Oh, by the way, the financial markets are gonna tank over the next five or six years and you're gonna get sued to leave. I might have made a different decision
Building a network, it's so open for those that do have a little bit of the hustle, putting themselves out there, not in a transactional way.
I would rather lose someone who can't do math well and doesn't ever call us 'cause they think our fees are insane.
Oh, I appreciate the transparency that they're actually willing to show us that.
How long does it take to get other people in the space to believe in what you're building and come join this startup? From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between. This is Get IN, the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here today.
I'm Nate Spanel, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. This episode of Get IN is brought to you by Hope Plumbing, Heating and Cooling, from pipes to power and everything in between. Hope is your one stop shop for all your home service needs. You all know how it goes. You notice a faucet leaking, which turns into a main line backup coming from a furnace braking, and then your entire home needs a re-pipe.
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My guest today is John Wortman and he's the co-founder and CEO of Valeo Financial Advisors. Now, they started the firm back in 2002 and have grown it to over 100 certified financial planners that manage over $12 billion in assets. Now John is a proud graduate of Indiana University. He's originally from Evansville, Indiana, so we're gonna cover the entire state today.
He's also served in leadership roles with Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana Second Presbyterian, and he helped grow brackets for good, which we're gonna talk about later in the show. It's an incredible mission, such a cool thing to grow across the country, helping nonprofits raise money. I'm really excited for this one.
John, welcome to the show.
Thank you Nate.
man, so this all starts what you guys have grown to today over the last 24 years. Started. As a little kid in Evansville, Indiana trading your first stock. Yep. Like take me to the moment, wherever that was along the journey that you just got hooked on the stock market.
Sports was everything. Like growing up, that's all you had to do. You didn't have social media then, that kind of stuff. So you literally took the basketball to the driveway and shot free throws and then you got tired of doing that and you throw the baseball against the wall and you just, you just were always outside, always playing sports and things.
And so between sports and numbers. And then I think a lot of people don't realize, like when you're down at Evansville, that you know, Ellis Park is a horse race track that's actually on the north side of the Ohio River. So it's actually, you would think it's in Indiana because it's on the north side of the river, but it's not.
The river has moved over time and so that land on the north side of the river is actually, you know, Kentucky land that's on that. So that's an interesting tidbit for you there.
Yeah. That's like a, that's a little bit of local ball mileage
there. There you go. So if you're, if you're in Evansville and you like numbers and you like sports, well horse racing, right?
Because you're just right there. Like you can literally go to the horse race track and so forth. And what you realized was. You do the analysis on horses, and you can see, like, if you've ever seen a daily racing form, you'll see like, Hey, this horse has run this many races and they, they competed against these other horses and whatnot, and you could do some analysis on it, right?
What you realize though, is that analysis doesn't actually play out because those leave living, breathing animals, right? They could have a bad day, they could wake up and not feel good or whatever. And so I was like, oh, well this is interesting. You can take analysis and apply it to numbers that relate to sports.
And then all the next thing was is like, well, there's these investment markets that have that same thing. And my dad, my dad was a, a high school business teacher at Bosse High School, and it was, it was the most amazing thing he taught for 40 years. He actually retired,, and then he went back just like when Jordan did.
So he, he left the league, but then he loved it so much and it's fun. My dad,, my dad still goes and meets a lot of his former students for like coffee in the morning, so,, because they're, they're now retired too because my dad's 86 and, uh. He's just been a pillar of that community and so forth. But with all that, he did a lot of different things as a high school business teacher, he would own, like, he moved into an apartment at Evansville when he first moved there from Morristown.
And, it was just for sale and it wasn't anything special and whatnot, but,, it was able to start to say, I'm gonna accumulate some assets. And so as he did that, he became more of a business person. He also was curious in like farm ground and things like that over in western Kentucky. And then he also, you know, invested in the stock market.
Never a lot of money or anything, but it was always just very interesting. So I, I tie it back to. You know, liking numbers. Yeah. Liking math, liking business and being able to do analysis on things. And it was just always very intriguing from a young age.
Yeah. So what was the age that you bought your first stock?
It was more like they bought 'em for you and, and I remember like going off to college, having about $10,000 in an investment account and that was amazing. But That's
crazy.
Yeah. Like at 1991. But then like there isn't a ticker symbol for a company. I couldn't tell you from the 1980s because that's all I did is I sat around and I read that stuff and it wasn't like it was on tv, but I would go and I would create spreadsheets, which weren't really spreadsheets back then.
'cause we have like WordPerfect. This is probably dating myself, but like original word process. Or you could actually put numbers and formulas into it and I would wait. This also dates me, there was a morning in an evening newspaper in Evansville. So I would wait for the afternoon newspaper in the summertime and I would take the stock market quotes that would come in.
'cause Evansville is in the central time zone, so we would have like the noon stock prices come on, the three o'clock newspaper, which was amazing. So I could update my $9,100 portfolio to see that it was worth $9,112, you know, at noon that day. And it's just into it. Yeah.
Wow. Okay. So, and at this time, so I just read a book, I think it was about 1929, like the gr like this great crash, all that stuff.
Yeah.
And so like when you think of mentors and people, in the, let's say eighties and nineties, like had it fully swung back, like were people in your life like skeptical of the, the stock market or like your dad for instance, he probably grew up where his parents like saw. Like financial hardships in the twenties and thirties.
Yeah. I, I don't think that,, you know, Indiana was still in this evolution at that point in time, so I don't think that it was, it was, it was obviously bad, the depression part of it. Yeah. And the, and the post depression era and so forth. But coming outta World War ii, a whole lot of spending, a whole lot of growth happening.
Yeah. It was really more of that period of time was when interest rates had peaked kind of the late Carter, early Reagan administration, and as rates started to come down, that fueled so much growth. Yeah. I do remember getting into the business in 1995, and the market was just dead. It was just not going anywhere.
We were coming off the savings and loan crisis and things like that. And I always wondered like, who's gonna come in and wanna buy stocks tomorrow? And then we went on this ridiculous run with the.com stuff because tech really just started to take off.
Yeah.
And that just blew everything up.
So you graduate from IU and get your first job in Indianapolis?
Correct. So you slowly migrate north. Yeah. And you end up in downtown Indianapolis. Yeah. Right. And this is your first job and you're like, okay, I'm geared up to start trading stocks.
Yeah.
And then you quickly realize that an entry level job in this isn't always cracked up, like what it's cracked up to be.
Yeah. Yeah. So I remember,, so I get here in the summer of 95, like May, June timeframe or whatever, and they're like, okay, now it's time to basically start cold calling. And so the cool thing was they sent you to New York, you gotta spend like a month in New York getting a license and things like that.
And they told you basically, Hey, make sure you pass the exam on the first tryer. You get fired the Series 7 exam. And oh, by the way, don't pass it by too much because then you study too much. You should have been focused on, you know, how you're gonna grow your business. And I'm like, gosh. Well that's an interesting paradox.
Like what. make sure you pass or you're, you're fired, but don't pass by too much, otherwise you wasted your time on this thing. So that's what kinda let it off. And then shortly thereafter I remember them saying, Hey, here's some leads to call. And I'm like, I just had this vision in my mind of like, Hey, I'm gonna call some older lady who's gonna have to, she's gonna trip on her way to answering the phone and she's gonna hurt herself because I was trying to call to sell her some municipal bonds.
I'm like, I can't do this. And so they would give me these,, these lists, this Dun & Bradstreet list, and I would just go down at lunch and I would sit in the Artsgarden and it just opened over, whatever that is,, Illinois and Washington Street or something like that. Yeah, yeah. It was awesome. 'cause literally, Circle Centre Mall had just opened in 1995.
Right when I got to town, I'm like, I'm in the big city. And, I was just sitting there at lunch, not, not crying in my beer or anything, but I was literally handwriting the names of the people that I didn't call. And excuses as to why they weren't interested, because I'm like, I gotta figure this out. I I'm not gonna make a living cold calling people to buy stuff that I got to sell.
Yeah. And like I just see this scene from like Wolf of Wall Street where they're like trading penny stocks and like trying to convince, so it's like this is the greatest opportunity. It just came across my desk. Yeah. And, and I do feel like I go back and forth 'cause I mean, I don't know a lot about obviously like the financial industry.
Yeah. But like getting your first job and ripping cold calls, trying to sell whatever it is, is a valuable skill to have. Yep. But you also have to have conviction in what you're doing and what you're selling.
Correct.
And so how quickly did you realize, hey, my conviction about what we're doing in this style in which we're doing it isn't there and I need to go do something else?
Yeah, it was pretty immediate. 'cause you know, you're, you're sitting there asking questions. I remember vividly there were a couple of folks in the office and, and one of the things that translates to Valeo today is. Outside of the branch manager's office, there was a commission run every day. Said, who made this, this, you know, today who, or yesterday who made it this week, this month, this year.
And you were seeing what people were earning. And I'm like, wow, I should go talk to those people because look how much money they make. They, they got it. Figure it out. And you'd go talk to 'em and you'd realize how little they knew. And, and worse than that, it was how willing they were to let you know how little they knew.
They would ask you questions and expose themselves as far as what they didn't know. And I'm like, well, I'm living at 38th and White River and the Gables, you know, across from the major, you know, Taylor Velodrome, I'm zero threat to these people because I'm not at their school. I'm not in their neighborhood, I'm not in their circles.
And so the fact that they don't know much didn't really matter. And this is like pre-internet stuff. So it wasn't like anybody was being exposed for not knowing much. It's like you can make a lot of money and not know a whole lot. Yeah. And that, that, that hasn't changed a lot. So I tell people all the time, like in 1987, the stock market crashed from 2,700 to 2200 using the Dow, which isn't the greatest index, but it's an index that goes back that far today.
