EP 43 | Jeremy Burger on Empowering Advisors to Innovate and Experiment

David DeCelle

I don’t know man, maybe you could!

 

Jeremy Burger  24:50 

I don't know; you wouldn’t want Tom Brady is your receiver, right? And so, what we try to do especially early on is help build those skill sets. And then, and you've worked a lot with us on this, and I think on the associates even more is, try to help them, kind of empower them to figure it out, figure out what they're passionate in. And then we try to create opportunities that align with what the company needs and what their skill sets provide. And the sooner we can do that, in an organization, we think the better.

 

David DeCelle

Well, I think, too, as you continue to scale, and we're starting to get to this point with you guys. So you're familiar with our advisor DNA assessment that our team created. And essentially, for those of you who may not know what that is, the advisor DNA assessment, we believe that people derive energy from certain types of activities in the business. So the four DNAs that we've come up with are called the Connector, the Rainmaker, the Guardian, and the Architect. The connector is that salesperson, quite frankly, and that person is awesome to get someone excited, to cast the vision, to edify the next person that they're going to be meeting with. But to actually put together the recommendations—part of the reason, I love developing other humans and specifically advisors, and that's why I got into the consulting space—but part of the reason was when I basically graduated from selling insurance to then getting into the investment space, I just wasn't smart enough in that regard to really be able to do that, and be able to say with confidence that they're going to be in a good spot. It was just complicated. And I think that's the first time I've actually admitted that, so you got me being vulnerable on here, Jeremy, but I feel like that just wasn't where my skill set was. I wasn't an Architect. I wasn't the person who likes to crunch the numbers. I'm on the front end. So then you have the Rainmaker, and the Rainmaker is someone who's really good at identifying problems and opportunities and presenting solutions and getting people to actually take action specifically on something that's intangible. It's not like they're buying a widget, right? And then from there, the Guardian is the person who's actually taking care of that client relationship moving forward, making sure that they deliver an exceptional Grade A experience, and then the Architect behind the scenes is truly crunching the numbers. And everyone needs to know what other folks are doing so that you can be supportive of one another and make sure that you're singing to the same tune, so to speak. But ultimately, as the organization grows, it's making sure that people are just quite frankly, on the right seats of the bus. And they derive energy from their work, because if they're exhausted at the end of the day is probably because they're doing stuff that they shouldn't be doing.

 

Jeremy Burger

Yeah, that's right. And oftentimes, there's something that they don't enjoy doing that somebody else really does. And so it's like, how do we pair those people to create the best team to go out and serve our clients? And, we've been doing it for a number of years now, I think; we're constantly trying to think about how do we develop this? Now we have 50 employees roughly. How does this work when we have 100 employees? In thinking about down the road, how do we constantly be going out looking for people that we think are going to fit Merriman well, have the right skill set, how do we attract them in? How do we create great opportunities for them, give them the training and do it at 50 people as well, hopefully 100 people.

 

David DeCelle

So usually, I wait for this until the end in regards to sharing what your favorite book is. So for those of you who this may be your first episode, what I do in all these episodes is I ask our guests what their favorite book is. Selfishly, I want to know some new books to listen to; I listened to them, I don't read them. And I also want to promote learning for our industry; I feel like there's a lot of us who have become complacent and are not learning something new every single day, or if they are learning something new every day, typically it's related to the industry—which of course you need to do and stay up to date and things like that. But there's so much value in outside resources and outside perspectives, which is why I've woven this into the podcast. But the reason why I want to bring this up now, the book is by Marshall Goldsmith, and it's called What Got You Here Won't Get You There. And I had the opportunity to listen to this before our call. One of my biggest takeaways was the idea of as a leader, soliciting feedback from the people in your organization, because we have what are called Scotomas, which are blind spots, where we may think that we're doing everything right. But when people give us feedback, we're like, oh, I didn't even realize that I was doing that or that I wasn't doing that, thank you so much. So checking in with your folks along the way if you're constantly looking to learn, constantly looking to improve, and constantly looking to grow as a leader; and Jeremy, you mentioned your favorite part of the book (and hopefully didn't stop here!), but your favorite part of the book is the title. So again, the title is, What Got You Here Won't Get You There. So, when you had joined the firm, you were at 1.6 billion in client assets, and now you're just over 3 billion in client assets. So what got you to the 1.6 didn't necessarily get you to the three, because from my understanding, you were more simply managing assets and bringing people through a true just sales process, and you shifted over to holistic planning, right? You grew to 3 billion. So my question is, if you had to a cast the vision for the future, what got you here isn't going to get you there. What's ultimately going to get you there?

