The 5 Values That Changed Everything for This $400M Advisor Brant Shrimplin

Brant I call my wife, who's, probably still trying to figure out how to nurse at the time and just to say, Hey honey, I got, fired today.

Brant But, , don't worry, we're gonna figure this out. We're gonna find a place to go. I hadn't made a final decision on company. I didn't have an office. I didn't have business cards. I didn't have a website. , And I knew. On Monday morning, there was gonna be a team coming in from another city to call all of my clients.

Nick Brand. I am pumped to have you here today. , I feel like I've known you for a long, long, long time. [00:01:00] One of the things that really struck me from our conversations reading your book was, you know, the importance of connections, relationships, I mean, no surprise, but specifically the importance of friend.

Nick Tell me why you think that is important. If we tie it straight into business, if you're an advisor or a plan now watching this, which is you probably will be, why is that important in your business?

Brant Oh, friendship is critical. You know, our friends are the first people that we go to ask about our dreams and our ideas. , It's kind of the first group that we, I guess I'll say we battle test those ideas with, to see if we're ready for the big time. . I've gone through some situations in my life losing a couple of very close friends.

Brant , I lost one of my very best friends to a LS in 2018. And to see the way that our friend group rallied around him and his [00:02:00] family, , was nothing short of amazing. I mean, a LS is an absolute horrible thing to go through. And it just really made me think, you know, if he hadn't taken the time to really nurture his friendships and to keep those friendships going. I think that process would've been a whole lot more difficult for them. and I also run into scenarios, you know, working with clients or talking with people that are maybe in their fifties and their kids have gone away to college and they don't really have a network of friends. And they've spent so much time developing career, and being with their kids and doing all these things that are critically important, that friendships kind of fell on, the side of the road for them. it's a little bit depressing for me to think that here you are in this really exciting chapter, , where you get to do some new things that you haven't been able to do when you're building your companies and [00:03:00] starting a family. If you don't have friends to share some of those highs and lows with, I think that's kind of depressing.

Brant So I have some things that are very important in my life and friends happen to be just one of them, but a very important one.

Nick , Thank you so much for sharing that. I'd say yeah, amazing, tragic experience to go. Through the, tell us a little bit about your, business. the name of how it came to came to be is, is very interesting as well. But what was the driving force around why you started and what you started at?

Nick , tie that into perhaps like some advisors that maybe earlier on in their journey, if you would.

Brant Yeah, so, so how about I go way back to age five, , as a typical 12-year-old, . I always wanted a red Honda, three wheeler for Christmas. wheeler's like an a TV.

Brant It's the really dangerous ones. I'm, I'm in my mid forties and I don't even think they make 'em anymore, so it's probably about the most dangerous Christmas present you can ask for. But I ask my parents for one every single year. I always [00:04:00] came out of my room, turned the corner, look at the Christmas tree, hoping that the three wheeler would be there with a big bow on it. And despite never getting the three wheeler, , one day I did have an envelope in front of the tree, and so I opened the envelope. Curious what it would be. Clearly not a toy. Clearly not the, present that I had hoped for, and it was a single share of Disney stock. , So my parents, , you know, had the wherewithal to, to, give me a present at an early age, which I really didn't understand.

Brant , You know, a certificate with the picture of Walt Disney at the time wasn't, , particularly thrilling. , But it did did start to peak my interest in the stock market at a young age. So. Kind of from that point on, I, you know, I had all the typical jobs that you could have as a team starting with corn detasseling.

Brant Have you ever heard of corn detasseling, Nick? It's a dreadful job. I'm from Kalamazoo, Michigan in the Midwest, and it's, a job. You get up [00:05:00] at six in the morning, it's cold, it's wet. , And you walk through the corn fields and pick the tassels off the top of the corn. I, I'm still, to this day, not exactly sure why.

Brant I think it has something to do with how the corn grows, but

Brant I know you work a lot of hours for a very little amount of money , so I, started my career in corn to tasseling. , I went on to do a bunch of other, you know. As we do as kids, figuring out the things that I didn't wanna do in life. And then kind of gravitated back towards this finance thing.

