Getting to Know Your Advisor - Jake Falcon, CRPC

Thank you so much to everyone who has listened, watched or read Upticks over the past 200 podcasts! And speaking of podcasts, I read recently that the first episode of a podcast should be an “About Me” episode. We didn’t do that 200 episodes ago, or at least I don’t think we did, so I figured we would do it now. Thanks to?Falcon Wealth Advisors?Co-Founder and COO Cory Bittner, CRPC?, for interviewing me on this episode. A summary of our conversation is below.

Cory:?Jake, let’s start from the beginning. Where are you from?

Jake:?I was born in 1981 here in Kansas City but moved to Nebraska when I was young. We stayed there about three years, which was long enough for me to become a Huskers fan. And then when I was 4 or 5 years old, we moved near Amarillo in west Texas, where both my parents worked for Phillips 66. That’s where I would spend the remainder of my childhood and youth.

After high school, I went to The University of Texas at San Antonio, where I earned a bachelor’s degree in business. In 2006, I moved to Kansas City to start my career in financial services.

Cory:?You came back to where you started. How did you end up in financial services?

Jake:?I originally planned to be a golf pro at a country club, but after working at a country club in college, I decided that may not be the right path for me. Finance was easily my favorite course I took in college—I like math, especially when you can apply it to real-world situations. So it was natural for me to pursue a job as a wealth advisor.

Cory:?So I know you moved to Kansas City after taking a job to be in the financial services sector here. How did you get your career up and running in a city where you knew few people?

Jake:?It was hard! I think a lot of financial advisors have a head start because one of their family members is an advisor, or at the very least they become advisors in the town where they grew up, allowing them to reach out to longtime connections. As you mentioned, I didn’t know many people in Kansas City. So I went door to door in the Northland and introduced myself. And it actually worked, sort of. I enjoyed forming relationships with people in the community.

Still, I felt I wasn’t adding value to my clients’ lives in the way I wanted. The firm where I worked basically instructed me to buy investments for clients and hold onto them forever. I felt like clients could do that on their own; they didn’t need me. And this firm, at the time, didn’t have a financial planning approach like we do at?Falcon Wealth Advisors.

While at this firm, I was obviously new to the industry, but I wasn’t so gullible that I would do whatever they told me without asking any questions. Still, I’ll forever be thankful this firm helped me “get my foot in the door” in financial services.

At the next firm where I worked, I had a mentor I worked with every day. Rather than knock on doors at this firm, I “cold called” potential clients and hosted educational seminars. I learned a lot about financial planning and active portfolio management at this firm.

Cory:?At this second firm, what led you to narrow your focus to retirement planning?

Jake:?Well, it was the niche of the team on which I worked. And I knew my parents were nearing retirement, so I thought it would be neat to be able to help them with that transition. Plus, I grew up playing golf with people older than me. I like talking with and spending time with members of the Baby Boomer generation. So working with them came pretty naturally.

Here’s a story, Cory. Early in my career, I ran into an advisor at another firm. I asked him what he specialized in and he was almost embarrassed or bored by saying his focus was retirement planning. I remember finding this interesting and frankly somewhat weird, because I was genuinely excited about retirement planning. That’s when I knew I had the passion for this industry.

Cory:?So what led you to leave and launch Falcon Wealth Advisors?

Jake:?Well, we were part of a large firm, but they put us in a big suite where we had limited interactions with colleagues outside of our team. Before long, it felt like we were running our own firm. We had bosses, but we were the ones taking on risk and doing the hard work of running a practice. We were employees and it didn’t feel like we were getting all the resources we needed.

Another big factor was the Department of Labor’s Fiduciary Rule, which was being discussed around the time we left in 2016 (it didn’t end up going into effect). The law would have required retirement advisors to act as fiduciaries—meaning advisors would have been legally bound to act in their clients’ best interests. Compare that to a broker, who only needs to sell you products that are suited for you.

The firm wanted us to act as fiduciaries on some accounts and brokers on others—but we wanted to be fiduciaries to all our clients. And we only wanted to answer to our clients. I didn’t want a boss who didn’t even know my client telling me to sell them financial products.