 

Jeremy Burger

Well, luckily, I didn't stop at the title. I first actually read it just quickly, right before I joined Merriman, is the first time I read the book, when I was actually at the prior firm. And actually reading that book is one of the things that led me ultimately to change firms. Because I could see that one of the main things that it talks about is that oftentimes, people who've gotten a certain level of success, the bad habits they have, they think they got there because of that. And that that will just continue, and I could tell that that wasn’t true. There was a ceiling to kind of where I was, and the people that I was working with, and that if I wanted to aspire for more, that I was going to have to go somewhere else. But I think we've spent the last couple years really continuing to refine our service offering and really set the team up, get the right people in the right seats at the right time for the organization. And giving them enough tools to develop their skill sets, without so much rigidity or just a rigid process where we don't allow them to figure it out. I think our goal is to empower people with the tools and then help them flourish in their own ideas. We talked to ideas earlier, right? I don't have a monopoly on good ideas. I think that's very clear if you talk to some of my other coworkers. And so we want people to be able to test things, try them out, and figure out what's going to work for them, and ultimately, what will help push the firm forward. So I feel that we've been building that base now of really getting the right people in the right seats. And now, I think it's going to be continued execution on two fronts; one is going to be on growth, and how we think about where we get clients from. And so, referrals are a major component of the business, I think they'll continue to be—we're working with you guys a lot on that. But we're also actively testing and trying new ways of reaching people, and I think that will continue to be an iterative process in thinking about how to capture new people to the firm that maybe don't know us right now and attract them. And then I think from a service offering standpoint, it's continuing to institutionalize and systematize those things that we spend—you talked about the investments earlier—we spend a lot of time trying to get our clients basis points of improvement. But that's something that's consistent across the firm. So how do we make that component of the process as systematized as possible but personalized to the client, so they feel like they're getting a custom experience, but we have a really good back end? And then thinking about okay, going forward, it’s kind of been wealth management and that would be a continued process, but how else can we add value in our client lives? And I think really trying to understand what are those things that we might be able to do internally? And what are those things that we need to partner with the right organizations to help our clients live fully? Which really comes down to understanding how time and money interact with each other, and helping them get more control over their time.

 

David DeCelle

Love it, I can say, working with you, Tyler, and Christie at the top, obviously, and then the advisors of the firm, what’s really enjoyable for us is, so you mentioned earlier in your career, you just said yes to everything, and then you figured it out. What I really like is that you say yes to our ideas, and you let us figure it out. So I guess my point in bringing that up is you, not just at the advisor level, but at the firm level, you're willing to test things. So, we tested, webinars and in speaking with Frank and Alan, they're having a blast, and they got some good people in the pipeline. And once COVID hopefully goes away at some point we can do seminars again, and we've talked about starting various podcasts and a lot of your advisors are creating content. It's just a breath of fresh air when, just for people listening, Jeremy is not just saying this stuff, they're actually doing it as well and trying to be innovative and trying to be different and truly, from my perspective, anyways, empowering your advisors to focus on certain niches and understanding. We just had a session with Frank and Paige and Alan and Amy, about how they're going to attract certain people, and they came prepared with such good out-of-the-box ideas. I know without even having shared it with you, although I did CC you on the notes, but I know that you're going to be supportive of that stuff, even though they're totally out of the box. Because, when you can allow people to pursue a career while focusing on their passions along the way, that just helps. It just helps. So for that, I'm grateful that you guys are like that. Just so you know.

