We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Philip Weiss. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Philip below.
Philip, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. So, we’d appreciate if you could open up about your growth story and the nitty, gritty details that went into scaling up.
I started Apprise with zero clients. I worked for another financial advisor before launching Apprise, but I wasn’t primarily in a client-facing role. When I left that firm, I did some writing and editing for someone that I had worked for earlier in my career in a similar capacity while I figured things out. I formed Apprise, but it wasn’t the only thing I was doing. About 18 months later, I decided that the only way I could truly build my own business was to go all in.
When I talk to others who are considering launching their own business, I share my experience to help temper expectations and provide a realistic picture of what can happen. The first year was rough. My income was positive, but I didn’t make much. The second year was better but still not nearly good enough. I remember a conversation where my wife said to me that I had one more year to make things happen or I would need to find something else. The money we’d saved allowed us to survive, but it wasn’t the type of lifestyle we wanted for our family.
Late during the second year/early during the third year, two key things happened. The first was that I hired a business coach. I knew I had the technical know-how to run my business, but I had no marketing experience. I had tried working with a firm for some marketing help, but it didn’t work out that well. I connected well with the coach during some discussions we had before I hired him. It was a big commitment, but I liked the idea for two reasons. The first was that it would give me somebody with industry knowledge and experience to discuss and work through things with. The second was that it increased my accountability. If I told my coach I was going to do something we discussed, that meant I had to do it.
I continue to work with that same coach today. His advice and counsel have played an important role in helping me build my business.
The second thing I did – in consultation with my coach – was decide to work with a solicitor who could introduce me to potential clients. That firm – Zoe Financial – was starting its business, too. I decided to take a chance. I liked the idea that I would only pay them if a prospect became a client. I decided to view the fee I paid them as a marketing expense. That made it more palatable. That firm has now provided over 40 clients. Probably more than 50 if I include referrals from those clients, too.
As a result of these decisions, by the end of Apprise’s third full year, I knew that I had built a viable business. In the fourth year, I reached a level where I was making more on my own than I had ever made working as an employee.
Originally, my niche was going to be working with healthcare professionals. I had a lot of experience with that industry from my days working as a CPA who specialized in international tax planning and research. But I also learned that it can be hard to build a niche without any direct connection. As my practice started to grow, I found that roughly two-thirds of my client relationships were led by a woman. I said I worked a lot with female-led households.
Since then, Apprise’s business continues to grow. I’m now refining the type of clients and am focused on working with “Women Facing New Beginnings.” The goal is to help these women flourish through life’s big changes. This niche was inspired by the experiences I saw my mother – my sister and me, too – go through when I was growing up. I am also working toward the Registered Life Planner (RLP®) designation. Life planning is financial planning done right. It’s meant to help you better align your money with what’s most important to you. This approach can have considerable meaning for women who are experiencing life events such as divorce, loss of a loved one, empty nest, career burnout, job change, or retirement.
Philip, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’d like to take this opportunity to share more of my story. In other words, the why, that led me to where I am today. While I’ve been in the financial services industry in some way, shape, or form for my entire career, my responsibilities along the way have changed.
I started college at Duke as a Psychology major and a pre-med. I had to leave school for financial reasons. When I returned, I didn’t go back to Duke. I was academically eligible to return, but I was no longer interested in pursuing a Psychology degree or becoming a doctor. I’d decided to study accounting. Duke doesn’t offer an undergraduate accounting degree. After working as a tax professional for many years, I decided I wanted a change. While I was still working as a tax professional, I also started writing for The Motley Fool and helping to manage one of their online portfolios. I learned about the CFA designation and decided to pursue that designation as a means of getting out of the tax department. I got a job at T. Rowe Price working as a writer and editor while I finished pursuing the CFA charter. From there, I worked as an analyst covering oil and gas (energy) stocks for seven years. Then I went to work for another Registered Investment Advisor. Ultimately, that wasn’t a good fit. That’s how I ended up launching my own firm.
In some ways, it’s ironic that I am a financial advisor. I didn’t have good role models growing up. My father was especially poor when it came to anything financial. I say there are two kinds of role models. I had a bad one. But you can still learn a lot. You can learn what not to do. This leads to my story. The why behind my doing what I do now:
This is the “Why” behind Apprise and my desire to help women facing new beginnings.
My mission to empower women with financial education and resources arises from the fact that I never want to see another woman go through the financial hardships my mother did. Growing up in NJ, my family’s finances were managed by my father, he wouldn’t let my mother help, and, what’s worse, he wasn’t good at it. Bills were often paid late; we occasionally had services shut off. We had no savings. We got calls from creditors looking to get paid. My father even went as far as forging my signature to get credit cards he could use.
Like many women of her generation, my mother had little control over the family finances. She ultimately went back to school so she could make her own choices and survive on her own.
Watching my mom struggle to get through this was very heart-wrenching. I give her so much credit for going back to school later in life and becoming an occupational therapist.
