James Taylor: The Power of Process | Next Gen

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Welcome to the podcast.

I'm excited. You ready to go?

Welcome here.

Okay.

Don't know what I just said. Welcome here.

Just, just cut that.

Welcome to Barron's Advisor: The Way Forward Next Generation, a special series spotlighting the emerging leaders shaping the future of financial advice. Twice a month, we'll be digging into the strategies, insights, and game-changing moves that will help you take your practice to the next level. I'm your host, Allison Tucci, and today my special guest is James Taylor, or as friends call him, JT. JT is a managing director at Morgan Stanley, managing a team of 18 people and over $3.5 billion in assets under management. Today we're going to be talking about his role and how you can build a team with new age impact using old school wisdom. So I'm going to jump right into it. So for advisors that are thinking about being ready to manage their own team, At what point did you know you were ready from managing your own book to managing your own team? Was it tenure, assets under management? What was the flag?

Yeah, I don't think there's ever a good time to do it. I think it's just you have to jump in, you know, two feet in and go into it right away. So I tore down my entire practice in 2015. At the time I was 27 and I looked at my practice and it was not what I wanted to be. It was terrible. Right. It was more— it was like more like a transactional practice, not really a planning-based practice. Like I focus on, you know, tax planning, financial planning, estate planning. That last year I started really kind of taking a deep dive and becoming an expert around that. So I was like, listen, I've been doing this wrong the whole time. Let me rebuild this and let me rebuild into something that's going to be special. So once I started putting pen to paper from a process perspective, I just started plugging people in from there and like, hey, I want this person to do planning. I want this person to do business development. I want this person to do servicing. So I made that conscious decision. I think it's, you know, when you're ready to really put someone else's career in your hands and take that responsibility, because that's essentially what you're doing. I think that's when you make that decision.

What was the process that you put down on paper to make sure that you were able to slot the people into the right spots?

Yeah. So everything. I think, you know, for us, how much we've been able to scale up while still providing that high level of service, you have to be process-oriented. I always tell our team, like, I think what we can get done in a day, most people can't get done in a couple of weeks. And that's because every single aspect of our business has a process around it. So, you know, first, very simple from an acquisition perspective, you know, we're kind of an old school team, I would say, where we're cold calling. That's where a lot of the new people that are on our team start building their practice. That's where, you know, I kind of grew up, but not in the traditional way, you know, like we're connecting with the people.

I'm like, you're not getting the phone books and looking at people that are transitioning.

No, no, not at all. Not at all. So we do a lot of research on the companies that we're reaching out to. We do a lot of research on the people that have been at the company, the tenure of the people at the company, and really kind of narrow those lists down. But after we make that initial call, like we're doing so many things after we're connecting with them on LinkedIn, we're seeing the mutual connections that we have with the person. If the person's interested in getting research, we sign them up for research. So they're getting these, you know, weekly touches from us that isn't just coming from us picking up the phone and having another conversation with them. Or being annoying and then really kind of walking them through our team and who we are when we do that initial call. I think first impressions are everything. So we'll send out a calendar invite with an agenda. So right off the bat, they see this team is professional. Taylor Group, here's what we're going to be talking about. And then when we connected with them on LinkedIn, now we're putting a face to a name, right? So it makes a little bit of a warmer call. And I think that the world became a lot smaller when, you know, the pandemic happened. And people started getting a lot more comfortable utilizing Zoom. So that allowed us to really expand our practice a bit. But after we do that initial call and we kind of walk everyone through what that call looks like, it's really qualifying the person, making sure that they're a good fit for our practice, and then really opening up the entire firm to them. So we're not just talking about our team and, you know, we've gotten the rankings and the accolades and the awards. We're also talking about what we can offer from a firm perspective, whether it's family office resources, whether it's tax and estate planning, wealth management, banking, and all the different perks that go with that. So right off the bat, people are really seeing that we are very much a holistic practice and we're not just focusing on the investment piece, which I think is probably the most commoditized part of what we do.

I think a lot of advisors listening might think that's an old school practice.

Yeah.

So why would you still cold call? Why do you think that that's an important skill set for advisors to learn?

