(EP4) From Vietnamese Immigrants to Irvine FA – With Merrick Nguyen

Episode 4: Merrick Nguyen – StrateFi

[00:00:00]

[00:00:27] Antoinette Rodriguez: Hello, and welcome to Wall Street Growth Hacks video podcast. I’m Antoinette Rodriguez, CEO of MarFi Advisors. Today I’m excited to introduce Merrick Nguyen, Managing Partner from StrateFi. Prior to founding StrateFi, Merrick was Associate Vice President for Investments at Sherr and Nguyen Financial Services at Wells Fargo.

[00:00:55] Antoinette Rodriguez: He is a first-generation college graduate from UC Berkeley, and holds [00:01:00] multiple designations including the Chartered Retirement Planning and Mutual Fund Counselor. He is a board member for the Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce, enjoys sports, reading, and spending time with his quite literally stunning wife and three-time proud girl dad. When I tell you the entire family is mad-talented, I mean it.

[00:01:23] Antoinette Rodriguez: Hello and welcome to our show, Merrick.

[00:01:26] Merrick Nguyen: Thanks,

[00:01:26] Merrick Nguyen: Antoinette. Pleasure to be here

[00:01:27] Merrick Nguyen: today.

[00:01:28] Antoinette Rodriguez: Thank you very much for being here. Where are you zooming in from?

[00:01:32] Merrick Nguyen: From Irvine, California.

[00:01:33] Antoinette Rodriguez: Irvine, California.

[00:01:34] Antoinette Rodriguez: Okay. So I’m jealous.

[00:01:36] Antoinette Rodriguez: Do you have a story or anything about your early life that caused you to have that drive? The drive to become a financial advisor, but also

[00:01:44] Antoinette Rodriguez: to go to an incredible school and to succeed there. What about your early family? If you have any stories to share, that’d be awesome.

[00:01:51] Merrick Nguyen: Absolutely. My parents are Vietnamese and they are boat people. At a very young age [00:02:00] of 18, they

[00:02:01] Merrick Nguyen: escaped from the

[00:02:04] Merrick Nguyen: Northern Vietnamese communists. On a boat. They landed

[00:02:08] Merrick Nguyen: In Malaysia. And I was actually born in Koala Lumpur, Malaysia.

[00:02:14] Merrick Nguyen: We were there for about a year and then we emigrated to the United States.

[00:02:20] Merrick Nguyen: Where My dad had some other family in Washington, DC.

[00:02:24] Merrick Nguyen: We were there for a bit, but it was too cold. So we moved over to Orange County, California where another member of my dad’s family was. And that’s where I grew up – it was

[00:02:34] Merrick Nguyen: in Anaheim, California.

[00:02:37] Antoinette Rodriguez: Regarding your level of education. What was it that pushed you and what was it that kept you going at that level? To go to UC Berkeley, for example.

[00:02:44] Merrick Nguyen: Just the grit that my parents had. Obviously they were working a lot.

[00:02:48] Merrick Nguyen: My dad had two or three jobs and didn’t have much time for me. I saw the hard work that they put in. And pushed myself to do what I needed to do [00:03:00] to be successful in school. I was blessed to, get accepted to UC Berkeley. I knew I was the first child to ever go to a university.

[00:03:09] Merrick Nguyen: I pushed myself and motivated myself to finish school . And go on to have a great career. Everything that I do I owe to my parents. If they didn’t take that risk of hopping on a boat and, escaping from pirates to the perils of the sea and, not knowing where they were gonna land.

[00:03:31] Merrick Nguyen: My mom was actually pregnant with me on that boat, and so it’s it’s wonderful and it’s a blessing that they were able to land somewhere and then able to immigrate to the great country of the United States to provide. Myself, my younger brother the things that a lot of people in this world dream of.

[00:03:49] Merrick Nguyen: I’m blessed. I’m grateful for my

[00:03:51] Merrick Nguyen: parents

[00:03:51] Antoinette Rodriguez: Wow, what a fantastic story. The American immigrant story, but the word that you use grit. Yeah. And hard work and the [00:04:00] emphasis on education. So along those lines,

[00:04:02] Merrick Nguyen: now

[00:04:03] Antoinette Rodriguez: you’re raising the next generation. You’re a girl dad of three.

