Brett Gilliland is the Co-founder and CEO of Visionary Wealth Advisors, an independent wealth management firm dedicated to providing world-class service to clients. He helps clients and financial advisors achieve their dreams with a unique focus on “F to the sixth power” principles. Additionally, Brett hosts the Circuit of Success podcast and serves on several boards, including the Saint Louis Sports Commission and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Pharmacy. Passionate about making a difference, he and his wife Julie founded Swing Fore Hope, a charity that supports cancer research and provides financial assistance to cancer patients.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
[2:42] Brett Gilliland shares the philosophy behind Visionary Wealth Advisors' client-focused strategies
[3:44] The significance of retirement planning beyond financial preparation
[5:03] How empathy is a crucial skill in financial advising
[6:18] Brett's 6F principle and how it guides both personal and professional life
[8:29] The positive impact of aligned company culture on team dynamics and client relationships
[10:33] Brett's vision for growing his firm with a balanced approach to work and life
[17:22] Tips for mastering your daily goals with the Focus 90 strategy
[19:03] The role of AI in wealth management
[22:09] How transparent leadership attracts the right clients and team members
[26:49] The mission and success stories behind Swing Fore Hope
In this episode…
In the fast-paced business world, how can companies ensure their clients survive and thrive in an ever-evolving landscape? Is there a universal formula to guarantee customer success while fostering company growth?
Experienced financial advisor Brett Gilliland delves into the ethos that powers his wealth management and life approach. He discusses the unique "F to the sixth power" concept — focusing on faith, family, fitness, firm, fun, and finances, and how these facets foster personal and professional growth. Brett showcases his commitment to helping clients achieve a future greater than their past and how his company culture aligns with these principles to strengthen team cohesion and client associations.
In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker interviews Brett Gilliland, Co-founder and CEO of Visionary Wealth Advisors, about integrating personal values into client relationships. Brett shares the philosophy behind Visionary Wealth Advisors' client-focused strategies, the 6F principle and how it guides personal and professional life, his vision for growing his firm with a balanced approach to work and life, and the mission and success stories behind Swing Fore Hope.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
Achieving a Future Greater Than Your Past by Brett Gilliland
"[Perspective Series] Strategies for Winning Customers: A Conversation With Peter LePiane" on The Customer Wins
"[AI Series] Harnessing AI for Strategic Leadership With Geoff Woods" on The Customer Wins
"Growth Tips for Wealth Management Firms With Aaron Klein of Nitrogen" on The Customer Wins
"Creating Winning Opportunities in Financial Services With Tom Anderson" on The Customer Wins
Quotable Moments:
"If you just don't care and you don't want to help people, you're not going to be a good financial advisor."
"We probably know our clients better than just about anybody else in their life because of the deep conversations that we have."
"I like to create experiences, whether it's with my wife, kids, or friends; let's go out and create some really cool experiences."
"Our goal is to help our clients not only internally in our firm but also with our clients."
"I think when you live success and just live it out loud, that's attractive to people to get more business."
Action Steps:
Adopt the 6F principle to balance different life areas: This allows you to evaluate your alignment with the F to the sixth power faith, family, fitness, firm, fun, finances and ensures that your actions remain purposeful and focused.
Implement Focus 90 for the first 90 minutes of your day: By concentrating on your most important tasks first, you can drive better productivity and goal attainment.
Formulate an “ask, don't tell” approach in your interactions: Asking questions and allowing others to express themselves can lead to deeper understanding and stronger relationships.
Use AI to enhance efficiency: Employ AI as a tool to complement your work, not replace it, harnessing its predictive power.
Charitably engage with your community: Brett Gilliland’s work with Swing Fore Hope illustrates how personal experience can translate into impactful community support, fostering a culture of giving back and proximity to those you serve.
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Episode Transcript:
Intro 0:02
Welcome to The Customer Wins podcast where business leaders discuss their secrets and techniques for helping their customers succeed and in turn grow their business.