The market's basically at 50,000. So if all you did as a 60 some year old financial advisor was, call your people back and take 'em to play golf once a year. They think you've made 'em 20 times their money over your career. You really haven't. It's just that, that the evolution of, of assets has grown to that point.
Inflation has caused it, technology has caused it, and yet they give you credit for that is if you made 'em the money.
Yeah. It is interesting when people evaluate financial advisors and things like that, that it's like you don't really know. I feel like a lot of times they don't know what they're doing.
Like are they trading stuff for me every day or is it like, oh yeah, they send me a birthday card and take me out to dinner or go golf. Like I, like it's more of a relationship thing, versus like, oh, are you getting the best advice?
Yeah.
When you guys are talking through or when anyone is evaluating those decisions, like what are the, I know the signs to know that, you know, whoever your person is is doing a good job.
Yeah. So I'll rewind it a little bit. Kind of going through that history. You kinda went back to the depression Yeah. And so forth. The term that most people recognize historically, a stock broker. Yes. Think about what does that really mean? Well, they've provided an amazing, or a bond broker, they provided an amazing service.
So when the economy in the US was being built out, people had to raise capital and put it into businesses or into projects. And so a broker actually did that. They helped raise the money, bring parties together, and so they brokered a transaction between, you know, a municipality who needed to build a school, and the investors who were willing to buy their bonds or Coca-Cola needed to expand their bottling plants all across the us.
And so they had to sell stock. And so they, they got that through brokers. Well, it just evolved in the late 1970s, Vanguard invented an index fund. Right? And so brokers were, were less and less needed over time. And so you don't hear that term as much anymore. You hear more financial advisor. Yeah, it's really just old school.
Stockbrokers.
That's interesting. 'cause when I think of stockbrokers, I think of someone sitting on the New York Stock Exchange. Yeah. Like buying and selling large quantities of things. Yeah. Versus when I think of like a financial advisor, I don't necessarily like, there's a lot of where they're like, okay, yeah, this just goes into the depths within our giant organization.
And you know, trades might or may, may or may not happen, but they're just like a relationship manager.
Correct. So you think about like, so investment firms have changed the term stockbroker to financial advisor. Yeah. Insurance companies have changed. Insurance agent to financial advisor. Banks have changed.
Banker to financial advisor because everyone's really looking for financial advisor. They're not looking for a banker or an insurance agent or a stockbroker. They want help with those things. And, and to know to your original question is to. Is someone doing a good job or not? If they're not reviewing, you know, not just your portfolio, but also your tax return, your estate plan, your your insurance needs, all those kind of things.
If they're not going through all those things, they're not really a financial advisor, because I tell people, you know, people are like, well, who's my financial advisor? And they named some big brokerage firm. And I'm like, no, you're financial advisor, not your investment advisor. They're like, they're my financial advisor.
I said, so when your tax return's done from your accountant and they're getting ready to file it with the IRS, did they send it to your financial advisor or did they just send it to you? And they're like, oh, why would they send it to my, my broker? Like you made my point, which is you don't have a financial advisor, you have an investment manager.
And if you have a financial advisor, it's the person that's kind of the one who makes sure that all that stuff runs smoothly for you.
Yeah, that makes sense. And it isn't just like calling you once a year to sell you a whole life policy.
Yeah. And that, and so insurance folks, they do get a bad rap and not here to defend them.
We don't obviously sell any of that stuff and so forth. There are people who need insurance and thankfully, you know, when you hear of someone who passes away who, who got that stuff, like that's a really important thing. But unfortunately in a world where if that's all you have to offer, the the saying, you know, if you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail., and that's kind of what often happens in that business. Yeah. But, but there is a need for those. Any big business out there, I tell people like, you can dis certain industries all you want, but if there's an industry and a business that exists, it exists for a reason. Yeah. At some point in its existence, it did something really important., it's just whether or not they've been able to evolve.
Yeah. And so you end up. finding, I mean, of a five year run at a different firm here in Indianapolis that really taught you a lot and helped you cut your teeth. Yeah. Talk to me about what you learned at your time at Oxford.
Yeah, so Oxford was a great place.
It was a huge place back, kind of in the late nineties, early two thousands. And so they had grown this idea. People don't know the difference typically of what a registered investment advisor is, but it's basically a kind of, it's a different version of it. It's like you think about Merrill Lynch or Morgan Stanley, those are more broker dealers, where registered investment advisors was kind of a new thing and kind of coming up.
Now it's the biggest part of the market. It's actually overtaken,, the broker dealer world and so forth. 'cause there's so many folks in the space. And so what we learned is I learned comprehensive financial advice. So I didn't know growing up as that kid in Evansville, my folks were school teachers. And so like an accountant just told you what you couldn't deduct an attorney was for when you died, an insurance person was always trying to sell you something.
And so the stockbroker was really the only person that brought positivity to the world, you know, in terms of your financial life. And so that's why I always thought that's what I wanted to do. What you realize is people need help in a lot of other categories, and that's what Oxford was doing for folks.
They were doing that comprehensively. But as we spent our time there, we just saw that there were some things that we thought we could do, you know better. And some of those things were like, we thought that people should be able to know what their fees were and, and we started by when we broke away in 2002 by putting our fees on the website from the day we started the company.
Shockingly. Now here we are 24 years later, 90 plus percent of firms still don't do that today., that's the number one page that's clicked on our website is fees. People wanna know. Oh yeah,
for sure.
And I would say like, I don't care if someone miscalculates our fees and thinks that our fees are, you know, 400,000 when they're 40,000 or 4,000.
Like I don't really care if they can't do math. I think I get, I would rather lose someone who can't do math well and doesn't ever call us 'cause they think our fees are insane. As opposed to, you know, someone saying, oh, I appreciate the transparency that they're actually willing to show us that.
Yeah. And then it's your job to prove the value.
Correct. You know, it's your job to be like, Hey, they might be like, there's probably someone cheaper, there's probably someone more expensive. Totally. But you we're gonna find that, you're gonna find that there's a reason that here's where we are and there's where the value is.
Correct. And, and the thing that I think, makes Valeo special is this network effect.
And so we have a limited number of clients for all of our advisors. And so that sounds pretty basic, but if your physician had a limited number of patients, they would be a better physician even if they had the exact same training.
How do you keep people motivated? If there's a, a limit where you get to the top and you're like, Hey, you can't take on any more people.
You're just like. Hanging out and, but you still need to serve your customers at the absolute highest level.
The biggest part is if you think about people don't generally graduate with financial advisory degrees, this industry hasn't really come through the educational system. It's really been a sales job.
And so our job is to make this an actual career path for people. I say, instead of going and doing what I did and calling your friends and family and, and, and trying to sell stuff, why don't you come to grad school at Valle? The first couple years we're gonna pay you to go to grad school. Please don't call your friends and family.
No one should wanna hear from a 22 or 23-year-old as to what they should do with their money. Just get better at the craft, right? And so it's an apprentice model and so forth. And so how you keep people hungry is you compensate them that incense them to build that next generation of talent. And so if you, if you came through it and you realize that, wow, I wish this system existed when I was there, giving back to the game is really, really important to you.
Because you realize like I had to go through all these different foul balls. Like I didn't get a degree in this. I come outta IU and I love my time at iu, but the education didn't really set me up to be a financial advisor. It was more like general financial, you know, you know, knowledge and whatnot. And so then I come out and I start as a stockbroker, which was basically selling things to my friends and family.
And then from that, I signed a non-compete by the way. And so I couldn't go to work anywhere else. And so I went to Oxford. And so then I had to violate my non-compete, which was like, Hey, we gotta recoup our training costs 'cause we paid for you to come and get trained in New York and all that kind of stuff.
And so then I,
so you had to issue, you had to cut them a check?
Yeah. $36,000 that I had to pay 'em to, to leave. So then I go to Oxford, and of course I'm like, oh, this is way better. Like, I, I'm iterating here. I'm, I'm, I'm finding my way. Well, I signed another non-compete there, and I'm like, holy crap. Like, I, and then it seems
like you should have paid some attention in like, the legal advice part of the,
yeah.
Of the
journey
there. But, but you're 22, 23 years old. Like, you're happy to have a job, you know? And, and like. You come from my family. It's like you get your education, you get it done in four years, you go get a job and you get on with life. Right. That's just what we do. And so I was just getting on with life and then, and it's all worked out.
It's turned out, you know, amazing for me. Yeah. Despite having signed another non-compete going through, I mean, that's an IBJ, that's one of the few times I've made the IBJ as being sued when I left there.,
no way.
Yeah. And
wait, how old were you at this point?
27.
You're 27, you're like, I mean, you're, you know, building, I'm sure some like networking community here.
You leave to go start your company and everyone's like so excited and then it's bang, you're sued.
Yeah. And that, so in hindsight, if you'd have told me like, Hey, you're gonna get smoked in, in a lawsuit, and oh, by the way, the stock market once the.com, that that whole thing plays through in oh 8, 0 9, the housing crisis happens.
And so we're six years in and the stock market is lower than when we broke away six or seven years prior. You're like, Hey, oh by the way, the financial markets are gonna tank over the next five or six years and you're gonna get sued to leave. I might have made a different decision, you know, and so, but instead, it's like it all played out just like it was supposed to, and it's been an amazing, amazing run.
Here's an interesting question that, that I have about just like the, the field in general. So you talk about living at 38th in the White River Yep. And you are calling on people that probably have a significant more amount of assets than you getting them to trust you with their portfolio.
Yep.
How does, how do you balance that of like, well, I might not have two nickels to rub together today, but you should trust me with your, yeah, with, with your portfolio, with your estate, with, with your, you know, livelihood.
Yeah. It's imposter syndrome.
Yeah.
