Epic Entrepreneurs
Welcome to Epic Entrepreneurs! What does it take to build a real and thriving business in today’s world? As entrepreneurs and business owners, we went into business to have more freedom of time and money. Yet, the path of growing a business isn’t always filled with sunshine and rainbows. In this chart-topping show, host Bill Gilliland; author of the best-selling book “The Coach Approach” leverages his decades of experience coaching proven entrepreneurs to make more money, grow the right teams, and find the freedom of EPIC Entrepreneurship.
Epic Entrepreneurs
Financial Partners Inc: Building Community Through Crisis and Beyond
When disaster strikes, how does a community rebuild? Not just structures, but hope, opportunity, and a vision for something better than before? In this compelling conversation with Cory and Justin from Financial Partners Inc, we explore exactly how the Asheville business community is transforming the aftermath of Hurricane Helene into a catalyst for growth and resilience.
As title sponsors of the upcoming WNC Asheville Business Summit, these financial advisors bring a unique perspective on business leadership during crisis recovery. Justin shares remarkable stories from his time as chairman of Western North Carolina's largest food bank, describing how they mobilized a network of 50 area farms to distribute fresh produce just days after the hurricane destroyed their facilities. What was originally planned as a $7 million project requiring years of feasibility studies transformed into a sub-million dollar solution through crisis-inspired innovation.
Beyond community resilience, we dive into what makes Financial Partners Inc successful after nearly four decades in business. Their commitment to community involvement, clear values, and a refined client process has fueled their expansion across multiple regions. Both partners dispel common misconceptions about entrepreneurship, emphasizing that despite challenges, business ownership offers tremendous fulfillment when approached with the right mindset.
The conversation culminates with their BEPIC framework—Bringing energy, Education, Planning, Inspiration, and Commitment—offering valuable insights for any business leader. Their parting wisdom? "Start your business sooner" and "Trust that authenticity attracts the right clients."
Don't miss the WNC Asheville Business Summit where these ideas will be explored in greater depth. Get your tickets at wncsummit.com before they sell out and join a community of forward-thinking leaders turning challenge into opportunity.
Guest Bios
Cory Marlow, MBA, AIF®
Wealth Advisor, President
📧 cmarlow@fpiwealth.com
| 📞 574-264-0621
Cory believes that by understanding where his clients are coming from and where they’re heading, he and his team can provide financial plans tailored to their unique needs. He has a passion for the industry and is honored to guide clients along financial paths designed to help them pursue both short- and long-term goals.
Justin Powell
Wealth Advisor
📧 jpowell@fpiwealth.com
| 📞 828-400-1971
Justin shines a light on what matters most to his clients by developing deep, meaningful relationships. He helps them create and maintain flexible financial plans tailored to their goals—connecting the emotional meaning behind their aspirations with the processes and strategies required to pursue them. He finds great fulfillment in guiding clients toward brighter financial futures through comprehensive planning and heart-centered connection.
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Hey there, welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I'm Bill Gilliland with Action Coach, business Growth Partners, and today we've got an amazing podcast for you. I'm with Corey and Justin from Financial Partners Inc. And they're the title sponsors for the WNC Asheville Business Summit and you need to get out there and get your tickets now. It's wncsummitcom and everything's out there how to get tickets and everything. So we're going to talk to them a little bit about what it is. They do what they've learned, give you some taste for what it's going to be like and we'll take it from there. So welcome guys. Thanks Bill, thanks Bill. So I don't know who wants to field this, but tell us a little bit about Financial Partners.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can go. I suppose that's great. Yeah, so Financial Partners we are an independent wealth management and financial planning organization. We've been around, oh geez, close to 40 years. Myself, Corey, I'm here in Elkhart, Indiana. We've got offices in Chicago and Fort Wayne and, most recently, welcome Justin to the squad and he's down in Asheville, so that's our affiliation there. We do everything from philanthropy work and tax planning strategies, full-on wealth management, financial planning, insurance, you name it. So we're with LPL Financial, that's our broker dealer, and we are just basically a full-service brokerage firm. So thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's awesome. We really appreciate you getting behind the Asheville Business Summit. It's going to be really, really, really great. You know, of course, it was really great last year and Justin helped us out last year, but then we had a hurricane about a month later. So, it was. You know, we had great momentum going into the fall and then bam, you know we hit these, so we're coming out of that. So why did you guys decide to support the summit? What's that about?