Richard Walker 0:16
Hi, I'm Rich Walker, the host of The Customer Wins, where I talk to business leaders about how they help their customers win and how their focus on customer experience leads to growth. Some of my past guests have included Matthew Connor of CyberLynx, Peter LePiane of Idea Bridge, Geoff Woods of AI Leadership, and Aaron Klein of Nitrogen. Today, I'm speaking with Brett Gilliland, founder and CEO of Visionary Wealth Advisors. And today's episode is brought to you by Quik!, the leader in enterprise forms processing. When your business relies upon processing forms, don't waste your team's valuable time manually reviewing the forms, instead, get quick. Using our Form Xtract API, simply submit your completed forms and get back clean context-rich data that reduces manual reviews to only one out of 1000 submissions. Visit quikforms.com to get started. Now, before I introduce today's guest, I want to give a big thank you to Tom Anderson of Anasova, also a guest from this show. Go check out their website at anasova.com where they connect financial advisors and prospective clients together through free financial plans.
All right, I'm excited to talk to Brett today. Brett Gilliland is the founder and CEO of Visionary Wealth Advisors. In this role, Brett partners with clients and financial advisors, helping them to achieve their biggest dreams and aspirations by focusing on what he calls F to the fifth power, faith, family, fitness firm and fun. We got to talk about this. Brett embraces the firm's mission of helping clients achieve a future greater than their past. Brett hosts a weekly podcast, The Circuit of Success, which is rated as one of the top entrepreneur podcasts in 2017. He also serves on the board of directors for the Saint Louis Sports Commission, Brace for impact, the St Louis Zoo and Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville School of Pharmacy. Brett and his wife Julie also founded Swing Fore Hope, a charity that funds cancer research and provides financial assistance to cancer patients. They have four sons, Max, Drew, Hudson, and Asher. Brett, welcome to The Customer Wins.
Brett Gilliland 2:18
Hey. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it for introducing us.
Richard Walker 2:22
Man, you've got such a great background, so I'm sure everybody's gonna be excited to hear from you. For those who haven't heard this podcast before, I talk with business leaders about what they're doing to help their customers win, how they built and deliver a great customer experience, and the challenges to growing their own company. So Brett, let's understand your business a little bit better. How does your company help people?
Brett Gilliland 2:42
Yeah, I mean, we own a wealth management firm. We're an independent firm, and we have eight office locations around the country. And I think really, the best way to sum up what we do for a living is, really, what I like to say is take people off the treadmill of life. As you mentioned, I have four kids, and life is busy, right? You go to work all day. You get off work, and you usually go straight to a sporting event for your kids, and then you come home and try to eat some dinner, and then try to get a good night rest, and you get up and you do it all over again, right? And so I think that's a lot of our clients. That's what they do day in and day out. And so we like to slow down, right? Like I said, take them off the treadmill of life, find out what's important to them. Really get into that deep feeling that they have for their future, and then we try to help them achieve that future. And so just blessed every day to get to show up and work with great people, not only internally in our firm, but also with our clients.
Richard Walker 3:32
That is a great thing to have, you have a passion and a purpose in what you do. So when you talk about this treadmill, I mean, you could easily say, oh, you helped them retire and quit their work. But I don't think that's really what you mean, is it?
Brett Gilliland 3:44
No, I mean, that's certainly part of it, right? Our goal, end goal for most people, is to be done working and be able to hand the keys in and never outlive their money. And so that's certainly part of what we do. I think it's, I always joke that we're part-time psychologist. It's really finding those emotions and finding the things that are important to people and some people have a clear trajectory of where they're going, and some people, we need to help them right. They may not know exactly where they're going. And so what we do is really, like I said, slow down, ask them lots of deep question things they've probably never thought about. And quite frankly, we're probably other than maybe their immediate family.
Probably know them better than just about anybody else, in their family or in their in their life, because of the deep conversations that we have and understanding their goals or dreams or objectives. But it's a lot of the day-to-day stuff, too, of how they're handling kids, how they're handling people at work. And a lot of our clients are either business owners or professional athletes or just executives at companies, whatever it may be, and they've got a lot of stuff going on, and it's our job to really kind of get it all on a piece of paper and make it all make sense.
Richard Walker 4:48
I love that you have these five F's. I want to talk about that, but I want to ask it in the context, is it a natural gift that you have and your advisors have, or do you train for this ability to help people think through these tough questions? And be the psychologist on hand without a psychology degree, perhaps?
