Financial Growth and Legacy Building: Strategies for Success

What does financial planning and wealth management look like in the modern era? In this episode, Adam Torres and Chad Olivier, CEO and Founder at Olivier Group, explore financial planning and wealth management.

See a full transcript of the video below:

Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres. And if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. Today I have Chad Olivier on the line and he’s CEO and founder over at Olivier group.

Chad, welcome to the show. Great. Thanks for having me, Adam. All right, Chad. So, we got a lot to talk about here today. So financial growth and legacy building strategies for success. And I want to get into the Olivier group of course, but just to get us kicked off, I mean, where did you start your journey in wealth management and planning?

Like where’d all that begin for you? Sure, sure, sure. I started in 1996 at a little firm in New Orleans, Oldie Stockbrokers. And then from, firm that would hire you know, 20, 22, 23 year olds right out of college. Mm hmm. Started there and started basically my career just, cold calling I would say little old ladies on tax free bonds and got, got my foot in the door and then started with doing seminars and then moved to a regional firm, Morgan Keegan a couple, you know, two and a half years later, and then started Olivier Group in 2002.

And so, when you started Olivier group, what was the vision for this? Like, what was, I know when you move from one company and then you go out and you hang your own shingle on, I’ll pick on myself for a moment here. I remember when I went independent and I worked for some of the bigger companies for,, many, many years.

And I started my first IRA, and I hung my shingle. Like that was a, that was a big move as an entrepreneur to make that jump and to like, leave that, that kind of safety net. If you go like, what, what were you thinking when you did that? What was the vision? So, the, the vision was from the beginning was to make sure that that we’re able to take care of our clients, that we’re just, it’s anything so our motto was like anything with a dollar sign, we step in and we help clients with.

So I did it at a much smaller scale back then. I didn’t have a lot of resources started Olivier group, but that was my vision that we would grow. Grow, grow, grow and get to the point where we could handle everything from investments to taxes to insurance and just be part of our clients total, total life.

So that was the vision. And realistically, like, that is the vision today, but we just much on a much bigger scale. Yeah, what was it like when you made that move from, you know, being in the seat, just giving the advice to then, you know, wearing that hat as an entrepreneur and being in charge of everything, even if it was a small team is different.

Like now you got to run a business, right? So, I mean, I was 29 years old and I would say I was a nervous wreck and just I’m taking you back there because I, I was, yeah, when I started my RIA, I was like, wait a minute. I was great at production. I was great at producing. I’m speaking for myself, not for you.

But I was like, man, I don’t know how to run a business. I remember thinking that. I’m like, oh, I’m in trouble here. Like there was like all of a sudden I had a whole nother job that I had to do. I’m like, wait a minute. Yeah, there’s no steep learning curve, and I started joining some different business organizations, and then just started reading any book on business that I can on knowing how to effectively run a business.

And in the beginning, you’re basically a one man show, so it’s realistically not a business. So you have to learn how to hire, how to run a business, what do you need to do. And so I just, started just reading about successful businesses, especially in my industry. How they, how were they able to do it and just followed it to it.

T and then it just ends up just, you know, growing, growing and multiplying like a snowball effect. Yeah what do you think were some of , the attributes that many small businesses and finance or otherwise don’t make it. , what do you think are some of the attributes that gave you , that long legacy?

I mean, and by all, all sakes, I mean, you made it, you’re still, you’re still in the game and you started in the nineties, right? So, so you made it. Yeah, and you know, so what’s amazing is Multiple, 2000, the Tech Rec, sorry, 2000, the Tech Rec, you survived that, 2008, you survived that, who else? All the many ones in between, go ahead, please, I just wanted to put some context for everybody listening, that’s all.

Sure, sure, sure, sure, so when I first moved over on my own, I brought over like maybe 12 million in assets and we’re at 465 million in assets. Amazing. And the, yeah, and all these assets , I’ve not acquired any businesses. This is just from pure growth of the actual business.

And it’s what, what’s amazing, what’s always helped me out was that I always look at, Everything is competition. So when you look at it that way, and even I explain it to clients, you know, even when you go through tough, tough markets, I said, just look at every company. Like a competition between that company and another company, another business in the same way.

If you look at your business, is that, you know, at certain periods of time. It gets you’re going to have really, really bad times, but that’s where you need to like step on a gas and start calling all clients, reassuring them that everything’s going to be okay. And get them through that time. And every time we’ve had one of those really, really rough markets that next year, we’ve had like the best year.

Because we have so many referrals and so many things happened because we did what we did the year before. As I always tell the clients, when we’re looking at stocks or investments, and you have a great company out there that you know, just to give you an example. I won’t name any names, but this company.