[00:04:07] Merrick Nguyen: Yeah.

[00:04:07] Antoinette Rodriguez: So tell us a little bit about them. What are their interests and what do you feel as a father since now you are in the position, right? That love that you can’t describe any other way. How do you feel? About what their goals are, what their future is, and the foundation that you’ve provided for them, and not just you, of course, your amazing wife.

[00:04:26] Merrick Nguyen: Yeah. Thank you. I think as any parent, you want to provide as much as you can for your children. They’re now ten seven, and three, and we want to provide as much as we can to. That they can grow up, in, in a world that was better than, in a world that I grew up, right?

[00:04:49] Merrick Nguyen: To Make things a little bit easier, but at the same time, the challenge of teaching them that grit, that hard work because you don’t want to hand everything to them, right? You want them to learn a little bit to [00:05:00] challenge them a little bit. With the. Partnership that I have with my wonderful wife it’s a team effort, right?

[00:05:08] Merrick Nguyen: Obviously wouldn’t be able to do everything. Everything that we’re trying to do for our daughters without my wife They’re fifth, second, and preschool. So just juggling the everyday activities of getting into school, picking them up. My wife works full time too. Doing that in addition to the activities that they love doing, like ballroom dancing, piano.

[00:05:33] Antoinette Rodriguez: I saw that

[00:05:33] Antoinette Rodriguez: man did, Those are amazing clips. I loved them .

[00:05:36] Merrick Nguyen: Yeah. And they love it.

[00:05:38] Merrick Nguyen: I

[00:05:38] Antoinette Rodriguez: Those girls can dance,

[00:05:39] Merrick Nguyen: we had a friend one of my second child’s friends, she was in Ballroom and she said I want to try it. We said, Sure. Let’s try it. And so she ended up loving it. And you. She’s dancing with the little boy partner, and

[00:05:52] Merrick Nguyen: I saw that

[00:05:52] Merrick Nguyen: having a great time.

[00:05:53] Merrick Nguyen: So it’s a lot of fun watching them. They’re happy, it’s so awesome just to see them have fun and smile and [00:06:00] that’s what, gets you up every day. And that’s what, that’s your why when you go to work, because you want to continue to be successful, be good role models, and be able to provide for them as, as much as you.

[00:06:10] Antoinette Rodriguez: That is also a consequence of your parents getting on the boat. So this is a beautiful part of the story that I’m sure. Are they alive?

[00:06:18] Merrick Nguyen: Yes. As I mentioned they’re, they were 18 when they had me, so they’re still pretty young. They’re in their late fifties.

[00:06:24] Merrick Nguyen: So we’re blessed with that. My girls love seeing them every day and they love spoiling. And my parents love spoiling the girls. So it’s.

[00:06:31] Merrick Nguyen: awesome

[00:06:32] Antoinette Rodriguez: Wow. What a fantastic story all around. Yeah. So pivoting a bit to business here. Let’s go ahead .

[00:06:38] Antoinette Rodriguez: What are the most successful marketing techniques you’ve used and what lessons did you learn from your marketing?

[00:06:46] Merrick Nguyen: I started in the business in 2009 with a small, independent family-owned firm. They’re mostly an insurance shop. They also had an RIA and when I first started, I tried pretty much [00:07:00] all types of marketing campaigns you can think of. Seminars, cold-calling, networking, and joining networking groups.

[00:07:08] Merrick Nguyen: It was a very good learning experience. There were definitely a lot of failures – but I found when I started early on, that cold-calling , believe it or not, was the most successful for me. Mainly because I can try and connect with as many people as I could within a specific amount of time.

[00:07:28] Merrick Nguyen: For a day I can dial 300 people. Hopefully connect with 50 to a 100 people. And hopefully schedule one to five appointments. Going out and networking took a lot of time.