Brett Gilliland 5:03
Yeah. You certainly train. I mean, there's no doubt about it, but I think, but at the at the forefront of what we do is you got to care about people, right? I mean, you got to want to help somebody. I can take you and teach you everything there is to know about our business and everything there is to know about the stock market or retirement planning or whatever it is, right? But if you just don't care, and you, quite frankly, just don't want to help people, then, yeah, you're not going to be a good financial advisor. So I think you got to be one, care about people. Number two, you got to be curious, right? You got to be curious about other things in their life and really, truly want to help them. And I can tell you, there's nothing better than jumping on Facebook and seeing a client that's, you know, retired, and seeing them enjoying their day, doing whatever it is that they want to go do, and know that you play just this small, small role in that. That's the fun stuff, that's really what you know our work is about, and what makes it fun.
Richard Walker 5:58
Yeah, you may not know this about me. I was a financial advisor, and that's what I loved. I loved seeing people achieve their dreams and their goals, and that's still what I love. I do it in a different way at this point. So tell me about the five F's. Why are those important to you? Who came up with it? Is it your company culture after all?
Brett Gilliland 6:18
Yeah, I think it is. In our company culture. It's certainly not, it's not like one of the values we have on the wall. And I need to update my bio, I guess, because it's actually F to the sixth power. Now it's your faith, your family, your fitness, your firm, which for me is our work, right, your fun and your finances. And for me, I think as I've gotten older and been the business a while, and you start to become, you know, somewhat successful, you have a lot of people asking for a lot of things, whether it's phone calls or emails or just requests that come in. I kind of had to have a filtration system of what I couldn't could say yes to and what I had to learn to say no to, because I'm not a guy that loves saying no to people, but I've learned that I have to say no or you could just give away all of your time and talents and treasures and always. And so for me, it's my faith, right? My faith is extremely important to me. It's my family, obviously, my wife, my four kids, my fitness is my health.
If I can wake up, and I always tell people, especially our clients, we talk about this all the time, you can have all the money in the world, but if you didn't take care of yourself, guess what? The money goes away, right? And we can also think about all the health in the world, but if we didn't focus on money, your health goes away because you don't have any money, right? And so it's not good. And so, that's extremely important. Are those three. And then know your finances, obviously, we got to make some good decisions with our finances, our firm, for work, and then our fun. I like to have a lot of fun in life. I like to create experiences, whether it's with my wife and kids or our friends my family. It's let's go out and create some really cool experiences. So I try to live my life with that lens on there is that's what I can say yes to, if it doesn't move the needle in one of those F's, I'm saying no, if it does, then I'm all in.
Richard Walker 8:03
I think more people need that divining rod in their life to measure things against and say, is this something I should be doing or not? I was fortunate because I started my company with four critical foundation pieces to my company culture, but also around 2010 I learned what is my core purpose in life? You can't ask me to do something that doesn't match those things. So, I don't know, how many people do you have on your team?
Brett Gilliland 8:29
So we have 62 employees. I mean, including, that's financial advisors and then staff, executive team.
Richard Walker 8:38
So do you use this as a measurement to hire and evaluate the fit of the team, and if so, how do you do that?
Brett Gilliland 8:44
We do but we hopefully I can. It's not a big cuss word, it's a little cuss word. Is that okay?
Richard Walker 8:49
Sure, yeah, I think we're all adults.
Brett Gilliland 8:50
And so we literally call it the no Asshole Rule here. And so, as long as you don't fit the Asshole Rule, or don't break that rule that that's the most important thing. But what I found is, when we're mission and vision and values aligned, that's when it works the best. And so, yeah, absolutely, when we're hiring an employee, or we're, you know, bringing an advisor on board. I mean, those are the things we spend 90% of our time talking about. It's not, what do you know about an investment account? Well, that's table stakes. Of course, you got that right stuff, right and so, but what kind of person are you? And do you value working with your clients? And do you take care of those clients and our advisors, do we hire are, you know, 15, 3040, years in the business, when they join us? And so they've been around for a while, and they become an advisor through our firm, through a referral anyway, so that connection is already there. So we just want to make sure they don't break that rule, and that they can be mission vision and values aligned. And that's what works.
