Hi, everyone. Welcome to What Works. This is a show for consortium advisors that taps into over 1,000 years of experience shared by our consortium advisors.

I’m your host, Don Patrick, and I’m here to guide the conversation with guest advisors and lift the hood on what works for them in business and life. It’s all about learning and growing.

So let’s go.

Don Patrick: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the IFG Podcast, What Works, and this is episode number 38. Our guests today are Melissa Ekeberg and Chase Gunter of Appalachian Wealth Management up in beautiful Blairsville, Georgia. Welcome.

Melissa Ekeberg: Thank you, Don.

Don Patrick: All right, Melissa, you’ve got more experience. Chase, you’ve had kind of a career change. I’m going to start with Melissa and just—well, first of all, just tell us about your family before we get into the business stuff and let us know a little bit about that.

Melissa Ekeberg: So, I’m married to Eric, and we live here in Blairsville, Georgia, and have for a very long time. We have four kids: Tyler, Zachary, Emily, and Finn. Two are out of the house and two are still there. And the youngest is fixing to turn 13. He’s—so yeah, we’re just busy running the ball and working, and it’s fixing to be spring here, so we’re preparing to be outside and enjoying it.

Don Patrick: Nice. And I’m going to say you’re also kind of a hobbyist farmer.

Melissa Ekeberg: Ah, yes, I love it. In fact, we were just talking last night about when we’re going to start planting; he turned the garden already. So, we’re fearful of that last frost and when it might come, so.

Don Patrick: Well, you call it a garden. It’s pretty big.

Melissa Ekeberg: It’s pretty big. Yeah. I would guess it’s half an acre, probably. That’s without the corn and the potatoes—that’s just the stuff. But I love it. We bring the goodies in here during the summertime whenever it starts coming in. So it’s enjoyable. It keeps me out of trouble.

Don Patrick: So is that your main hobby?

Melissa Ekeberg: Yeah. And running kids to ball. No, I do love to read, too. I’ve always got a book going, but yeah, when it’s warm out, that’s my hobby.

Don Patrick: Nice. Chase, how about you?

Chase Gunter: Yeah, so I have two girls, Caden and Kellen. Caden is 14; she’ll be 15 this summer. Kellen is 11, and we stay pretty busy running around sports as well. We’ve got volleyball in full swing now and soccer. I’m married to Myra and yeah, we just, we don’t have a farm. I do have a little—I do some like some herbs, cilantro and some little things like that, but nothing compared to what Melissa’s got. She brings us—we get eggs and all kinds of jalapeños and stuff that she’ll bring to the office.

Don Patrick: Nice. Yeah.

Chase Gunter: But yeah, that’s about it. And as far as hobbies, I mean, I’m just a chauffeur right now. I like to get out and play golf when I can, which is hardly ever. I like to travel to sporting events. I like to go to sporting events.

Melissa Ekeberg: Georgia is his hobby.

Chase Gunter: Yeah. I’ve got to try to…whenever I can, but I love watching high school sports around here too. I’m really [into it] as well, so.

Don Patrick: And you’re a boater, right?

Chase Gunter: Oh yeah. The boat. That’s a touchy subject. I do, it’s in my driveway as of a couple weeks ago. It’s in my driveway after two years of being in the shop. So, planning on making up for lost time this summer. We’re going to be out on the lake a lot.

Don Patrick: Fun. Cool.

Chase Gunter: Yeah. Yeah.

Don Patrick: Melissa, tell us kind of your progression in the profession: how you got started, why you got started, and how you ended up where you are today.

Melissa Ekeberg: So, the very beginning

Don Patrick: We have a lot of time.

Melissa Ekeberg: Yeah, Well, I’m just going to start there and then really quickly progress. So, I got my foot in the door at what I thought was the bank. United Community Bank back in the day was Carolina Community Bank up in North Carolina, and I was in college and I thought, “I’ll just get my foot in the door and then I’ll be able to work my way up in the bank.” And about three months in, I realized, “This is not the bank; this is their investment department.” And thankfully, I fell in love. And so, I worked my way up from being an unlicensed assistant to 20 years at United in their advisory department.

And then Kristen, our office manager here, and I decided to separate from the bank in 2021 and create our own office. And so, we have been running Appalachian Wealth here in Blairsville independently now since ’21. And it’s been great.

Don Patrick: Yeah. It’s your business.

Melissa Ekeberg: Yeah. Yeah. It’s been wonderful. So it has been a long, long—it feels very short, but you know how it goes. If you think back to when you first started, it feels like it was a long time ago, and yet it still feels like it was yesterday. But it’s been fun. I’ve had a good time.

Don Patrick: Fantastic. Chase, how about you? You’re a career changer, correct?