Speaker 3:Okay, I'll take that one, Absolutely. Yeah, you know, bill, you and I have been partnered together in some way, shape or form, going back several years now, and I've always admired how you work with your clients and you've helped me a lot as well. But beyond that just the coming back together after this crisis of the community and to be and hold space for each other, to to chart a new path right we want to be at the forefront of that and you know we'll talk a little bit about you know what conscious leadership looks like and creating that new path forward. Um, there's a kind of a phrase, you know, never let a crisis go to waste, and I think the business community really has an opportunity here in Asheville to reshape the future, and you know we want to be a part of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome and we really appreciate that. I mean, the theme is basically how do we take this and make it a catalyst? Not how do we, you know, sit around and say, well, woe is me because we had a hurricane. That's not our style anyway. But it's like, how do we take it and move forward as a catalyst for growth, not as a thing, so that fits great. So what are you guys going to talk about?
Speaker 3:Well, we'll get up there, obviously, and introduce our firm to everybody and who we are, like Corey just did, and go look a little bit more in depth into you know who our ideal clients are, you know what our mission is and what our values are, and so we'll talk a little bit about that, and then that'll segue into a conversation about building resilience at the intersection of crisis healing and business leadership, right? So we've experienced this crisis. We've had about a year to start that healing process, and now what does leadership look like going forward coming out of that? I'll talk some about the organizations that I had the pleasure of being involved with.
Speaker 3:At the time of the hurricane, I was the chairman of the board of the largest food bank in the west side of the state, so we had Banna Food Bank, which is kind of our umbrella organization for food insecurity, and their facilities were down by the river and were washed away.
Speaker 3:So it was us at HCM that kind of had to jump into action for Western North Carolina and through our partnerships with 50 area farms, we were able to have at least in Haywood County.
Speaker 3:We were able to have fresh produce out at all the community centers by day three.
Speaker 3:I believe I'll get those numbers before I did my talk but really watching that team, you know, and supporting that team, just jump into action and use their network and they're really pioneering new ways to address food insecurity in the form of a food hub. And how we took that crisis and all the influx of resources from the business community, from the philanthropy community, which were significant, and we were able to leverage those new resources into this food hub plan where we were planning on doing a two-year feasibility study. It was looking like, you know, a $7 million project from the ground up and we were able to use this opportunity that came out of this crisis to do it for, you know, less than a million dollars and achieve it. So things like that, stories like that, whether it's the Pearl Institute who opened their doors to first responders with free trauma therapy, or whether it was the Healing Hub, here comes my little son. He's going to say hi, he just got home from school. Say hi, stephen.
Speaker 1:Hey, stephen, welcome to the podcast perfect timing, uh.
Speaker 3:So the pearl institute you know the pearl uh opened their doors and offering that trauma therapy, kind of out of the gate for those that were the front lines of uh, you know, pulling, uh, you know, just long hours and rescue operations. Or how I was invited to a, a place called kripalu, with about 20 other area nonprofit leaders and business and community leaders, and how we sat for a week in trauma therapy and in leadership training and sacred ceremony and started to develop this new way of being in community, or at least pulling forward ways of being in community, and how we could be, have a more resilient structure. So I'll talk about a few of those organizations and what they're, what they've done, what they did, what they've done and what they plan to do going forward.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it really was a or is still a you, an effort between a lot of constituencies to continue to create this catalyst situation for us. Let's talk a little bit about your business and some of your learnings, as because you guys are actually business owners as well. So what are, what do you think some of the common misconceptions out there about running a business are?
