:10] So we don’t do, things are based in fear. And if you want to change that, the only way you can change it is through thought leadership. And you can only do those in two ways. Write it and speak it. So if we’re not out speaking in languages of people, that how they can understand, okay, they’re not gonna make a single change because I’m tuning you out because you’re not in my world.

[01:05:34] When I open it up, when you hear me, see me, what I’m doing, Then I’m listening. I’m, I’m very in tune. I’m gonna give you a good example of how things can happen. There was Atic, I know Thetic the go, There’s Atic and there’s a gentleman that I follow. He has, uh, I, I adopted two children of color. I knew nothing about hair.

[01:05:57] Hair is a very, very culturally important part of grow. Growing up, I knew nothing about it, and I got a lot of people who were very, uh, judgmental about this, that, and the other. So I was, saw this gentleman had adopted this little girl, and, uh, he was doing her hair. And I very immediately went to the comments cuz my fear cuz it’s was judgey.

[01:06:21] Instead it was, Can I give you some advice? If you use a wider brim comb tooth, it’ll be easier. Otherwise, you’re, you’re damaging her hair when you’re pulling it back. If you’ve tried this, it will be a lot better. The ALS for her hair when you’re putting that on. He was so grateful for all of the advice.

[01:06:39] He’s like, I’m just sitting here reading the comments because it’s helping me and that’s it. I was able to tune in when something spoke to me and I just tune out. And the sooner we can remember that, So if people are not coming to your stuff, they don’t hear it cuz it’s not talking to them. Turn it off, it’s just noise.

[01:06:58] What are you doing? That’s for me. So we’re not hiring the right people cuz we don’t speak our their language and they’re not us. And, and I think that clients. At the same time, we also have to start being really comfortable. I, I made a comment the other day. I wrote it down even cuz I didn’t realize it was such a big deal.

[01:07:17] And you know me, I always got my notebook. Hold on. Um, I was, I was, I was talking to a woman at one America, she’s the, uh, she’s in charge of dei and I said, We need to make vulnerable, uh, vulnerability more accessible in financial services. It needs to stop being, uh, a low ticket item. It needs to stop being opinions from the cheap seats.

[01:07:41] Yep. It needs to start being, I don’t know how to do X or I feel X or I would like to do at whatever it is that doesn’t give anybody the right to come in and be like, instead it’s, you know what? I got you. And that’s what our clients need. That’s why they’re not hiring. That’s not why they’re not coming in.

[01:08:04] Because you’re not allowing them the vulnerability to come in and say, Hey, I’m terrible with money. Like, nobody got up today and said that, that I know. And anybody who’s terrible with $5, they’re terrible with $5,000 or terrible with $5 

[01:08:21] Stoy Hall: million. Agreed. And that’s like, uh, so we’re always trying to change our systems, improve them as much as we can.

[01:08:28] Um, I want you guys to speak about what we did a couple weeks ago with our process, right? And I think it hits upon exactly that vulnerability piece. What did we add or what did we focus on, um, for our, our new process. So it’s, 

[01:08:42] Sheryl Hickerson: it’s adding in and acknowledging the, the big wins, you know, being vulnerable and getting us back.

[01:08:50] The homework piece, I mean, homework is a huge part of this. So we can do our job waiting, letting somebody really take in what we talked about. What did we talk about? You guys can, you know, you and your spouse can talk about this for. A week or so, and then we’ll send out this homework. But when we send this out, we say, Hey, we understand that this is a very vulnerable task for you to do.

[01:09:12] If you need our help, we’re here. And then continually acknowledging those big wins. That’s, I think a big thing that we’re definitely adding into our practice moving forward. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean the money conversation is emotional, right? They’re going through maybe lots of different things or have had pat bad experiences in the past.

[01:09:33] So it’s giving them time to be able to share their story, which I think is really important. Versus us just saying, This is who we are, this is what we do. And learning about them and being able to acknowledge that we’re gonna help them with that pro their progress and get them to a better place. And it’s an emotional time and we’re here to guide them on that path.

[01:09:54] And I think we need to do a better job of that. I think that’s wonderful. My husband works, uh, in with that. So he actually works with advisors like soy and, and all of you, Lisa and Ryan. And debt is a very dirty, terrible feeling. And I have to tell you, we were talking earlier about the t So my husband’s previous life, he was a physical therapist.

[01:10:19] He dealt with people in pain. He has an amazing ability to sit with somebody as they tell you the most painful things they’ve done. And he doesn’t make you feel bad. He acknowledges where you’re at that you can be better. And he, and he celebrates when people, when the clients that he’s working with and like for example, he works with advisors cause he will show up as like, I’m part of storey’s office, right?