Chase Gunter: Yeah. My path was a little less conventional, but well, I’ll preface it with: I graduated college in 2009, which was not a great environment to enter the workforce. So, I actually went full-time with a logistics company that I had been working with part-time. And very thankful for that opportunity. I worked with them for years, family owned down in the Athens area. Great group. And learned that’s not what I wanted to be doing. I mean, it’s not what I studied.

And so, ended up going back to school, got my master’s, and got a job at a bank down in central Georgia. And I was in their Madison, Georgia office. It’s United Bank, which is different from United Community Bank—much smaller—but worked there as a loan officer for several years and then my family, we decided to move back home up to Blairsville. And then I got connected with Melissa through my mother, actually. And yeah, it just kind of fell into place. It was a God thing, for sure.

Don Patrick: So you moved back to Blairsville and didn’t have a job?

Chase Gunter: Did not. Nope. I left my job. I gave them a notice. We didn’t end on bad terms or anything, but I sold my house down there, and that was in ’22. The real estate market was ridiculous, so.

Melissa Ekeberg: And he sold it in no time.

Chase Gunter: I didn’t even have to list it. Someone heard that I was going to list it, and then they reached out to me and they said, “What do you want?” And I just threw out a number and they said, “I’ll take it.” So I said, “I want to move up to Blairsville and take some time to kind of figure out what I want to do.” I didn’t want to be in the same situation that I was in, where I was just not really happy with my job. So, I got up here. I actually had an interview with the bank up here and was offered the job, and I almost took it, and I’m so thankful that I didn’t. I mean, I’m sure it would’ve been a good job, but it’s just not what I would’ve really enjoyed or thrived in, I think. So it worked out really well.

Don Patrick: So you two have been together how long?

Chase Gunter: Well, I started in, it was in ’22. It was in the summer.

Melissa Ekeberg: Summer of ’22.

Chase Gunter: Summer of ’22. I moved up here in the spring of ’22 and I started with her in the summer. So, yeah.

Don Patrick: So Melissa’s been your mentor?

Chase Gunter: Absolutely.

Don Patrick: Taught you everything she knows.

Chase Gunter: Absolutely, I’m still learning.

Melissa Ekeberg: We all are. You never know everything.

Don Patrick: We never stop. So, you’ve been together four years, coming up on four years, and last year you became a partner, correct?

Chase Gunter: Yes. Yeah, that was kind of the—

Don Patrick: That’s pretty fast. That’s pretty impressive.

Chase Gunter: Yeah. I think that when we initially got together, that was kind of the goal and we worked towards that. Everything’s worked out in time. So it’s just kind of gone with the flow and it’s really worked really well, I think.

Don Patrick: That’s exciting.

Chase Gunter: Yeah.

Don Patrick: And so Melissa, you have Fridays off now, correct?

Melissa Ekeberg: Yes, I do. So, coming out of that bank environment where you had to be there at 7:30 and go home at 5:30, and you had to be there Monday through Friday and you felt bad if you had to leave early to go take your kids to a ball game, and so this is very refreshing. That is the one thing that I’ve made clear to everybody here in the office: I know and trust that you’re getting your job done, so you don’t have to tell me if you’ve got a hair appointment, just go to your hair appointment. Just let me know when you’re leaving. But if you want to chaperone the trip to the museum, go have fun, do it. So, it’s been nice to be able to have an environment where everybody’s free to have a family and a job.

Chase Gunter: And that was a big thing for me when I was trying to decide what I wanted to do moving up here is I needed flexibility as a father. I was a single father for a little while when I worked at the bank. Trying to get to doctor’s appointments or sporting events was just almost impossible. And I really resented that. And I said, “Never again. I’m not going to do that. I need flexibility. I deserve it.” I think everybody does, so, yeah.

Don Patrick: Yeah. I agree with you, Melissa. Just get the job done. If you’ve got to report to me, then you’re probably not the right person.

Melissa Ekeberg: That’s exactly right. Yep.

Don Patrick: So how did the buyout work, kind of what the terms are, how many years, what percent, and things like that?

Chase Gunter: We looked at a couple different options and we ended up going with seller financing for this first tranche. We’re doing it in four tranches, isn’t that correct? Every other year. And what was the rate we decided on? Five and a half?

Melissa Ekeberg: Yeah. So he interviewed—we connected with Andrews and he gave us several finance companies that were individual to our business and understood how the deal was going to work. The interest rate environment’s ridiculous, and as his financial advisor, I would not suggest that he pay that rate. I’m thankfully in a position that I was fine holding that note. So, we’re definitely doing four tranches. Each tranche he has the ability to use whatever lender he wants. If rates come down and he wants to roll that all together and have his own individual notes somewhere, he can, but at this point, I’m willing to hold notes.