 

Jeremy Burger

Well, great. I'm grateful for those advisors who listened and everybody else on the team, that they're willing to get outside their comfort zone. And I think oftentimes when you try new things, if you try new things and you never fail, that means you didn't really step out of your comfort zone. You didn't really try to innovate something new. And, I think for us, it's this comfortability with the idea that we're gonna try things, and not all of them are going to work. And that's okay, and that we want to be supportive of that throughout the process. I'll give you a funny story. Tyler and I, many years ago, we tried to do a number of seminars, and we built this—what we thought was outstanding seminar—we practiced, we did all these things, and we did not get the results that we wanted. And that was uncomfortable, but we also said, hey, what can we learn from it? What can we try to do better next time, and how do we move forward? And so I think it's, support people along the way, give them the tools, understand sometimes you're going to have things that work incredibly well, and sometimes things aren't going to work. And, how you bounce back from that and keep moving forward. And then the last thing, just quickly I'll say is, and you touched on it, which is that we're trying to allow everybody the opportunity to pursue what's important to them, because I think what happens sometimes, as leaders, and I know that this is definitely true in my own experience, I think as I've progressed—hopefully progressed—as a leader, is we make assumptions, and we put people or ideas in boxes. I think one of the things that I'm consistently reminded of is that people surprise us, and good ideas can come from anywhere. So we're trying to encourage and support people in trying things, and we're seeing things that maybe we wouldn't have thought work, showing a lot of results. And those people are super excited, like they're having wins. I mean, it just it builds on it. And I think now, we're seeing that—you mentioned in one of your notes to me recently that the field across the organization is just so much different. And I think part of it's because people are having their own success. And I also think we just have a very team-based approach. And it's like, you succeeding doesn't come at the expense of me, we all can succeed. And we all can be better for that, and I think we strive for that each day.

 

David DeCelle

I love it. So, Jeremy, if anyone has any questions, or anyone is interested in Merriman, where can they find you? I want to make sure you get a little bit of a plug before we enter into the after hour section?

 

Jeremy Burger

Perfect. Well, obviously merriman.com; I'm more active on LinkedIn. And I think I try to share interesting information, connect with people; those are probably the best places.

 

David DeCelle

Awesome. Well, I appreciate you joining. We're obviously gonna be entering into the next segment right now. But before we do so, thank you. For everyone who tuned in today, I think that there's a lot of great nuggets throughout this episode. So as always, make sure that whatever your main takeaway was, or main couple takeaways are, put them into action immediately. Don't just listen to this stuff and be an information zombie where you're the smartest person in the room, but you don't do anything about it. So, make sure that you're taking action. Also, I did mention as well, our advisor DNA assessments earlier today on the show. So that was the Connector, Rainmaker, Guardian, and Architect. And if you think that that would be helpful for you feel free to reach out to me and actually, if you would be so kind as to share this episode with someone who you think would find it to be helpful, we'd appreciate that. And also, if you subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes, if you take a screenshot of that review, and shoot me a text at 978-228-2338. Again, 978-228-2338 send me a screenshot of that what will happen is you'll get an automated response right away with a quick little form to fill out your name so I know who it is and then beyond automated text, it's direct conversation with me. It's not like a chatbot or anything like that. So if you send me a screenshot of your review, and also say Advisor DNA in the text, the first three people that do that, I will send you a link to be able to take that assessment and I'll hop on a debrief call with you as well to figure out, based on your advisor DNA, where you should be focusing based on your current setup. So as a thank you for going out of your way to make a review quickly, that’s what I'll do for the first three people. So again, I appreciate everyone's time and attention. Hope you're enjoying these shows as much as I am. Jeremy, thank you, again for joining. And we will see you guys on the after-hours portion.

 

Jeremy Burger

Perfect. Well, thanks so much. It was great being here. Awesome.

 

David DeCelle

There was a lot of really good stuff in there, man.

 

Jeremy Burger

Thanks. It was funny, when you were talking about the actionable things, I was listening like, what would I take away from that?