Richard Walker 8:54
Yeah, I think that's so important. I like that rule a lot, by the way. I don't necessarily articulate it the same way, because I try to look at it as life's too short to not enjoy what you're doing, and to be around people you don't like, including customers and vendors and partners and all of the above. So we strive really hard to build an environment where everybody enjoys the work that they're doing, which is one of our core tenants. So you're also a visionary, from what I read in your bio, and I'm just kind of curious, do you see yourself like predicting the future or leading the charge in terms of how big you're going to grow your firm? What is the vision you have for what you're doing?
Brett Gilliland 10:33
Yeah. Well, I think we're always trying to chase our better self, right? And I think you're from Austin, Texas, there, and you got the Matthew McConaughey speech when he won the Oscar. I think it was a phenomenal speech. If you haven't seen it, go check that out. But yeah, I think we're always chasing something, right? You can see this sticker right here is F greater than P. That's the future greater than your past. And that's our firm mission. Is my personal mission. I just think that we want to show up every single day and do that. You know, we don't have this plan. It's like, oh, I have to be at $20 billion by such and such a time under management. It's, it's not like that. It's how many people can we serve? Right? How can we serve them in the appropriate way that we get their needs met? And then, how do we do it? We're also enjoying life, right?
I think a lot of times people, you can work, work, work, work, work, and you wake up one day and you're like, holy crap. 30 years just went by and I don't know my kids, or I don't know this, or I don't have any hobbies. It's like that's just not important to me. Don't, don't, get me wrong. I want to continue to do well, and provide for my family and provide for all the families of people that work here and do all that stuff that's critically important, but the same time, we want to be able to enjoy our family, right, and enjoy life, and that's what's most important to me, is kind of measuring success based on, how are we growing as a company, but also, how are we growing as a child, right? As a parent, as a loved one, as a whatever, that's the most important definition of success to me.
Richard Walker 12:07
Yeah, I think a lot of people, and I've been guilty of this myself for 12 years straight. I think a lot of people think hard work will make up for everything else, the success of finance, financial gain will make up for everything else. But the truth is, it's the other way around. I made a promise to myself that when my first trial was born, I would reduce from 80-hour weeks down to 35-hour weeks, which I did. It was painful. I felt shame and guilt for not working as hard all these things, but I had to delegate more. And guess what? We started growing at 50% a year as a result of me letting go. Yeah, I said, why didn't I have kids sooner? So yeah, I really appreciate this idea of making sure that you're focused on the things that fulfill you personally, in and outside of work, which is, it sounds that's what you're helping your clients do. So I'm kind of curious if there's any specific tactics you use to slow people down and get them off that treadmill for the moments that they're with you, so they can be calm and think through it and project forward.
Brett Gilliland 13:03
Yeah, I think it's asking great questions, right? I say, ADT Ask, Don't Tell. And so if I have you, let's assume you were a client of mine, and I was sitting down with you and your spouse and I got you off that treadmill of life. I think it's my job to kind of set the stage of what we're here for, right? This is what you said last time that was important to you. Here are the things we are working for. Is that still correct? Yes, okay, great. But then asking those great questions, and if I can ask a question and then just shut up and get out of the way, like almost literally remove yourself. Obviously we don't do that, but you kind of want to remove yourself from the conversation and let them chat and let them think differently about stuff they may have never thought about. And that's for me, where it's fun just ask a question. Is probably why I also love doing a podcast. Right now, you're asking me the questions, but normally I'm the guy asking the questions. Right is I can ask a question and then just get out of the way, right and learn from these amazing people.
And I think for our clients, that's the best thing. Is most of the time, if you think about our lives, when we're busy, we're running a gun, and not very many people are slowing down to ask us questions, right? Would you agree with that? And so this is their time, you know, to come in with me and meet for, you know, 60 minutes to 90 minutes, whatever it may be, however long the meeting lasts, sometimes 20 minutes. It's their time to get questions asked to them, to where they can slow down and think. And hopefully they leave here, they feel good and inspired and have clarity around the future of where they're going, and they see that again, their future is greater than their past. It doesn't mean their past is bad, right? I don't feel like I had a bad past at all, but I still want my future to be better than what my past was, and that's me getting better in every area of my life.