And so it’s basically structured where he’s buying into the business in a quarter tranche, right? But he also had been working in the business for quite a while before he became partner, so he had naturally brought on business of his own. And so at this point, the buyout of my portion—what we consider my portion of the book—was valued, and he’s paying for that separately than his percentage of ownership in the company, if you will. Because we’re sharing revenues across the board. I’ve got a CEO salary, but that basically pays for my health insurance, which is astronomical. And then we have just our general salaries that are the same. And then we take distributions at the percentage of business ownership, not book ownership, if you will. So he’s a third owner, 70% of the business, and then it will continue to shift throughout. So it’s a little different in the separation there just because he had brought on quite a bit of assets just from relationships and contacts he had in the period of time where he was learning the business and making sure he felt comfortable with taking on the buyout of this, and with me. He didn’t blindly enter into this agreement with me as a person for this business that he didn’t understand and didn’t know, and I wanted him to feel comfortable with all that.

Don Patrick: So the clients are not owned by Appalachian? In other words, you have two separate books, is what I’m understanding?

Melissa Ekeberg: Not anymore.

Don Patrick: Okay. So it’s all Appalachian now?

Melissa Ekeberg: Yes. Once we entered into the partnership, all the clients went under—we’ve got a rep code that has his and my name on it for advisory that’s managed, and then brokerage. But it’s his and mine together.

Don Patrick: That’s what it should be.

Melissa Ekeberg: Yes.

Don Patrick: How long is the note for? How many years?

Melissa Ekeberg: I think it was eight years. I’ve got it right down here.

Chase Gunter: Yeah, actually I think that sounds right.

Melissa Ekeberg: And part of his note payment, obviously, when we do distributions is when the note payment is done. So he takes a part of his distribution check and then just restricts the note payment and keeps the difference. Or if he wanted to pay that down, he could too, but that’s completely up to him. I have no preference. In fact, I like the delayed payment because it’s helpful with his taxes.

Don Patrick: Well, that’s fantastic. Obviously, you guys still like each other. How cool is that?

Chase Gunter: Oh, yeah, we get along great. I think everybody does in the office.

Melissa Ekeberg: Yeah. I mean, there are always days that are occasionally a little bit more…but then we go home and we come back and we’re all super kind to one another.

Don Patrick: Yeah, it’s exciting. It’s been great. You guys joined us, this was the plan, and you’re making it happen.

Melissa Ekeberg: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And your team there has been very helpful.

Chase Gunter: Absolutely.

Melissa Ekeberg: It is sort of like—I knew in my mind I could think about what I wanted to eventually happen, but taking it from there to where we are now, we needed help with that. How other people do it, how it works well, what we need to do. And Andrews and Hayes and Lane were super helpful. They had contacts to put us in touch with, or they just gave us what worked from other people in the past. We’d bounce ideas off of them. I thought it was really helpful.

Don Patrick: Yeah. Well, you’ve never done it before.

Chase Gunter: Yeah.

Don Patrick: So we’ve helped a lot of folks with this, plus even our succession planning. It’s been a 12-year journey and so we’ve kind of “been there, done that.”

Melissa Ekeberg: Well, that was, I think too, one of the biggest questions from when I left the bank individually with Kristen. Clients always felt like if something happened to me over the weekend, well, the bank would take care of them. They would figure out who was going to take over their accounts, and those people would naturally trust whoever they put in place, whether that’s right or wrong. But when I left and went independent, the question was, “Well, what happens to you?” And it was rightful. And so, we wanted to make sure—Kristen and I—that whoever was in here with us was somebody that we trusted and felt like they could trust. So it’s just been what we needed to do. It’s been great for all of us. It’s been a good move on all parts.

Don Patrick: That’s fantastic. That’s great. So give us kind of a high-level overview of the practice today. What kind of clients? What does it look like?

Chase Gunter: Oh goodness. Well, how many households are we at now?

Melissa Ekeberg: 250, I think.

Chase Gunter: Yeah, I was thinking 300-something. But yeah, a lot of our clients are retirees that have relocated up here. A lot of our new clients that come on board are in the same situation. I mean, it’s almost weekly I have someone in here that’s, “We just moved from Florida and we want to establish a relationship up here with a financial advisor.” That happens so much.

Don Patrick: Really.

Chase Gunter: Yes, a lot. And I’m thankful for it. They’re great. Most of them are pretty easy to work with. We are kind of venturing into some younger clients, young business owners. We’ve helped them establish retirement plans up here. There’s a lot of young business owners up here, whether they’re contractors or, you know, there’s a lot of that, and they don’t necessarily know what to do with their money or how to save it. And so, we’ve been able to step in and help a lot of those. But yeah, I mean, I think a lot of our clients were from Melissa’s relationship at the bank originally, and I’ll let you speak on that if you want to a little bit.