[01:10:46] They, he’s got his own, They don’t need to know that cuz it doesn’t make any difference. And what he’ll do is that they’ve paid off certain points of their stuff. He goes out and says, Hey, good job on that. I know it’s been rough. You can keep doing this. You got this. Okay. And that’s what he did was a physical therapist.

[01:11:04] Like you’d come in and all of a sudden he, You did your exercises, you did your homework, Ryan. And then they’re like, Yeah, you’re getting better. Good job. You know, we’re, it’s, it’s funny how remedial kindergarten rules seem to be, but they’re so profound in who we are later on in life. Like, be kind to people.

[01:11:24] Say please and thank you. You know, clap for the other person if you lose, make sure they get at a girl and an at a boy. Um, those are very real. And if you can build very simple pro, you know, processes behind things like that, that goes back to story’s question about why would I wanna work with you Because you see me, you see me, there’s an entire force, but you see me there.

[01:11:51] Stoy Hall: So do you think our industries as a whole. Um, is we don’t have very much empathy or like, is it because so many advisors out there are only in it for their own money and really, truly not in it for the people? 

[01:12:06] Sheryl Hickerson: Yeah. I think that the ones who do best are more, have show more empathy. Um, I, I, I do think that, you know, I, I’m not gonna sit here on some, you know, altruistic, you know, place of, we have to do everything pro bono cuz we got the lights gotta be paid on.

[01:12:23] We got things like that, that’s ridiculous. And I think everybody should be paid, you know, paid for what they’ve done. But at the same time, does payment have to come at the expense of somebody else? Um, I hear it in the little side notes of things, what people say and it’s like, oh, you know, they charge fees based on how much somebody has for assets.

[01:12:42] And it’s like, yeah. And I kinda sit back and go, It sounds kinda like a commission, but okay, I’m gonna do that one alone cuz I get some really riled up, but I’m sure I’ll get an at me at this. It’s fine. Um, but I think that the more that we can sit in a space of I see you, I see you, I see you. Uh, a good example is going back to Deere for a quick second only because he had somebody call, he had an advisor who he’s working with right now today, a cfp.

[01:13:10] And she had a client that came to her and you know that those finances, they don’t wanna tell you about the ones in that book that, that, that folder on the computer that nobody’s can see. Yeah. $200,000 worth of unsecure. No joke. Okay. And she was like, Okay, well that’s a problem. Let’s, let’s go through, you know, we gotta figure that out.

[01:13:35] And she was so kind, but she brought, you know, and Daryl came in and it was more of a, Hey, tell me about this. What’s this about? And he’s really interested in what the behavior is, right? Because no matter what the, the advisor does, if you don’t fix that behavior, it happen again. She’s gonna have this, this is gonna happen again.

[01:13:55] It doesn’t matter how many times he’s gonna help per it out the amount of debt, you know? And I think that, you know, but he’s able to stop. And what he did that I thought was really, really smart is bringing her in on the wins. Hey, so and so did this. You may wanna give them a, Hey, good job. And then they do.

[01:14:14] So I think to your point, the empathy part, being empathetic is just magical. It doesn’t cost anything. Like if you look at your bottom line business expense, $0, where do we get that in in our marketing and stuff? A $0 marketing expense. Right? Unheard of. Yeah. To be kind, cost nothing. Right? You know, and I, and I’ll tell you this, so for those listening who are like, But it’s a time and everything.

[01:14:43] All right, so here we go. Let’s, let’s talk about that. Yeah, you can. You can do it in Gmail, you can do it in Outlook, you can do whatever. I don’t care what you use. You can preset up your birthday things or preset up. You can set up a Google alert today with your client’s name that alert you time, they do something, ran race.

[01:15:00] Hey, good job. Or they bought it. Doesn’t matter. You’re gonna get alerts on what they’re doing. You can preset them up to go out Loom. It’s free to use as a video application to send them a video message of saying, Hey, I see you, because that is something, And by the way, here’s the magic to, to video say your client’s name in the first six seconds of talking and they will listen.

[01:15:24] And do you know why? Behaviorally, as little children, we were taught by whoever our caregiver was. When I call your name, you better what? Answer me. . And it sounds funny going back to kindergarten. Right? True. So when, Every time I hear that’s true. Do you know what the worst conferences are? The ones that Cheryl Nash, Cheryl Garrett, Cheryl Moore, Cheryl Hickerson.