Speaker 2:Oh, common misconceptions.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean for me and I'll probably speak for Jess I mean what we do is extremely enjoyable and very, very fulfilling.
Speaker 2:You know, meeting individuals who have a need, uncovering those needs, doing the planning process for them and kind of getting them to their goals ultimately, obviously, which is retirement or philanthropic giving or what have you, whatever it is. But the business aspect of it obviously is difficult at times, but that's the minutiae part of it, right, you know the accounting stuff and the paperwork and all that stuff, and we have tremendous people in place through financial partners that help us do those things. And so you know, justin and I and Scott and Adam and the rest of the team that are the planners can focus on the deliverables of helping our clients achieve goals. So I would say the biggest misconception is you know a lot of people say that there's tons of headaches and you know it might not be worth it. You know a lot of people say that there's tons of headaches and you know it might not be worth it, but I'll tell you that it's extremely, at least for me, extremely fulfilling and that would probably be the biggest one that I would, that I would highlight.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So so what you're saying is people think, well, you get into business and it's going to be a bunch of headaches and it's going to be hard, but your, your experience is, hey, this is something that's. That's an awesome experience. What do you? I mean, you guys are growing. What do you attribute the growth to?
Speaker 2:Corey, yeah, yeah, I mean I think a lot of it has to do with focusing on our deliverables and our process. We have a very refined process. That's extremely refined process. It's extremely spelled out, um, it's copyrighted, it's called our bold time formula, so it's it's easy to understand, uh, for the prospect and for the client, um, and so I mean I think that's attributed to a lot of our growth.
Speaker 2:One of the other things too is and I don't know, know, I could speak for justin, but we're, you know, we're in the business of sales sort of um, but I don't liken us to be sales people, if that makes any sense um, we like to do business with folks that are like-minded and have, you know, the same goals and aspirations as we do, um, and I feel that that allows us to kind of figure out who we want to work with and easily identify us as a firm for individuals that want to do business with people that have those same interests and desires.
Speaker 2:I think one of the other things, too that I'll highlight specifically to our firm, and one of the things that attracted me to Justin, was his affinity for philanthropic giving and local community support, one of the things that is probably the biggest thing for us is community participation and give back locally. Here in the Midwest, you know we participate with Junior Achievement a lot and we have our own course where we where we teach financial literacy to younger students who might not otherwise get that in in school.
Speaker 1:No well, let's just say they're not going to get it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They're not getting it in school.
Speaker 3:The schools are dropping the ball on that.
Speaker 1:So thank you for jumping in there, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I I think that that is, you know, it lights a fire under us as well, just to cause I don't know if I speak for you guys, but yeah, I didn't really get it right. I mean, it was kind of a lesson that I had to learn about why should I be saving for retirement or using my company's retirement plan, or the importance of life insurance and being in the market and all these things that you know, and maybe a 5 000 foot view that I got. You know where we got in college and um, probably not much in high school at all, but um, yes, and I think that's attributed to a lot of our growth just being present, um, and and um, you know, visible in the community yeah, I I'll echo that, corey.
Speaker 3:Just that community involvement and making sure that we're taking our resources and putting them back to create resilience in the community, right? So that's going to be a big part of the last part of my talk is how we, as business leaders that's our job is to lift up our community with our success, and we saw that in Helene, the importance of people running towards helping others. And, you know, sometimes it takes a big crisis to, you know, remind us of that that we're actually better together. Right, we're always better together. We can reach across aisles, we can, you know, find common solutions to, you know, common problems.
Speaker 3:But the other thing I think key to growth is values. Right, you know, just having a set of core values of, you know, being honorable, being on time, being present, you know, you know being honorable, being on time, being present, you know, being available to our clients. I think it's a really important thing Having a great team. I've just been, you know, so impressed with FBI's back office and everybody that we have here. Yeah, it keeps the wheels on the bus while we go out and drive it around right. Wheels on the bus while we go out and drive it around Right, so, uh, so yeah, I think it's just a lot of alignment, um, and a lot of uh, um. He's pot. Oh, here comes another kid, so the school's out.