Melissa Ekeberg: We’re really rural, a very small town, and so we don’t have a lot of client base that is virtual just by the sheer nature of the client base. And if we do have a situation where somebody is a virtual client, it’s usually because they lived here and then they’ve had to move to be closer to family. But most of the time, our clients love that they can stop in Monday through Friday at some point and see us if they need us. They’re very much face-to-face. They’re starting to embrace DocuSign, but that has been a little bit slower go. But yeah, he’s right. I would say my old clients that I brought with me are, it’s an aging book. Now, thankfully, I’ve created really, really great relationships with their kids, and Chase has as well.

And when Chase came on, he definitely brought on—through friendships and just being in the community and knowing other people—young business owners locally. And he is right. You’ve got directional bores, you’ve got contractors, you’ve got farmers, you’ve got guys who run garbage businesses. I mean, these families are pulling in big dollars and they don’t know how to manage—they don’t know how to manage for taxation. They don’t understand risk. So, it’s a lot of education to get them to be a little bit more comfortable. Land is king around here, so if they’re going to invest, they’re going to invest in land. And to get them to understand that land is not the only investment you can make that’s going to pay off for you in the end, and that it truly is riskier than they think, but we’re doing a great job building really great relationships with younger clienteles, is going to keep his business plugging.

Don Patrick: Yeah. That’s huge. Getting demographics to change like that. It almost sounds like people are just knocking on your door. They move into town, knock on your door and say, “I need a planner.” Is that kind of easy?

Chase Gunter: It’s a lot of word-of-mouth referrals from other people that have moved here and had a good experience with us, I think. I had one in here this morning who came in with our current client who referred her. She’s a retiree out of Atlanta and wanted to consolidate some IRAs. And yeah, I tried to get her to DocuSign, but she didn’t have one on her phone. So I said, “That’s okay. We’ll sign them.” But no, it is a lot of word-of-mouth. We do market around here, but it’s minimal compared to a lot of other offices, maybe. We do sponsorships for school sports, golf tournaments, and charity stuff like that. But I think word-of-mouth is our most valuable marketing tool, for sure.

Don Patrick: Fantastic. Also, Melissa, your office is two years old now?

Melissa Ekeberg: Yeah, this building that we’re in. Yeah.

Don Patrick: Did you built—

Melissa Ekeberg: Yeah, it’s two and a half, or it’s coming up on two and a half, yeah. Is that right Chase?

Don Patrick: It is beautiful.

Chase Gunter: I’m trying to think. I don’t even remember.

Melissa Ekeberg: Yeah, this will be our third Christmas here, yeah. So we’re coming up on two and a half.

Don Patrick: So you’re a landlord.

Melissa Ekeberg: Yeah.

Don Patrick: You have two other tenants if I recall?

Melissa Ekeberg: Yeah. There’s a chiropractor who uses two of the units right next to us, and then a local attorney is in a unit here.

Don Patrick: Fantastic. That’s great.

Melissa Ekeberg: That was another thing I could not stand was renting, and I did it for as short as I could.

Don Patrick: That’s great. It’s beautiful. It really is. So you get an introduction to a potential client. What is that experience like for the potential client? How does that work? They come in, is it a phone call? Is it structure? What does it look like?

Melissa Ekeberg: So traditionally, somebody will refer the client; they’ll call in. We have two lines, but they all come in to Kristen. Everything goes through Kristen. In fact, I don’t even have voicemail. If they have a question and they don’t get Kristen, then they can leave a voicemail. Or sometimes, if Chase and I are not busy, we pick up, but she will get them on the calendar to do, ask a few questions so that we feel a little bit more prepared about what we’re gonna talk about.

Nine times out of 10, the client or potential client will say who referred them. “Somebody’s told us to give you a call.” So she’ll tap that in and then Chase meets with all new customers. If I meet with a customer that is new to us, it may only be because my current client referred them, and we’re gonna do the handoff at some point. But I’m not normally meeting with new clients anymore.

Don Patrick: Okay, nice. So then what happens, Chase? Phone call comes in and then what?

Chase Gunter: Yeah, they come in and we just meet, chat for a little bit, kind of get to know them, their situation, what they’re looking for, and how we can help them, and just kind of go from there.

Melissa Ekeberg: We use Jump, and so we have some questions we go through. Like we traditionally always wanna know a few things. We’ll follow up with an email to document what we did, what we talked about, and then if we had spoke about anything in particular, we might follow up with those items as well. But then it’s really between—Chase, I don’t think you’ve had anybody where you didn’t feel comfortable doing business with them yet.

Chase Gunter: No.

Melissa Ekeberg: And so then we sort of, it’s up to the customer to decide if they wanna move forward with us. I mean, we’ve got a fee for service and we’ve got the lists of services. We very rarely do not close the customer.

Chase Gunter: We have recently tried to implement an account minimum. I think that has maybe—I wouldn’t say turned away, but disqualified a couple. I know I had one in here last week and he didn’t quite qualify, but I tried to help him as much as I could.

