I Owe it All to Others
When I was 20, I was working my way through college at a large printing company. I worked the night shift because it paid 15% more than the day shift. After three years there, I saw what was happening to the older employees. Once they got five years in, they had three weeks of vacation and a nice annual bonus. They owned company stock and bought new cars. Many of their spouses and adult children got jobs there. One big comfy family. They stayed in their hamster-wheel jobs, content, but oblivious to the future. It wasn’t for me. One night, I was inking up my printing press on the production line, and someone called out to me up the line, “Hey, Noel, isn’t that your cousin coming in the back door?” It was. He worked the day shift, but was transferring to nights for the slower pace and the extra pay. In that moment, I saw myself working there the rest of my life, my dreams reduced to whatever happenstance would bring me on the expedient path of least resistance, the comfy but unimportant blue collar life. I panicked. I shut off my press, hung up my apron, and walked out. My supervisor, Kenny Upton, knew exactly what was going on. He drew up alongside me, and tried to tell me that the only way I would ever make anything of myself was if I invented something, received an inheritance, or won the lottery. I knew deep inside that he couldn’t be right. From that brief exchange, I learned a principle that has continued to grow in my heart and has been proven time and again, I don’t have to invent, inherit, or win anything. I can find out what successful people have done and model it.
Pretty much everything I know about being a good advisor and businessman, at least the technical aspects, I stole from someone else. I didn’t invent any brilliant, new how-tos. I learned them from others. An old colleague and friend, Ernie Koster, used to say, “There isn’t any original thought.” In business, I think he is right. Yes, you can innovate, you can improve on the ideas of others, and you can even do a better job of implementation, and these you should. But what is tried and true is, well, tried and true.
Don’t Reinvent the Wheel
My first business was investment-related, but focused on retirement plans for employees of school districts, universities, and non-profits. I had no mentors, and it was a lot of trial and error trying to figure out how to build and run a business. I wasted an enormous amount of time learning the basics. It eventually grew to about 70 employees in offices around Texas, and we had 120 independent advisors. We were making it, but it was a high volume, low profit business. I never had the confidence that I was doing things right. My wife came down with a serious illness, and after 15 years in business, I sold it and retired to care for her and our two small children. When the money ran out from the sale of the business a few years later, I had to go back into business. This time, I decided to build a financial planning practice, but keep it relatively small. I started traveling around the country, visiting the offices of successful financial advisors. I would attend financial planning symposiums and conferences where top advisors were speaking. I was a sponge. I copied their filing systems, their financial planning strategies, their marketing programs, and their bedside manor. Soon, I was out producing most of them. In ten years, we had built one of the most profitable and efficient practices in our market. To this day, I still try visit 2-3 colleagues around the country each year, looking for ways to improve our operations, our investment results, our relationships, and our bottom line.
Adopt and Adapt
Someone once said, “If you want to be successful, find out what unsuccessful people are doing, and don’t do that.” Somewhere, someone else said, “Successful people do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do.” Both of these adages are fairly accurate, but they are in the pejorative. Focus on what successful people are doing, and find ways to adapt their systems, technologies, procedures, and methods to your own practice. Adopt and adapt. One visit to the office of a colleague in Evansville, Indiana revolutionized our client filing system. Another visit to a colleague in Hartford, Connecticut changed all my thinking about asset allocation. A visit to a colleague in Memphis, Tennessee put me on the path to buying our first tax practice. In the case of the filing system, it was as simple as using color coordinated file folders. But, we expanded and improved it. On the asset allocation model, we refined it and perfected its presentation to clients. On the tax practice, we learned to make it more profitable, instead of just a loss-leader.
Get on the road and find out what your colleagues are doing well. Commit yourself to learning from others. Invest in your own training, but learn from the best. Not the so-called “experts,” who write books and give talks but aren’t in the trenches everyday. Seek out the best active advisors that you admire and respect, and learn from them. This requires humility and a teachable spirit, but it is the only way to get to the top. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
There are many people who have learned from experience, and rather than relive those experiences ourselves, we should build on them. By taking proven methods, we can bypass the trial and error period for that method, and tweak it to our specific needs. This puts us in a much better position to succeed. There is always something to learn and always someone to learn it from. We must always be ready and willing to learn it.
As the saying goes, “nothing is new under the sun”. So many people try to re-create the wheel when the existing wheel is just fine. Stop wasting your time and latch on to successful people. They are your ticket to success.
There are still many community-based contemporary cultures around the globe that subscribe to a system of apprenticeship. For instance, in Turkey, most professionals fall under one of three levels of apprenticeship: the “çırak” (the young Padawan, if you will), the “kalfa” (the Jedi), and the “usta” (the Jedi Master).
It seems to me that the concept of apprenticeship in America has largely given way to the glamorized ideal of the “self-made man.” I’m not here to argue against the concept of rugged individualism, but — through the Turkish culture — I have witnessed first-hand the value of establishing a a structured competency in a basic set of skills. There is definitely something to be said for discipleship and soaking in the wisdom of one’s elders.
I would much rather do business with someone who is always looking for ways to improve not only for their profit but also for my benefit. Gleaning from others is not only wise but, demonstrates humility and a willingness to go the extra mile to be a cut above the rest.