Well, think about it. An accountant makes a lot less than a lot of their business owner clients, so you've got tax returns you're filing that have millions of dollars on them. But you know how those returns are supposed to be filed. Similarly, while someone may have more money than you from an investment standpoint, the fact that you understand how the investment markets work, you can give them guidance on that.
But it's, it's, there's certainly an imposter syndrome.
Do you have advice, I'm sure there are gonna be some young financial advisors and people that are looking to get into the craft, that listen to this episode. Would you have advice, advice for them? Because I think a lot of times you're young, you're like, okay, I gotta go sell to people that.
Have, you know, barely any money. And maybe, you know, it's like build those relationships now and one day they'll be fruitful, but like, they might be a little intimidated to start talking to people that have been in the workforce longer, that might be older than them or more experienced.
Yeah. I, I would say my advice to most people are trying to get in the business these days, especially if you look at what's going on with AI, is like lean into the relationship business.
Like what you're really good at. Like lean into those. We have a guy, Mason Hughes that almost everyone knows Mason is, Mason is amazing. And he's leaned into relationships for the, you know,
entirely. If you're ever at, pat Chu on 49th and Penn, you're gonna see Mason.
Yeah, exactly. And, and everybody knows him., because he's, he has so much care for so many other people and looks all day long for ways that he can bring value to him outside of financial device. Eric Ner is another buddy of mine that, you know, he's a medical device guy. But he remodels people's houses. They're like, well, how does that ever happen?
Well, it's like, well, if you're trying to sell, you know, screws for people to put in hips and knees, like they're all pretty much a commodity. But if I can help them fix other things in their life, which a lot of orthopedic surgeons have projects that they're working on, remodeling their basements that are off, you know, have gone o astray, like he'll get in there and make those things happen.
He's just those kind of glue guy people, relationship people. Yeah. If I was gonna be in the financial advisory world, I would 100% just get really, really good at that.
Yeah. And, and a lot of times that gets like misconceived as like sling your business cards at network events and just like get everyone to have your, and it's like, okay, pump the brakes.
Like really cultivate a community that when you text people or you email them, you're either providing some value or they're happy to see your message come through. Not like, oh brother Nate's calling me again. Like this, this is gonna be good.
Yeah. So,, there was something that, that I think is Shaka Smart at Marquette now.
So during their timeouts, one of the guys holds up a sign that says deflections. And they realize that, yeah, if you can overplay that, but if you're, if you're getting in passing lanes in basketball, you're gonna, you're gonna make some things happen. You're gonna get some turnovers that lead dolphins and things like that.
They just measure deflections and they wanna make sure everybody's thinking about that all game long. And for us, deflection are really introductions like, who do I know that needs to know Nate? How can I make that happen? Yeah. What's in it for me? I don't know. Something maybe someday long term, but if you get out in the world and you keep making deflections with your introductions, like if you just think all day long about who are people that I know, whether they're in my business network, my family network, my friend network that ought to know each other, that don't know each other right now, and how do you bring those people together?, it's amazing kind of how that all just creates that community.
Yeah. So you end up in 2002. Leaving, starting Valeo with two other co-founders.
Yes.
So there's three of you.
Correct.
As you're growing that, how long does it take to get other people in the space to believe in what you're building and come join this startup?
It, it took a long time. Like we probably have added more clients this year in the first two months than we added in the first couple years of the firm. Right. It's just, it just takes a long time, to make that happen. I do remember, so this is 2002, so we're starting to do like Google ads, like that's just getting rolling and so we were buying a financial advisor or wealth manager, like those keywords for like 25 cents and the very first, the
good old days,
the good old days, and the very first person that filled out our web form signed up.
Oh,
and she was, she was a,, she was a administrative person that worked at Gilead, which I'd never heard of. They basically have cured HIV out in San Francisco and I'm like, she's in San Francisco, she's got a few million dollars like this. And so I would stay up until like midnight. 'cause I'm like, well, the west coast, it's only nine o'clock.
Someone's gonna fill out the form and sign up as a client. I just thought everybody that filled out the form would sign up. I, I also vividly remember we had someone fill out the form and this kind of ties to Indiana, which is, they were in Fountain Valley, California, so Orange County, and they said, Hey, we need some executive financial advisory services for our exec team.
They were a company, they were gonna go through a transaction and they said, this was like on a Thursday, can you meet Tuesday? Like, we'll we'll be there Tuesday. And I just got on an ATA flight before at, and so I'm like, so I go out there. One, they don't know that I'm 28 years old. Two. I didn't give, wanna give 'em a chance to know I was from Indiana, 'cause I'm going to Orange County.
'cause I'm like, I gotta find some clients and think about it. We left Oxford. Oxford was a big deal in 2002. And we can't go around town and tell every attorney, every accountant, like, Hey, send it to the young guys. Like, ignore the establishment. Like send it to us. Like, that would be like, again, the 22 or 23-year-old trying to win all the business against the most senior people.
So we're like, we just gotta go find the clients wherever we can find them. And so in Fountain Valley that day, I show up and they go, oh, Carmel did you come down? You know, last night? I was like, oh no, that we call it Carmel., and I came in this morning and they're like, and I was waiting for the you're too young.
Why are you here by yourself? you know, all that stuff. And they're like, oh, we were downtown indie, you know, a couple weeks ago for the Final four. You guys got an amazing downtown. Now the, now the advice we need is for our CEO. Our COO, our CFO, like the team. And we just moved on and they all signed up.
No way.
And that's, that's the hustle you gotta have when you're starting.
Okay. I gotta get like, how were you feeling flying home after that meeting?
It was phenomenal. I mean,
like, you're walking on sunshine.
Yeah. And, sadly I was on $150, first class ATA ticket where like they've actually upgraded you back then despite not really being anyone, because that was kind of the end of ATA where it's like, it was all kind of coming, you know, to an end and whatnot.
But I was like, oh, you're on Cloud nine because you're like, this is what hustle is. This hustle actually works., and I think, I think the collective fees might have been 15 or 20 grand. It wasn't like it was some enormous contract that I'd signed up, but I got people to buy into what we were doing. I tell people it's like, if you're from Indiana and you just show up, like, I, I always wondered when I got to Indy, 'cause growing up in Evansville, like St.
Louis is two hours away. So it's like St. Louis is actually easier to get to from Evansville Yeah. Than it is to get to Indy.
And today like Nashville. Totally. I feel like everyone from Evansville, like loves going to Nashville far more than they go to Indy.
Yeah. And so we gotta create that connectivity and so forth.
So the thing that made it happen for me is that my dad's family lives from up here., my sister, she went to Purdue three years older than me and she was just wrapping up law school in Indy. And so she actually has an interesting story. So she was at Ice Miller and then raised her family and, and at ICE she was working for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
And so they offered her to come out to work at the Speedway like 30 hours a week because like if you're raising a young family, staying on the partner track at a law firms, a little tough to do. And so that evolved into her basically then going through that window as she was raising the family. And then they asked, asked her to come out to be kind of, kind of general counsel for the Speedway.
So she's now still to this day, she's run illegal for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, so she's here. Right. And that's why I lived on 38th Street is 'cause I could go do laundry at her place. She was living out on the west side at 38th Street at that point in time. But when you come to, like, you think about indie as far as a, a market and so forth, that was a place where,, you know, for me it's like this was, this was a good place to come and, and be able to get a start going there.
And I forgot what I was trying to Oh,
well take
it to,
I love that. I think that, building a network and a community. In indie it. It's so open for those that do have a little bit of the hustle, a little bit of putting themselves out there, not in a transactional way.
That's it. So like for me, I was like, I'm gonna move to indie.
Who needs me? The financial advisors are a dime a dozen. And what I really, over a short period of time realize is, man, if you just show up every day, and so you, if you can see me like I'm in a suit and tie and I've worn a suit and tie literally every day of my career. Not like when I say every day, not like most days, I'm saying literally every day absent.
We're doing an offsite somewhere where that would be weird to show up in a suit and tie. But if I'm in the office, you're gonna see me in a suit and tie.
You're like the corporate challenge and you shows up in a suit and tie. You're kinda like, Hey, we're playing three on three serious. Seriously, what are we doing here?
Yeah, yeah. So there's, there's this, that rare exception and so forth. But if you show up every day, if you can look people in the eye, if you can be smart and if you can do what you say you're gonna do, like there's some basic things that if you just show up and you're like, well. Why do they need me to do that?
It's like, well, sadly, there aren't a lot of people out there that still do that. Right? And so people know it. And I was like, wow, these people with, with higher net worth, like, they're looking for people like that all day long. And what you realize is that you really, there's a good article that I've, I've struggled to find.
It's like, if you can live your career at 35, like that's the ultimate, because at 35, you know enough of what to do, but you're still hungry at that point., and at the same time, like, and if you're 45 or 55, you should dress more like a 30 5-year-old. You should drive more like what a 30 5-year-old drives.
Like you should try to keep your hunger at the 30 5-year-old level. Because once you get to some of those ages, it's like some of the hustle goes away. And, and people really shouldn't want a 55-year-old, I'm a 52-year-old., you shouldn't want an old financial advisor. Like, you're like, well, they've got all the experience.
Well, a 35 to 40 year old's got a lot of the same experiences and the experiences are different. You tell me that the 60 year old's gonna be able to navigate ai. They're probably gonna tell you to hold on all these software stocks that may go to zero because they don't understand what Claude and all this stuff is gonna Yeah.
Mean to those businesses. So you think you're winning by having someone who's seasoned, but the reality is you probably want the 35 to 40-year-old version of that, and you don't want the 22 or 23-year-old version because they don't know enough yet. Right. Yeah. They got all the hustle, but not the wisdom yet.
And so it's like getting that right amount of hustle and right amount of wisdom and try to keep that.
How did you build that into your culture today? You guys have over 100 certified financial planners. A large footprint of people. Yeah. But when you started, it was just, you know, the three of you hustling and flying out to flying out to California and just making it happen.