While my mother passed away more than 30 years ago, the work I do now is meant to continue her legacy. I have committed to focusing my time, energy, and practice on creating an environment where women can learn about investing, have fun, and become more confident in making smart financial decisions with less stress and worry.
At Apprise, I have the privilege of working with amazing, affluent women who are looking to gain clarity about their financial future. I ask questions to help clients better align their spending with what matters most in their life. I also plan to start a small scholarship that grows over time to honor my mother’s memory. It will help women who –– like my mom — return to school later in life.
If you’re looking for someone to help you achieve financial clarity and align your spending with what matters most to you, please schedule a free introductory call with me!
For those I work with, I offer life planning – or financial planning done right and investment management services. My experience as a tax professional also allows me to provide tax planning services. Tax planning can add considerable value. I view tax planning and investing as joined at the hip. It’s important to consider taxes in conjunction with investing. Plus, the tax rules change considerably as you transition from saving for retirement to spending your money during retirement. Most of us don’t know or fully comprehend the significance of those changes or how to navigate through them.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
As I mentioned earlier, I had to leave Duke for financial reasons. I did a lot to stay in school for as long as I did (I left after my junior year). I owed the school money that I didn’t have. After leaving I found a job working at Citibank as a bank teller. I also took a couple of courses at NYU that Citibank paid for that started to cement the idea of getting an accounting degree. I went to Tucson, Arizona to stay with a friend that December. A couple of months later I decided to move there. I figured if I had to be out of school earning money, I could do it someplace else. That also allowed me to get out of the toxic environment that I felt my parent’s house was.
While in Tucson, I worked for the county. I received one promotion at work and applied for a second. If I’d gotten that job, I would have gone to school at the University of Arizona. When I didn’t, I decided to come back to NJ and go to Rutgers (I had state residency for both). With a little help from my grandparents and mother, my Duke debt was repaid. I knew I’d have to work to put myself through school. To get an accounting degree, I needed two more years of school. Costs were much less back then than they are now. I took whatever loans I could get, but they weren’t enough.
When I didn’t have enough money, I paid for tuition and/or rent on the house I shared with five others with credit card checks. I didn’t think much of the debt because I had little choice. After completing an internship during the winter break of my senior year, I agreed to a full-time job with Deloitte (not who I interned with) after graduation. I left the other job I had and started with Deloitte with the promise that I could take up to a month off over the summer.
I can still remember the credit card statements I received at the end of my first year at Deloitte, showing how much I paid in interest. I realized that I didn’t make enough to keep paying that kind of interest. I gave myself a deadline to get all the balances down to zero. I decided to start with the card with the highest interest rate and work my way down from there.
I had the good fortune to get assigned to work on a big M&A transaction that took me out of town a lot. That meant a lot of overtime opportunities. Plus, much lower expenses as I could pretty much live on the daily stipend I received. I ended up spending about three months on that job (six weeks in December/January and another six that summer). I paid off all the credit card debt ahead of time. It was a liberating feeling. I still had student loan debt to repay, but at least the interest rates on it were lower than the credit cards.
The company I went to work for after leaving Deloitte was taken over. I decided to leave and take a severance payment. I used that money to pay off the rest of my student loan debt as well as buy an engagement ring for my wife.
Since then other than home mortgages and the occasional auto loan (we like to keep our cars for years), I have paid off my balances in full on a regular basis.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
The most enjoyable part of my business is talking to and getting to know and understand my clients. As a life planner, my focus is on understanding what matters most to my clients and helping put them in the position to live their desired lifestyle both now and in the future.
I regularly reach out to my clients. I also tell them they can reach out to me at any time. I’m always happy to help.
I find the best way to keep in touch is through regular communication. I publish a weekly blog that can be structured in one of three ways.
First, I write long-form content that typically focuses on financial topics. Sometimes the topic of my blogs is more personal in nature though. I have shared my life plan – https://apprisewealth.com/news/life-planning-training-reinforcing-my-purpose/. Life planning training is experiential. You can’t be a life planner unless you have created your own life plan. I also shared a more detailed version of my personal story – https://apprisewealth.com/news/confessions-of-a-financial-advisor/. I ask my clients to tell me many things about their lives. I feel it’s only right that I be transparent and do the same.
Second, I read all the time. In another form of my blog, I share five things I read recently that I think those on my email distribution (or LinkedIn newsletter) list would find valuable. Usually, I have an opening commentary that addresses some aspect of our lives beyond finances. Three of the articles I share are typically about personal finances. The other two can be about anything at all that I think would be valuable.
Third, I create a video on a financial issue. I include a transcript as well. The video gets posted to my website and my YouTube channel. You can find an edited transcript along with the video on my website.
I like using content as a way to be in touch with interested parties on a regular basis.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://apprisewealth.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AppriseWealth/ and https://www.facebook.com/phil.weiss.330
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-weiss/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/AppriseWealth
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdxgFt2cD1r5WP0-Y6LqMDg
- Other: https://apprisewealth.com/blog/