Richard Walker 14:49
There's something subtle that you said in there that I want to articulate, which is when you ask the question and then get out of the way and stop asking questions, one of the reasons I bet they slowdown is because they don't feel the pressure to get their next question, the next question, the next question. That treadmill, right? I mean, just to use your term again, because if you are trying to interject and interrupt, then they're going to feel interrupted, and they feel like they have to get it all in as fast as they can. That's how life often goes, frankly. So you're giving them that space to actually slow down, just simply by shutting up.
Brett Gilliland 15:19
That's right. 100%. Yeah, I think too, as we talk about our focus 90 is another deal I work on personally. Our advisors work on clients, work on it. But as you know, the focus 90 is I got tired of being busy every day going home, and then sometimes you come home and you're like, what did I really accomplish today. I was really busy, but I just didn't accomplish this thing, right? And so my focus 90 shameless plug here, I Have a Future Greater Than Your Past journal that you can get on Amazon, but it's 20 plus years of the things I've learned and done well with and not well. It's all combined into one journal, and they're 90 days with the journals. And so one of the things that you focus on is, what in the next 90 days, what's the most important thing? And then, really, quite frankly, four or five things. But then every day you have to write that goal down, and then every day you spend the first 90 minutes of your day focus only on those four or five tasks that are super important to you.
And so I always ask people, if I spend the first 90 minutes of my day focus on the things that move the needle, on things that are important for me, am I more likely or less likely to get to my goal? I'm more likely, right, and if I write down my goal every day for the next 90 days, I had to physically write it down with a pen on a piece of paper, am I more likely to hit my goal or not? Absolutely right? So I think that's important, is to have a process that's there that allows me so if I can win the morning, I know I'm going to win the day, and if I win the day, I can win the week. If I win the week, I win the month, if I win the month, I win the quarter, then the year, and then the decade, right? And it all starts with when you bring it all back, in my opinion, that first 90 minutes of every day of getting out and conquering the stuff that's important to you.
Richard Walker 17:09
So your journal is a 90-page journal essentially, you're giving them a page for every day to write down their goals and to put some thought into it. Do they also track what they did yesterday, to reflect on it. What they're going to do today?
Brett Gilliland 17:22
Yeah. So there's like, what am I grateful for today? There's a to-do list, the goals, your exercise, your reading, your meditation, your projects you got to do, how much water intake you got. You write down your goals over the next 90 days. And then at the end of the week, there is a weekly kind of scorecard, if you will that has your weekly victories with your family, your weekly victories with your clients. Just did a thumbs-up on the screen there. It's wild. And so weekly victories your family experiences, and then, most importantly, your biggest awareness of the week and so it's just constantly doing that, and you're constantly grading yourself. And then at the end of the 90 days, there's a few pages in here, of some exercise homework, of what you could learn from the last 90 days. And I just have really found it's helped a lot of people. The feedback I get is it really just helps them have something set in stone that they know they can follow, and they just got to show up and do it day in and day out.
Richard Walker 18:16
So do your clients adopt this?
Brett Gilliland 18:20
That's actually the thing I'm working on for 2024 and into 2025 is having that as a widely adopted throughout our client base, for my client specifically, just because I'm seeing I've had a lot of test pilots being done, of people using it. And now that we're a year plus into it, it's going to be something that I've learned how to adapt it and mold it to what we need, and it's certainly gonna become part of their lives.
Richard Walker 18:44
Oh, man, congratulations. That is a good tool. We'll link to it in the show notes so everybody can go find it on Amazon. Check that out. Let me switch gears a little bit here. Let's talk about artificial intelligence and the role of AI. So one do you see AI doing what that focus 90s is doing, or augmenting it, or helping it in some way?
Brett Gilliland 19:03
I think, here's a quote I heard the other day, and I don't remember where I heard it, so I don't know who to give credit to, but it said, AI will not replace humans, but humans with AI will basically win. I can't remember exactly what it said, and I believe that. I think for what we do for a living, can somebody build some AI and build a portfolio? Yeah, maybe. But I think there's that human element, right? The psychology we talked about earlier, the feelings. AI doesn't have feelings, right? And when they're going through something really tough, that's when they need somebody there for them. That's why we have Kleenex boxes in our offices, right? Is that sometimes you get that emotion going, and you're not going to get that from Ai. So I don't worry about AI changing our business, but I think it can enhance and can help what we're doing to a certain extent.