[00:07:42] Merrick Nguyen: You have to drive there

[00:07:44] Antoinette Rodriguez: And money.

[00:07:46] Merrick Nguyen: Yeah. You have to drive there, pay for lunch or dinner, pay for the membership dues or fees to join a networking group.

[00:07:53] Merrick Nguyen: Then it takes a long time. I found that it took at least a year, two or three to close [00:08:00] your first business with these networking firms. Especially, early on for me, I was younger. As a younger person it’s a lot harder to, in my experience, was a lot harder to meet with people and close business and earn the business of other clients.

[00:08:14] Merrick Nguyen: For me it is cold calling believe it.

[00:08:16] Merrick Nguyen: or not

[00:08:17] Antoinette Rodriguez: And I know, depending on a personality, if you wanna talk about a story of great boy, cold calling is the thing. .

[00:08:24] Merrick Nguyen: Yeah.

[00:08:24] Antoinette Rodriguez: So you have to have a certain mindset. It’s the law of the numbers. You have to respect the do not call list. And also you have to be pretty specific and pretty targeted on what your ultimate demographic is going to be. Because you don’t wanna be all over. So as you did your cold calling and again, congratulations to you on that, a lot of people that’s a hard way of doing it.

[00:08:46] Antoinette Rodriguez: For a lot of people, that’s not something that comes natural to them at all. So everyone has to find their sweet spot. But I do agree with you as far as the power of leverage is concerned. It’s just like social media, right? That you are able to simply contact a lot more [00:09:00] people. And the law, the numbers will be if you contact X number of people.

[00:09:03] Antoinette Rodriguez: A certain number of them will be qualified and will become clients. And also you hopefully be able to identify them at the money and motion moment. So how did you decide, for example, because again, cold calling has to be something that I feel is, should be strategic, not just tactical.

[00:09:19] Antoinette Rodriguez: How did you decide? What was your strategy around that?

[00:09:22] Merrick Nguyen: Yeah,

[00:09:22] Merrick Nguyen: I I purchased leads or purchased lists. For corporations with around here. Where they would have a good population here, a good amount of people who may need my, my services. So two, three different companies in the area, headquartered here, had a good amount of people.

[00:09:41] Merrick Nguyen: And we, I would call and schedule appointments for a specific day on. So you would have to go scope out the place, find a good place where you can sit down and just have meetings. So typically at their cafeteria or there’s a common area where you can essentially [00:10:00]go get on campus, sit down and just meet with people and buy coffee for them if you needed to, or lunch.

[00:10:05] Merrick Nguyen: But yeah, it was it took some time to. To do some farming and figure out the best firms or companies to, to try and.

[00:10:13] Merrick Nguyen: target

[00:10:14] Antoinette Rodriguez: So that’s the real estate term location. Because you, you were located in an area that had a certain level of potential clients on account of the demographics.

[00:10:24] Merrick Nguyen: I agree.

[00:10:26] Antoinette Rodriguez: So therein lies, again, another strategy. When you’re thinking about someone starting out in the business, it’s not a bad idea to situate yourself in an area either living, working, or going to university. With the potential target market. Exactly. You could have something in common and then of course the part two of that is you have to actually try to leverage that.

[00:10:47] Antoinette Rodriguez: Some people have a wealth of leverage ability, but they don’t do it, so you know, again, congratulations to you for making that work. And also being, sure enough, or maybe your parents are the ones that moved you to the oc, but sure [00:11:00] enough, to be located near several of Fortune 500 or large companies, right?

[00:11:04] Antoinette Rodriguez: They had X number of executives that could need financial planning. So great job. Thanks for sharing that.

[00:11:08] Merrick Nguyen: Thank you.

[00:11:10] Antoinette Rodriguez: Earlier we were talking about social media and you mentioned that you utilize LinkedIn. How do you utilize it?

[00:11:16] Merrick Nguyen: We purchased the program Sales Navigator which is offered by LinkedIn essentially for sales people, and hence the name Sales Navigator, which allows you to access more profiles and gives you a little bit more resources to reach out to people.