Puts packages on my doors , every day they bring it to us. And I’ll say their name, man, I’m proud of it. I was one of the first prime, I swear. I was one of the first prime members. Nobody believes me. I’m like, I cut my packages year by year. I’m like over probably 500 packages this year.

I’m serious. Every single day, multiple maybe usually. So, so if you have a company, so, so Adam, if you have a company like that , in a year with, it’s a, when it’s a bear market and they go down 70%, you gotta ask yourself, , like, okay, should they really, you know, is this gonna be a good company or gonna be still in business?

Are they making money? Mm-Hmm. , is this an opportunity? And, , this is, this is where opportunities happen, and then you get to, then you get all the benefits of the rewards of it for doing, making moves and doing things. And same thing in any business. Same thing in any business. Yeah. And what I like about your story too is that , I mean, , you, obviously you’re successful, your company’s grown, you’re doing well for your clients or else, , and just the fact , that number that you mentioned for everybody that’s listening, that isn’t aware of kind of wealth management or the business. A lot of times what in order to grow or grow your assets, maybe you’re purchasing other books or other things like that, which there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s completely fine, but it’s it says something else when you’re growing in an organic manner as well.

And you’re able to attract clients and retain them to build your book. It’s just, it’s typically a little bit can be not always, but a little bit slower. It could be a little bit it’s one client at a time with your staff. So it’s just, it’s, I feel a, it’s an intimate process. So that’s just some context for everybody that’s listening that didn’t quite catch what Chad mentioned when he taught, when he made that statement, but that’s the context behind it.

But so in that spirit, Chad, I think it’s pretty interesting to get your take on just the state of wealth management today and what consumers are facing. So whether it’s. Products like advice, , like I, I’ve not been in the biz. I’ve been in full time in media now the last eight years, even though I was in the business, almost 14 prior to that.

But what are you seeing?? Like, what are clients being offered? Like what’s the competition doing? Like, talk to me about this state of wealth management overall. So would. To me, what’s very scary in this whole wealth management area is that it’s very easy for someone just to come and hang a shingle and say, you know, I’m a, you know, I’m a wealth advisor.

Yeah, , it’s not difficult to do that. We, we always stress to the public or to our clients is that you, you want to work with a team of certified financial planners, you know, certified financial planner is like the top. Echelon of our business like doing so much more than just hanging out a shingle and then you want to work with someone that’s got fiduciary.

I mean, it’s in your best interest. So what we run across. And it says this is in most cities is that you run it across the insurance agents that Or just selling products and they scaring people in products where , they’re putting statements out there , like, you know, other advisors going to lose your money because the market is so risky and we have these products that have you know, the G word, which is guarantees , that you’re not going to run out of money and, and all of these bells and whistles.

What ends up happening is many times I’ll, we’ll get to see these investments after they’ve been purchased and the client comes to us and says, you know, I’m just not making we’re just not making much return, any money off of it. We look at it, it’s like a lot of times they’re stuck in an investment that is for 15 years.

There’s all kinds of back end charges on it. And the formula. To actually get the returns that they’re saying they should be getting is just so complicated that it’s hard to understand. It’s hard to understand, so with basic planning, and if you just look at we do what’s called a bucket strategy.

So if you just look at basic planning, and you look at the buckets, like you have three buckets. One bucket is your, like Now money that you live off of that safe money, then you got the mid bucket, which is going out, you know, like this, you know, two to 10 year period that may have bonds, ETFs, and some, you know, maybe high big dividend stocks.

And then you got the more aggressive in the third bucket, which will be growth companies, growth stocks, , and you work through those buckets, like you will be totally fine. In retirement , or trying to pass assets on to your heirs, you don’t need to go into these complicated products, but , I know as many years before that you haven’t been in the financial industry, but I mean, way back when you probably remember those commercials that would just, , it was for gold or anything else.

It was just like, Hey, yeah, like, you know, everything’s going to fail. This is going to be so bad. This is what you need to invest in, and it’s just that’s realistically not the way to acquire wealth and to distribute wealth through your lifetime. what I do see out there that, to me, is scary, and it really hits that middle market more than anything.

Anything so if you just think of people that are retired from the local plants that have they have some money. I mean, they have sometimes up 7 figures, but they don’t really follow a lot of things. And then , they just keep putting in their mind just, you know, constantly just run the commercials.

Like, it’s going to be bad. It’s going to be bad. It’s going to be so bad. And you need to do this well. Well, Adam, the truth is, I’ve been through all those types of markets, even 2008 with when you had the whole financial world in collapse. But if you had like a very diversified, strong portfolio and you, and you made some moves, which we did during that time where you get things at deep discounts like in a matter of a few years you did incredible.