I think it is. It's definitely— don't get me wrong, it is definitely an old school process for sure. But I think people are craving advice now. And at the end of the day, you know, We talk about technology and we're big adopters of artificial intelligence, big adopters of technology. But at the end of the day, people want to work with people and talk to people. So picking up the phone and having a conversation with someone and just going kind of direct to them like, hey, here's what we do, here's who we are, I think is second to none. I think that's a big, big deal and a skill that has been lost in our business, which is great for us. You know, if people aren't willing to pick up the phone and call, we are, and we are willing to talk to people and we prospect with planning. Like we focus on the tax planning, the estate planning, the financial planning. So I think most people, when, you know, the traditional cold caller is much more of a transactional relationship or more talking about specific investments where we're talking about stuff that's important to them, i.e., their family, you know, saving them money from a tax perspective because they have a concentrated equity position that they keep getting killed in taxes every single year. So I think that's a major differentiator is that we prospect with planning. Not with like a product or, you know, investments.

Let's talk about the next stage, which is engaging.

Yeah.

So how many meetings do you normally have before you land, quote unquote, land a client?

Yeah, sure. So, you know, after we do the introductory call, so we've determined this person's a good fit for our practice, walk through the team and who we are as people as well. I think that's important.

Yeah.

So we talk through our principles, right? Our principles are elite process, accountability, trust, service, integrity, and gratitude. And We kind of go through what that means to us as, you know, a team. And then we set the stage, right? So here's what it's going to look like from a process perspective. We're going to send you an executive summary. So here's a full breakdown of exactly what we talked about today. Then we want to set up a live planning meeting. You know, that's when we're going to actually build out your preliminary financial plan. We'll go through your net worth statement. We'll go through your goals. We'll show you how you look overall and how we would get you from point A to point B. Once we have a clear understanding of all of that, we're going to do a recommendations meeting. Right, and that's when we'll take a deep dive into our recommendations. We'll talk through what are we talking about on those monthly calls, like what are we actually covering? We'll talk about our cost, our fees, and how we get you from where you're now to working with us, at which point we're going to ask you to hire us as your wealth management advisors. So if you're going through this process, we're going to ask you to hire us at the end. But where I think we're very different is that we're doing a lot of work up front.

Okay.

Right, and I think people really recognize and appreciate that, where we're like, we really want to understand, okay, here's all the different moving parts. And also, what are your goals? Like, what are you trying to accomplish? Again, if you have, you know, $100 million, a few hundred million dollars, you know, really, you're probably going to focus on estate planning. Like, what's the most important asset that a person has? It's their family. It's not their stock. It's not their $100 million portfolio. So how much estate planning have you done? You know, how much have you focused on that? So going through some strategies around there. But I think those conversations lead to really good conversations down the road that It's all about them. What are you trying to do? What are you trying to accomplish? It's not about me. And I think that, you know, a lot of people kind of fall into that, that pitfall of like, oh, well, you should be doing this. You should be putting money into it and kind of like pitching investments or portfolios right off the bat. You're too concentrated. Where in reality it's like, I know I am, but I've done really well doing that. So everyone that's told me to get out of that has been wrong. But if you can tell me a way that I can do it where I'm keeping as much money in my pocket as, from taxes as possible, and you're gonna make sure my family's completely taken care of. So now this is generational wealth, not just, you know, me, then I'm gonna work with you. It's a really good fit. But those conversations can't happen unless you take that deep dive, which we do.

So for an advisor who says, okay, that's great, JT, you're telling me I have to do all these meetings up front, but it could be a giant time suck.

Suck for me.

It's not worth it. I don't have the time for it. I have a book. What would you say to that advisor?

Yeah, I mean, you're not going to grow and that's fine, right? I mean, there's plenty of advisors that have done, you know, extremely well, you know, continue to service their clients and like, that's, that's okay. I want to continue to grow. It is a lot of work and it is a lot of time that we put in. Now, getting back to having a process in place, I think that streamlines it a lot more. Like we're not trying to— we're personalizing it for the client, but we're going through that, that process every single time across the board for every single one of our prospective clients. And then with our clients, from a servicing perspective, we're doing monthly calls, we're doing quarterly reviews, we're sending out weekly commentary so we don't lose clients. And I always kind of talk through that with advisors. Like if you bring it, you know, we brought in $1 billion last year and that's great. But if we lost assets, you know, you got to look at the net number. Always. And like, you know, people, I think, focus too much on just the acquisition piece, not actually keeping the clients. Yeah, keeping the clients here. And I think like servicing is like the most important part. And like clients are asking for more. They deserve more. They want more. And if you do it all, you know, the sky's the limit.

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Yeah. Yeah. So we have the service, right? So our client service associates are unbelievable. So they're handling everything from an onboarding perspective day-to-day services for our individual clients. I would say they're the ones that really keep clients there. We have a 24-hour rule. Like, if a client emails us, we have to respond within 24 hours without fail.

I love that rule.