[00:11:32] Merrick Nguyen: I use LinkedIn pretty much every day connecting with UC Berkeley Cal alums Sending out messages, and trying to schedule appointments with them. It’s actually gone very well, better than expected. I’ve been able to connect with a lot of alums all across the country. Mostly on the West Coast, and schedule appointments with. A lot more than I expected.

[00:11:57] Merrick Nguyen: And so it’s it’s a lot like cold calling. [00:12:00] It’s a law of numbers. You just gotta keep doing it. It’s just a little bit easier now that I’m not, getting screamed at or yelled no to my ear. It’s a little bit easier. It’s a professional platform, right? So a lot of people are a little bit more open to these messages.

[00:12:16] Merrick Nguyen: Obviously not everybody is responding back to me, but I’ll get a good amount of responses that say you. Thanks. No thanks. Type of thing. I’ll get some the occasional appointments maybe out of a hundred connections or messages that I send out. I’ll get maybe between one to one to three if I’m lucky, five appointments.

[00:12:36] Merrick Nguyen: But it’s been working out pretty great.

[00:12:39] Antoinette Rodriguez: What’s interesting you talked about that correlation between the cold calling and LinkedIn. . But of course LinkedIn provides you a lot more simply because it gives you all the intel that you would normally have. You might know where a person works if you’re calling off of a listed corporation, but would you know where they went to school and if they [00:13:00] had a recent promotion and so I always talk to financial Advisors about that because LinkedIn is an absolute gold mine when it comes to the targeted marketing aspect.

[00:13:11] Antoinette Rodriguez: Yeah. So I’m really glad that you made that connection because it’s cold calling on steroids. You’re able to contact a lot more people. But also what you mentioned is another understanding that people need to have about social media. Social media is about interaction, but each platform has a different purpose.

[00:13:30] Antoinette Rodriguez: So you intuitively said look, if they’re on LinkedIn, it is a professional platform. They’re expecting to be contacted because indeed, that is why they put their profile out there. Which is a very different Very different than when you’re calling someone, Oh, you’re interrupting me .

[00:13:45] Merrick Nguyen: No, I totally agrees. In my experience, a little over 13 years, I’ve found, I’ve heard of all types of marketing campaigns and trying to earn business from clients, and I found that [00:14:00] a lot of the marketing campaigns, you just have to stick with it. That’s right.

[00:14:05] Antoinette Rodriguez: I tell,

[00:14:05] Merrick Nguyen: know,

[00:14:05] Merrick Nguyen: I tell a lot of the younger Advisors.

[00:14:07] Merrick Nguyen: That when you find a marketing campaign you want to work it as, as hard as you can for at least six months. Collect the data and see if that’s something that you want to continue doing. I, there, there are other Advisors who do seminars all the time, once a week, once every other week inviting people to, to their seminars and they’ve been.

[00:14:26] Merrick Nguyen: successful You just find a good marketing campaign that, that you like doing, that you’re comfortable doing and stick, stick with it. Like with the cold calling it’s fairly inexpensive, connecting with people and finding new clients on LinkedIn. Not to mention, I’m just sitting at my desk.

[00:14:43] Merrick Nguyen: I’m not out and about running around everywhere, driving around wasting gas and trying to meet with a lot of, people So it’s worked out great for me.

[00:14:54] Antoinette Rodriguez: And to that point about not driving around, not meeting people, the big [00:15:00] elephant, right? The pandemic recently. How much choice did we really have? So people like yourself who were well versed on doing virtual and social media type of marketing, you are in a much better position.

[00:15:15] Antoinette Rodriguez: You say, how did you, how did it go for you during the pandemic? Did it change for you at all? Did it, I’m assuming it wasn’t worse, right?

[00:15:22] Merrick Nguyen: No, I agree. And that it actually, people were at home, so people were more interactive people responded more to, for my business, the pandemic was a blessing in disguise, right?

