The Portrait of a Maestro: Our Dexterous Director of Business Development

When it comes to choosing a firm to manage wealth, you look for a team built by trustworthy, courteous, and knowledgeable employees. Wealth management is crucial for not just protecting but growing the assets you've accumulated, so you can meet current financial goals and maybe even build a little nest egg worth passing down. Correct Capital's team understands your needs, and goes above and beyond the run-of-the-mill requests. The staff is always available to answer questions and provide advice -- particularly for perspective clients, but, as the following podcast proves, even for former clients.

Financial advisor and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Colin Day continues his recent series of videos and podcasts getting to know the people who help Correct Capital and our clients thrive. He recently sat down with Steve Paulus, who is the Director of Business Development.

For recent investment news and our take on the current market, retirement planning, and investment, listen to our Podcast Capital Conversations or view our recent blog posts here.

Below is the transcript of our most recent Capital Conversation podcast episode, “The Portrait of a Maestro: Our Dexterous Director of Business Development”

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The Portrait of a Maestro: Our Dexterous Director of Business Development

Colin Day: Welcome everyone. Welcome to another edition of Capital Conversations. I'm Colin Day, Financial Advisor at Correct Capital Wealth Management and with me today is Steve Paulus. Steve is our Director of Business Development here at Correct Capital. We're going to lead this conversation off, Steve, the way that we do all of our conversations when we’re introducing our fellow employees, which is Steve, what do you do here?

Steve Paulus: I try to keep that a secret. No, as you mentioned, I'm Director of Business Development and one of the descriptions I saw was that I have the gratifying task of bringing new people to Correct Capital. And, I think that's true. So my job is to use all the resources that are available to us in this new technological age, as well as some old school techniques, and find those folks who really have a need and who want to work with us. If you like to work with a small, family-owned boutique, a concentrated wealth management firm, we’re really a good fit.

Colin Day: Yeah. I would have to agree with you. I'm glad you joined us. Steve's one of our newest employees. Steve, you've been here for two months?

Steve Paulus: Three months, actually.

Colin Day: Oh wow, time flies. Well, Steve, you've had a storied career in the financial services industry. What brought you here? So take us through what you've done in the past, what your wheelhouses were, and how you ended up in this seat today.

Steve Paulus: I started in the business actually across the street from our office here, as a financial consultant with Merrill Lynch. You know, they said Merrill trains the street and in very many ways, in my case, it was true. So I went from there to AG Edwards, where I started just after Brian Pullman, who founded this firm, started. And Brian went on to build a fabulous practice, working with and helping an innumerable number of people. I took a little bit of a different track and I went kind of the corporate route, and I went downtown to work at the home office. Ultimately, through mergers and things, I was promoted to Senior Vice President and moved out to the West Coast, where I lived in Sacramento and handled all of the Northern California advisors as a sales manager. Then moved back from there to here for some family medical issues, which worked out well. At one point, I basically retired and Brian saw me on LinkedIn. We both have mutual friends and I had congratulated someone and he reached out and asked, “How would you like to work at Correct Capital?” I jumped at the chance. So, I've been happy here ever since.

Colin Day: That's good. I think Steve's story is very unique, of course, in the fact that he was retired. He worked in the financial services industry and realized that, maybe the grass wasn’t greener on the other side of a paycheck, so to speak. But he decided that there's an opportunity out there to work with Brian, somebody that you knew from your past, and started to establish something else. I think that's a story that we hear a lot as advisors – that our clients want to have their version of a retirement, not what their neighbor says that is, or what their parents experience for retirement. For some people, it's kind of weaning off work, for other people it's just falling off the cliff. And for some people, it's kind of realizing: “Maybe I do want to rejoin the workforce. Maybe there is some fuel still left in this tank.”

Steve Paulus: Yeah, I think that's a good description of that exact same process. I never necessarily looked forward to retirement. But it was like, “Okay, I know it's coming. It’s time. Okay, fine. We'll do that.” And now, working, I realize I kind of like the rigor of having to show up someplace every day. And working with other folks and the challenge of working with people and understanding their needs and understanding if we can be of some value to them. It's a rewarding process.

Colin Day: I agree. So, within your history, you've done a lot of different kinds of jobs – you've worked with clients, you've worked with other advisors, the corporate route. In your experience, if you had to define what a financial advisor does for their clients, what do you think would be the most succinct way that you could describe what we do as a firm and as an industry?