Richard Walker 19:56
Yeah, I just listened to a gal talk about how to introduce AI. I'm not going to do it justice the way she does, but one of the points she makes is that AI doesn't actually understand anything. What it's doing is predicting what the answer should be or could be based on what it knows. So how could it ever feel, what's going on? How could it ever sense? Do you meet with a lot of your clients in person? Yeah, yes. The majority maybe.
Brett Gilliland 20:22
Yeah, yeah. COVID has changed that a little bit. You know, with people are more open to zoom calls and conference calls, but yes, majority of the time it's in person.
Richard Walker 20:31
Yeah, I find reading people in person is 100 times better than the Zoom call. Oh, yeah. And so how would you ever expect an AI to understand all this, even if you're building a eyes that are supposed to detect sentiment or micro-expressions to figure out what people are thinking. I just don't know how it's ever going to replace the human AI that we have in our head and our ability to do it. So I agree with you, yeah. Where are you employing AI in your business? Have you seen it impact your operations, your efficiencies, or hiring, or anything else.
Brett Gilliland 21:03
I have not, we have not spent a ton of time with it at all. It's certainly, I mean, we have AI that helps with risk profiles to see, like, how much risk somebody wants to take in a portfolio. So we can use it there, but we're not huge adopters as of right now, in AI, but certainly see it being a place that you can get some ideas right. Sometimes I even can use it for my podcast of maybe give me some type in a person's name, especially if they're a big sports star or something's I can find more data and research through chat GPT than I can by me going on Google and spending 45 minutes of my time. So I've seen it help me there to be more efficient. And that's, quite frankly, what I use it for the most.
Richard Walker 21:48
Yeah, that's a great use case for it. So I want to go back to how you started your company a little bit, because I'm still intrigued by these 5 Fs because or 6 Fs now. Was there a challenging point in earning your first client, or first 10 clients around these kind of ideals that you had?
Brett Gilliland 22:09
Yeah, I think, I don't know. I mean, the F to the sixth power has really, I mean, I've been doing this for 23, 24 years, and I don't think I really articulated those F to the sixth power, probably until the last four or five years. But I believe that when you live those things and you live that way, that is an attraction for other people that want to live that way. And so I think you kind of mentioned it earlier, I don't want to look at my calendar and see people on my calendar that I don't want to be around, right? And so I'm very fortunate that I get to be around the people that I get to be around, right, the people that excite me, and I get to show up to work, whether it's somebody again at work, or a client on my calendar, or doing a podcast, whatever it may be, like we're choosing to do that. And I think that is attractive to people, and they want that in their lives as well. So I think that's what helps us get those clients, is if you live in a way that people trust you, you have credibility. They see your success. They want to work with people like that, right? And so I think that's, in my opinion, when you live the success and just live it out loud, then that's attractive to people to where you can get more business.
Richard Walker 23:22
So have you had any points where you've had to fire clients, or is this methodology really kept you from having to have those awkward, bad situations?
Brett Gilliland 23:30
Yeah. I mean, I've certainly have lost a few clients because they moved to some other part of the country, or their kid gets in the business, stuff like that. But it hasn't been one of those things that we've really had to deal with in our career, and I'm sure lots of people are that way, right? You get your clients. You're a good person, you take care of them. They stay a client for a long, long time. I mean, a lot of my clients have been with me. I joke and say, Gosh, I don't know what I did when I was 23 years old in this business, I could barely spell investments, let alone do it. But you became a client, right? And it's been fun to watch them grow and their families grow and all that. But again, I just think that how you live your life and I say, live it out loud, because you got to be transparent. You got to be vulnerable. If you screw up, say you screwed up. And take that and work with those clients and help them to the best of your ability.
Richard Walker 24:22
I've worked with a lot of people who go through the transition from moving from one firm to another, and often that's a time where they do lose clients. They let go of clients that are not, I don't know, great relationships for them, maybe. And so I've seen a lot of advisors actually go through that process. I mean, software companies go through this. We'll take any client in the first early days, and then we realize they're not great clients, or they cost us a lot, et cetera. But what you're talking about, the reason I'm bringing this up is because I think when you are really clear on who you are, and you're clear about your purpose, you attract the right people from the beginning, and it's less likely you have this falling out that you've seemingly avoided most of.