Brant And you know, the stock market is interesting. It's changing every day. It looks exciting on tv, especially, see the pictures of the New York Stock Exchange floor and the tickets flying around and I thought, you know. cool career to get started in. So I started my career, , typical financial advisor working for a nationwide broker dealer. , I did that, starting in my twenties. , I did have the [00:06:00] opportunity, , to move out to New York City when I was 21 years old, which was a really cool experience working in the city. I had an opportunity to work on the New York Stock Exchange floor. the thing that I'd seen on TV when I was a kid,

Brant I had the opportunity to actually go there and experience it a little bit. And then at some point in my career, you know, I didn't love the corporate model, I didn't love the commission-based model. I, I think it was around oh 8, 0 9 Nick, when,

Brant , We went through the great recession and you would be waking up any given morning and hear about the next firm that was failing.

Brant And so I thought, you know, I don't really wanna wake up and hear that. I'm working at, and I have all these great clients that is all a sudden gonna go outta business and I have nothing to do with it. I like the idea of having equity in something. So I went independent in 2009 and this is [00:07:00] a unique time to make a transition.

Brant The market crashes in 2008, the market bottoms out in 2009, and then of course I decided it's a good time and, , in of nine to go work for a company that none of my clients have ever heard of. it wasn't a big deal to me to have my name on the company door. And, , and it was an interesting experience, Nick.

Brant , I was looking around at different independent companies to join. , And unfortunately the company that I had worked for. Got word that I was gonna be leaving. And so I got called into, , the branch manager's office. And essentially, , to make a long story short, he said, Hey, know, we got word that , you're gonna be leaving in a few months, and, , because of that, we're gonna have to let you go today. So this was on a Friday morning. , I believe it was, you know, June 24th or June 25th. , As I [00:08:00] said, the market had just bottomed out three months before. my daughter was born in January of oh nine, so I had a five month old daughter at home. I'm driving away from the office. I call my wife, who's, probably still trying to figure out how to nurse at the time and just to say, Hey honey, I got, fired today.

Brant But, , don't worry, we're gonna figure this out. We're gonna find a place to go. I hadn't made a final decision on company. I didn't have an office. I didn't have business cards. I didn't have a website. , And I knew. On Monday morning, there was gonna be a team coming in from another city to call all of my clients. And so right away I had to get on the phone, , that afternoon and call all my clients before I knew someone else was gonna call them on Mondays. So my company name, the, RIA that I own now is called 6 26 Financial. And the reason it's called 6 26 [00:09:00] Financial is because 6 26 of oh nine was the day that we started the company. And so that was a day that I had always kind of dreamed of, even though my dream didn't include starting three months early and getting fired. but I thought, you know, this is a day that's really important to me. It's a cool. day on my journey. , so we named the company 6 26 Financial.

Brant And so, , so I went independent speed things up on background a little bit. I eventually got in investing in commercial real estate, so I started doing some commercial real estate deals on the side. I just thought, you know, if I'm holding myself out there. A well-rounded advisor and I have a fiduciary responsibility to put my client's interests first. How can I possibly give great advice when I don't know a whole lot about a really important asset [00:10:00] class that's out there? so I just thought, I need to learn as much as I can about some other areas. I started investing in commercial real estate, which led to me, , starting, , and managing commercial real estate funds. Somewhere along the way, I also got, , interested in venture capital and with a couple of partners, started some venture capital funds and investing in early stage startups. . And then last year went on kind of a cool journey. I, , hadn't read a book in, 15 or 20 years. It kind of reminded me of traditional academia, which for a big dreamer like me, traditional academia, never really jived , with what I like to do. And, . And I was encouraged by some other entrepreneurs to take some of the things that I had learned to put it in a book. so, , outta nowhere, I became a bestselling author last year, which is a really cool experience. And then, , have also gone on to found a foundation. So a whole lot of different hats.

Brant [00:11:00] My journey's gone in a lot of different directions. So, , but yeah, that gives you kind of a general idea of where I've been over the last 35 or so years.

Nick Whistle, stop tour. Thank you so much, Brian. There's so many cool things there. The first thing that really jumps out for me how frequent this is as well, that your start came from a place where. Seemingly was a bad time to do something. Right. And then you got the issue of double whammy of getting found out as it were and then getting fired.

Nick But I find so many great stories start with that type of thing. What might you say to kind of someone starting out in that place, thinking about going independent? away from a inhale something or, kind of just starting out, like in those, moments, what's the prevailing mindset that's really important to keep pushing through?