[01:15:45] She, Cause they say Cheryl, and we all look. Yep. And and it’s like, oh, they, they wanna, they wanna share a Garrett. Okay. Because that’s how, But think about that. That’s something that was taught. We were so, so little. Yeah. So when you get on a loom or get on a video, you’re using bomb, bomb, whatever. Say hi Ryan.

[01:16:03] Ryan’s immediately already been pre-programmed. To listen to whatever you’re about to say. The most important thing you need to say comes right after that. Hi Ryan. It’s time to get that annual review set up. I’m gonna put my calendar link in this email. I need you to get it done. Okay. And just how much you want and say, Hope you have a good day.

[01:16:25] Bye. Oh, they’ll do it. They’ll do it. And if you got a millennial, text them. They’re not opening that email. Just someone text. 

[01:16:33] Stoy Hall: They don’t have email. 

[01:16:35] Sheryl Hickerson: I think that even comes in even without the video. You made a great point. Like if somebody puts in an email and doesn’t say, Hi Ryan to me, or, Hey Ryan, initially, I just assume.

[01:16:46] Okay. It’s just another email and I’ll look at the other ones. Hey, first name. Yeah, exactly. I’ll look. I’ll look at the other ones first, right? Or just say hi. Don’t say your name. Oh. And for anybody else, please, for the women stop saying, Hey. Lovely. Hey, beautiful. Hey sis. Hey lady. Hey girl. Hey. It’s just, it’s just, Hey lady, Especially on LinkedIn.

[01:17:08] Don’t do it on LinkedIn. The stories 

[01:17:11] Stoy Hall: I’ve heard about LinkedIn is it’s , it’s, 

[01:17:13] Sheryl Hickerson: it’s, I have a, I have entire series on Twitter. I’ve seen some of your stories called the cold email stories. It’s, and I send them out because I hope people will see that and go, I’m never saying that. Yeah, don’t say that. So, I mean, like I said, I have a realistic business brain that says empathy’s good.

[01:17:29] You know, empathy’s good, but it’s got, you gotta be smart in how you do it. Yep. Right. Okay. 

[01:17:34] Stoy Hall: Don’t be creepy, please. 

[01:17:36] Sheryl Hickerson: Let’s just be, I already, I got, I love the ones that, uh, I’ll tell you something about females and finances. One thing we do do is if anybody comes into the email box or the LinkedIn boxes especially and says, I saw your eyes, I guarantee.

[01:17:51] Those women are cutting that thing out and putting it there going, Stay away from weirdo this one. And, uh, so 

[01:17:57] Stoy Hall: don’t do that. Yeah, for sure. Well, uh, why don’t you summarize this up a little bit and then we’ll end with, uh, what’s coming new and fresh from females in finance. Yeah, absolutely. So I’ve 

[01:18:04] been, 

[01:18:04] Sheryl Hickerson: I’ve been taking notes as we go down here.

[01:18:07] Um, one of the big things that kind of stuck out as you were talking about females in finance, Cheryl, that really sat home with me, and it, it comes back to that sweet tea and that community aspect of things is you always hear it takes a village, right? It takes a village to raise a family. It takes a village to raise children.

[01:18:23] You have that village with you, with your advisory board, with other delegates around the country doing these things with you. And you understand that you can’t necessarily do this alone. You need, you need other people surrounding you so that, you know, again, that sweet tea, that home feeling, now you’re still creating that home feeling within that community, within your advisory board.

[01:18:43] Um, and, and going along with that advisory board, delegating to other experts. So I’ve always been told. If, uh, if somebody works at a Chevy dealership and they’re a car salesman, they should prob, you know, they should probably drive a Chevy. They’re selling Chevys. They should probably sell a Chevy. So for me, you know, the divorce thing that you talked about hit.

[01:19:02] I’ve never been divorced. I’ve been married for, you know, a few months now, , so I can’t, They still like each other all the time right now. Exactly. So I’ve never been divorced. So how can, how can I go into, So I never show this to Michelle because we’re both laughing at how can I go in and talk to somebody about divorce and about those finances.

[01:19:23] So delegate to an expert who’s been through that. You know, something that sits at home in our office right now is, you know, the, our hedge fund and our commercial real estate. That’s newer to me. So every single one of those meetings that I havey is in here, toy’s, been through it, soto’s in those meetings, delegate to experts.