Yes. So how did you really hone in on not only being experts in your craft, but also experts on the people side?
Well, as far as like the pe, the internal people, like trying to keep them
motivated. Yeah. Like trying to attract. People that were, that had similar, similar values, similar drive and you know, weren't necessarily the straight transactional call my family and friends sell them this, that, the other thing.
But like, really be a partner.
I wish, I wish I knew., what's happened more so over time is I think that the, if you can be transparent and genuine with people, it attracts a certain type of people. You're like, why? Why have I met those people? And you look around, you're like, wow, there's a whole lot of people.
And yeah, there's some outliers to that. And they don't typically last, you know, all that long. But for the most part. You're attracted, whether you know it or not, to people that have those similar vibes that that you've got and so forth. I think maybe the biggest thing is to try to keep it to where you have different voices and opinions in the room.
Because if you end up with a bunch of people with exact same views, then you're gonna end up off track, you know, pretty easily because you need dissenting views when it comes to, you know, certain things to avoid, making some pretty big mistakes.
Yeah. It's like, I always say that as like if you're a leader in anything and you walk in and if you give your idea first, everybody's gonna say that it's good, you know?
Yeah. No one wants to be the one that, that is disagreeing with the boss. Right. So like sitting and waiting and hearing what actual other people have to say and then presenting your point.
So that is a, there's a YPO exercise we go through where someone presents a problem and they can't speak after that.
And so what happens is you're in a group of people that are problem solvers by nature, and they come up and they're like, the first person that speaks up has a really good idea. As to what it could be. And you can't, as the person presenting the problem, shoot it down with, that'll never work because of this.
You just, you just gotta sit there and not talk. And then what happens is this vortex of better ideas that feed off the other ideas because no one wants to put out an idea that's any weaker than the first idea, and they iterate off of it, or, or take it in a different direction. Mm-hmm. And so those are very powerful things where if you can just present a problem and let other people that have different, different ways of thinking about it and help you solve it, it's an amazing thing.
Yeah. That is, that's super smart because it's so hard to do. Like, 'cause immediately you kinda get defensive, like everyone, like mm-hmm. You think about you playing sports or whatever, and it's like when your coach is breaking down your film and like in the back of your head you're like, well, why don't you try it, coach?
Mm-hmm. Or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's so powerful to be able to take that and not be immediately defensive. Yes. It's like, no, the reason they're giving you this isn't because they wanna like twist the knife and make you feel bad. Like they want you to succeed and solve your problem in the long run.
Yes. That's a great exercise. I like that. One piece you talk about is getting plugged into the community. Obviously coming up here from Evansville, then Bloomington, like, you know, you had your sister here who was, you know, on her track with the law, but getting to meet people and build your community, one way you did that was getting involved with nonprofits here.
Yeah.
And you've been a part of Gleaners and Second Presbyterian and I really want to talk about what you guys did with Brackets For Good. Talk to me about where this idea came from and how it just blew up.
Scott Kraege's a dear friend of mine,, he, Mike Reynolds and I with. With what we've done with Ivy Ventures and so forth.
But Scott's previous company, MOBI,, there were two guys, Matt Duncan and, and Matt McIntyre, and they had this idea, they were sitting around, they're like, we ought to be able to do some good around this NCAA tournament thing. We're in Indiana, like, this is our thing and so forth. And so I'll, I'll miss the year.
But the first year they said, let's try to raise, you know, I think they tried to raise $5,000 and they put 16 teams into a bracket and basically created some tech around it and said, let's see if we can't get them to compete in round one, round two, and then compete for a, a prize at the end. And, and they surprised themselves by, I think by raising like $35,000 in year one,
which is awesome.
And so they went to Scott and they're like, Hey, we got this proof of concept. Do you know anybody that that would be interested in kind of helping us take it to the next level? Like give us a prize for everybody to compete for something like that. And I remember, they called, I forget which mat it was, and they said, Hey, this is what we're doing.
And I think within like, 60 seconds, I'm like, yeah, we're in. I don't even know what we were signing up for, but I was like, we're in, this sounds amazing. And they had a couple other people, and those are, those are interesting conversations that you remember in your life because there are people who just say, yes, I'm in.
And they don't even know the full context because those are those kind of people and the idea just resonates with 'em. And that's what you want. You want people that are just like, I'm in and we'll figure it out, type of a thing. And so from there it went from, you know, Matt and Matt taking this on a, a rockstar, you know, run where basically we, we ended up raising millions of dollars and taking it a number of different markets.
It ran into a bit of a challenge kind of later in its life where the, the head board member at a charity would say, here's my credit card. You know, feel free to bid up as much as you want to. And so there, there created some challenges of the game in terms of, of what it was doing, the integrity of the game ultimately., and I think that it's, it's kind of like the McRib, I think it needs to come back in a, every once in a while type of a thing. And yeah. And those guys I know still have the energy and there's a bunch of people around Brackets For Good that would love to see it come back format. Yeah.
What was like the granddaddy, like the biggest year
Mm, had to be like $3 million.
They were giving away checks at the Pacers games for enormous numbers. And what it shows is like if you just give charities an excuse to tell their story. And I think that that brackets for good raised way more awareness than they raised money. Yeah. And for not-for-profits, money is one thing, but awareness is another.
Because when folks call us, and we have a very unique program at Valeo called Give and Give to us means you give away 5% of your income. And so if you think about it, if you give away 4% of your income at Valeo, you get no support at all. And my intention for that is, look, I want you to sit down every year and decide where you're gonna give away 5% of your income.
And so if someone's making a bunch of money, they gotta give away a bunch of money. I don't wanna hear from one of our advisors making a bunch of money that they're gonna give a thousand dollars to a golf outing and they wanna know if we wanna come along with them. Like, you make $500,000, like give away 25 grand and we can have a conversation, but we're not talking about a thousand dollars gift.
You should be, you know, making a difference. If you make $50,000 and you're giving away 2,500, that's a different thing. So the percentage really does matter.
Yeah,
hitting the number really does matter. And I argue that if, if you're an employer and you are matching people's thousand dollar gifts, you're giving 'em a cookie for something that they probably deserve a lecture on.
So if someone's making a boatload of money, and it sounds, that's kind of counterintuitive. It's like, Hey, this, this, my employer matches my charitable giving. Well, if they match a tiny little gift, they're incenting the wrong behavior. The behavior should be, hey, strive for, for doing more. And so for us, when you get up in front of the group, it's so cool when I see one of our young people get up in front of our group and tell a story about some impact they're trying to make.
I've yet to see someone tell their story about something that's impacted their life, not have numerous individuals from Valeo, because we all have that same program.
Yeah.
Available. Say, I wanna chip in, I want to help us, you know, sponsor it at a higher level. Or I wanna help get that truck that that organization needs instead of just being a sticker on the side of the truck kind of thing.
Yeah. That is, talk about making a real impact and rewarding and incentivizing the right generous behaviors.
Yes.
Where it's like, I'm doing this for the sake of doing it. Like I'm doing this to make an impact.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's super cool. So you guys end up doing it with brackets for good and then you've been a part of Gleaners Food Bank for a long time.
Gleaners is amazing. And you, you, you use the word, it's like Gleaners Food Bank. It's really, it's the food infrastructure. So it's like, if you think about the old computers that used to say like Intel inside. So many of the food banks you'll go around to in, in central Indiana are powered by Gleaners.
Basically, the majority of their food is coming from a place like Gleaners along the way. And Gleaners had a huge take, I think it was Monarch, that that basically sold them their massive distribution facility down there on the Southwest side. So they have one of the, the, the most amazing facilities for food distribution in a food bank.
So they're like supplying food to food banks?
Yes. Correct. And someone calls and says, Hey, we've got,, you know, four semis full of, of, orange frost, Gatorade. And you know who wants it. No one can take four semi-truck loads of that as a, as a food bank. Gleaners can, Gleaners can take these massive amounts and they can break it up and they can get it out into a, a network and distribute it out.
Wow. And they're just a powerful, powerful organization.
How old is Gleaners?
Ooh.. I'm gonna guess somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 years old,, Pam Altmeyer started it on 16th Street in a garage.
As a, as a single, like a single food bank?
Yes.
Oh yeah. Like, just like one place you show up and get food.
Correct. And just,
and then grew into a network that like fuels other food banks.
It's phenomenal., and it's in 20, you know, I think it's 20 now, Indiana counties that they support., and they just, the impact that they make. 'cause it doesn't matter. I say if, if you have a, an empty stomach and you're sleeping on the couch, you know you're not gonna get a good grade on your test at school.
Like, so there, there's so many things that the basic needs,, you know, keeping a roof over people's heads and keeping, you know, food in their stomach Yeah. Is a huge deal.
Martha Hoover talks a ton about that and the work that she's doing now and kind of her, new philanthropic, not new to her, but like in this chapter of a longer table and yeah.
Helping out. No kid in Indiana should go to school hungry. That's
crazy. So's tell you, I'll tell you a story that that,, brought a tear to my eye. The first time I heard it was,, they have a program called BackSacks and that program has evolved over time. But the BackSacks program is basically these kids that at different Indiana schools, they get a BackSack every Friday afternoon when they go home.
And the reason they get that BackSack is 'cause a lot of those kids don't eat until Monday, so there's just no food at their house. And so they ask this kid, they go, what do you do with your backsack when you get it? He goes, I put it under the, the wheel well of the car in the front yard when I get off the bus.
And you're like, that just conjures up an image, right? So you got a car in a front yard and clearly the car's not moving because why would you put a BackSack full of food there? And it's like, well, why do you put it there? He goes, well, it keeps it dry. And when my mom locks me outta the house, I have food outside of the house that I can get and it's hidden from anybody else to be able to get it.