Our desire to only have to answer to our clients and do what’s best for them led us to take that leap of faith in December 2016 and start?Falcon Wealth Advisors. Many advisors get a bonus when they jump from one firm to another, but obviously we didn’t as we were starting our own firm. In fact, we did the opposite. We took out a pretty large loan to start the firm.

Cory:?What were the early days of?Falcon Wealth Advisors?like?

Jake:?Thankfully, the majority of our clients came with us to?Falcon Wealth Advisors. We rented a small office that was about 2,000 square feet. We started growing quickly and have added team members and moved to a bigger office in recent years.

The old school way of retirement advising is to meet with clients and offer advice on their financial plans or investments. In those early days, we would work with a junior advisor to update a client’s financial plan as necessary. And as I’m sure you recall, Cory, it was you and I executing all the trades.

We’ve evolved from that and now we lead an ensemble practice that serves about 700 clients. You and I no longer engage in those day-to-day meetings with clients, as often, where we review their financial plans; our capable team of financial planners are more than comfortable leading those meetings. Instead, you and I focus much of our time helping clients with complex situations and big decisions.

This role is where I want to be and what I’ve prepared for. I’ve studied investing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and I am a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor on the financial planning side. I love talking with clients about topics like when to begin collecting Social Security, tax planning for retirement and other big-ticket items. This is where I can bring the most value for clients.

Our financial planners who meet with clients are not junior to us—they’re extensions of us. They do a lot of the daily planning and regularly check in with clients. And they know when to defer to us if a client is encountering a more complex situation.

You and I also meet with all our new clients. We want to make sure they understand our team’s structure and we also want to ensure their financial plan is properly established. Our financial planners will then help maintain and further develop that plan.

Outside of our Financial Planning Group, we have a Research and Trading Group that handles the trades for all our clients. Our clients can ask them directly if they have questions about individual positions. You and I, Cory, regularly meet with this team to review the stocks and bonds in the?Falcon Wealth Advisors?portfolio.

And we have an Operations Group led by Samantha Waters. As its name suggests, this team oversees the day-to-day operations at our firm. If you have a routine question about your portfolio, your distributions, your investments, etc., the Operations Group is who you should contact. You can reach them at?[email protected]. Our entire team has access to this inbox and it’s the quickest way to get the help you need.

Cory:?That’s good information for our clients. What’s your vision for the future of?Falcon Wealth Advisors?

Jake:?We currently have 13 full-time team members and will hire additional capable professionals in the coming months and years. We’re currently managing about half a billion dollars for clients in 30 states, but I don’t want to see us get too large. I don’t want us to get so big that we have to water down our services and advice. I want to see us continue to specialize in our niche market, which is serving employees and former employees of publicly-traded companies, especially those who have company stock. We also have a secondary niche serving professional athletes, entrepreneurs, business owners and other high income earners.

At?Falcon Wealth Advisors, we can’t and won’t take on every type of client. My number one priority is serving our existing clients and bringing them value. If we bring on dozens or hundreds of clients outside of these niches, it becomes more difficult to serve our current clients. Integrity is our top core value.

Cory:?What industry problems are you trying to help solve, Jake?

Jake:?Well, I can’t fix this alone, but I feel like our industry’s barrier to entry is too low. It’s too easy to pass a few tests, get your license and become an advisor. There is too much onus on consumers to educate themselves. There are some people in our industry who shouldn’t be in our industry.

And another problem is many consumers—understandably—don’t know the difference between a fiduciary wealth advisor and a broker, nor do they understand the fees they have to pay, especially on investment products like mutual funds. There’s a lack of transparency in our industry that needs to be addressed.

Cory:?Finally, Jake, can you share a little about your personal life?

Jake:?Sure. My wife Rachel and I have a goldendoodle named Einstein. Rachel is a business owner as well, she operates a local magazine here in Kansas City. I love to golf, read and go on walks with Rachel and our dog.

Thanks so much for this conversation, Cory. If you’re reading this and enjoyed learning more about me and?Falcon Wealth Advisors, please contact us today. You can reach me directly at?[email protected].

Clients choose to work with us to enhance their financial literacy and explain exactly what?their?financial plan means to?them.

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