Brant Yeah, the prevailing mindset is have faith that the next chapter is gonna be a great chapter. , You know, my mindset was, Hey, I didn't expect it to happen like this. But this is a thing that I've always dreamed of, and now it's [00:12:00] here. You know, this is my opportunity. Of this thing that I've always wanted to do, and I could have curled up in a ball and I could have cried and I could have not called my clients. And you know, I could have done all kinds of things, but I really took it on as a challenge to see how well I could do. What, you know, many would think is a really difficult time and you know, we all hear the phrases. you learn more in failure than you do in success and I really do believe that's true. , I really have come to appreciate the difficult times more than I appreciate the successful times. Because I know there's gonna be a lesson in there somewhere. I don't always know what the lesson's gonna be. it might not come for a month or six months or a year, but I know that I'm gonna learn more about myself during really trying times I'm ever gonna learn when everything's just going great.

Brant So my [00:13:00] mindset was, you know, this is exciting. It's an opportunity and I'm gonna make the best of it, and that's what I did. Sure.

Nick It's beautiful and that, resilience, I think that, keep on going no matter what is such a theme that I see for people that are, . Successful, however you wanna put that in order. But give us an idea your practice is now, however you wanna share that, just just for context so everyone kind can see where you've grown, , in those different areas.

Nick I think it's so cool that you've got that well-rounded version of how you've expanded it.

Brant Yeah, so I kind of go back to how I started it. starting in 2002, 2003, I did have a great mentor and my dad, , my dad was in the insurance business from the late seventies on, as I mentioned before, they. parents were very influential in terms of giving me my start and thinking about the stock market.

Brant So originally got into this business, , my dad was the manager of a very large department at, , nationwide broker dealer, and it happened to be [00:14:00] the insurance and annuity department. And so really when I was starting out, I thought I was just gonna travel around the country and help advisors for this one specific company,

Brant do more insurance and annuity business. And so I thought this will be cool, you know, , my early twenties I'll get to travel around the country. It's be a lot of fun. About six months into it, , the department, my dad was operating outta Kalamazoo, Michigan. He was the only department head that wasn't in New York City. And about six months into it, , he got an ultimatum essentially to either move the department to New York or no longer run the department. within the first six months of starting, you know, this new, exciting career, , I was really at a crossroads of is this a business that I stay in and try to do something different with, or. Do I just go live somewhere else? I, I never intended to be in Kalamazoo, Michigan where I grew [00:15:00] up. , I moved back, in my mid twenties because I had a grandfather that was sick with congestive heart failure, so I really only planned to come back for a few months. ended up meeting a girl, you know, getting married. It was a great place to raise kids, but I really didn't expect to build a business here. that was never in my plan. So this thing happens with the department and immediately, I have to decide, do I wanna build? A book of business.

Brant And so there was no real business there. It was yeah, I wanna try to do that. I think that, you know, would be a heck of a challenge. Well, how do we do that? Well, I heard that seminars work. why don't we try seminars? Why don't we send out 5,000 invitations to a bunch of people in these various zip codes that might have money to invest? We'll take them all to dinner. Dinner. You know, maybe you get 20 to 40 people that show [00:16:00] up. buy everybody dinner. Maybe you get two or three appointments out of that, and inevitably they're always seven at night or seven in the morning. , and then maybe you pick up a client or two. So that's really how I built my business. It was not easy. We talked about different investing concepts , and probably did, you know. To 20 seminars a year from two, two to seven. You know, they always say your first 20 million is your hardest to get. And so I always kind of had that number in the back of my mind if I can just get to 20 million. , And so That's how I built the business. And fast forward to today, we have an RIA that's approaching 400 million under management. , You know, I have a partner, we're both in our forties own various companies that I talked about, but that's really how I got started was, old fashioned.

Brant Do the seminars, take anyone you can get. Because you had to make a [00:17:00] living and so that's how I got my start.

Nick Oh, super cool. Grant to hear that, , what would that look like for you if you were starting out now or if you're in the business now, relatively still trying to get to that first 20 million or indeed, just not as established as you are now.

Nick What would be your approach in that same way to do that initial build,

Brant Well, you know,

Brant I, it's interesting. I don't know if the seminar game is still working. I think my approach, if I were starting off in the business today, is to find a really solid senior team that needs a good junior partner to come in and help take some responsibility off their plate.