And you're like, hire that kid. This kid is a survivor. Because that was instinctive behavior. And you're like, if that kid. Is, is getting a BackSack because he is not gonna eat this weekend and he's putting it under the wheel. Well, the car in the front yard at his mom's place so he can have food when he gets locked out and hide it from the people that are gonna steal it from him to get to Monday where he can get back to school and have a meal.
You're like, tell me where that, what challenges that kid, you talk about equal opportunity and things like that. You know, we, we gotta make sure that people, you know, have the basics so they can Yeah. You know, to get to where they need to get,
which is just wild. Like when you start to dive into, I mean, the stories that you hear of people that are, you know, a mile away and like their life and our life are not the same.
And, you know, having this philanthropic, I don't know, maybe it's a little bit too, coming from a small town where everyone just automatically steps up and takes care of each other. Yeah. Like it was just like how it happened. Like, I feel like Indianapolis for a big city has such a good heart. The interesting piece that I'd love to dive into is as you, you know, grow and become more plugged into the community.
There's probably a hundred different philanthropies that you could be a part of. There's probably a hundred different charities you could be on the board of. And it's like, well, are you really making an impact on one or are you just on a ton of boards? And like, how do you balance that and where, where you put your time and why did cleaners end up being the one that you really wanted to get plugged into?
Yeah. So,, going back to where my, when my dad moved to Evansville, it was five 16 South Kentucky Avenue. And so Kentucky Avenue was this place in Evansville where really good people were, but nobody had any money and so forth. And you just gotta see, you just gotta meet a lot of really down to earth human beings.
And you're like, wow, basic needs are really what we need more than anything else. And so when I was looking for where I can get involved, I'm like, roofs, overheads, you know, food on people's tables, you know, being able to do that and so forth. And with, with Gleaners, you know, in terms of what they do for the community, like it's, it's massive.
And so for me, if I was encouraging someone what to get involved in, a lot of people, like in our industry and so forth, you should get on a charitable board, you know, you should get involved in the community. I'm like, yeah, but only if you care.
Yeah.
Like, it's like, well, I want, and it's, it's one thing if you don't know what you care about to explore a few things, that's fine.
But to say, well, I'm gonna serve on the Lions Club board. Do you even know what the Lions Club does? Why are you showing up? Well, I think I can get a referral. Like, you'd realize people are gonna see that there's no authenticity to what you're, what you're present and what you're doing and so forth. And what I've always offered is like going back to our Give program, when someone calls Valeo asking for a, a contribution of some sort, I explain to 'em what our GIVE program is and I'm like, Hey, we have this program.
I'm gonna share it with our entire organization because someone here probably has been impacted by what your organization, you know?
Yeah.
Helps us solve. It's like, but what I can't offer you is we have a very powerful network. We know lots of people. We have, you know, over 3000 relationships with families in this community and, and so forth.
Is there someone that ought to care about your organization that you're having a hard time getting an audience with? Because we probably know 'em or we can get to 'em.
Yeah.
How can I help you do that? Because I remember vividly there was one where they,, I'm gonna forget the name of the organization, but they help,, kids that have had, trauma in their life at a young age, and they take 'em through like a flight simulator.
And I'm like, well, I've never wanted to be a pilot. And I grew up in, in, you know, a white picket fence environment where like my world all was, you know, put together. And so I didn't have that. And so it doesn't, that doesn't resonate as much to me, but I wanna help you get this in front of the people that should resonate with, because someone, there is someone who's out there, who is a pilot, who has lost, you know, someone at a young age or, or someone at a young age has had that experience that should really care about what you're doing here because it's making a huge difference.
And so getting the right people connected with the right things is a huge thing because there are so many organizations where there's 20 people, you know, on a board, and 16 of them are there because their employer told 'em that they should get involved. It's like, and, and once you've been on enough of those boards, you realize like, wait, there's gonna be four of us that actually gets the work done here.
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Mm-hmm. Like there. And it's not saying that any cause is not a good cause. It's like, okay, well, whether it's roofs, overhead food on tables. You know, medical care, like, there's a ton of different things, but internally you kind of have to stack rank those of like, what, what are you gonna be the most excited about making an impact with?
And actually move the needle there. Yes. I feel like, yeah, as you, you know, probably as leaders move up in the community, they probably do get a lot of like, Hey, will you come to this? Or, you know, donate to this or do that and, and really stack, oh, I hate to say like stack ranking them, but finding where your priorities and where your energy aligns and then like going all in and making a big impact there.
Yeah, and I think it's okay too for a young person not to know. If you're 25, like that's not the point in your life where you're probably like, I'm really gonna make a difference in this not-for-profit. Yeah. Like there's some, obviously there's, there's some amazing young folks that are doing that and so forth, but it's okay if you don't know, but it's not okay to not explore it over time.
Right. Yeah. And then if you find yourself, you know, sitting around, you know, scrolling social media all the time and you're like, that time could be spent making a difference. Yeah. You know, somewhere else. And, and, and those not-for-profits, I think there's also this feeling that, well, I pay my taxes.
It's like every dollar that I've seen going to a good charity is gonna turn a dollar into some multiple of that, whether it's a dollar 10 or $5, like it's something more than a dollar. I've never seen a dollar go into the government to come back worth more than a dollar. Right. It's always worth something less than that.
The bureaucracy takes something away from it and so forth. So it's like the, you're paying your taxes is not, you know, helping your community.
Yeah.
You know, that's, that's not how you should,, think about how you're helping.
And even if it's not in straight, like writing a check. Especially when you're young.
Mm-hmm. Give up your time.
Yes.
And like, actually go and be, whether it's, you know, cleaning up the monan or, you know, serving at Gleaners or wherever it might be. One, I never, I've never volunteered anywhere and got done with it and said, oh gosh, I wait, I spent way too much time there. Like, yeah. No, I've never once said that.
You always walk out, like it's almost like feeds your soul and also helps the community.
Yes, totally. And I think that's where,, you know, I said, what's the best way to help somebody who's down on their luck is have them ask them to help someone. And it, and it gets them moving in that direction. Yeah.
And to that point, like the, the amount of time and energy that you put towards those things, you, you're never gonna regret the time. And there's so many folks that need that help and Yeah. And think about what you would've been doing at that time otherwise. Yeah. And it, it wouldn't be as positive.
I love to jump back into the Valeo story, and so you talk about.
Leaving in 2002, start, starting Valeo in 2002, getting sued.com bubble is bursting. You go run that through to the financial crisis in seven, eight, like that time period. Mm-hmm. Where was it during this journey where you felt like you had real traction and like you guys were building something special?
Like that seems like a decade of like trials and tribulations there.
Yeah, I still, I still think today we're a 24-year-old startup. I mean, that's really how I view it because if you're not that, so for instance,, we built an entire real estate platform that literally just spun out onto its own as of January 1st called 2.0.
And that was just something that, that we had to invent because there was a need in the marketplace. Ivy was something that we started here just a couple years ago. Yeah. On the venture capital side of things, there's gonna be more things that we start that, that we see that we be, you know, can turn into something special and so forth.
So I still view this as kind of an incubator
Yeah.
Side of things, because if and, and not that we haven't been successful. And yeah. There are times when I do now look back and say, and it's probably that intern wall that I look at more than anything to say there's like 50 of those folks that, that interned with us.
Yeah. What's the intern wall?
So the intern wall is where we take pictures of anyone who started as an intern. That's a full-time hire with us now. And so of our 200 people, about 50 of those are folks that started as interns with us. And it shows a message to the interns that come in that we wanna hire you two.
It shows that we're growing this place organically. We're growing it from the inside. We're not just hiring people from, you know, a bunch of other places and so forth, because that culture really does. Matter to us. And so I think that intern wall is the thing that probably resonates most with me because again, you come up wanting to be a, you know, a stockbroker financial advisor from the time you're a little kid, but then you go to IU and you don't really get a degree in it to then have to sign a non-compete to get a sales job to then sign another non-compete to get into a lawsuit, to then take out an SBA loan and think you're gonna go bankrupt to then start, you know, what is now become one of the largest financial advisory firms.
Like that shouldn't be the path. Yeah. The path should be, get a degree in it from a good university, a financial advisory degree, get an internship in it, then get an apprenticeship in it, and then have an amazing career where you get back along the way., but that's just not the path. And so that's what, when I see that wall, that's probably when I realize that, okay, we we're doing something here.
When you think about growth and bringing on more people, I feel like the way that a lot of organizations, like financial organizations have grown is like by rolling up a ton of, you know, the local broker in, you know, small town like Edward Jones comes in and, you know, piles that up. Is that like, how has your guys' growth strategy been.
Ours is, you know, get 23 interns and hire as many of 'em as you possibly can, and then do that over a course of a long period of time.
How have you expanded reach? 'cause now it's more than just central Indiana.
Yeah, so,, we had a, a, an advisor that had a friend in Richmond, Virginia, and he said, Hey, I think I want to be a part of what you guys are doing, who then brings someone else in, bring someone else in.
A similar concept in Denver, Colorado, we had that happen. We've got advisors in Ann Arbor, in Chicago and Columbus and, and Naples, Florida, places like that. And I think that it's much for us, it's more more about the people than it is the geographies. Yeah. Because I would rather be in Boise with the right people than to be in Chicago because it's the biggest city close by.
And we're in Chicago with, with a handful of folks that are amazing people. And it took us probably 20 years to even go to Chicago. Yeah. Because it's, it really is about the people. Because when the business, like we don't have the infrastructure that says, Hey, just hire a bunch of people that are the managers, over the managers to make sure everybody's doing their job.
We're just not built that way. We're a much, you know, thinner organization that regard. And so that means that we have to have. Really incredible people and I don't really, we don't wanna end up with a, an incredible sprawl where there's two people in Nashville and four people in St. Louis, that type of a thing.
But the people we have are amazing people wherever they are and we gotta build around them.