[00:15:32] Merrick Nguyen: There’s that silver lining we, people have to pivot when stuff happens and so you know, I was cold calling and using LinkedIn at the time and I found that, LinkedIn was essentially the best way for me to do things and find new clients. So I stuck with that and kept pushing with LinkedIn.

[00:15:49] Merrick Nguyen: And people getting more familiar with Zoom and other web conferencing technology, it just made things a little bit. They’re more open to meeting online as opposed to in [00:16:00] person. It just made it a little bit easier for me.

[00:16:03] Antoinette Rodriguez: It’s just been an interesting equalizer, , in terms of where you’re at in your career, that if you could master that, you could jump ahead,

[00:16:13] Merrick Nguyen: right?

[00:16:13] Antoinette Rodriguez: You could leap ahead as far as success is concerned, but also as there’s the issue of time management for the clients as. well So getting in the car, going for their client review, parking, waiting, , paying for parking, staying in traffic. So depending on what part of the country you’re in, this is actually a really efficient way, not just of doing marketing, but of running certain parts of the business,

[00:16:39] Merrick Nguyen: right?

[00:16:39] Merrick Nguyen: Quite frankly, a lot of our clients, when we give them the option of doing reviews via Zoom or in person, Most of them would rather do Zoom. Interesting.

[00:16:49] Merrick Nguyen:

[00:16:49] Merrick Nguyen: We’re in Irvine, it can’t, it’s very dense so it can get, there could be a decent amount of traffic depending on the time of day. And so a lot of our clients are like, Let’s just do Zoom.

[00:16:59] Merrick Nguyen: [00:17:00] It’s fine. And so we’re happy either way. It, that old, we obviously would rather meet people in person, especially our clients, just just that connection, just that, that extra Way of building rapport with clients, but a lot of ’em are okay with Zoom which obviously frees us up to do other things where, you know, since we’re saving money, then we can do more events for clients or more lunches or dinners.

[00:17:23] Merrick Nguyen: And so that, that’s the great way for us to build rapport and not have to always talk about.

[00:17:27] Antoinette Rodriguez: I was talking to some of my financial advisor clients during the pandemic, and the other issue was the of acceptance. You happen to live in a place that has younger people who are more tech savvy and will be more accepting of technology.

[00:17:40] Antoinette Rodriguez: But what has happened with the pandemic from what I can see is that the older generation is much more comfortable now conducting, client reviews and these financial things on Zoom. Exactly. You have a lot of professional development. I noticed that you have a total quality improvement aspect of your life where you’re constantly improving in [00:18:00] education, et cetera.

[00:18:01] Antoinette Rodriguez: What type of, which of the certifications that you have would you feel have been very helpful and why?

[00:18:08] Merrick Nguyen: Yeah. I have two designations. I got ’em early on in my career just because it was, I felt that I needed to obviously learn as much as I can so that I can have the knowledge to, to speak with prospects and clients.

[00:18:22] Merrick Nguyen: And so through the College of Financial Planning, I obtained the designations of the CRPC and the C M F C, which is the charter retirement planning counselor and the charter mutual fund counselor. I felt that they were Springboard for me, a good foundation to to start off in the career with as much knowledge as I, I could have to meet with clients and be able to earn their business.

[00:18:49] Antoinette Rodriguez: So when you began in wealth management, what was it, did you say 13 years ago?

[00:18:54] Merrick Nguyen: Yeah,

[00:18:55] Antoinette Rodriguez: 13 years ago.

[00:18:56] Merrick Nguyen: 2009. Yep.

[00:18:56] Antoinette Rodriguez: Which is, and actually, I guess I met you guys at about that time, maybe when you [00:19:00] started too,

[00:19:00] Merrick Nguyen: right?

[00:19:01] Antoinette Rodriguez: What would you say were some of the difficulties back then and how did you, for example, I know obviously your partners with Jason.

[00:19:08] Antoinette Rodriguez: Tell us a little bit about that progression.

[00:19:11] Merrick Nguyen: Yeah.

[00:19:11] Merrick Nguyen: So to be truthfully honest and quite ally when I started off in 2009 with that independent family owned firm is quite challenging, right? I was on my own trying to. earn business from strangers as many people as I can, right? To continue to grow my practice.

