Meeting with Rob Pasick (Part 3)

Today I conclude my notes from a meeting with executive coach Rob Pasick just over one year ago.

As opposed to starting an investment advisory (IA), Dr. Pasick suggested branding myself as a domain expert and marketing that way. He said much of industry today is centered around knowledge. I mentioned this blog, which I use to keep myself on task. He asked how many followers I have and I said I don’t publicize it or track analytics since it doesn’t serve a marketing purpose (nothing to market). He talked about potentially self-publishing a book (he has two, which he gave me gratis).

He suggested I could also start a podcast, make professional use of financial media, and increase my exposure to the point that others would seek my services. Many people are simply too busy to manage their own money or just flat-out don’t want to deal with it and are willing to hand this off to “professionals.” He is aware of the migration to robo-advisors in modern-day asset management.

A related question he asked is whether I have any special sort of intellectual property (IP) to sell or whether my success is due to hard work. I said I feel strongly about options, which I discussed in this blog mini-series. However, I don’t want take up the cause of why options are better and the traditional approach to asset allocation is bad, which echoes more along the lines of IP (see second paragraph here). While I could be a small voice in a [relatively small] chorus, some individuals already dedicate themselves to pounding that table. Besides, while I do think traditional garden-variety asset management (sans options) is lackluster, I still believe they offer significant improvement (fifth paragraph here).

Finally, Rob extended an invite to his Leaders Connect monthly networking event. I really didn’t see how something like that would help me. In order to network and build my business, I need an asset management business (an IA) to build.

I asked him if he has worked with IAs before in context similar to my own. He said he has never worked with someone looking to build from the ground up. He has worked with existing IAs to build their businesses, though, and he has worked with financial advisors for national firms looking to become independent. He sounded confident in being willing to work with me…

…but as mentioned in the beginning, things like this have a price. His charge is about $300/hour. He suggested a three-month time frame to start at a cost of roughly $1,000 per month. He suggested it might take six months to really make an impact at a cost of roughly $5,000. In the beginning, he mentioned asking for a percentage of my new business as a fee. That would be more akin to a fee schedule I can see myself accepting.

If I knew up front this would grow into something successful, I’d bring multiple checkbooks. Since I don’t, as mentioned in the third-to-last paragraph here, the decision is very difficult for me to make.