Speaker 1:Well, that brings it. That brings me to my next question, which is, which is, basically, I'm interested all the time in how I mean, you know you guys work hard, you do a lot for your communities, you're you're, you know you're doing, you know you're you're doing business. So how do you balance personal life with the demands of business?
Speaker 3:Time blocking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, time blocking and really good um support. Um, you know, I mean I I feel as if we we are very blessed in the fact that we've got our um, you know, our administrative support in the background that handles all the day-to-day uh phone calls and paperwork where you know, justin and us and I and the advisory team can, can, focus on the deliverables, um, which makes, uh makes work-life balance uh, much better when you have to focus on things that you're not good at, right, and you can kind of segment those things out and and outsource those, those activities. And so, um, you know, I'm not good with paperwork. Uh, I'm not very good with the organizational aspect of it. I'm very good at the wealth management side and, uh, and and delivering the financial plan and all the numbers and things like that. And I learned a long time ago that, um, you know, if we, if we don't segment those things, that you're just going to be steadily mediocre.
Speaker 1:So you might as well be really good at a couple of things and and outsource the rest, yeah, I've always, yeah, I've always said you can't do this stuff by yourself, and so you know that's the other thing. So this may be an interesting question. Usually, I ask people what qualities do you look for in employees? But I'm going to ask you a different question what qualities do you look for in clients?
Speaker 3:Yeah, go ahead, justin. Yes, some of those same things, right? Set of core values, community involvement, shared interests, but also success, right. I focus on kind of that 40 to 60 range of business owners and highly compensated individuals and helping them and their families leverage that success. It might be recent success, it may be going on for a little while, but, you know, making sure they're leveraging it towards their goals. But an ideal client, too, is a partner. You know we have it in the title, right, it's financial partners and it's because it is a partnership and it does require engagement from the client. And I think the best clients are the ones that you know take a somewhat studious approach to this with us and are engaged with us. And you know a part of the teams. You know we're working as a team for their benefit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it has to be that way in professional services. I think you know we're working as a team for their benefit. Yeah, I think it has to be that way in professional services. I think you know you can't you have to have a client involvement If they just want you to do all the work. It's not that that, it just doesn't usually work.
Speaker 3:We're going to need some information. Well, they got you know. They still have to make. They still have to, I mean, you make recommendations they still have to make.
Speaker 1:I mean, you make recommendations but they still have to make decisions. Yeah, and so what?
Speaker 3:we do is a part of that process, is a fit meeting to kind of go over what we do and what the expectations are from us to them and back and forth, so that we can kind of get the lay of the land, make sure that it's a good fit from a personal standpoint and then from a professional standpoint as well. But, corey, do you want to add anything to that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think too. I mean what we look for in clients are people that also want to be advocates for us, right, kind of foster that partnership through confidence and mutual growth. You know we've been fortunate to have very good clients that um speak highly of us in the community and and refer us um, refer us um new prospects and clients who generally um have the same like interests and desires as those people, cause they're kind of all hanging out.
Speaker 1:Right Isn't? Isn't that interesting, right? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good. All right, let's do a little bit of a quick fire round. Each one of you just give me a couple of sentences on this. So BEPIC is an acronym, so I'll give you what it is and then you give me the. We'll do it Corey, Justin, in that order. So we'll let Corey go first and then Justin, you can give it to me.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've got some time to think about it yeah, yeah, we'll give you cory's gonna be quick man. He's from you know, he's from the midwest he's got it right. Yeah, yeah, so the so the so b stands for bring the energy. So what are a couple, what a couple of your thoughts about bringing energy um, well, I think I'll talk about it two ways.