Brett Gilliland 25:02
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, in my case, is with the podcast I've had 400 night. Today's was the 401st episode that came out. And you can't fake 401 interviews, right? And so I think again, if you want to build credibility with people, I always say it the transparency, the vulnerability, share your vision with people, share where you're going. I think people like to see that with the vision. The name Visionary Wealth Advisors. They want to hear a vision. And you want to work with somebody that has a vision, right? Like, if I was going to hire your company, I want a guy that's thinking differently than the guy or gal down the road that maybe does the exact same thing, but just kind of does it as a victim mentality. And I don't want to be around that stuff. And I think our clients don't want to be around it.
And to your point, earlier too, being in a room with somebody versus a zoom, like you can feel the energy, right? When somebody, you always hear that saying, oh, you can feel it when they walk in a room, right? That's true. That's like scientific, like you can feel it from like, 10 or 15 feet around them, their energy, and what kind of energy are you bringing into a room? That's the energy I want to be around. And you can feel that. So if you don't feel that from a potential client, you maybe just, give them some advice, and they go on their way, and you're not trying to get them as a client, but the ones that you connect with and you feel their energy, they feel yours and vice versa, then that's what you go for. And it's a great working relationship where we're vision and values and mission-aligned, that it works.
Richard Walker 26:30
Yeah, I was surprised in your bio how many places you're on the board of directors and helping out, and you have your own charity that you've built. So to me, all that spells out that you truly, truly, truly care about people, and this is part of who you are. That's part of the energy you bring. Tell us about your charity. Swing Fore Hope.
Brett Gilliland 26:49
Yeah. So it was founded in 2007 my wife and I, my wife, Julie and I, we founded it. Her mom, grandma and two of her aunts were all diagnosed with breast cancer within seven months of each other. Unfortunately, one of them passed away, my mother-in-law. Excuse me, my mother-in-law has been dealing with it since 2003 so here we are, 21 years later, she's still going across the river to Siteman Cancer Center and so we had that battle, and then six weeks after we started our charity, my dad was diagnosed with cancer, and then a year later, her dad was diagnosed with cancer, then my mom, and then friends and families and aunts and uncles, and so it's just, it's there. And no matter when I speak at a Swing Fore Hope type event, I'm like, you know, if you're in the room and you've been impacted by cancer, please stand up, and the whole room stands right, and everybody's been dealt with it the word cancer, whether it's a close, close family member themselves, or just a friend.
And so I always joke that our goal for our business, or for our organization, Swing Fore Hope, is to go out of business, and that word cancer is not that scary anymore. And so that's the hope. We're not there yet. We got a lot of work to do, but we have amazing people in our community and our board that just show up year after year to our events and then just help us make a difference to actual people in the community. So some of the money goes to Siteman Cancer Center here in St Louis, and then 50% of it goes to or more than 50% of it goes to actual families. So if you knew somebody that needed help in our communities, then you would refer that person. There's a whole process we go through, and then we pay directly to the maybe their home or to their car company, or whatever it is.
We pay directly to that company so we know the money is going to work on behalf of that person. And again, just like we built our client base on referrals, we do it through Swing Fore Hope, through referrals as well. And it's just a, you know, a great feeling to help the people that live and we go grocery shopping with, or maybe go to church with, and stuff like that, and so. So I appreciate you asking about it, but that's what Swing Fore Hope is, and that's who we help.
Richard Walker 28:16
Actually, I love hearing about this, because so many times when you think about charitable giving, you don't know if the money is going in somebody's pockets or going to help the actual people who need it. And it sounds like you guys are really focused on making sure the money is spent in the right ways to help the right people.
Brett Gilliland 29:07
Yeah, well, we know that we can't, somebody's giving us a check, and, like, if you gave us a check, our job, our fiduciary job for that is to make sure that's going to what you meant it to go for, that's to help people. And so if somebody says, oh, I just, I need $7,000 for this, and then we give it to them. We don't know where that $7,000 really goes, but my wife is so diligent about it. And then that will go directly to the bank for your house payment, or directly to the power company, or whatever it is to keep their bills and their lights on. It's a great feeling knowing it's going to the right spots.