And then, you know, five or six years after that , you’ve doubled. Which you’ve done even before that crisis happened. So that’s how you have to look at things. It’s just investing is investing. And you have to have a plan, but you have to take advantage of things, and you just don’t throw in a towel at any point.

That is always good. Yeah. , talk to me about legacy planning specifically , for business owners, a lot of business owners, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs that listen to this and many are entering that stage of life of where they’re, considering if it’s retirement or, or whether they’re going to, what they’re going to do with their business, you know, next as they move on to the next thing in life.

Talk to me about legacy planning and some of the work that you’re doing with business owners. Sure, sure. So , I’m a certified exit planner and as a certified exit planner, I mean, , we’re preparing our business owners for exits, even if it’s not even in the near future. So when we meet with our business owners, we always, the first thing we pose the question is, hey, .

Are you ready to sell? Are you ready to grow? Are you ready to sustain? What do you want to do? And so, from that question, then we kind of look and see what’s the next step. And ideally what you want to do with the business, is make sure that you’re maximizing their value.

At any time. So the problem we see with many business owners is that they’re living through the business, living off the business, and it’s not really . It’s not getting ready for sale. So they’re not maximizing the actual value of that business. That’s where we come in and just make sure that, hey, you know, this is you got to look at this business as a separate entity.

And this is not you, and you’re not the business, like this is a separate entity. Which is hard sometimes for the business owners, myself included, because that’s our baby, right? We lived it, we built it, like even your business, I’m sure you would have, you know, it has your name on the door, but we gotta look at it like different, I get it.

Listen, my, my, I got four boys, and we all are dressing in Olivier Group attire all over, you know, all the time. Oh man, I love, I love that, man. Oh, I love a good family business. You got those boys, how old are they, if you don’t mind me asking? Yeah, yeah, so my boys are 19, 17 15, and 11. Oh, that’s what I’m talking about.

They’re all wearing it. Come on, we’re going golfing. Everybody’s wearing Olivier Group. Come on. That’s it. We are everything. My logo is everywhere. You’re missing, you’re missing one for the basketball team and you’re good. Oh, no, wait a minute, and you there, go to the five. That’s right. You got jerseys for the whole golf, playing pick up basketball, all five.

I’d love it. So, so, so, Adam, I mean, One of the other things that we always try to stress is, is that , we have to, the children of the clients, need to be educated early on how the business works. How’s the how to investment works? and then the owner, has to decide if this is going to be a business that the Children are going to come in, or they can sell the business.

And many times, , the reason why businesses fail. Or they’re failing because they’re giving the business to the next generation. In reality, the next generation needs to be buying that business and not be a gift. They need to understand the value of it. I agree with that. And, if you understand that, I mean, then now you have an ability to plan properly so that you’re getting maximum value, right?

Because that’s where I, that’s what kills me is when, I mean, I’ll give you , my worst ever best ever. I mean, it’s the worst ever, but it just, you know, I’ll just say the story. I remember a client I was working on for a lot of years and he’s like, going to exit it, going to exit the business, whatever. At some point he was going, he’s like, Adam, I’m going to bring in the business, Adam, I’m bringing the business.

And you know, many years later, you know, three, four years later into the relationship, he comes in and he’s smiling ear to ear and he’s got a check in his hand. And he’s like, yep, I’m ready. And I’m like, okay, you’re ready. Let’s start planning the exit then. So how many years are we thinking? Are we thinking in a year?

We thinking in two, like we got to start planning. He’s like, what planning? I got the check right here. And all I could, my heart dropped. I’m like, well, anything that we could have done, you just now lost all the value in. And he’s like, I was like, I hate to dampen your day, but I got, I was a CFP back then, by the way, as well.

And I’m like, man, all these conversations we’ve had all these, like, I’m like, and you didn’t come to me. I, I very clear. I have so much documentation. He’s like, well, it’s done is done. I was like, Oh my gosh. I was like, but I’m like so much value. Like, I didn’t even get to see what was there for the planning side of things that have the value that he potentially left on the table.

And especially because he wasn’t working with a business Like yourself, like he wasn’t working with that. He just, sold it. He got an offer. It was okay. What he thought it should be. And he, and he just did it. And I’m like, Oh my gosh. And who knows that could have been at the, at the minimum, I believe hundreds of thousands of dollars that he left on the table by not properly planning, like, and especially just, and it just so happened in the market that he exited and everything else.