[01:19:42] So I love that portion. Um, another one you talked about. You specifically said mitigate risk. You never said eliminate it. We can’t do that. We just have to educate people that there’s gonna be a risk. But it’s our job to mitigate that and make it as small as possible and educate them, showing them, Hey, these are the risks.

[01:20:02] This is what you’ll be taking. But again, you’ll be good. It’s, it’s those words, you’ll be good. Uh, and then obviously the, the kindergarten mindset, I love that, you know, make, make things simple and people loved it when they’re kids. You’re gonna love it just as much as adults. Just because you grew up doesn’t mean that that mindset went away.

[01:20:24] It’s in there somewhere and people still have that. It’s just bringing it back out. And then I think the last thing is, you know, TikTok Social is a podcast, make, make the education, make stuff easily available for people. And just like you said, those TikTok tos of, for me, I love TikTok as well cuz they’re short videos.

[01:20:44] It’s short, it’s quick. I can watch it and then I can scroll right past. But there can be a lot of information and a lot of quick hits packed into one, one minute video, 15 seconds, three minutes now that TikTok bumped it up to three minutes. But those socials and making those, that knowledge readily available, I think that’s huge in, in the financial counselors that are on, that are talking with people through things.

[01:21:06] That’s huge. I mean, clients are gonna open up to you with their spouse in the room and say, Hey, you know, I don’t like that you’re doing this. We’ve seen it several times where they might not tell ’em at home, but right in front of you, you’re gonna be a counselor right there. And you have to be able to understand that situation and talk with that client.

[01:21:24] So that’s, that’s kinda the summary that I’ve had. Um, you know, I, I love the, the mission and everything behind females in finance. I think opening up the, opening up the industry to that equity that we, we talked about, that’s, that’s what needs to happen. Let’s not battle each other. Let’s, let’s work with each other and, and let’s make a change.

[01:21:44] Stoy Hall: Lisa, any? Yeah, 

[01:21:46] Sheryl Hickerson: I just wanted to add more of a story. So when you first met me, I, I will never forget it. We had a one-on-one meeting via Zoom, but I felt as a new advisor, I felt welcomed. I thought you listened to me extremely well, and we just had such a great conversation, and I think I just wanted to share that with everybody, that that’s what your organ organization is about.

[01:22:07] And as advisors, like I, I strive to have that sense of feeling that I got when I’m sitting across from a client. The other thing you did that really meant a lot to me was introduce me to other people. So again, going to other experts. So I still remember my conversations with other people, um, that you introduced me to over email or LinkedIn, and it was just a network you were creating, helping me build my network at the time.

[01:22:31] So that, for me, I have never forgotten those moments and I strive to have that, um, feeling and experience when I’m sitting across from clients. So I just wanted to thank you and I think you’re doing great for the industry, especially me being a woman and for other, looking for other women. Don’t make me cry.

[01:22:49] I’m not, I’m not looking for other women, um, to be a part of and to feel that sense of belonging. So thank you for that. 

[01:22:58] Stoy Hall: Always. My pleasure. So what’s coming, What’s coming down the pipe for females and finance over 

[01:23:01] Sheryl Hickerson: the next quarter or two? Oh, let’s see. So a couple of things. Uh, one is we’re going to be making an announcement in January, mid January.

[01:23:09] So I’ll just share here first that we are going to be announcing the Fearless Pledge. I’ve been alluding to it for about a year, about a year now. It’s been sitting there. And we are going to go out and be challenging organizations to make pledges, uh, between now and January 1st, 2025 to hire Mentor Train, Advance a hundred thousand women.

[01:23:38] We are going to be there as a support system for that. And that is, uh, to Lisa’s point, our network is extremely valuable. Uh, media opportunities are very valuable in our group. Um, we want to welcome women in, we want to, I’m very female centric first, but DEI is a very, very close second component to that of course.

[01:23:59] And so I’m excited because it’s the first time and I, and I know that it’s a good goal because I’m scared to death. . Oh yeah. Oh yeah. How’s that? Yeah, that’s awesome. Terrified. I don’t think I’ve slept in weeks. , maybe months. Because I get up every day and I go, What am I doing? ? Oh yeah, that. And so, yeah, we’re gonna be going out.

[01:24:20] So if you are an organization and you wanna hire, or you wanna mentor, you wanna train, you wanna advance women within the financial services profession, which includes planning, but insurance investments in actuary and accounting and estate planning, and all of that stuff that has to do with money.

[01:24:35] Please, please, please feel free to reach out to me. Uh, we’re super excited about this and been prepping for, for quite a while now. And, uh, looking for sponsors of that pledge too, to be able to get those resources out and into the hands of young women such as Lisa when they were first coming in, uh, being able to have, you know, those learning, uh, modules and capabilities are, are really critical to that success.