Yeah. When you talk about innovations, like you talk about spinning out 2.0 and you know, you're talking about a lot about AI in an industry that's, I would say seasoned and you know, maybe more known for keeping the status quo.
How are you guys pushing innovation and what specific innovations get you the most excited as the leader of the org?
Yeah, so we've built this organization on a system the entire way. So the limited number of clients, our comp mile, which we haven't talked about. We pay people half the money for taking care of the clients, half for finding the clients.
And so that's what allows you to have an unlimited income despite having a limited number of clients and so forth. Everything being super transparent, I was mentioning earlier outside the branch manager's office, that was really impactful for me. So. Literally you can see what every advisor at Valeo earns., everyone from, you know, the front desk to the top of the place, you can see like what our advisors are earning, because that transparency really helps because if you know what someone's compensation is, you know, kind of what behaviors you're probably gonna, you know, emulate and so forth. So for us, like in terms of the growth, where, take me back.
I, I visualize it. Oh, talking about
innovation.
So for me, like when it's all built on a system, like if you're using some of these tools now, whether it's Claude or Lovable or some of those that can actually, I, I said there was a window of time probably in the last five years where I stopped dreaming and I stopped dreaming because I had to go to a, a tech business and, and ask them to make minor changes and it was gonna cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars to do it.
Now it's free. It literally is free. And so now all I gotta do is gotta get the front end hooked up to my data on the back end. And so the Dreamers can start dreaming again on the front end of things.
It's insane.
So I, I literally, over the weekend, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna repair our contact record.
I'm like, well, I wanna put what teams these guys this particular contact cares about. I'm like, okay, well, they're Texas Rangers, Houston Astros, and, and ut Austin, you know, Longhorns. I'm like, oh, actually, if they're a diehard fan, a casual fan, or a moderate fan, I want a a fire logo. If they're a diehard fan, I wanna, you know, a chaka if they're whatever.
And then, oh, by the way, when I hover over the icon of the university or the, or the team, I wanna see the last game they played, the next game they played in their record, and where they're in. It did it in 15 seconds. It said, it says downloading ESPN analytics. Da da da da. Is this what you're looking for?
And I'm like, so the Dreamers can get back to dreaming. And then their tech teams are really just gonna be the folks that manage the data tables and how we pipe that data to the actual visuals. And so because Valeo's built on a, a game, we've basically created a game. This ability to be able to visualize the game is gonna keep our advisors focused on the right things, as opposed to if we were just a salary and a bonus structure.
You know, that's a much harder thing because it's like, Hey, we're, we're still in that, Hey, talk to your manager about your six month or 12 month review and we'll talk about what your compensation's gonna be. Our advisors know the game that they're playing and it's easy for them now it's gonna be even easier for them to see it.
Wow.
Yeah.
Like that is wild. And I do not believe that a lot of 52-year-old financial advisors across the country are thinking about how I can create something and Lovable over the weekend. No. Like, is that a piece that you think,, as you get more senior in your career, like still dreaming and experimenting and like trying new things?
I feel like a lot of people lose that hunger as they, as your calendar becomes more.
Yeah, I, I guess it, I took a step back a handful of years ago and said, what's my, what's my purpose supposed to be? Justin Pagett did the same thing., and what you realize is like, there's a book called From Strength to Strength.
I dunno if you've heard of it or read it. No. So basically it's about,, how the evolution of your career has to take place. Ours is a pretty simple one, which is like, you gotta come in and as an intern, you gotta gain the skills and the knowledge. Then you gotta learn to be a good support advisor, then a backup advisor, then a lead advisor.
Then once you're a lead advisor, you gotta learn to originate typically for yourself. Then you have to originate for other people. And then it's like this, it's literally, I think of it like vines that you swing on in your career. And if you ever clinging to one of those vines too long, we know what happens.
Right? It's like on the monkey bar where you can't swing, you can't get to the next one. Right? And so it's very hard thing to hear. And I was sharing it with one of my partners. He's like, oh, this is a tough pill to swallow. It's like, yeah, because I mean, realistically, once you're 45 or 50 years old, your grind has, is not what it was when you were 35 or 40.
It just, and, and at 35 or 40, it probably wasn't what it was when you were 25 or 30. But, but admitting that and acknowledging it and saying, what do I have now more than I've ever had? It's the wisdom to, to relay it and so forth. Yeah. And so the ability to continue to swing through those vines of your career and so forth, and be able to, to do that.
So for me is, is what I see is like, okay, I've gotta impart the wisdom on the next generation of advisors so that can continue to, to feed on itself and that flywheel can keep going. But now it's like, I also have to prove, like founders, I'm sure you listen to Senra, like it's, it's ridiculous. The stuff I say, there's three things for me.
It's a, it's a history lesson, it's a business lesson, it's therapy. And the therapy part of it is, is like, it's okay that the founder of Louis Vuitton, is still going into his stores on a Saturday morning to make sure the handbags are exactly where they're supposed to be. Like, that guy's not crazy.
He's just a founder or the the Raising Cane's guy who says like, who's your competition? Who are you afraid of? He's like, no one. Well, why not? Because there's no founder led businesses left because, you know, McDonald's, Ray Kroc's been gone, you know, forever. And, and Chick-fil-A is a, a massive enterprise now.
He's like, no one scares me. 'cause founders only do what founders do. Raisin cane serves chicken fingers, Texas toast and fries and some, and some coleslaw that no one ever wants. That's why they let you sub it. Right? And they won't even let you order Honey Mustard because like they're so proud of their Cane's Sauce that they won't let you even see that that exists unless you know it exists and so forth.
And like, there's like a great story about, everyone said the chicken tender business was silly. And he's like, oh yeah,
yeah, exactly. He goes crazy C plus on his LSU like, class project. Yeah. And then he blows the thing up. And so for me, like as the founder of a business, the, like, that founder's podcast has given me more incentive.
And then,, I lost an uncle, my eldest uncle last week and at 94 years old and he sold his final company at 91. Amazing, amazing human being. And it's like, I think that's just in our DNA my dad, he was in the, the rental real estate business, you know, after, my mom too. And after,, you know, teaching over that entire period, he owned properties for 60 years.
And my dad probably never listened to this, but you know, he was, he was the social worker for that neighborhood. He was the guy that made all the glues stick together and so forth, did it for 60 years. Like, there's a reason that you just keep going. And so you see all this private equity money rolling up all these different industries and so forth.
The only thing that happens when that comes together ultimately is that the clients get less and paid more and the people that work there get paid less and are expected to do more. And the spread on that is the profit, which you put a multiple on and you put some leverage to it. And that's how the IRRs happen in private equity, right?
If you're a founder led business, if that's who we're gonna be competing with, I talk to our people about it all the time. I'm like, Hey, look, if people wanna buy us so badly, like we're already here, just stay where we're at and and execute really well on it, so forth. So I think the, at 52-year-old messing around with Lovable things like that, if you're just playing the long game and talk about infinite games versus finite games, like I just am, view it as an infinite game.
Where do you see Valeo going over the next decade?
It's a lot more of the same thing. So, so several things. So like this flywheel we've got going and creating the next generation advisors and doing that in a very transparent way, we gotta keep doing that. Talent density really, really does matter. So we have to have, and if, if AI has told you one thing, you gotta make sure that the people are, are incredible people.
They can't just be people that are easily replaceable type thing. So that piece of it, I think more businesses spun out of Valeo over time. So for instance, like 2.0, being able to spin out Ivy being a standalone entity, there's gonna be other businesses. There's no reason, there's not like a sports agency like this lends itself Oh yeah.
To that. I don't have the time for it. I don't want to go hang out at, in Atlanta at 3:00 AM doing bottle service with the next generation. Like, that's just not me. But if someone wanted to take it into, into that space. Yeah.
Like who's that live with the IU team, you know like, like running it up like, Hey Fernando, when you get drafted, like don't forget about your boys of Valeo.
Correct. It's all the same thing. It's like basically keeping people out of trouble, keeping 'em on track. Because if you're a professional athlete, you've already won. Right. You now, you just have to let it kind of season itself over time. If you're a physician, you've made it. Congratulations. There's always gonna be need for your services.
Just live within your means. Stay married, you know, and everything's gonna be okay, you know, with that. And so those are the kind of things where there's different verticals within Valeo that no doubt will spread out. I also see that there's needs to be, for instance, localized equity. So there's, there's value of the business itself, but there's no reason that the Louisville team, for instance, is gonna say, Hey, I'm gonna create all this value for Valeo, but what's my economic incentive?
There needs to be, like I said, localized equity where the people in those particular markets or verticals have equity. Just like when we spun out the real estate team. Obviously the real estate team has a huge stake in kinda what that business becomes.
Yeah. When looking at, growing up in Evansville, spending time in Bloomington, and then moving to Indy, if you had to to stack rank a few of your favorite things in all three of those markets, what do you love about Evansville?
What do you love about Bloomington and Indie?
I'll go Bloomington. 'cause of the IU run that we've had. Yeah, so Bloomington's just a special place, such a good, you know, place., it's, it's obviously got the university,, it's got ama a group of amazing people. I think you mentioned indie. I think Indy is like the perfect size and it's because there's, it's big enough to have an Eli Lilly and professional teams and so forth, but it's also still got a lot of small town feel to it that goes with it.
I think it's got some big city problems that it really has to face, which is some of the things that Gleaners and, and others deal with, Wheeler and so forth. But there's also, enough, wealth and enough still passion and care for it here where I think about a city like Chicago, which I don't know as well.
So this is an overgeneralization, but the, the problems there are even bigger. But I think there's also a,, there's gotta be just a, oh, another, another problem again. Yeah. You know, here we are, let's just move further out of the suburbs, further out of the suburbs and so forth. So I think that India is that right size and so Bloomington, I think, you know, going back to, to where it sits, it's like, it is this, it's got enough for it, but it's still a special small town that's got a lot of those things.