But, so we’ve tried to kind of do that where we’re not just taking anybody and everybody that walks through the door because it does get kind of overwhelming with the amount of households and clients that we have. But most people we do take on and we don’t have a problem closing.

Don Patrick: So do you charge an asset management fee or a separate fee? How do you charge?

Melissa Ekeberg: So, yeah, we’ve got an asset management fee, flat fee, with break points based off of your assets under management with us, unless they require something. Like some of my clients from the bank are, it’s still transactional business and it’s gonna take some time. That’s what I’m tasked with. I don’t meet with new clients that I have a list of who I’m supposed to convert, but clients coming in now are assets under management on our breakpoint schedule.

Don Patrick: So since you mentioned Jump, let’s jump into your technology. So Jump is fantastic. Anything else you’re using technology wise?

Chase Gunter: Well, we’re exploring Wealthbox right now, I think. We’re in the process of doing that. We use Redtail right now, and it’s a little dated, I feel like, so we’re exploring Wealthbox,

Melissa Ekeberg: We use OneSub for appointment scheduling.

Chase Gunter: Yeah.

Melissa Ekeberg: Redtail. Thinking about Wealthbox. Jump.

Chase Gunter: RightCapital.

Melissa Ekeberg: Right capital for our plans

Chase Gunter: Yeah.

Melissa Ekeberg: Then we also use—so we have socials, we have LinkedIn, and we have a Facebook page that our marketing director, who is part-time and started out as our intern, takes care of. And so anything associated with that that’s required, we have that in place. There was something else…

Don Patrick: MyRepChat, maybe?

Melissa Ekeberg: We have MyRepChat. Yes. MyRepChat. And clients really like that. It’s been super helpful.

Don Patrick: Isn’t that amazing? So they won’t sign electronically…

Chase Gunter: Nope.

Melissa Ekeberg: They will text you.

Chase Gunter: They’ll text everything.

Melissa Ekeberg: Yes.

Chase Gunter: But I’ll take it. I actually prefer it. Some of the communication doesn’t require an actual phone call. Sometimes they’ll text us just to say thanks. Like, I think the other day someone texted, “Thanks for that.” So it’s helpful.

Melissa Ekeberg: Yeah.

Don Patrick: Nice. And RightCapital—it’s a great tool. I mean, and it does so much.

Melissa Ekeberg: We used to use WealthVision, and he and I would get—we would get stuck on certain things all the time, and I thought, “It cannot be this hard. It should not be this hard.” You have to change it in this weird place. Yeah. So we’ve—

Don Patrick: All steps.

Chase Gunter: Yeah.

Don Patrick: Yeah. It’s deep. It’s almost like Excel; you can never learn it all.

Melissa Ekeberg: But they’re super helpful. We’ve had to get them on the phone in two or three situations, and I mean, one time I even chatted with them and they showed me how to fix it. It was great.

Don Patrick: Oh, that’s cool.

Chase Gunter: Yeah.

Don Patrick: Well, RightCapital is very intuitive.

Chase Gunter: Yeah. The clients like to see it, too.

Don Patrick: Yeah.

Chase Gunter: They like to see the charts and the graphs and projections; they enjoy seeing that.

Don Patrick: Yeah. I mean, modern technology in terms of financial planning is fantastic because now the client drives it. They make the decisions. They get to see the impact of the choices. We’re not telling them what to do.

Chase Gunter: I’ve got one now I’m working on. He may have to bump retirement a couple years and he wants to see what that looks like, so…

Don Patrick: Absolutely.

Melissa Ekeberg: In RightCapital, you just slide the scale two years forward and it’s like that, and you can do it right in front of them. It’s very nice.

Don Patrick: So now I’m a client. What does that look like on an annual basis in terms of meetings, phone calls, or whatever that is like?

Chase Gunter: Well, we meet at least once a year, but it’s probably usually more than that. We have some clients that want to meet quarterly or at least talk on the phone quarterly. We have some probably twice a year, but at least once a year, obviously. And we used to send out a monthly email, just kind of like keeping everyone up to date with what’s going on in the economy. And I’ve actually been kicking around maybe starting that back up and maybe utilizing some AI stuff. I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about that.

But, and we keep them involved as much as we can, as much as they want to be. And we do stuff outside of business as well. Melissa started an Appalachian Heritage Tour, which is really cool. And we go to different sites, different places around the community, and we have whoever leads it just give us a tour.

Melissa Ekeberg: Privately and just for our clients. And then we make a donation. Like, we did the local courthouse; we did what’s called the Mock House here, where they have a mock—an old-time cabin—and they have somebody come in and walk through the history of Appalachia. Every year we have a client appreciation event, and for two years we had it at our local community center, which is also at the golf course in an event space there.