Brant , I think there's a lot of baby boomers and, , you know, baby boomer generation that's getting closer and closer to maybe their next chapter, , in the near future.

Brant And I think lot of people, because I know I've fallen into this trap myself, you just get in a rhythm of doing the same things you've always done and, I'll get to adding somebody at some point and you know, [00:18:00] I'm sure I'll find a kid and I'm sure you know, this will all kind of work out and come together. I think if you can cut your teeth, , at a bigger corporation, go through some training, read some books, learn a little bit about, the financial services industry. Learn a little bit about financial planning. Learn a little bit about maybe real estate and venture capital that maybe a traditional financial advisor doesn't spend as much time on. You know, you can go in and talk about, how you might be able to add value and take some responsibilities off their plate. a good job, and then maybe you get an opportunity to, work into their book and eventually, , be the successor at some point down the road. So, , the seminar business is a really, really tough way to do it. , You know, think about it. You're in your twenties, you know, you're just starting out. How many people wanna trust a brand new advisor with, any other money, let alone say a million dollar [00:19:00] account. And then, if you're lucky enough to maybe get. Percent or $10,000 that's, you know, that's cut up over 12 months and then you get taxed on and then all the things, and all of a sudden the million dollar account doesn't sound as glamorous So I think working into an established team, , is really the way to go.

Nick That's awesome. I love that. And to your point, there's so much out there, so much opportunity and I have a lot of clients that are in that spot where they're trying to get that. junior person in to come and help work the book and work together and produce the groups because it's clear that coming together in a team, whatever way you can do that, , is gonna be beneficial for everyone.

Nick So that's super cool to hear. From that point of view, gimme a view from the middle of the road, right? Where along your journey. Have you found to be most challenging? Like is there a certain ceiling that you hit that you stuck out for a while? You did mention it's easy to get in a rhythm and kind of do that thing without pushing yourself to the next place.

Nick So that's interesting for me to hear as well. what might have been a [00:20:00] challenge along the way in terms of hitting, , , a ceiling that was, challenging to get through for you?

Brant I mean, the biggest challenge is doing something you've never done. as it relates to asset gathering and, traditional stock and bond business, as I was doing the seminars, you know, what I would always hear in my early twenties and especially from established advisors, was, well, all of my referrals come. Network, you know, network. I've got this network and that network and you just gotta do networking. And I'm, you know, I'm like, what's networking? I dunno, any, I don't have a network. , I have friends, does that count? And, , but it's like, okay, net everyone's saying networking. And so, , so I started to focus on how can I become better at that?

Brant And so establishing relationships, , with other, I'll say younger, successful people that were my age is something that I did early on, , because I was hoping at some point I wouldn't have to do seminars [00:21:00] forever. And maybe just maybe at some point I could get tied in with a good group of, of successful younger people that would eventually help carry the business later. And so I was fortunate being, you know, a couple hours, I'm exactly two hours from Detroit and two hours from Chicago. And a lot of my friends in their twenties move to Chicago. They graduate college. There's a lot to do. It's a heck of a lot more fun. I, Kalamazoo, Michigan. And so I was really fortunate to get tied in, , with a group of guys in Chicago, , that worked for a large technology resale company . at one point in time they were, , forced to be captive in Chicago, even though they had territories all

Brant across the United States. And then at some point the company allowed them to move back to their hometowns and move back to their territories. So. I was doing this [00:22:00] networking on the side, when this group kind of spread across the United States, that's really where the business grew quite a bit.

Brant And I would say, you know, a lot of that happened in, in my thirties, but that part took care of itself in a way. but going back to your question, What was the difficult thing? The difficult thing, , for example, is starting a real estate fund. I got a point where I was very proficient with stocks and bonds and financial planning and, doing the Xs and Os of the stock market. But if I had somebody come into the office that said, you know, I own a large multifamily real estate portfolio. trying to decide if you know this is a good real estate deal. I'm trying to figure out the pros and cons versus this investing in Apple and Microsoft and Stryker. , I have some venture capital opportunities. You know, Mr. Financial advisor, you know, which one of these things is in my best interest. so that's where, you know, my [00:23:00] partner and I decided, you know, gotta test out some concepts. we don't really. exactly what we're doing in these areas, but if we don't test them out with our own capital and see what it's all about, how in the heck are we ever gonna be able to advise people on it? So what was really a difficult leap for me, because you know, when you're singularly focused on stocks and bonds. Really, the most that you know about those other asset classes is how to sell against them. You know, oh, you don't wanna do real estate. It's, that's not liquid. you're gonna have to, what if you don't have a tenant?