[01:24:59] We’ve hired an amazing team of accountants, uh, through, uh, very large accounting firm to keep track of the numbers. A marketing firm out of Atlanta, So Julie Minor from Jay Strategies, I’m working with her. And, um, And then we hired, uh, Jen Rutley from Hidden Insights Group as our research analyst on this.

[01:25:19] And she works very, very closely with me. And I wanna give a shout out to Shauna Om from Content 1 51, who also did all of the local Oh, 

[01:25:27] Stoy Hall: Shauna, you on with her on Twitter. She’s hilarious. Aside from being really good at her job outside of that, she is hilarious. And she’s a Bears fan, which is, And if you go 

[01:25:37] Sheryl Hickerson: to Chicago, she’s gonna make you drink.

[01:25:38] Melo. 

[01:25:39] Stoy Hall: Fan, fan, Don’t drink Meor. Oh my lord. I had Meor when I was, I’m gonna go off topic here, but Denver for a bachelor party and they had Melo. I was like, I’ll try anything.

[01:25:52] If you could put. Stomach vial batter and battery acid together and take a shot of it is exactly what my Lord is. However, when you first take it, you’re like, Oh, that’s not so, That’s not that bad. Oh, and it never goes away. It doesn’t go away 

[01:26:05] Sheryl Hickerson: for, It never goes away. Oh my Lord. It’s, It never goes away. I think Darrell ate an entire plate of like pretzel things.

[01:26:11] It never got, He was like, All night. So, yeah. My Lord. Why? She’s a trooper. So she is, uh, she’s very gritty and resilient. We’ll, Shauna will be for sure, Shauna will be in there and, uh, do, Oh, tell me when that happens too. I can’t wait. So that’s one of our big announcements. The next one is that we’re be, we’re opening up a direct to consumer space for our advisors.

[01:26:32] So our prefer, uh, our community plus members, it’s $9 a month to be a member of community. Plus it’s, uh, you know, it’s something that we want to, I get a lot of, I get a lot of people from a search engine, obviously looking for female financial advisors, but we’ll be creating an entire, another community for the consumers who are looking for a lot of that.

[01:26:55] And then letting all of you lead. The charge of educating them and they were there to com help be a community member, uh, manager for you. I do really well in that space and it’s not what everybody else always does well, so let me build it. And then you come and you do education and you get clients from that, and that’s what we’re there to do.

[01:27:16] So just for only 

[01:27:17] Stoy Hall: $9. That’s it. $10 

[01:27:20] Sheryl Hickerson: a month. Yeah. And I’ll tell you something people said to me, and they do, they’ll say, How come it’s not free? Okay, let me explain that. I’m actually going to share why. Good. So we have a freemium version today where you can get in and go to the Facebook group. Uh, you can go on our side.

[01:27:33] If I get, you know, media opportunities, we actually give up quite a bit of that away. And I will tell you that when we were the, the ones that we charted started charging for Community Plus, that’s where you’re getting a lot more of the, the deeper networking, the masterminds, the uh, opportunities for business and things like that.

[01:27:51] The, the consumer market will be a part of Community Plus because you only use and value what you have some investment in yourself. If you gave away all the planning in the world, people wouldn’t appreciate or actually even use the planning that you do. So it’s, it’s just goes back to that point. We have amazing, so we’re always looking for sponsors.

[01:28:12] If people would love to be a good a sponsor, a females in finance, Because I would love to talk with you because otherwise, uh, you know, the first year was me educating me, doing a lot of the things, a lot of hats that first year. And so I’m really pleased to see where it’s come and it’s come about because I’ve gone back to the community and dipped in and said, Story, What do you need to be successful, Lisa?

[01:28:35] What do you need to be successful? Um, to Lisa’s point, I’m very good at connecting people when I hear them doing something like, Have you met so and so? They’re sort of on the same path, and it would be a really good mentoring opportunity or connection for you. And, and I was really pleased to hear that that happened.

[01:28:50] So the, the big two for us next year in focus is, as I mentioned, I’m going bullish in. Making certain that we have communities and teaching advisors how to build community, how to use that, those financial educators to the best of their ability, uh, and getting them, you know, sort of brought into different planning spaces.

[01:29:11] Uh, and then of course hiring and more and training more women and people of color. And that’s where the pledge comes in. So, And outside of that, nothing. I got 10 grandkids, man. Right. , 

[01:29:22] Stoy Hall: Speaking of the number 10, we’re gonna do something that no one lives up. My favorite number came up with, Is it? Yeah. Well we’re using it.