And then this past year, to sort of go in line with the Appalachian Heritage Tour, one of our clients owns an event center that used to be a CCC camp base when they built Vogel State Park. So we had our client appreciation event at the event space, and he actually spoke about the CCC camp. So it’s part of our Appalachian Heritage Tour, but it was also the client appreciation event. We had a photographer come in and do family photos if they wanted to outside. It’s always in the fall, around Thanksgiving. We provided those pictures to them for free. We gave gifts. Last year we actually did the personalized cutting boards. We do Thanksgiving cards rather than Christmas cards, so you would get that. If you’re an A client, we call you on your birthday. If you’re a B client, we send you an email. Lots of touches throughout the year.

Chase Gunter: Lot of touches.

Melissa Ekeberg: Yeah. Lots of socials regarding what we’re doing in the community, where we’re giving in the community. Chase is a member of the Chamber and is a Chamber Ambassador. So we just make sure we’re letting them know that we’re out there, we’re also a member of this community, helping in the community, being a part of where they live and work and play.

Don Patrick: Well, being in a smaller community, it’s hard to do some of those things in the big city.

Melissa Ekeberg: Mm-hmm.

Don Patrick: I mean, traffic and everything else.

Melissa Ekeberg: Yes.

Don Patrick: People just don’t want to do it. But being up in Blairsville, yeah, that’s fantastic.

Melissa Ekeberg: That is all the marketing we need.

Don Patrick: Yeah.

Melissa Ekeberg: And it’s funny, a lot of people think it might be silly, but we still do an ad in the paper, and when they say, “What do we want in the ad?” I say, “We want our face.” I want people to see us when they’re at the grocery store and say, “Oh, I see,” or recognize us from the paper. And it’s still—and we still—there’s people that buy and read the paper here in Blairsville, so.

Don Patrick: Yeah. No, I agree with that. In a small community like that, branding is inexpensive and yeah, it keeps your face out there—maybe a billboard.

Melissa Ekeberg: We’ve thought about it.

Don Patrick: We’ve had some advisors do that in the smaller communities. Yeah. And, anyway, I was going to ask about any challenges in the business. I mean, you just did the succession plan last year, that’s challenging. Beautiful office building, that’s challenging. Anything else on the horizon that’s kind of a challenge, or are things just running nice?

Chase Gunter: I don’t think anything that’s particularly specific to us. I mean, I think our industry in general has its challenges. And like Melissa said, our client base is aging.

Melissa Ekeberg: Yes. That, I think, is our biggest challenge.

Chase Gunter: That—and that’s probably the biggest challenge. But there’s always people moving in. I mean, it’s a growing community for sure.

Don Patrick: That’s good and bad.

Chase Gunter: Yeah, it is.

Melissa Ekeberg: I think one of the biggest challenges is even though we’re in a rural community where we get very, very easy referrals is that it’s very expensive to live here. Very expensive.

Don Patrick: Really?

Melissa Ekeberg: Yes. So kids that are graduating college and wanting to move back here, it’s very cost-prohibitive. You can’t find a starter home in Blairsville.

Don Patrick: Oh my gosh, that’s crazy.

Melissa Ekeberg: There’s no tract housing or high-density housing, whatever you want to call it. There’s nothing that’s affordable. You’re either Section 8 or you’re buying a half-million-dollar to million-dollar home. And the half-million-dollar homes are brick ranches that were built in the forties that probably need a little bit of updating and they’re going to have to put a lot of money into it. So it’s just—it’s almost impossible. And I think that’s where, if we can get those younger clients, we really hold onto them because we do, just in general, have an older population here because of the cost of living.

Don Patrick: Is that driven by all the people moving in there or other reasons?

Melissa Ekeberg: I think it’s because we live in a beautiful area with tons of TVA lakes, and when people are retired, they want to move here. They want to live at the lake. They don’t care if you have to drive an hour to go to a Target. I think it’s appealing to that generation.

Chase Gunter: It’s a second home community. And it has been for as long as I can remember. A lot of houses that go on the market here—the pricier ones—they’re advertised in Atlanta and in Florida more than they are in this area, because that’s their clientele that’s most likely going to purchase that house.

Don Patrick: Fascinating.

Melissa Ekeberg: We had a client two years ago that came in and he was preparing to put his house on the market, and he said they would be happy if they could get 1.2. I said, “Well, have you really talked to a realtor?” They hadn’t. So we put them in touch with a few, and they had it sold in two days for 2 million, cash offer.

Don Patrick: Oh my gosh.

Chase Gunter: Yeah.

Don Patrick: Yeah. That’s why young people can’t afford to live there.

Melissa Ekeberg: Yeah.

Don Patrick: That’s crazy.

Chase Gunter: The cash buyers, since COVID, have really done a number.

Don Patrick: Amazing.

Melissa Ekeberg: Yeah.

Don Patrick: What year did y’all join IFG? It was about three, three and a half years ago.