[00:19:29] Merrick Nguyen: So to back up during my three years there I met Jason. He was at Wells Fargo Advisors. I met him through the local alumni chapter here in Orange County. And we quickly hit it off I was picking his brain on the industry, the business, because he was in it for, at that time, oh.

[00:19:48] Merrick Nguyen: Almost 20 years. And so obviously he was successful. And I, just like a lot of people who started off as a financial advisor I almost failed out. And before I did I sat down with Jason and [00:20:00] I asked him about the business. If. I Should continue to do this. And he said it’s a great business.

[00:20:05] Merrick Nguyen: If you like what you’re doing, you should stick to it. He brought it up. He said, why don’t, maybe I can get you in with the manager here at the Irvine office or for Wells Fargo, Advisors, and an interview. Maybe you can come over here. Possibly we can team up. And I said, That’s a great idea.

[00:20:23] Merrick Nguyen: I’d love to learn more. I’d love to to pursue that. And with any business, I feel like a little bit of luck helps, right? And so I think I got lucky in meeting Jason speaking with them and having him bring me on to the team back in 2012 And, when he brought me on, I just, continued working hard, cold calling and it helped that I was able to say, Hey, I, I’d like to schedule a meeting for you with my partner Jason.

[00:20:51] Merrick Nguyen: Sherr He’s been in an industry almost 20 years. It made things, my calls a little bit easier because I was able essentially sell him somebody who’s been in a business [00:21:00]for a long time and has a lot more credibility than I did at that

[00:21:02] Antoinette Rodriguez: Sure.

[00:21:03] Antoinette Rodriguez: The power of leverage, right? We talked about social media leverage, the cold call leverage, but the leverage of years of experience.

[00:21:08] Antoinette Rodriguez: And a partner who will, I’m not even sure if I used the word lucky. The reality is you had something in common. You had already been pre-qualified through the uc, Berkeley situation. You had something in common that already. Pretty much put you at a certain level that you had this commonality was one of the search for excellence.

[00:21:27] Antoinette Rodriguez: And I know, because I remember talking to Jason back then how impressed he was with you so that’s not really luck. That’s . That’s like you, you had to make your, if you ever have someone that you have to make that partner look good. So there’s that. So I’m just, just say it.

[00:21:42] Antoinette Rodriguez: Brooklyn girl.

[00:21:43] Merrick Nguyen: I appreciate that.

[00:21:45] Antoinette Rodriguez: You’re welcome. Merrick what is your favorite quote and why?

[00:21:49] Merrick Nguyen: My favorite quote is by Benjamin Franklin. If you fail to plan, then you’re planning to fail.

[00:21:58] Antoinette Rodriguez: I love that quote too.

[00:21:59] Merrick Nguyen: Thank you. [00:22:00] Yeah.

[00:22:00] Antoinette Rodriguez: He has a list, like a whole, Is it Al? He has a whole list of dating habits.

[00:22:05] Merrick Nguyen: . So we’re big planners.

[00:22:07] Merrick Nguyen: Everything has to start with the plan with our clients. If our clients we’re fortunate enough and blessed to be able to be picky with who we bring on. If a client doesn’t wanna put together a plan before we can help them, then they’re not gonna be a fit for us. So we always start off with building a plan and then based off of that plan we can look at different strategies and products to help them become successful

[00:22:31] Antoinette Rodriguez: What would you do if you had a business budget that was 10 times larger than what you have right now?

[00:22:37] Merrick Nguyen: If I had a budget, 10 times larger, is to purchase leads. I think these days with technology, social media, and internet – these companies who are offering leads, offering you to purchase leads, I think could be quite advantageous.

[00:22:57] Merrick Nguyen: People are a little bit more interested. [00:23:00] It’s warmer. They want to be re connected to a financial advisor. You essentially just have to call or email them and set an appointment.

[00:23:09] Antoinette Rodriguez: And I’m assuming with the caveat that you is from a reputable source. And additionally that you know how to leverage it.