Speaker 2:So I think from a client approach standpoint, um, if you're not energetic in in the discovery meetings and the financial planning delivering meetings and you don't have some sort of energy, I think that really reflects negatively on on the advisor and the firm, because it doesn't seem as if we're we're very excited to do business together, right. And then same thing can be said for you know the staff internally. We like to have fun. We like to have fun here, um, you know, whether it's playing cards in the office every morning or going out to lunch together or hanging out in social circles together, it's a very light-hearted uh office. And, um, all of the staff here are very similar in personality types, which I think reflects favorably on our firm and is easily distinguishable when our clients kind of come in and work with us.
Speaker 1:For sure, Love it, love it, love it Justin.
Speaker 3:Well, we've often said, bill, you mean business is energetic, right, it's an exchange of energy. We've often said, bill, you mean business is energetic, right, it's an exchange of energy. No-transcript, weighty topics what we work with. So it is important that we, you know, bring some some brevity, I think, is the word right, you know, to where it's not like.
Speaker 3:I remember when I was first getting started in the business and this was a big eye-opener, um, and I don't think it spoke to my energy necessarily, but just how, at that place, we kind of marketed ourselves and everything.
Speaker 3:And the woman came in, she sat down at my desk and she said, justin, I feel like I'm always coming into the funeral home when I come to see you and I was like that's not good, we don't want that, we want you to feel great. And so it was in those moments where I, you know, as a young advisor, I realized the real importance of being excited about the work that we do. And it comes over time, when you've worked with clients for a while and then you've got a plan in action and then you've been gone doing it for about five years and you can point to how that plan is really working in their favor. And as you get into your career and you can point to a few of those successes, it's a lot easier to show up and be excited. But it's really important that you do Not to say that I didn't in the beginning, but I think it's a little easier after you've got some success under your belt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I also think that sometimes, when you start a career or a job, we often think that we have to be a certain way instead of being ourselves, and so that being yourself works better all the time.
Speaker 3:It took me a while to get there and understand that blending who I am with what I do is actually the way to go. It's not that they should be separated. If I'm not in a place where I can be myself, and then maybe it's time for you know to look for something else. That's really important 100%.
Speaker 1:The E is education. Thoughts on education.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I think as advisors we need to stay educated, obviously in just the general markets and products and solutions for our clients, but I think, more importantly, how we deliver education to our clients right, Making sure that they understand what we're doing for them, you know, so that there's no blank stare, I mean, you know, just reaffirming, you know, having them reaffirm that they understand the process and how we do business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that, Justin. You got anything to add to that?
Speaker 3:Just that we leverage best-in-class software at FPI to provide that clarity. If we're educating them, then we're providing clarity. If they're walking out of our office just as, if not more, confused than, when they walked in, then we didn't educate them very well. So we use a software called Asset Map. That's really nice. It kind of brings everything into one page. If you can envision a March Madness bracket, but you're at the center as the champions and all of your various teams or your financial teams are working in the wings, it's really a great tool to educate on the client's current situation and to plan for the future.
Speaker 1:I like that no, I like it. I like it. So, uh, yeah, I love it. The p is planning, so you guys are planners, so what are your thoughts on planning?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think it's the foundation for our industry. Um, you know, with the planning process is not only data gathering and fact gathering, but understanding the intrinsic thoughts on our clients and the way that they feel about markets and volatility. And so I think the plan isn't just okay. We're delivering the initial financial plan. It's ongoing, it's living, it's breathing. We revisit it multiple times a year with all of our clients and the plan can shift and change. But if you don't have a plan generally, it doesn't work out as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah love it, justin. It's the value add in our industry. Now, right, you know it used to be just a lot of the. Was it a lot of? What we did was just investment selection. But really the value is in the planning, right, because that way the investment selection is in the client's best interest, because all of the data has been gathered and we can make an educated decision yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it. I stands for inspiration.
Speaker 2:Thoughts on inspiration want to go first.