Melissa Ekeberg: It’s right at three. Because I think we joined right after Focus.

Chase Gunter: Yeah.

Don Patrick: Yes.

Melissa Ekeberg: And I went to one Focus, and you’ve been to three, right, Chase?

Chase Gunter: Focus?

Melissa Ekeberg: Not Focus, sorry.

Don Patrick: The Retreat.

Melissa Ekeberg: The Retreat.

Chase Gunter: Yeah.

Melissa Ekeberg: So we’re right at three; I think it was actually April 16th or something like that. It was right after tax day. So we’re coming up on ti.

Don Patrick: You knocked your transition out. I mean, you really knocked it out. Although I think there were some hiccups, if I recall, with LPL, but it didn’t bother you.

Chase Gunter: Yeah, we did have a lot of people that wanted to wet-sign, so that kind of dragged things out a little bit—having to get people in the office here. But I mean, for the most part—and this was my first transition—so I thought it went pretty smooth.

Melissa Ekeberg: Yeah. As transitions go, it was really nice. We might have had one or two people that had additional questions, but nobody who didn’t—I don’t think there was anybody who didn’t come.

Chase Gunter: No, I don’t either.

Don Patrick: That’s fantastic. And why’d you join IFG? The Brain Trust?

Chase Gunter: I’ll let Melissa answer that.

Melissa Ekeberg: Okay. I didn’t know I was going to jump in. So, I will tell you one of the things that I truly enjoyed at United was the fact that if I had a question or didn’t know something, I could reach out to one of the other financial advisors across the bank environment. And we were all coworkers and friends, and we all wanted to see each other do really well.

And when you’re independent, sometimes you can feel like you’re on an island or you don’t have somebody you can reach out to, or that doesn’t live or work in a market that’s similar to yours. I can reach out to somebody I know, but if they live in downtown Chicago, they’re not going to have that same business model as me and might not be able to shed light on a question I really need answers to. And so the fact that you guys had a group of financial advisors that all felt that same way. They were willing to share, they were willing to help you with ideas, nobody was in competition with each other. That, to me, felt really good and really like home.

I had had a desire to get back to LPL. I know a lot of people might think that’s silly, but I had been in a lot of other places and, just to be quite honest with you, the grass is not always greener, and I liked LPL, and so I was glad to get back there. And then I’ve known Land all the way back…uh-huh. So I knew Land had become part of IFG, and I had followed him for years and years, and he and I had even spoke once before about my potential transition when I was at United, and I just wasn’t ready. Probably, I don’t know, 10 years before I actually moved. So, it was sort of natural to reach out to him and, I don’t know, I just, I felt like it was the right fit for us.

Don Patrick: Yeah, I think it was. You guys have been flourishing. I mean, it’s been great.

Melissa Ekeberg: Yes.

Don Patrick: Yeah. Now, Chase, you’re in a Mastermind group. I don’t know, Melissa, are you in a Mastermind group? No, I don’t think so. Right?

Melissa Ekeberg: No.

Don Patrick: So what’s your experience like, Chase?

Chase Gunter: Well, we just got going.

Don Patrick: Oh. This is the new one? Yes.

Chase Gunter: Yeah. Yeah. We had our first meeting the day before the Retreat this year. But yeah, we’re already looking to expand; I think we may add another member or two. But yeah, I’m excited for what it’s going to bring. And I think my group is really, really great. We’re spread out over Atlanta, Alabama a little bit, and just bringing some different perspectives. So it’ll be good. I’m looking forward to it.

Don Patrick: Yeah, they’re amazing, and it just gets better and better.

Melissa Ekeberg: Even just the emails, Don. Just like the other day when somebody asked for a referral for somebody who understands how to price out timber, or somebody to sell gold to. I mean, these are very specific investment questions that sometimes you don’t know the answer to, and it has been so refreshing to have everybody just sort of chiming in and helping. I’ve loved it.

Don Patrick: Fantastic. Yeah, that’s what it’s about.

Melissa Ekeberg: Mm-hmm.

Don Patrick: It’s the old Brain Trust.

Chase Gunter: That’s right.

Don Patrick: So I’m going to ask a few questions. So Melissa, I’ll start with you. List three words that describe your talents and strengths.

Melissa Ekeberg: So, education, I think, number one is I like to—I feel the need to educate our customers to remove some fear there. I don’t have a problem trying to make it as easy as possible to understand. I enjoy it when I feel like it clicks for them. I’m not scared to hold a client accountable. If they’re spending too much money or giving their kids too much money, or not spending enough money, then I will tell them. “You need to enjoy this; go on a vacation, have fun. We maybe should lower your income a little bit during the down market if you want to have this in mind for a goal.” I’m not afraid to do that. And then these people are like family, so I’m really good at building relationships. I just—I enjoy them coming in. We talk about more stuff outside of this business than we talk about in this business when they’re in my office. And I love that. So I think those are the three traits that have helped me enjoy this work and also be successful at what I do.