[00:23:17] Merrick Nguyen: Yeah,

[00:23:17] Antoinette Rodriguez: because you can have all the data in the world, as if you don’t have the rest of it, the process, the follow. The grit to make it all. Yeah. Again, there’s a there’s a re there’s a theme here. We see America.

[00:23:29] Merrick Nguyen: Yeah. Follows key and just key working it know. Being persistent, politely persistent reaching out until you get a no is essentially what I do.

[00:23:38] Merrick Nguyen: You answered these questions and said that you were interested in meeting with an advisor and people are busy, so you have to continue to follow up with them and until you get that, no. And usually it might take a month or two, but. They’re interested and they want to sit down and then talk to somebody.

[00:23:57] Merrick Nguyen: That’s essentially what I did follow up as you mentioned is. [00:24:00]

[00:24:00] Antoinette Rodriguez: We talked earlier about the, what I call the sales cycle lead time of networking. I believe the number is, it can take maybe 18 months or longer if you’re meeting someone just from a casual networking situation without knowing if they have any near money and motion event occurring, that it can take a significant amount of time to, to close that business.

[00:24:20] Antoinette Rodriguez: But it, with what you’re saying, it appears as if, depending on the list that it’s already targeted So it’s accounting for that money in motion and or demographic pre-qualifier to help you process it. Close it. Close it.

[00:24:36] Merrick Nguyen: Yes. Absolutely.

[00:24:37] Merrick Nguyen: I’m, that’s, that’s what I’m hoping for, right? If I’m purchasing these leads these people have something going on where they really need our help.

[00:24:45] Antoinette Rodriguez: Now, do you have any kind of CRM system? What kind of tools do you use to track your leads and to, or your marketing program?

[00:24:53] Merrick Nguyen: Yeah, so we have, we use Redtail. We just started using Redtail a year ago. It’s going pretty well. Jason and I were [00:25:00] always saying, if you’re not growing, you’re dying. And that, that’s essentially my job on the team is business development.

[00:25:05] Antoinette Rodriguez: As a business of attrition also because of age of clients.

[00:25:07] Merrick Nguyen: Right

[00:25:08] Antoinette Rodriguez: on.

[00:25:08] Antoinette Rodriguez: When you started in the business, if you had a successful business 20 years ago, your, your clients are obviously older and I’m assuming that a big part of, and I know when Jason was adding you to the team, a big part of having these multi-generational teams is because of that.

[00:25:23] Antoinette Rodriguez: So you have a multi-generational clientele and as I’m sure you. I think the numbers, like 80% of, let’s say widows change financial Advisors when their husbands pass away, and a lot of that has to do with the influence of their children. Absolutely. So the build out of the relationship with that next generation’s extremely important, but also something you said, which I a hundred percent believe are in Because of course I’m a marketing person, but also because I’m a process oriented person.

[00:25:54] Antoinette Rodriguez: My

[00:25:55] Merrick Nguyen: my

[00:25:55] Antoinette Rodriguez: MBA is in total quality management. Total quality improvement, and it has to do with [00:26:00] looking at your processes. Most of the Advisors, or actually all of the Advisors I know who have been successful, most successful, are really good about leveraging processes, right? Leveraging people, but also helping those people give them.

[00:26:13] Antoinette Rodriguez: The proper tools so that they get built and also the understanding of the highest and best use of their time. The things, and Jason I know is really good with this. Picking the thing, the top goals for the day, them you have a macro goal, but kinda like those mini goals. These are the things, if I did this and only this, then I would be successful because of course those two things are matching, right?

[00:26:36] Antoinette Rodriguez: It’s not just about tasks

[00:26:38] Merrick Nguyen: Agreed. The big thing for our team and even for clients is focusing on the things you can control. That’s all you can really do, right? And so focusing on being efficient, time management those little goals every day and getting them done as, as quickly as you can so you can continue to move forward is huge.

[00:26:55] Antoinette Rodriguez: Merrick What has been the best use of your marketing dollars thus [00:27:00] far, and or where would you say was the biggest bang for the buck?