And now with the, the football run, I think it's gonna be special for another five, 10 years. And the interstate, obviously, Andrew,
I have to just imagine that, applications to IU have to be like off the charts ripping at an all time high
off the charts,
like, oh my gosh.
Yeah.
Crazy.
And then Evansville. So,, I think my dad said, he goes, Evansville is a great place to live and no place to visit.
You know, and it's basically, Chicago is a great place to visit. No place to live.
Yeah.
As an example. And so, tremendous gift to grow up in Evansville, Indiana. And I, I, I told this story,, once before, but you grew up in Evansville, Indiana. I'm born in 1973. Don Mattingly, you know, was drafted by the Yankees in 79.
he's the major, he's a, American League most valuable player in 1985. So I'm 12 years old, not even, I'm 11 years old. Okay. Calbert Cheaney. I mean, I, I was a sophomore when he was a senior in high school. So like I'm sitting on the bench, you know, watching him do amazing things at Evansville Harrison, and then he goes on to be the all time leading score.
Still to this day in Big Ten history. I don't know who's gonna score, you know, 20 points a game from freshman year on ever again, you know, who's not gonna be bouncing around to school? Who's taking a check? 'cause if you're a, you know, it's just, it's just probably not, or
Yeah. Going to Yeah. going into the league,
right.
The, the Cardinals. I mean, if you're an Evansville, like you were a Cardinals fan. If you didn't, if you didn't have cable. If you had cable, you were a brave fan. 'cause that was TBS. But, no, you're a Cardinals fan. Yeah. Cardinals won the World Series in 82. They were back in the World Series in 85 and 87.
Like, if you're from Evansville, you just think like, well, we can be amazing things in New York City. Like Don Mattingly a high school kid that's from here.
Yeah. Being 12 years old and seeing someone. One of you.
Yeah.
Like, he's, he's one of us and he's made it on the, the biggest stage at that.
That's awesome.
And you didn't even know, like, you're just like, that's Don Mattingly. Don Mattingly went to Memorial. Right. And if you've ever watched, so this back to the, you were talking about, high school sports and what if you wanna see something beautiful? Watch Evan Field Memorial, take infield and baseball.
They're three deep, and you won't see an error on the fungo whenever they're taking infield or taking outfield. Like they're, it's watching them as intense, you know, as anything. Coach Merkel was there forever. If you watch Indiana, I remember going to a game, it was the two years ago, the first season for Cignetti.
Maryland's playing Indiana. They're coming outta the half. The game was, was relatively close, and it's raining a little bit. The Maryland guys go over to the sidelines and they're looking for whatever cover they can find on the visiting sideline. They're all kind of huddled and they're just standing around and there's still three minutes left on the clock.
The IU guys, and you can watch this and you'll notice it now forever. You go, the IU guys come out, every one of them, other than like the long snapper and the the field goal kickers, they're doing high knees, they're doing shuttles, you know, as a drill. And I'm watching the Maryland guys watch the Signi discipline play out and they knew they were beat right then and there.
And so it's like if you watch Evansville Memorial, take infield in baseball. You realize like you're just sitting there going, we don't do it like that.
We're gonna have a game.
We're gonna get a game today. Right. There's a reason they're good. And it's like, same thing with Cignetti doing what he's doing at iu, you know, so much discipline process.
I feel like a lot of people see Evansville. It's kind of disconnected from the rest of Indiana, especially given the fact that we didn't have the interstate Yeah. To get down there. So it was kind of a, you know, it was a challenge to, to get all the way down there. Yeah. If you had to pitch, even though you did say not necessarily the best place to visit.
Yeah. But I actually went down for Fall Festival and had a great time. Thought it was incredible, and I thought it was heavily underrated. Yeah. It was like maybe my second time in Evansville. If you had to pitch Evansville for a weekend trip or for the rest of the state to go down and check it out, what would you say?
Why should people go and, and, and check out Evansville?
Yeah, so I think that,. You know, the river is the river, right. Getting down and seeing that and, and the downtown that built right there
is huge.
Yeah.
It like you'd think the White River is not No, it is huge. You like couldn't throw a baseball across it.
That's right. So I'd go, I'd go down there and then I would think about like Evansville. If, if you're a foodie, like the taverns, like literally in Evansville, that there are so many taverns that are just out at the, the country roads that, that have an intersection at a four-way stop and there's one person waiting tables and one person cooking.
You're gonna get a 9 99, the best meal you've ever had, you know, type thing at a tavern. So that's, that's one of the things I miss most. Turoni's on the pizza side of things is phenomenal. Yeah. Down there. And, yeah, so Evansville is a place where you need to kind of know somebody, you know, 'cause that's what's gonna make it special because it's just, it's, it's Indiana like, just stirred into a pot.
And
Yeah. We had like a local tour guide for the fall festival and they like, oh, you gotta go this spot. And like the girls' basketball team runs this spot, like, holy stromboli. And like, this is where you get mm-hmm. And it was awesome. Yes. Like, I love, I literally already have it on my calendar for next year, for this year because it's, it's so much fun.
Yes. Like, definitely. And everyone's like, fall festival, we're talking like pumpkins and what, and it's like club like. It's like 125 different food booths and carnival rides and live music, and you know, beer and the whole nine yards. It is awesome. I can't recommend it more. okay. This next question is brought to you by our friends at JC Hart.
They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indian and beyond. Check them out at homeisjchart.com. My question for you, John, you could have gone to a massive financial, you know, epicenter like you did New York, Chicago, one of those places, but you've chose to build Valeo here in Indiana.
Why do you call Indiana home?
I think it's why most people call Indiana home is because. When your family's here, what's more important than your family? Right. That's, that's really what it comes down to. And once you have your family, you're like, yeah, it would be nice if there was an ocean or there was a mountain.
You know, we, we have like Wawasee and, and Maxinkuckee and a handful of natural bodies of water. But for the most part, bodies of water here are damned up valleys that are reservoirs for things and so forth. So we don't have a lot of that. But what we do have, and we have hot summers and we have cold winters.
Like the weather kind of sucks you, you've got potholes everywhere 'cause of the freezing and the thaw and whatnot. But you're here 'cause your family and the relationships and so forth. Yeah. And then once you get here, you're like, this is why I wanna be here. I wanna be around these people. Yeah. Want anything else.
Yeah. And I feel like it's so many impact driven individuals, just like people who want it to be the best place possible, which I love.
Yeah.
Okay. We have some rapid fire questions for you. One similarity between Evansville, Indiana and Carmel, Indiana.
A hundred thousand people. There you go. They're the same number of
people.
That's a good one. Okay. What are, what's one thing you love about each of those places individually?
Hmm. I, I mean, I love Evansville because it's where I'm from and it, it set the table for everything else. Like the, it's, it's the perfect place to be raised. Yeah.,
I always say, like, my hometown, 1500 people up in Northern Indiana, perfect place to be from.
Yep. I love it. And then Carmel, what do I love about man Brainard's vision for 30 years as mayor to, to turn these things into roundabouts and do the things that nobody thought should be done. Like,, what a gift that was. And then, and it'll be paying dividends long after he is gone.
Yeah. Okay. What's one thing you'd tell 22-year-old John
today put down his phone?
Just go, like, just, just go more than, being distracted by whatever the, the thing is of the day that seems like it's urgent, which is not, I think about like, you know, the president's,, state of the Union address last night or whatnot. It's hard to even listen to it because it's like, it's just, there's just so much to it.
I'm not trying to make a political statement. It's just like, if you're running a business and trying to make a difference, there's very little about that. That's gonna make a difference in what you need to do tomorrow and so forth. So don't get caught up in, in the news cycle Yeah. Of whatever's going on.
Just go and, and make stuff happen.
The number one way to build a community in a new city,
look for ways to, to, to make an impact in other people's lives. Connections you can make, make a difference. And then you'll find that someone said, oh, is Bill Campbell said,, the trillion dollar coach. He's like, Hey, you know, three is the perfect number for a meeting.
Because once you've had three people at a meeting, you'll realize that there's so much more, it's an infinite number of, of possibilities in terms of the conversation as opposed to just a, a one-on-one, two person conversation.
Yeah. favorite IU Bloomington memory.
It's hard to beat what we just went through.
It really is so,, going to that championship game and being able to take my 86-year-old dad, to it, my niece flew in from London, which was actually a cheaper flight, by the way, than flying from Indy.,
what?
Yeah. Direct flight from London to Miami and so forth, and then to have my family there with me and things like that, to be able to, to do that when you never thought that was gonna be ever possible.
Yeah. I feel like. I've seen so many videos from kids that are currently in school there. Like if you're a senior at IU right now, like you might be, I again, I can't com probably comparative to, you know, all of the championship runs and basketball, but like, it's even more just crazy 'cause it's so unexpected.
Yeah. They don't, they won't, the sophomores like, will they ever know what it was once like,
like they don't remember the games or, you know, the seasons that were almost winless. Yes. You know? Yeah. if you think about your biggest inspiration, like someone in the world that's made the largest impact on your life, who would that be?
Mm-hmm. It's, it's gotta be my parents, both of 'em, just living the examples that they, that they set., my dad, I've never heard him use a cuss word and I've never heard him raise his voice.
Good for him,
man. Yeah. And so with our kids, it's interesting because if, if, if you're raising kids out there, it's always a challenge.
Every one of 'em is different and so forth. But,, I've followed through on that with the never raise your voice around your kids kind of thing. And it's really hard, you know, when someone, when you're raising young ones. If they're, if they're losing it a little bit and you're just ultra calm, it doesn't come back at you.
Yeah, if, if you're, if you're boisterous and they're boisterous, it just, it kind of feeds on itself. But if you can take it down a notch and just be calm about the whole thing., and I dunno, just the work ethic that they had, the care for others, like that whole thing is,, huge impact.