Don Patrick: Well, it doesn’t sound like work to me. Sounds like…

Melissa Ekeberg: No. Yeah.

Don Patrick: How about you, Chase?

Chase Gunter: Yeah, so I think community involvement is really big for me. I grew up here and moved away for a while, and I got involved in my community down near Athens, and then when I moved back I kind of just hit the ground running. I grew up with my parents being heavily involved in the community, so it was kind of natural. I know a lot of people here and I want to help this place thrive. So I’ve gotten involved in a lot of different groups and organizations. And then building relationships for me is also really big. I like to connect with people, and I think that’s a big part of our business and even outside of our business, just community in general. I think building relationships is super important. And then I would say probably I am naturally an optimist, for whatever that’s worth. I think that’s kind of important in our industry as well, because people get scared and they look to us to kind of see how to react to things. So I’m an optimist. I always have been, and not just in this business, but in my personal life as well, so.

Don Patrick: Love it. So Chase, tell us something about yourself that most people don’t know.

Chase Gunter: Oh my gosh, I don’t even know. Geez. Well—

Don Patrick: We can always edit this thing if you need.

Chase Gunter: No, that’s fine. Yeah, I was…let’s see. Fun fact: I survived a missile crisis in Hawaii several years ago.

Don Patrick: What? A missile crisis?

Chase Gunter: Yeah, it was a super interesting story. It was all over the news. I can’t remember what year it was

Don Patrick: I think I remember that now.

Chase Gunter: 2018 or something like that. But we were in Hawaii—it was my first and only time I’ve been to Hawaii. And we were with—it was me and my late wife and then another couple, friends of ours, my best friend from growing up. And we were out there; he was running in a race, so he was actually in the jungle, and it was me and my wife and his wife. We were going to go sightseeing that day, so we were headed to Pearl Harbor.

On the way there, I was driving and all of our phones just started blowing up with the alert notification saying, “SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. BALLISTIC MISSILE INBOUND. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” And so it was like something out of a movie. We were sitting at a red light and then all of a sudden people just started driving around us through the red light. I mean, people were hopping curbs, driving through fields. People were running across the streets. We were right at Pearl Harbor, so we pulled in there and they had a cop that was directing us into the gift shop. So we get in the gift shop and they make us—you remember the tornado drills where you have to crouch down and…

Don Patrick: Uh-huh.

Chase Gunter: We were told to do that, which I did not do because I thought that was absolutely ridiculous.

Melissa Ekeberg: You’re going to die or you’re not.

Chase Gunter: Exactly. I said, “Yeah. If I’m going out, I want to see it.” So the gift shop was literally three walls of glass. So we were standing there looking over Pearl Harbor, waiting to be blown up. And that went on for almost an hour. It was like 45 minutes. We were in there not knowing what was going on. And I finally saw on Twitter that it was a false alarm. It was wild.

Melissa Ekeberg: Was that the situation where that one guy got let go because he accidentally sent out the alarm or something like that?

Chase Gunter: It was something like that. It was—yeah, it got sent out to all the phones and I read about it later. There were people hiding in the sewers. There were people that had cardiac events because of it. I think Jim Carrey was actually on the island; he did an interview talking about how that really affected him. And, yeah, it was pretty wild. I don’t know. Interesting story, but I never got to see Pearl Harbor; we left after that. And we actually just went and got some beer and sat on the beach for the rest of the day because we were so shook that we really couldn’t enjoy any kind of sightseeing. Yeah, that was it. And then the next day we were hiking up a volcano and I met Tim Tebow at the top of the volcano. So it was super random. It was just a really random trip. But yeah, it was interesting.

Melissa Ekeberg: Memorable.

Chase Gunter: Melissa, see if you can top that one.

Melissa Ekeberg: I think everybody who knows me well enough knows that I’m an open book. I don’t think there’s anything I will not or have not shared. I thought the whole time Chase was talking about something that people don’t know about me. I ran track one year in high school and it was hurdles. And I do not know why or how other people run track. Your shins hurt the entire time and the hurdles will take you out in a heartbeat. And I don’t know why my track coach thought that I would be good at hurdles, because I’m all of 5’7″ with some stub legs. So, there.

Don Patrick: That’s a good one. Well, this has been fantastic. I want to thank you both for taking the time and effort and sharing with all of us. These things are great, and I just want to thank you both again, Melissa and Chase.

Melissa Ekeberg: Thank you, Don.

Chase Gunter: Thank you, Don. Yeah, appreciate it.

Well, that’s it for today’s show. Thanks for listening.

If you’ve got something to share, send an email to dpatrick@thebraintrust.net. We want to know what works.

Until next time. See ya.