It's a really good rule. And people just like to be heard from, you know, like another one of our clients. I mean, we had a dinner. It's like, you know, you guys are so responsive when I send an email. I feel like you've been waiting for my email all day because someone's responding right away. And that's just not the case. It's just the culture that we built in. And then I think another thing that's a little bit different about us is every single person on the team has equity. So even our client service associates have equity in the practice. So everyone feels that ownership, right? Like, hey, like, yeah, I might be responding on a weekend. I might be responding at night. But that culture perspective is like, well, I'm an owner. I need to respond, right? This is beneficial for all of us. Like, I need to make sure I'm taking care of the clients because, like, that's our ownership. And I think that's really important just from, like, if you are building a team, do that right off the bat. Just rip the Band-Aid off, have everyone have equity. And that way you're just not like— everyone's looking to grow, everyone's looking to keep the clients there, everyone's looking to service, and there's no resentment versus, you know, one person getting a new account versus another person. Everyone's growing, everyone wins. I think that's important.

It's alignment of interests on your team. I'm sure it breaks down, you know, potential issues that you could have had in your team and Bill, to your point, ownership, I think that's great. So, as you're looking to grow the team, how do you determine when is a good time to bring on another advisor, bring on someone additional? Is it, you know, someone raising their hand and saying, I don't have the time anymore? You're pressing productivity, maybe drop. What are those triggers to say, I'm ready?

Yeah, so there's a lot, right? So, we are, we do, you know, 3 team meetings, 3 team meetings a week, and then I do individual goals meetings every month.

Oh, you're busy with meetings.

Very busy. Very busy. And it's funny, like, I know a lot of advisors like, well, you know, those are like, those are useless meetings. Like, we're very effective with our meetings, I think. So like Monday is really kind of process. Like we're always trying to update and look and stay cutting edge. So if there's new things that we can be implementing that will be beneficial for our clients, we're going to do that. And we talk about that on Monday. And the good thing about our team too is like, I see a lot of teams that want to do certain things. And then it goes into, like, someone proposes it and then it goes to, like, this crazy vote. And then some people do it, some people don't do it. Our team buys in. So if we implement something, we're going to go run with it and we might run it with it for a month. And if it's good and it works, we're going to keep it. If it doesn't, then we'll revisit. We'll go back to the drawing board. But are the team super nimble and super willing to try new things, which I think is really important. You know, every Tuesday we do, like, an advanced planning meeting. So those strategies that we're talking about, like around estate planning and tax planning, the implications of each one, like what does that mean? And we try to do that from the top down. So we're very big on training and education. I think you should forever be a student in everything that you're doing and always just be willing to learn. And our team does and buys into that. And on Thursday, we used to do a business development meeting every Thursday. We changed that. So now we do a gratitude meeting. The first 30 minutes is actually gratitude, where it starts. So we're saying, what are you grateful for this week? What happened this week that you're grateful for? And the first couple of times we did it, it was like, all right, JT, this is corny. We're having conversations about family. We're having conversations about friends. We're having conversations that we normally wouldn't just have. And that little meeting to hear what's going on in everyone's life, it shows your team that you care. You know, I think that's a really big deal. And then you get some really good insight to people. It's not just about, you know, what they're doing from a business perspective. It's like who they are as a person. You know, that makes it like a lot easier and better to work with one another. Like, we really kind of know everything about one another and we have each other's back.

So how do you find, you know, these people to bring on your team? It sounds like you have a very distinct culture.

Yeah.

Everyone enjoys really working together?

There's a couple of things that I would say that's unique about our team. You know, one, we have 3 sets of family members on our team.

So 6 people are related to each other in one way.

Yeah. Okay. We have twin brothers, you know, Jameson, Hunter. They're, they're fantastic. We have Cameron and Mikayla, they're sisters. We have Shane and Kyle Jum. So Shane is an ED, one of my partners, and his younger brother Kyle, who is a VA at Morgan Stanley program. And then my, my oldest friend and, you know, high school rival and college roommate as our COO. And getting back to like ownership and culture, like we don't have those like little cliques. The advisors, I think they're really good at checking their ego at the door. I think they've done a great job of like realizing that this is a team thing, right? Like, yeah, it's the Taylor Group, but like, why? I am nothing without them. We all truly like working together to grow and build something, but it doesn't work if there's one chink in the armor. At all. So everyone kind of learns and I think we show a good— like, people want to be valued. Like, we value each person on the team and we understand how important their role is for every single team member. Like, the business development doesn't work unless we have the financial planning. The financial planning doesn't work unless we have the servicing. Like, we don't have that like cliquey drama at all. And I think it's just we genuinely like working with one another. It's fun to work with one another and we do a lot before hiring someone. We do a lot of due diligence. Like we've had a lot of people that have worked with us in some type of role. Like we have a robust intern program, like we have 20 interns working throughout the year. So like we're developing people early on and they also know what they're getting into. Everyone says they can do the job. Everyone's got like, you know, sitting down in an interview, I can do the job. Yeah, you really got to think about kind of what we're doing. Like we're working like I make it sound fun and it is like we have a great thing, but like we're working 8 to 7 every single day. We have a lot of clients on the West Coast. You know, we're routinely working on the weekends, and that's from the bottom to the top. That's fine. We're okay with that. Everything— everyone's okay kind of doing that work. But everyone that says that they can, you know, we really kind of dig deep and like do a lot of like not scaring people into like, hey, like, just know what you're getting into. Like, this is— this is— we're all in. We're working our butts off. We're going to have fun doing it. But like, it's going to be work.