Richard Walker 29:42
Yeah, it is my wife's number one scare fear. She actually had a scare when she was 18 and had something removed, and it was deadly, frankly. So she is just takes no risks. She has researched every nutritional aspect, every modality of treatment you can think of. She's a nurse, after all. So, this is a theme in our house. Thankfully, we're not affected, like personally or somebody going through it at the moment, but this is one of those things we're trying to make sure we're fully prepared for. So I think you guys are doing great stuff.
Brett Gilliland 30:12
Well, going getting screenings is the number one way to stop it. That's the thing I would say the most. Just go take care of yourself and go get screens.
Richard Walker 30:19
Yeah. So I have another question to ask, but before I do that and we wrap up, what is the best way for people to find and connect with you?
Brett Gilliland 30:28
Visionarywealthadvisors.com, is there circuitofsuccess.com for the podcast, I'm on all social media platforms. Well, not all. I'm on Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook. Think my kids signed me up for like TikTok. I don't go and go on TikTok and stuff. I think our podcast is on our people put it on TikTok, but, but Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook are the ones that I'm most active on.
Richard Walker 30:51
Nice, nice, that's awesome. All right, so here's my last question, who has had the biggest impact on your leadership style and how you approach your role today?
Brett Gilliland 31:03
It's a good question. Is it just one person or can I have?
Richard Walker 31:07
You can name a few. I love this question. That's my favorite one.
Brett Gilliland 31:11
Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I'm an only child. I think my parents had a major role. Obviously, they were my parents in who I am today, and they always inspired me to think as big as I possibly could, and to dream big and believe in myself enough to where the crazy things that were in my mind when I was little, I actually believed that I could do them right. And then I think that's what's crazy, is in 2014 when I broke away from our previous firm and started Visionary Wealth Advisors with Tim Hammett, that I didn't have that fear. I mean, there was fear, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't like this, like fear that I wouldn't do it, and so I just believed that we could start this startup, Wealth Management Company and do it and be successful at it.
And it's been a great 10 and a half years. And I think I look back, my parents helped me believe in that. And so when I was annoyed child and say I was bored, they would make me draw my dream house, like, literally, a floor plan, like I thought I wanted to be an architect for a while. And they all had basketball courts and different things inside the houses, because I was this young kid wanting to play sports, but that allowed me to think big and dream big, and, like I said, and actually believe big, and then the other one would be my wife. And I'm not trying to be the cheesy guy picking his parents and his wife, but those are the people I learned the most from. Is my wife was hard work. I mean, she's the hardest working person I know like, by far, like, 1000 times harder worker than I am.
Like, I have to sit down, like, just relax, because she works so hard, right? And I learned that my first year in the business, I was successful. My second year in the business, I was not successful, and I had to go learn that discipline of hard work. And it was with her support and her encouragement that I was able to do that, and is one of the biggest reasons why we are where we are today.
Richard Walker 33:08
Yeah, thank you for sharing that I couldn't do this without my wife. She's the only woman other than my mom or sister, but she's the only woman who truly supported me in being an entrepreneur, and didn't scold me, didn't make me feel bad about working hard, doing what I had to do, et cetera. And it's just been incredible since I met her. So yes.
Brett Gilliland 33:28
Yeah, my wife, when I started Visionary, she was eight months pregnant with our fourth child, and we had just built our home, and she's like, are you sure this is the right time? I'm like, no, this is not the right time, I said, but we got to do it. And she's like, I'm all in, and we did it. And so you think of that support in that time in our lives like that was, I mean, unbelievable to have that support and allowed me to do the things that I was crazy enough to think about to go do, and we did it.
Richard Walker 33:58
Yeah, yeah. Well, this has been great to hear this story. I love it. I want to give a big thank you to Brett Gilliland, founder and CEO of Visionary Wealth Advisors, for being on this episode of The Customer Wins. Go check out Brett's website at visionarywealthadvisors.com and don't forget to check out Quik! at quikforms.com where we make processing forms easier. I hope you enjoyed this discussion, will click the like button, share this with someone and subscribe to our channels for future episodes of The Customer Wins. Brett, thank you so much for joining me today.
Brett Gilliland 34:28
Hey. Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation.
Outro 34:32
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