 

David DeCelle

I mean, the two main things that come to my mind…

 

Jeremy Burger

I don’t know if this is the after-hours section or not.

 

David DeCelle

It’s all after-hours. And this is actually good to debrief during this portion, because a lot of people may be thinking the same thing where it's like, I really liked that, but what do I do now? I think that it's when presented with opportunities, say yes. Number two is, don't worry about the judgment of others, and just bring up the ideas that you have, making sure that you're speaking up if you think something can be innovative. And then if you're still listening, and you have a firm with multiple advisors, you should have an Associates program if you don't already and model after some of the stuff that Jeremy's done.

 

Jeremy Burger

And hopefully some people maybe who are listening who thought, wow, no firm is perfect, but that a lot of what Merriman’s trying to do sounds attractive. That they reach out, right? We're hiring, we’re trying to find talented advisors, either starting out in their career or who've been here for a while, who want to be part of something bigger. And I think we have a great culture. And we would love to talk to more people who are maybe interested in making a move. I was smiling in that last section, because this is the after-hours section. So I have to tell you a funny story about like the first couple months of joining Merriman. So we were, again, we had grown very rapidly, we were doing workshops constantly, we had a podcast, voted best podcast by Money Magazine in 2008. We were producing content all the time, but we had a couple articles that were like every year updated evergreen, like they were super valuable. All the advisors use them in workshops—they were used. So I'm a few months into the job, again, I have no clients, I'm a nobody. And there's this article that we're gonna post and I'm reading through it, there's this big table, and I won't go into all the details, but there's a big table. And I think to myself, I don't think this is right. I don't think we're showing what we think we are and we need to change it. So I spoke up and I think I brought this to I think the appropriate level people, and they were like, yeah, we think it's fine the way it is. And I said, I'm not quite there yet. I want to be a team player. I want to jump on board, but I don't think we're there yet. So long story short, within my first couple months of being there, as the market’s falling, I end up having a meeting with me, the founder, the CEO, the CFO—like the leadership team. And basically, it's me explaining why I think the way I think we should present something is right. And Paul Merriman, who I loved dearly, say no, I think this is still the appropriate, I think we should still do this. And my wife, I remember at the time, my wife saying, Jeremy, you're going to get fired, can't you just be quiet? Like, just move past this? And I was like, no, but I think I'm right. Which by the way, is terrible; I've gotten better over the years. But sure enough, they ended up changing the article.

 

David DeCelle

And now you can go back to your wife and say, honey, aren't you glad that I spoke up? Because I'm running the ship now.

 

Jeremy Burger

Yeah, I try not to do that. Actually, you know, Jeff Curran, who's an outstanding advisor on our team. I told him many years ago about a prospect who, also earlier my time at Merriman, basically told me, and they were a large prospect, they basically told me that they weren't going to hire me because of my age. And that always has always stuck with me. And Jeff, when I became CEO one time said, you should send him a note and tell him that you're now the CEO. And if you know Jeff, that would be a very Jeff thing not to necessarily do, but to talk about. But I told him, I don't think that's very helpful.

 

David DeCelle

Or you could—so one of my favorite podcast by Andy Frisella is called the MFCEO and it stands for the mother effin CEO. You can just send that prospect a podcast recommendation they can like to do what the subliminal… So before we get into some of the funny questions, I do have a question. So you joined an already established firm? You were young. I would imagine that you haven't been at the firm the longest right now, there's probably people that either started with you or were hired before you. You start off, you got no clients, recession hits. Fast forward 10 years, you're the CEO. When you first became CEO, did you find that everyone was like, within the organization, was super supportive of that? Did you find that there was any apprehension or maybe resentment? And how did you kind of work through that? Because I know that if I joined the firm, and did those same things, I feel like there would be some potential apprehension at first. But, I also feel like that conflict, when handled directly and with some grace, ultimately builds relationships; but I guess walk me through that scenario.