Brant Then you're, you know, you're still gonna have to pay to turn the lights on and you know, this stock, you can sell it any time during the day. You're never locked in. So you get good at selling against things. But do you really know? Pros and cons something that you haven't done yourself and you haven't studied, so taking the time [00:24:00] to go out and to learn about something that I wasn't proficient in. to know about it, learning about it, taking the risk to invest my own capital in it, through, you know, successes, going through challenging times, and doing that. And then having an opportunity to say, okay, I think we're ready to now start our own fund so we can give our clients an opportunity to invest in something that we've done ourselves, battle tested ourselves, and we can intelligently talk about now. So that to me is the most challenging thing, is to get out of the thing you're really good at and to gravitate towards the things. That you haven't even come close to mastering.

Nick , It's beautiful 'cause again, it's the same. Get out of your own way. Get out of your own mindset. Challenge them. Next level and specifically, I love what you said there, is get away from what you're really good at. It seems so [00:25:00] counterintuitive, but in order to get to great, you've gotta say goodbye to good, , or at least be prepared to and to, push yourself to that place.

Nick Experience it, go through it. Then you really are in a place where you can. Talk to your clients and prospects about that. I think again, another great, great mindset shift, right? In order to grow, you've really gotta be out. That and so tri to say that these days, right? About getting outta zone.

Nick I gotta ask a bit more about referrals because it, it's a subject all of my clients talk about It's always something that pops up and people are varying, varying levels of success or as to what they think that is. , What would you say most advisors get wrong when it comes to referrals or introductions or favorable introductions as I like to call them?

Brant , I think pushing too hard for it, you know, there's a lot of different approaches on referrals. When I was. coming up in the business it was like, promote referrals all the time. You know, the name of the company on your hat. Always be promoting yourself. Always let people know that you're taking new clients.

Brant And I think there is some truth to that, but worked a [00:26:00] heck of a lot better to me is just be a genuine person. care of your clients. Listen to your clients. Be honest with them. Be honest with yourself. If you make a mistake, own up to it. You know, I think Warren Buffet just said something recently.

Brant If you make a mistake, don't be a thumb sucker. own up to it. what you did wrong and move forward in a productive way. And I think, you know, the other thing that that's worked really well, is really, truly always giving advice. In the best interest of the client, I've lost track of the amount of times that I have recommended that a client do something that benefits me 0%, , and I could have easily swayed them to do something different that was gonna be more in my benefit. For example, you know, someone that, just came out a couple weeks ago, I talked with a couple years ago, and they [00:27:00] had, you know, call it five, $700,000 that they could have invested, but they were also looking to potentially buy some, , little Caesar's franchises and potentially buy the real estate and maybe do that in, you know, an 18 month period.

Brant And, And, so, you know, after talking through their situation. And looking at, the estate plan and the insurance and all these different and things that were more critical than investing to be fully prepared for a business opportunity that might come their way. I told them, you know, right now probably isn't the best time to invest with me.

Brant I think, . You'd be better served to circle back to me in a couple years. Let's keep in touch. And, that would've been something that would've been very easy to bring that, call it 700,000 in, make 7,000 a year, maybe make seven in the next year. but by giving advice that I really felt my heart was best for them. , They did come back a couple years later. They recently came on board. When you [00:28:00] lead with that mindset, , you're gonna have more that comes back to you than you ever imagined. And so, , for me, with the referrals, it's just doing the right thing single day. , Improving myself as much as I possibly can. , Trying to give new, fresh ideas. The rest takes care of itself. So I, it's just the way that comes natural to me, Nick. I know there's a lot of different ways to do it. , Those other ways just don't feel natural to me, and so I've just always tried to, to do it by, by being a good person and making the right decisions for people.

Nick I found Brent that's there's separate nuance in this high level mindset. And, , so I'd love to your thoughts on this if you see this as well, but there's, people that get that, you know, you have to focus on what your, you can control what your actions that impact the results. that's the starting point.