Steve Paulus: Well, you had talked one time about a kind of description of our firm, whereas wealth management is in the name, and I think that that's kind of a good description. I think the very best are helpful to their clients in all facets of wealth management. Yes, we manage your investments, stocks, bonds, alternative investments, things like that. But we also are helping you fund that grandchild's education; or that child who might have special needs; or your charitable desires; leaving something for their family. The money and the wealth are the means to get to those goals for our clients. So to answer your question – I'm giving you a long answer to a short question – I think that the best of us operate with the focus on the client. What is the client trying to achieve? And then what tools do we use to get there? As opposed to being focused on the dollar.

Colin Day: Right. That's product sales, right? And that's not what the best financial advisors do. You're not coming to an advisor any longer in the year 2022 because you need access to a certain stock. That's what apps are for, that’s what large brokerage firms are for. You can do that directly. You don't need an advisor to do that kind of thing, But when you have larger needs, needs outside of just the investment management or, in this case, picking and choosing investments. That's really where I feel like financial advisors generally shine.

Steve Paulus: The good ones do. Yes.

Colin Day: Let's go to the last question that I have for you today. You've worked for multiple firms. You've worked across different kinds of product lines with different kinds of individuals. You’ve been client facing, advisor facing, so you're coaching advisors on what they should be doing. You've seen plenty of different firms and how they run their practices. What about Correct Capital in your three months of experience? What makes us different? Or what do you think our clients value the most when they have the experience working with our firm?

Steve Paulus: I'll go back to what you had mentioned with the fact that wealth management is in our name. I think what we do really well, and this comes from Brian because he's always run his business and worked with his clients who are really his friends, is that he’s available and we are available even for those instances where it's not something that directly falls within our purview or something we can directly do. A story comes to mind, I think it was Brian. But someone had called him while he was on a morning bike ride and said, “Hey, I just found out that this other firm opened up an account. I don't remember that, and I don't know what this is all about.” There’s no money in that for Correct Capital, but it is part of our job as wealth managers. Brian, as you know, got the answer to that and it turned out this other firm had, yes, opened an account without any authorization. It was all taken care of. There was no commission there or no pay for Correct Capital. But, we took care of our client. Our client had an issue. We were able to get an answer, take care of it. And now that person wasn't worried anymore. It's that kind of work, I think, that makes our job really satisfying. Someone is stressed, someone has a need, and we can help them get over that and get to the point where they are comfortable.

Colin Day: I just received an email this morning with somebody else saying, “Hey, I had a run in with my bank account.” Well now, I'm realizing as her advisor that we should probably make sure that this link is secure because we have that bank account linked to some other stuff with our firm. We try to take the extra steps and try to be proactive with our clients when they run into those situations. My situation that I went through this morning was a little bit different because it's a client and that's directly associated with money. But what I like to tell many people is that we serve as their personal CFO, so their Chief Financial Officer. Companies have them, of course, but individuals generally don't. The reason is because they work with an advisor that they think is running the show for them.

But with a CFO level of service, we're looking at all things. Again, wealth management is a commodity in 2022. You can pick and choose your own investments if you really want to, you don't need to work through a broker. Like, again, the ones we went over before. Where we provide the additional value are on those things that are tangential to money, that might affect money. So buying a house… Do I pay down the mortgage? Do I put the money in the 529 or in my IRA? What's a 30 year play on how I save for retirement? Is it Roth? Is it pre-tax? What is going to happen with Roth? And all of the other things that are happening with legislation changes, and tax changes, and anything else that's just going on personally with your life. I think we provide a valuable service to those. We are going to run your money, we're going to invest your money. But I think all those other things are a really good way of explaining what we do and, hopefully, what our clients experience on a daily basis when they work with us.

Steve Paulus: And to go back to your original question, I think that also one of the things that we do really well, that is not necessarily common elsewhere, is that we're all kind of working toward the same goal. There's the atmosphere that if you hire one person in this firm, you get all the other people in the firm who are also bringing their talents to work on your particular situation. So I think that that's a very unique atmosphere that is special to Correct Capital Wealth Management that isn't necessarily true elsewhere.

Colin Day: I'm glad to hear it. And you have the experience behind you to say that. Thanks so much, Steve, for joining us today. Thank you all for listening or watching. Until the next time. We'll see you.

The opinions expressed in this program are for general informational purposes only, and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. As always please remember investing involves risk and possible loss of principal capital; please seek advice from a licensed professional.

Correct Capital Wealth Management is a registered investment adviser. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where Correct Capital Wealth Management and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. No advice may be rendered by Correct Capital Wealth Management unless a client service agreement is in place.

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At Correct Capital, we're lucky to have a great team that's dedicated to positive client outcomes and helping people and businesses secure their financial future. As a fiduciary, our only legal and ethical concern is doing we believe is in your best interest. If you're looking for 401(k) services for your business, or have any wealth management needs, call Correct Capital at 877-930-4015 or contact us online.