[00:27:04] Merrick Nguyen: For us. So we came over to LPL in August of 2021 and we knew we wanted to go independent. And so we interviewed a dozen or so firm independent firms. In reality it had come back and offered us strategic wealth services.

[00:27:22] Merrick Nguyen: It’s a program that they started about four or five years ago. Cater to. More successful teams where they were able to offer us not only the resources and support the capital for us to get started, but the human capital. So they provided a chief marketing officer, a chief financial officer, they gave us a virtual admin extra 20 hours a week for that.

[00:27:54] Merrick Nguyen: And as Chief Technology Officer, the goal with the Strategic Well Services [00:28:00] for was to take off the plate for the Advisors, all the backend stuff, right? The biggest fear, at least for us going independent was having to deal with all of the backend stuff, right? Hr, accounting, payroll, all things like that.

[00:28:19] Merrick Nguyen: And Offering strategic wealth services to us was a total win-win for us. Our goal was to take our client services to the next level and with strategic wealth services that they gave us back a lot of time with those, with the support and allows us to focus on what we’re we wanna focus on, which is our clients.

[00:28:42] Merrick Nguyen: Bringing in new clients and growing. That, that was a game changer for us. It was a total no brainer win for us. In re, in regards to the technology, as an independent you have more options for technology. You can choose what you want use to make your life easier to make things better for clients.

[00:28:58] Merrick Nguyen: One of the, [00:29:00] believe it or not, one of the technologies or one of the softwares that has been a great, a total game changer for us is the scheduler. The calendar.

[00:29:08] Antoinette Rodriguez: Yes.

[00:29:09] Merrick Nguyen: We use one hub. I know some people use Calendarly but that has been gold for us because for me, I can send messages on LinkedIn and say, Please let me know.

[00:29:23] Merrick Nguyen: Your availability for next week, or you can click this link and schedule a time that fits your calendar and it’s really nice when you’re just. Hanging out on the weekend and you look at your phone and you see there’s an appointment scheduled just randomly from somebody you sent the message to, and you’re like, Great.

[00:29:44] Merrick Nguyen: I didn’t have to go back and forth and letting ’em know we’re available this day, or No, we can’t do that. What day or what about this time on that day? And that, believe it or not, just that little software has saved us a lot of time and has made things a lot. easier For [00:30:00]us.

[00:30:00] Antoinette Rodriguez: You’re not only respecting your time, but you’re respecting the time of the person who is answering so that they don’t have to go back and forth.

[00:30:07] Antoinette Rodriguez: Additionally, as there’s a lot of automations, right? The reminder and the, if there’s any questions that they need to answer or work that they have to prepare prior to the meeting, you can automate all of that so that’s very.

[00:30:19] Antoinette Rodriguez: powerful

[00:30:20] Merrick Nguyen: Totally agree. If you can automate as many things in your life as possible, obviously that gives you more time to do what you want, what you, what’s more important.

[00:30:28] Merrick Nguyen: Having three daughters, I want, I would much rather be hanging out with them than cold calling. But, it’s something that, that has to be done. But

[00:30:36] Antoinette Rodriguez: Merrick thank you so much. You’ve been phenomenal. I wanted to ask a question that I know a lot of our audience will be asking, which is, how can they find out more about you or get ahold.

[00:30:44] Merrick Nguyen: Yes. Anytime, please. Our website has all our information, www.stratifywealth.com, or you can email me at [email protected] That’s the best way to, to get ahold of me.

[00:30:58] Antoinette Rodriguez: On behalf of Wall [00:31:00] Street Growth Hacks, I like to thank Merrick Nguyen for his generosity in sharing his growth journey with us.

[00:31:07] Antoinette Rodriguez: And I want to thank each of you for listening or watching this episode in its entire. Please do Brooklyn Girl a favor, subscribe and like our show.

[00:31:18] Antoinette Rodriguez: Since am Latina Sound of Music fan, adios auf Wiedersehen and goodbye.

[00:31:25]