Nick And then the elevation to that is what you just demonstrated, , is that.  A way [00:29:00] of disassociating actions and results, right? It's like a, a Buddhist saying, I believe, is that all, all suffering comes from attachment to the outcome. and just, you know, that if you provide value, value, value, value, value somewhere down the line, that's gonna come back to you as well, but.

Nick The distinction I make here for people that are really high level that I get, have the privilege to spend some time with and and work with is the distinction you made where like you were able to really disassociate those two. Right? And so it's just about giving, giving, giving, giving. I have one client just, it's like, I just wanna love on clients.

Nick I wanna love on, love on Loving On, right? And that's essentially what you just said. It's, I'm just gonna do whatever I see is the most value to that person in that moment and. Everything else will be fine, but you've just taken that and I able to really draw a distinction because, you know, it's easy to get caught up in look, well, first of all, if it's a, not even the point where they're focusing on what they can control to get the results, like it's easy to get caught up in, if I do that thing that's in my control, you know, then I'll get a result from it.

Nick But like that disassociation, I think is that's the elevated mindset that I see from, , [00:30:00] people operating at that level.

Nick I think there's so many things that you could share here, super valuable. Maybe we'll come back for a round to some other point, , , if that sounds good to you. But out of all the things that you've shared today, what would you point the audience to as to one thing that they should really take away from all the things that you've shared today?

Brant I feel, truly believe we live in a world that's not present. We are constantly running from one thing to the next. We're constantly looking at our phones. We're constantly, I have to be here, there, everywhere, and it's, easy to get wrapped up into that when you have a family and you're trying to build a business.

Brant And I think it's really, really easy to get away from the basic building blocks of having some balance in your life. And so, you know, it's interesting when you ask, a crowd of people, okay, you're a successful entrepreneur on the outside looking in, you're making this money, things are going well, you know, how happy are you?

Brant How fulfilled are you? And it's [00:31:00] really shocking that probably the average answer you're gonna get is if people are being honest, is maybe a six out of 10. So why is that? Why are people, successful, maybe more successful than they've ever been, but so unhappy. And I think if you really dig into it and you spend some time thinking about it, I think there's probably some, values that you have, some things that are very important in your life.

Brant You know, we started the conversation talking about friends, but there's other things. There's family, there's physical fitness, there's mental wellbeing. a lot of people, there's faith and there's career, but I think a lot of people, there's a knot in their stomach because they're doing one thing really well while completely neglecting all these other really important areas of their life.

Brant And so really, you know, took some time to think about that and went on this journey a few years ago and thought about, you know. can I turn my values, those things that are most [00:32:00] important into my daily habits? I know I'm doing the career thing pretty well. There's a lot of people out there that do it better than me, but I'm, pretty proficient there. How good of a friend am I being? How good of a dad a, a son? Am I being, how much am I focusing on my physical fitness? How much reading and personal development am I doing? So. I found Nick, is by intentionally thinking about that, and that's the first step. a lot of people, you, you don't take the time to think.

Brant If you don't have time to think, how is a good idea ever gonna pop into your head? You're gonna continue to do what you've always done. So if you're to running from one thing to the next and you never lose yourself in thought, . Then new ideas aren't gonna come to you, and you're certainly not gonna be thinking about balance.

Brant So what I found is that by really intentionally checking those boxes to a point where I feel like I'm doing at least an eight, outta 10 in each. I've never been more present in the things that I'm doing. [00:33:00] So when I'm with friends, I'm a hundred percent with friends. I'm not worried about work. I'm not worried about running or lifting or doing the things that I've already done.

Brant I'm fully present with them, I find that by consistently checking all those boxes of the things that are most important to me, it keeps me at a happiness level. It's very high, which ironically leads to the highest level of success. you touch on that with your business model, the, bit that I know about it and being well-rounded, and I just think that is absolutely critical and that, that was really the purpose behind writing the book.

Brant It's, you know, kind of my how to guide on not only having success in business but having success in life which ironically the most important thing. I.

Nick Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you so much, sir. Yeah. So for everyone watching listening here, guy, check out Brent's book. , Stop hitting the news button. , Awesome. Pleasure, appreciate. You. Thank you so much for coming on [00:34:00] .