Is there one lesson in particular to round it out, one lesson that you've learned from your parents that you apply to raising your kids?
I think the, the lessons of, of letting your kids be what they're going to be. And like my folks both obviously being school teachers, their kids are, are not school teachers and so forth. And my kids are probably not gonna be financial advisors, which is great. They, they're wired differently. They're gonna be who they're gonna become and supporting your kids to be., I said, we talked to our kids about some of the, the trips we've been able to take to like, to the IU games and so forth. I'm like, you know what's really important? You gotta be able to afford to do these things later in life. You know how you're gonna do it. And they start with, oh, you gotta work hard.
I'm like, well, yeah, that, but it's like, you gotta find something you love doing.
Yeah.
Because if you figure out what you, like, what you're doing right now, I don't know how how it's gonna turn into, you know, financial rewards for you and so forth to, to be able to provide for you, but it'll figure it out because you're obviously passionate about it and it's gonna Yeah.
It's gonna take care of itself.
I think there's a such a heavy balance between like, go Chase what you're passionate about. It's like everybody's passionate about, like, lounging on the beach, you know, like, no duh. Like, that's really, really fun. Or like climbing mountains, like, I'm passionate about that. And then it's figuring out the.
Like the economics or like the model of like, okay, but how could you do this to support yourself? And if you can figure out both of those things, you're, you're right in the money.
Yeah.
Okay. We've come to our final three questions that we ask every guest who comes on the show, that it's all about the state of Indiana.
So if you could shout it from the rooftops, what's one thing the world needs to know about Indiana?
I thought about this a little bit and I think the crossroads of America, which you hear a lot and so forth. I don't think people realize the level of talent density we have in the real estate space. So you think about,, Simon Property Group.
You know, strip mall guys, Eskenazi doing that. You think about the industrial side of things with all the things that we have, you know, with Duke, you know, Realty doing that, and all the people that have spun off of Duke, and I'm gonna miss some with this, but, you know, Scannell and Becknell, the Lauth Group and all that they've done in the real estate game and so forth.
Multifamily, like if you go around to the cities around, you know, the Midwest and you're gonna find a lot of those apartments are being built by people that are based here in, in India, like the cityscape, brews, the CRG guys, the, you know, the Birge & Held, the Barrett & Stokely, like those people, if you think about it, you're like, well, why is that possible?
Well, if you think about the, the interstates that are crossing this state, it's a great place to do distribution. You know, we're so close to many things and then, and the rest of the real estate. And so the talent density in the real estate game in central Indiana and the impact that it has all over is something that I don't think people, you know, realize is here.
Wow. That is a good one. I, it's something you take for granted. 'cause when you see all of the different, and it, it's always like blank and blank, you know, like, so some last name and last name, and it's, you start to like, get 'em all jumbled together. But yeah, there's a ton of 'em.
Good stuff. And they're real and, and there's so many of 'em that are really, really good.
Yeah. I love it. Okay. This is your opportunity to shed some light on a part of the state that more people need to be talking about. What is a hidden gem in Indiana?
I'm a donut guy. I love,, I love those. And if you followed what's gone on in the donut world, you can't get a cinnamon donut. You can't get a peanut donut anymore.
Like we've taken away all the allergens, coconut donuts, like those are like suddenly a terrible thing., and so you gotta go to the, the local places, right? And so,, the donut bank, the Kempf's Donut Bank in Evansville,, they've been around for almost 60 years now and just a staple. And you can go in there and it is a classic old donut shop that is amazing and, and not old.
It's like they've got a number of locations and so forth that do an incredible job. And,.
It's a staple in, in the Evansville Southern Indiana region. Yes. Like people love, like live by the donut bank.
Yes.
The other one that Evansville is kind of a donut, hotbed.
Oh yeah.
parlor.
Yeah. Yeah.
Oh yeah. They start and they're like totally different.
Like you could in one day or like one weekend go to both spots and they're like competitors but not competitors. 'cause they're different. Yeah. Those are like the big, like fluffy, almost like croissant like donuts mm-hmm. That are also delicious. Yes. I love And they're in, what's funny is they're in an old bank in downtown Evansville Parlor is in an old bank.
Yeah.
And, and so I was like, oh, I walked in. This is a donut bank. They're like, no, this is parlor
different bank.
Yeah. I also wanna talk about the barbershop real quick before we get into the final question. There's a barbershop in Morristown.
Yeah.
Which is like down, is that Shelby County?
It's Shelby County.
Okay. Tell tell me about this barbershop and the impact that it made in your life.
Yeah. So,, we would go up and visit my grandmother on the weekends, you know, once a month or so, and, and. Periodically I'd get a haircut. And this barbershop, which is closed, you know, you know, 30 years ago now, they would have this, they had this, yardstick that held all of the, the Indiana high school basketball tournaments going back years and years and years.
And the barber would hand write all the scores on all those sheets of paper. And so you can imagine this yardstick and some wing nuts that are holding it all together. And, when he closed the barbershop, he called my dad and he said, Hey, your son would ask questions about the, these tournaments and so forth when he was in, would he want these, you know, these sheets?
My dad was like, well, sure. And so next thing you know, I end up with the sheets of the, in the Indiana basketball tournament going back into the 1940s. And so I've been on this mission to get these framed up and give them to people who, who were participants in that doesn't mean you had to win the whole thing, but if you were just involved in the tournament or whatever and, and get these into communities where.
Someone in those communities would love to have when Muncie Central won, or when, you know, Jasper won in 47 or whatever it is. To be able to see that and just the authentic nature of something like that, that to me is like Indiana, right? Yeah. It's like one, it's one class basketball, which is what it should have always been, stayed that way and so forth., but to have the barber in the small town, having written it every year, who's got the yardstick up, and you can just envision the barbershop conversation right? When the people would come in. You remember back in 62 when so and so hit that jumper and then someone calls him out because that jumper didn't actually go in and the team lost and they point to the sheet and they flip it up and so forth.
What's crazy is that he got all the scores.
Yeah.
I think like radio
had to be right.
Yeah. Right. You're like getting the scores from like the, the Fort Wayne area down to Shelby County, and you're like, and you're like, oh, wait, was the final score this or that? Like, that's impressive.
That's, and the run and the runs in those, it's like there are people that like getting outta your sectional, like I'm sure Anderson versus, you know,, who's off that way, Muncy or whatever, like.
There were years where Anderson was the second best team in the state. It's just Muncie Center was just too good, right? Yeah. And so they're losing in the sectional finals and that would've been actually the second best team in the state, which is the way again, it should be. Yeah.
It's wild. everyone says that.
Yeah. Class is just, which I see giving opportunities to small schools, but you take away the whole Hoosiers effect. And I, I mean, it's so hard, but there are a lot of people that swear that class basketball ruined it. 'cause like the local community, like when, when you're playing for your local bra bragging rights, like you have Southridge versus Jasper versus Forest Park, like they talk about, it was you had to be a multi, like on the wait list for season tickets to get tickets to the sectional.
And I get it, like I get it more in football, obviously. I remember Mater Dei down in Evansville there, they would have banners up that said oh and eight and go into state. Because basically they could lose every game in Evansville, but then they could make it a state as a two a school because you know, you got 22 kids, you need 22 kids to play football, right?
Yeah. You just need five kids in basketball and that's why the Milans could actually still happen.
Yeah. I love it. Okay. Finally, this is the opportunity where we source new guests and hear about other people across the state that are doing awesome things. Who's the hoo? We need to keep on our radar.
Someone who's doing big things.
There's a fellow that I don't think a lot of people, know about. His name's Wes Zirkle, and Wes is a guy who,, Wabash grad IU McKinney School of Law. He comes outta law school and he goes immediately work for CMG. And so, CMG, if you recognize those initials, that's the group that that handles the brands for like James Dean and John Wayne, things like that.
So basically name, image, and likeness stuff along the way. So most people come outta law school and go to work for a law firm.
Yeah,
well, he came out and went straight into industry and so forth. And then from there he goes to work at JMI, which is Zak Brown's business, which is just marketing. And so he spends his first, you know, 15, 20 years out of out of law school, just doing amazingly cool stuff.
Now he is, in from JMI. You can imagine being in the motor racing world, like he's one of the most sought after people in all of motor sports in terms of being a business advisor and a legal advisor. And you would not know he exists because he's just this guy that gets so much done. Who is
this?
Wes Zirkle.
Z-I-R-K-L-E. And he represents a number of different,, IndyCar teams, professional, you know, racing teams, drivers in, circuits and so forth. And coming up on May, obviously the first IndyCar races this weekend, but coming up on the month of May, the stories I'm sure he has,, both coming outta CMG, the JMI days and then what he's doing in, yeah, motor sports would be really cool.
I think I might need an intro to Wes that seems like very interesting and timely, giving maybe right around the corner. John, thank you so much for the time today. It was incredible hearing about your journey from. From the horse track in Kentucky that is on the, the north side of the river. I actually looked that up.
Crazy. Yep. There's like a little sliver, that's on the north side of the river that is technically Kentucky. Did not know about that, but your journey from there up to Bloomington, into Indy growing Valeo to over 100 certified financial planners. Over $12 billion in assets. It's crazy. The journey and your commitment to not only our community, but to your people and just growing a really awesome homegrown business here in the state of Indiana that spread out and made an impact across the nation.
I love it. It's incredible. If people wanna learn more about you, if they wanna learn more about Valeo, where can they do that?
valeofinancial.com.
There we go. Easy sorted in alphabetical order. You can look through there. You won't find 'em at the top. You'll find it in alphabetical order. With the Ws.
appreciate you coming on and giving us the time. Keep up all the great work and we will talk to you soon. Thanks, Nate.
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