It was like, it was okay. But that aside, you don’t know what you don’t know. And we never got to look under there. So I never got close. It was fine. The client was at the end of the day. All right, but it hurts my heart. And I tell this story because for everybody listening, you know, you don’t just, you got to work with somebody that specializes in exiting the business.

Like he potentially gave up. I believe excess of six figures, possibly multiples. And what he could have gotten in value for what would the cost have been for some planning, like nothing compared to that, or even some additional like outside help if we had to assemble a team, depending on like the complexity of , how his books were or things like that, like all the things he could have done, and it’s like, Oh, I just, it broke my heart because he’s a really good guy.

And I’m thinking about , that’s money. , out of his investments, out of his legacy, out of his get that his kids should have inherited things like that. And that value, I mean, there’s a winner and a loser in every transaction or so to speak. So the person who bought probably was the winner on that one.

And, and that excess value which that wasn’t my relationship. So I wasn’t, you know, obviously rooting for that person. Right, right, right, right. But I say this not a kind of it not to scare everybody But you should be if you’re doing you he worked, you know 30 years to build that business or whatever the amount of time was right Yeah, it’s his it’s his it’s his baby.

Yeah, this is and it grew up and it was time for it Yeah, let’s just work with somebody let it go but work with somebody you got to work with somebody that knows what they’re doing That has exited many businesses if you’re going at it and it’s going to be your one time to exit Don’t you want to do it the right way?

Like, that’s the thing. Like, if that’s going to be your exit, you built it for that long, and now you’re going to exit it, why would you go at it alone? You’ve only, you’ve only done it once, or will do it once, versus working with a team that’s maybe done it many, many, many, many times. Right? That’s true. And Adam, one thing we always stress is and this is many, I’m just amazed that many business owners do not have it, but have some type of an estate plan that goes with it.

With their business. So they have their business, they’re living through their business, they’re in their business, but they don’t have any of their estate planning. So when I, when I’m meeting with you know, many of these their potential clients or new clients that have businesses, you know, I always say, I say, so how, how do we protect in the family when it comes to the business?

How do we protect in the children that, Are getting benefits from this business. Now, you know, do we, do we have trust set up to make sure that their spouses can’t. Touch that money like it’s got to stay everything’s got to stay in the family unit And that’s what I tell him I said he can go down from their children But it’s not going to go to this that the spouse is not going to be part of that trust No matter how much you like the spouse It’s got us that everything has to stay in that family unit, and this is a whole family Business organization.

I know we, we have a client that is a very, very large estate and his business part of it’s not even a big part of the estate, but we work in with, you know, we have a state attorneys that are helping him do things. We’ve done things in the past, but now it’s become even larger.

So, but it’s the, it’s always the same thing. Like , he’s buying a house for his, for his daughter in another state, , and he’s like, Oh, do I just give it to him? I’m like, no, you don’t just give it to him. They’re going to set up an LLC. This is going to be part of her inheritance. This is going to be part of hers.

And it’s not going to be the, it’s not going to be her husband. It’s not, this is all part of your world and your state. And that’s how you have to think about it. About it. Mm hmm. It’s great. Chad, I know , we got much, much more we can talk about this and I’m sure my audience, their interest is piqued.

That being said what’s the best way for people to follow up after this conversation and learn more about the Olivier group? How did the, how did they connect with you and your team? Yeah. Sure, go to our website at oliviergroup. com, O L I V I E R, group. com, and you can see all kinds of information on us.

I’ve written a couple of books. I have a local television program here, doing the news, and see some different things about us, but you, there’s also a spot on there that you can contact us. If you have specific questions or one of one of our advisors to give you a call, just click on that amazing.

And for the audience, just so you know, we’ll, we will definitely put the links and all that good stuff. So that you can just click on them and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe button.

This is a daily, daily show each and every day. We’re releasing new episodes, new content, and hopefully new inspiration. you along in your journey. So again, hit that subscribe or follow up button because we got another episode coming out tomorrow and I want you to get that notification and Chad, again, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Really appreciate it. Thank you for all your work you do out there, helping your clients. So appreciate it. Great. Thanks Adam.

Adam Torres is not affiliated or registered with Cetera Advisor Networks LLC. Any information provided by Adam Torres is in no way related to Cetera Advisor Networks LLC or its registered representatives. The opinions contained in this material are those of the presenters, and not a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell investment products. This information is from sources believed to be reliable, but Cetera Advisor Networks LLC cannot guarantee or represent that it is accurate or complete.  For a comprehensive review of your personal situation, always consult with a tax or legal advisor. Neither Cetera Advisor Networks LLC nor any of its representatives may give legal or tax advice.