[01:29:27] It’s my jersey number. Um, uh, no BS Wealth. If you go onto FEMA’s Financing register and do no BS Wealth, we’re gonna cover the cost of the first 10 people who sign up for as long as they want to be part of females. Okay, so that’s what we’re gonna do. So you’ll have to get on, we’ll obviously have all the socials and everything highlighted, but type in no BS wealth.

[01:29:52] Um, Cheryl, let us know and we’re gonna pay for your membership. Um, for the first 10 of you. Outside of that, you’re on your own cuz we still got Bills , so we’re gonna do that. 

[01:30:02] Sheryl Hickerson: I didn’t even know you were gonna do that. You could do the shock on my teeth. Yeah, see we can create a, we can definitely create a promo coach of the site for 

[01:30:07] Stoy Hall: that.

[01:30:07] Using that. We’ll do that. So this podcast is brought to you by females in finance, um, here on NOS Wealth. Our first official guest, um, get involved obviously at us on all the socials. Email us. Um, I won’t give you Cheryl’s personal number because I’m the one who needs to hit her up, but you can email her.

[01:30:25] Um, she’s on Twitter. Female’s a fine on Twitter linked. Just name ’em, we’re all on there. As well as follow, like, share No BS Wealth. We’re gonna have other, um, advisors, other outside advisors, just businesses, business owners on here as well. Uh, we’ll also go basically every other week of just us in the squad right here talking about certain things.

[01:30:48] We have a a plethora of a two week plan that details out where you should be and things you should be thinking about during the year. And the reason we brought this theme up today, um, about having a professional, um, or hiring a financial professional is because it’s getting towards the end of the year.

[01:31:03] Um, taxes are coming, things get hectic. We all make a pledge at the end of the year to be more financially sound and go through our budget starting the new year, which we’ll hit upon in January. But it’s important to start now and going out there and interviewing these advisors, right? A lot of our planners, we don’t have as much to do come holidays because people don’t wanna meet with us.

[01:31:22] So we have the time, now is the time to get on Zoom, call us, whatever. Um, and get involved. So, um, Cheryl, I appreciate everything that you do for me personally. Um, everything that you do for our firm and the 3,500 other people, um, that are involved with females in finance and uh, we look forward to the springtime when she’ll be here live.

[01:31:44] And we might go a little live with uh, a little females in finance meetup group as well. And, uh, and some, some sweet tea. And some sweet tea. I’ll have sweet 

[01:31:52] Sheryl Hickerson: tea. I was gonna bring it. I’ll be honest. Drink. Just gonna bring it. Yeah, cuz we’re an Iowa will be. It’s, I could drive there and I’ll just have my jugs of tea in the back.

[01:32:00] I know 

[01:32:00] Stoy Hall: better. So we definitely appreciate it. Um, appreciate everything that you do. 

[01:32:04] Sheryl Hickerson: You know, you are my family. I tell you that all the time and we just adore you and love you and anything we can do to lift you up, let us know and others watching. This is the kind of people you get to hang out with all day.

[01:32:15] It’s fun all day, all day, every 

[01:32:17] Stoy Hall: day.

[01:32:29] Sheryl Hickerson: The proceeding program was sponsored by Black Mammoth. Any awards, rankings, or recognition by unaffiliated third parties or publications are in no way indicative of the advisors future performance or any individual client’s investment success. No award ranking or recognition should be construed as a current or past endorsement of Black mammoth.

[01:32:50] Information regarding specific awards, rankings, or recognitions is available on the Black Mammoth website, www.black mammoth.com. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss Investment strategies such as asset allocation, diversification, or rebalancing do not assure or guarantee better performance and cannot eliminate the risk of investment losses.

[01:33:15] There are no guarantees that a portfolio employing these or any other strategy will outperform a portfolio that does not engage in such strategies. This broadcast should not be construed by any client or prospective client as a solicitation to effect or attempt to effect transactions and securities or the rendering of personalized investment advice due to various factors including changing market conditions.

[01:33:40] The information discussed in this broadcast may no longer be reflective of current positions or recommendations. While information presented is believed to be factual and up to date, black mammoth, do not guarantee its accuracy and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed.

[01:33:58] The tax and the state planning information discussed is general in nature and is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal or tax advice. Listeners should consult an attorney or tax professional regarding their specific legal or tax situation. Past performance is not indicative of future results.