Speaker 3:Inspiration. Yeah, I'll go first. It's really important to look up to people that you're working with, I think, and I really look up to Corey and everything FPI has built and to be part of it is awesome and I am inspired each day to get up and help clients, and but also I've inspired in so many other ways. Right, what we've been through over the last year here is as difficult as it's been one of the most inspiring experiences of my entire life to see what people can do when the chips are down. So that's my take on inspiration.
Speaker 1:I love it, corey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think I'll go back to your E, right, we're bringing the energy. I think without finding inspiration it's hard to be energetic and whether that be, I mean, justin and I have a mutual love for music and live music and I was just out at our national conference the last few days and saw a couple of couple of live music concerts and it and it got me inspired again, right, to be creative and um, to learn, um and or, or my children and get ready to go back to school and you know, see the projects that they bring home and it's just, uh, you can find inspiration anywhere, but I I think that that that is a full circle. Back to you know, being energetic and bringing energy.
Speaker 1:I love it, I love it.
Speaker 2:Okay, the last one, c's commitment yeah, I mean as far as our industry is concerned, I mean we are, we are fully committed to the planning process and and and um, working with our clients full circle, right. So we always work hand in hand with their remaining professional team, right their attorneys, their CPAs, making sure everybody's on board and everybody's committed to that plan. And I mean I think without the commitment at least on that side, on the individual planning side, things can get a little off kilter. And you know, when you lose that kind of commitment and you've got to have its buy-in right too, even for us and for the client, the client needs to buy in and stay committed in order for us to all be successful and get where we're trying to get to Perfect.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't really have anything to add to that. I was going to talk about how it's the client has to be committed as well. But yes, we are. We are committed to their success.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that, I love that. So what do you wish somebody had told you before.
Speaker 2:Start your business sooner, Be an entrepreneur sooner. It's not that scary, it's not a bad thing to work for someone else, but I think being a business owner and being able to do things your own way whether it's branding and strategy and marketing, or meeting people like Justin and bringing them on board and opening an office in Asheville it's liberating, it's very motivating, and the flexibility that it allows for again going back to that work-life balance it's just incredible and I don't think I would have that if I hadn't been an entrepreneur and a small business owner.
Speaker 1:Love it. Love it, Justin. What do you wish you had known?
Speaker 3:Or somebody had told you years ago yeah, they probably told me I wish I had internalized it and integrated it. But don't take things personally Right, everybody's got a lot of stuff going on, and a no doesn't mean necessarily about you. Maybe just not the right time to trust more that if you are being yourself and you are being authentic and you've got a great set of core values and you're coming at it from the right place, you will attract the ideal client for you. And so I think if I had understand that aspect earlier on, it would have been a little bit better.
Speaker 1:I like that Cool. So what else would you like us to know about you?
Speaker 2:I think we save the good stuff for the summer. Yeah, I love it, let's make some stuff out. Yeah, get a ticket.
Speaker 1:Get a ticket. Get out there. Get it out there, yeah.
Speaker 3:You've got to go on our sign-up sheet at the end of the program.
Speaker 1:So, Justin, if someone's interested in talking with you, what's the best way for them to get a hold of you?
Speaker 3:me, jay Powell, at fpiwealthcom, or they can call me at 828-400-1971. And you can also go to our website, financialpartnerinccom. It's an awesome website, a lot of great information, just really really well-designed and kind of walk you through our process. It's really great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we'll get all that in the show notes. It'll be great. It'll be great, Well, fantastic. This has been fun, it's been a lot. We really appreciate you being part of our community and we appreciate your support of the summit and we're looking forward to seeing you and everybody else at the summit.
Speaker 3:We're looking forward to having you on our podcast.
Speaker 1:I can't wait.
Speaker 3:That'd be awesome We'll find an investor, so we'll look forward to that. This has been a great conversation. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Thanks guys.
Speaker 2:Let's thank you.
Speaker 1:Hey, and remember, get out to WNC summitcom. Get your tickets to the Asheville business summit. We will sell out, hey, and until next time, all the best.