Talking to an advisor that again is trying to build up a practice themselves, they're trying to think about that. What are the first couple steps they should take?

Time management, 100%. I'm very, very deliberate with our time. I think our team is very deliberate with your time. And then if you have a process in place, it also gives you— you get time back. You create time. So if I am talking to you and I'm talking to someone else and those meetings are completely different, I'm going to do an intro meeting with you and then a recommendations meeting, but I'm going to do an intro meeting, then a data gathering call, and then a live planning, and then an implementation meeting. So now I'm doing 4 meetings for you and 2 meetings with you. That just doesn't make sense. So having process around everything is going to make you create time. So you're not wasting time on mundane tasks that are just a time suck. So I would say time management by far, without a doubt, is the most important thing as you're kind of building this out and you're starting. And then, you know, kind of figuring out the numbers. Again, back to like, you know, if you have, you know, $50 million in assets and your goal is to get to $200 million, you know, then, you know, from a timing perspective, you know, 25% of your time should be, you know, used on, you know, talking to those clients. And 75% of your time should be used to go service the other or get new clients, right? Just like, just simple, like very simple kind of like—

You're literally making a business case.

Correct, yeah. And as you continue to kind of grow that number out and it's like, okay, well now who do I want to bring in? Because I want to make sure I retain all these people and I want to make sure, and then, you know, so from the very beginning, I'd say come in and really be deliberate. Like success isn't, by accident. Like sometimes there's a little bit of luck, right? But success is—

Market appreciation.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Longest bull market in history. But success is also like, you know, like you're deliberate, you're meaningful with how you're spending your time and you're not wasting it.

So if you're someone who maybe isn't the best with time management, do you find maybe a partner that does that process work and you maybe do the other half? How do you really manage that?

You could get better. Yeah, no, it's one of those things. So I think that— I think this is like the golden age to be an advisor. I think it's this golden age just to be alive. There's so much, you know, so much knowledge out there that you can get that at your fingertips between like I do Audible, right? So like I'm like on my commute, like I wake up, I'm up super early. I go to bed like pretty early as well. But I'm listening to a book whenever I can. A lot of those books, like again, you know, the self-improvement books or self-help books, like, or you're looking at how people build a business, right? Like, you know, The Everything Store, you know, Warren Buffett, Snowball, all these names, like, they're the common theme is like, okay, time management, or I had a process around everything, you know, competitiveness, but also like, what's your purpose? And really finding what your purpose is. So like, I think that you can learn that, like, you could be bad at anything. You could learn anything. Yeah, you have YouTube, you have Audible, you have ChatGPT, you have everything. I guess there's knowledge at your fingertips. Like, shame on you if you don't utilize it.

So besides Audible, ChatGPT, what would you want to leave listeners with?

Give back, you know, give back, give back as much as you can. It comes back to you tenfold. So give back your time and try to help develop people. You know, I think that has served me really well. And forever be a student, you know, try to learn as much as possible. Be curious, ask questions. I think, you know, that will serve you well. You know, you'll have purpose. And again, it's just how the world works. Like, I'm a big believer in karma. You know, you continue to give back and put other people before you, it comes back tenfold.

Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Yeah, no, it's great. Thank you for having us.

The production team for Barron's Advisor: The Way Forward, Next Generation is Ellie Ismailidou, Rebecca Bisdale, Paul LeBlanc, Kinga Rojak, Joseph Lesby, and Alexis Moore. Melissa Haggerty is the executive producer. Jenna Mathis is the director of programming for Barron's Advisor Programs. Greg Bartalus is the editor-in-chief of Barron's Wealth and Asset Management Group. We'll be back soon with another episode. Thanks for listening.

This podcast was brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking, and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra-high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more at joinwfadvisors.com.