 

Jeremy Burger

You know, I've seen that play out with other firms. It probably depends a little bit on the culture and also the circumstances. So I think in my specific case, since that's what we're talking about, we have a lot of tenure within the organization. So there were a lot of people that I've been working with from day one. And I think they saw me progress and saw me in action many years before it was that I was CEO, right, and they saw that progression. And I think that limited any major conflict, where I think the best succession plans are often the ones that seem natural. Obviously, Amazon, you know, Jeff Bezos recently said he was stepping down from CEO and it was kind of a non-event, because the person that he chose was somewhat expected, everybody already bought into him. And not to say it was totally smooth and there weren't some difficult conversations pre becoming CEO, but I think luckily we were kind of able to address those as a leadership team about who we thought was the best position to move the firm forward. And ultimately, then when the time came, it was a very kind of gratifying and surreal moment of being like, okay, now we're here, I have the support of people, and now I have to kind of get everybody moving in the same direction. And it worked out pretty well.

 

David DeCelle

Cool. Yeah, I like the idea where it wasn't just like, oh, dad appointed his son the CEO, because he wants to keep in the family. It was you've been working towards that for 10 years through the actions that you were taking on a daily basis.

 

Jeremy Burger

Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think for some people, especially when it got announced, I might not have been next in line. So there was a little bit of surprise, but I think, my hope is anyway, that when people kind of stepped back and thought, okay, what do we really want going forward and things like that, that then they said, oh, yeah, Jeremy makes a ton of sense. And we're going to rally around him and I think that that was totally the experience, which just has made it even more kind of impactful for me.

 

David DeCelle

Cool. Few hotseat questions for you before we wrap up. And these are some “would you rather” questions, so they are great. And whatever you're thinking they are, they’re not, because they're totally random. So the first one: would you rather use eye drops made of vinegar or toilet paper made from sandpaper?

 

Jeremy Burger

Oh, geez, Louise. Probably eye drops of vinegar. Both sound uncomfortable.

 

David DeCelle

I mean, I use baby wipes every time so to use sandpaper, like, my rear end would not be very happy. So I have to pick the eye drops too. Would you rather be a clown who distracts the bull? Or the cowboy who rides the bull?

 

Jeremy Burger

Oh, man. I'm gonna say the cowboy because it sounds more interesting. In real life, could I really get on the bull? I don't know. But I like the idea of being on the bull.

 

David DeCelle

It's funny, because when I first read that I was like, well, do I want to sound like a badass or do I want to be safe? Maybe started on the mechanical bull at a bar one night.

 

Jeremy  Burger

Yes, I may have done that once or twice.

 

David DeCelle

Final one. Would you rather have to go to the bathroom in a giant litter box in your house, or anywhere you want but you can only do so outside? Now mind you. It rains a lot out there. It gets cold out.

 

Jeremy Burger

Yeah, rain and cold.

 

David DeCelle

Then you're tracking sand all throughout the house.

 

Jeremy Burger

Yeah, yeah. You know, even though it does rain a lot here in Seattle, I do like the outdoors. And especially with COVID. In Seattle, it's not as easy to get outside as much as it sometimes otherwise is. So I'm going to go with outside.

 

David DeCelle

Cool. I love that CEOs of firms at your level and whatnot, I'm just asking these ridiculous questions.

 

Jeremy Burger

Yeah, yeah, they're absurd, but it's all in fun, and I really, I mean, I hope that people find it valuable. And I think overall, I'm just super grateful to not only lead, I think an incredible organization with incredible people, but also to partner with people like you guys, and then the rest of the team at Model FA in helping us get our exposure out even more, because I think we do great work for clients and want to expand that.

 

David DeCelle

Awesome. Well, I appreciate the kind words in the plug towards the end, so thank you very much. And for those of you who stuck around for the after-hours portion, hopefully you got a chuckle. Hopefully you got another nugget or two with our debrief. And appreciate you tuning in. Jeremy, thanks again for joining.

 

Jeremy Burger

Yeah, thanks so much. It's great being here.

 

David DeCelle

Awesome. Take care.

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai