Donald Patrick
Hey everybody, welcome to the IFG Podcast, What Works! And our special guest today is Wes Littlejohn of Marathon Financial Strategies in Atlanta, Georgia. And we’ll find out a little bit about how the name Marathon came about, but welcome Wes.

Wes Littlejohn
Well, thank you for having me, Don. The name Marathon, do we want to get into that or do we want to get, we will. Okay.

Donald Patrick
We will. I want to hear about you first. Let’s just talk a little bit about you, your personal background, your family, hobbies. Let’s kick it off that way.

Wes Littlejohn
Yeah. Yeah. All right. I’m from Greenville, South Carolina. I moved here in 2000. My mom was a teacher. My dad was a dentist. And my dad was an entrepreneur. I always kind of looked up to my dad being an entrepreneur, but I had a lot of teachers in my family. My grandmother was a professor at a university.

My uncle was a professor at the university. Anyway, I have a lot of teachers in my background, but anyway, I went to school at the College of Charleston. I ran cross country in college and I was all set to go to Clemson and the last minute I changed my mind. I got a big scholarship to the College of Charleston. It was $300 and I already had my dorm picked out.

to the Clemson and I said, I’m gonna go somewhere. I’m gonna go run in college or whatever, but it was neat. My mom negotiated at $400. She went back, she was a master negotiator. Yeah, I do, I do. The Coliseum’s named after my great-grandfather. He was a business manager there from, he was there for 50 years from 1904 to 1954.

Donald Patrick
So you have special tidy Clemson.

Wes Littlejohn
They named the Coliseum after him in the sixties. And I would say, Don, that he was responsible for most of the building, a lot of the building at Clemson. He was the acting president during the Great Depression. kept the school together during that period of time. And if you had a, if you looked at Mount Rushmore right now, you would, and you looked at the five Clemson greats, he would be one of the Clemson greats. So.

A lot of Clemson connections. I used to love going to games. I still love going to games. And so that was my Clemson connection. I have two kids. I’ve got one at Georgia Tech. And I remember when he got his acceptance to Georgia, he had a Clemson shirt on. So he was always excited about going to Clemson.

But anyway, he’s a big tennis player. plays in my tennis team and we go to a bunch of baseball games together. And I’ve got a daughter who’s a junior in high school and she’s into theater and we go to some shows together. And sometimes she feels like I leave her out. I don’t spend too much time with my son. But anyway, those are my kids. My wife works with me. She’s worked with me for five years. She worked at Coke for 20 years.

And she brings a lot of, she’s very efficient, she’s very organized and she fills in a lot of gaps that I’m weak in. So we make a good team. But anyway, that’s a little bit about my family. And I graduated from the College of Charleston in 1995. I had an accounting degree and I remember it was December of 1995 and I was looking for a job.

and I got the phone book out and I called every single CPA firm in Greenville and I lined up an interview and I got a job as a tax preparer. And I also did some other stuff for the firm, but it was, it’s just interesting. The firm, I don’t have the best handwriting in the world. And my interview consisted of a, I had to write.

Wes Littlejohn
I had to write, he checked my handwriting to see if I was good at writing handwriting because we didn’t have computers back then. But anyway, it was a good experience. learned a lot. And then I passed the CPA exam and ended up working for Ernst & Young for about three years doing audit. And then I worked, took a job at Koch in 2000 as an internal auditor, learned a lot of.

Donald Patrick
That’s right.

Wes Littlejohn
a lot of good stuff. did some overseas travel, went to Estonia. We were auditing the Baltic region. Anyway, but the bottom line is I had a lot of corporate jobs. I was working at Cox Communication. That was probably my third big corporate job. And I thought to myself, maybe I think I prefer a smaller environment, similar to what my dad had. I was beginning to…

I did the books for my dad and kind of saw how things were running there, but I missed the relationships, the small business aspect. And so I did what I felt comfortable with. got the phone book out again. Actually, it might’ve been the internet at this point. This was about 2004 and I started calling financial planning firms and I got a hold of a fellow. was 78 years old. His name was Mr. Ed. And he said, I’m looking for somebody who can

take over the book in two years and I think he’d be perfect for this job. And I have to say that I really appreciate him giving me the opportunity to get into financial planning and work with him. He was always very…

Donald Patrick
How did you know what financial planning was? I how did that come about? I mean, a lot of people don’t even know what it means.

Wes Littlejohn
Well, I’ll tell you what’s interesting is I got into it. I actually had an interest in financial planning when I was in my 20s. My grandfather gave me some stock and I thought, really, thought financial planning was stock picking. But I got into investments. I really kind of liked it in my 20s. I remember working at Ernst & Young and I remember making more money trading stocks.

than I was making in my day job. I thought I was a pro until, I was a genius until 2000 hit and we had the market dropped and I wasn’t as smart as I thought. I remember I was working at Cox Communication and I was taking an investment planning class because I was interested in going that route. I talked to a career service person and he said, well, you

Donald Patrick
You’re a genius.

Wes Littlejohn
see if you like the classes over at Oglethorpe. And if you like it, then you can work in corporate America, you can do this job, but maybe you can transition out after a period of time. So anyway, I had an itch in my 20s to do this, figured there was no way I could build a book of business in my 20s. And didn’t really understand it that well, but got into, took a class or two at Oglethorpe. And anyway, it was time for me to make a change and…

got into financial planning.

Donald Patrick
Fabulous. did eventually you inherit the book from Mr. Ed? You know that’s a horse, by the way.

Wes Littlejohn
Yeah. I tell you what, when I first met with him, I thought he was 68. He said he was 78. I found out he was 78 after I started working for him. But I’ve never seen I’ve never seen somebody work so hard. He spent 60 hours a week in the office and he expected me to be there 60 hours a week during the time he was there. But it was really six years, six years working under him. And then he he had to leave the business and

Donald Patrick
Most people won’t know what this means.

Wes Littlejohn
Anyway, so I was running the business for the last four years. He was before I left and came over to IFG 11 years ago.

Donald Patrick
and he just gave you the book, you didn’t have to pay for it.

Wes Littlejohn
that would be nice. That’s what it sounded like when I signed on originally. It didn’t necessarily work out exactly the way I planned, but I got a chance to. I left and it was a difficult transition. And I took a lot of the clients that I had been working with at the old firm and started here. Yeah.

Donald Patrick
So you left, this is when you came to IFG? Okay.

Wes Littlejohn
So I came in 2004 and, but anyway, 10 years, I was 10 years in the business. And ultimately I thought I’d seen my dad as an entrepreneur. thought, you know, I want to be an entrepreneur just like him. And, but I had no idea what an entrepreneur meant. And I really didn’t understand what financial planning was because we were mostly just, just investment guys. were just,

investing in stocks and mutual funds. And I remember talking to you and you were telling me, I’ve met with you once a quarter. And you said, Wes, there’s so much more to this than just investments. And you said, all right, if you have a child who’s 18 years old, then you need to think about a power of attorney and think about estate planning. And I had passed the CFP exam and I was a CPA.

But really, didn’t, I knew what, maybe I knew what tax planning was, but at the old firm, we were mostly just using Excel spreadsheets and it was, I just, I don’t know, I didn’t understand what was going on. So I appreciate all the meetings you had with me starting out, getting processes down and anyway, but that’s, like said, it was 11 years ago and I’m appreciative that I landed here.

Donald Patrick
Well, there’s a lot of brain power. You’re in a mastermind group. I think you do the business planning in the fall. There’s a lot of experienced, smart people. So you went from spreadsheets to modern day software tools.

Wes Littlejohn
yeah.

Wes Littlejohn
Exactly. I really like the financial planning software. I like the Wealthvision software. It reminds me of it’s cash flow based. It reminds me of doing taxes and doing planning. And I just like having everything in one place and being able to run scenarios for folks, being able to tell people, oh, you can spend this much or you can retire at this age or

I didn’t have any of those capabilities before. so that’s really, I’d really love that the financial planning software, really reminds me of accounting and taxes and CPA type work. And so that was an eye opener. The other thing is I think about Holista plan, which is the tax planning software. And tax planning is something that,

I had talked to some folks at the consortium a few years earlier and I said, I really want to do tax planning. Well, one of the folks in the consortium said, well, you can do it. You just have to enter all the data from the tax return into this software. And it was just so cumbersome and I didn’t get into it. But now I think, there’s so many things I can do like Roth conversions. can look at withdrawals, sequencing, ERMA planning.

all these type things I’d never really thought about. So anyway, that’s kind of how it landed.

Donald Patrick
So how do you enjoy financial planning compared to just being an investment guy?

Wes Littlejohn
Well, I think if I think about investments, I remember quarter after quarter after quarter meeting with folks and really getting like night sweats because I was worried that the market was down 20 % or 10 % and I was going to have to explain to my client that, you know, why this position was down or this position, you know, that position was up and, it was, it was stress. It was kind of stressful. And I, I, when I got into financial planning, it was more on the.

What are your goals and how do we reach your goals? And are we on track? Are we not on track? And it feels like more of a long-term relationship. I feel like I’m adding more value. I think in a lot of ways, investments have changed. I went from maybe being a stockbroker at the old firm to being more of, again, a financial planner where I’m helping people more with their lives and not just their investments. So it’s a different.

It’s definitely much better.

Donald Patrick
I’ve always said that a good financial planner has more impact on a family’s lives than a physician does until they get older. I mean, we’re there for all the major events, good and bad in their lives.

Wes Littlejohn
I always…

And that’s one of the things I really like about this business is that I’d be, I’m a part of their lives. I’m a part of the good times, the bad times, you know, going to baseball games with clients and going to weddings for, you know, the clients kids and, and funerals and, just a baseball, baseball game this weekend with one client. But, anyway, yeah, I remember you telling me that, that we were

right up there with doctors and I thought, I don’t know about that, Don, I think you’re kind of stretching it. But as I got into it more, I thought, that does make a lot of sense. We are important folks. We’re not just.

Donald Patrick
You

Donald Patrick
help kids go to college, we probably prevent divorces. Money is a huge issue in marriages. And I’ve always found with a new client and they’ve gone through the planning process and they got to see it all put together. It’s, they didn’t know it, but there was a weight taken off their shoulders like, I get it now.

Wes Littlejohn
Yeah.

Wes Littlejohn
Mm-hmm.

Wes Littlejohn
It’s interesting, Don, in the last week, I’ve had two people that have just retired, prospects, they’re no longer getting a paycheck. And so they’re losing sleep. They’re worried about this and worried about that. Cause it’s, you know, it’s a different, different from going from accumulation to distribution. And so just kind of giving these people, you know, you can sort of see a weight off their shoulders when you tell them that maybe they’ve got 195 % confidence of.

They’ve got plenty of money, they’re gonna be okay and they can take vacations or they can do the work that they need done on their house. so that really, yeah, it’s a good feeling to be able to help people.

Donald Patrick
It is. Although it’s even people who are in great shape financially, a lot of them struggle with that. It takes a year or two. I call full-time unemployment and you write the paycheck.

Wes Littlejohn
Exactly. Exactly. It’s definitely a different mindset. And I guess in the old days, you think people had pensions and social security and now they don’t necessarily have that. anyway, I always say there are some people that haven’t saved enough and you have to be realistic with them and say, maybe you thought you could spend X amount, but you’re only going to be able to spend this much. you still can do it.

Yeah, we will make it work. So, yeah, exactly.

Donald Patrick
Yeah, there’s always alternatives. So since we started talking about technology, so using wild fission, you’re using a whole list of plan, anything else that you use technology wise.

Wes Littlejohn
Mm-hmm.

Wes Littlejohn
Well, there’s several other tools that I really like. I have a scheduling app that I started using with folks and getting a lot of meetings scheduled through that. That’s been very helpful. I’ve started for the last, since guess since 2020, been doing Zoom meetings with folks.

It’s really interesting. There folks that live a couple of miles from where I live and they still want to do a Zoom meeting. so it makes it lot more efficient if you don’t have to go into the office. But I will say this, I had a client a couple of days ago and he drove two and a half hours. It was actually a prospect and he said he wanted to see me face to face because he wanted to see

he just felt like he got to know me a lot better from that. so you can, the Zoom can do really well with the clients that know you, but, you know, and sometimes I’ve got older folks that want to come into the office too, and they just feel comfortable with that. I want to get a better handle on Jump. We’ve got that in the, we’ve started using it in the last few months, and I think that’ll save me a lot of time. And,

I’m also, Don, I’m looking at Wealthbox. I’m using Redtail right now. And my son is computer science major at Georgia Tech, and we’re gonna put him to work this summer. And I think that’ll be right up his alley to convert to a better system to track our clients. I think that’s.

Donald Patrick
Mm-hmm.

Donald Patrick
Well, he’s a brainiac. He could probably use AI and create a CRM better than Wealthbox for you.

Wes Littlejohn
Exactly, exactly. Sometimes he gets too big of a head, so I have to keep him in line.

Donald Patrick
So is he gonna help you convert? Is that the idea?

Wes Littlejohn
I think so, yeah. think he’s going to us convert. That’s probably my biggest weakness, my biggest source of, it’s really technology. How do I use technology efficiently? And it changes all the time too. But anyway, hopefully my son will get into that and he’ll help me with, when you get to more clients and having to serve more folks.

You’ve got to have better processes to make sure you’re staying in touch with them. And I don’t know, maybe it’s their birthday or maybe it’s just a special, like an anniversary or something, being able to have all this information available to you, it really makes a difference.

Donald Patrick
does. So I’m curious, so your wife’s been with you five, six years now in the business, five years. So compare and contrast what your life was like prior to that and what it’s like now and what it’s done to the business.

Wes Littlejohn
Five years, five years.

Wes Littlejohn
Well, first of all, I’ll back up for my wife. I’ll talk about the ASAP team. Okay. So I work with Sam Mitchell and Sam and I’ve worked with a number of ASAP folks and I would say that they have made a humongous difference, first of all, because I remember spending half my day fixing service alerts, doing all the administrative stuff that kept me from being able to connect with clients.

And so I would say that made a huge difference. I had Carmen on my transition and Carmen was wonderful. But there was a period of time when it was just me. anyway, I felt like I just wasted so much time doing things that I wasn’t good at. But if we talk about my wife, we’ve got processes, we’ve got onboarding processes. We have a new client, we’ve got…

Steps to, you know, this is, are the things that we’re going to cover. And these are the things that we, we saw for, for, for, for clients and, and having just, processes and systems. I think for a good bit of time, I wasn’t really using Redtail effectively, in terms of using workflows and, and having my wife on board, have our weekly meetings with the ASAP person. I just felt like there was a lot of things that fell through the cracks before I had.

before I had Sally working with me. And she worked in, she did a lot with processes and controls and she worked 20 years at Coke and she has a pretty good understanding of how to communicate. And when we have new clients, she’s really good with when we have prospects and just making it look very professional. And I would say another thing is our meetings are a lot more.

I think that my meetings weren’t deep enough and I think she’s constantly trying to make it so we add more more value to the quarterly or the yearly meetings that we have. So yeah, it’s definitely, I feel like I’m not as stressed out. She helps me with, we have problems that come up with clients and she can help me with getting the answers and just.

Wes Littlejohn
providing good customer service. And there’s just a lot to keeping new clients and getting new clients and just being able to, you know, offer more than just investment, investment management, which is kind of what I did for a long time.

Donald Patrick
So what are some of the things she’s actually doing? It sounds like she actually, you two interface a little bit even with the financial planning itself and some the solutions.

Wes Littlejohn
So yeah, she does a lot with the financial planning. She knows Wealth Vision really well. She knows Alista plan really well. She’s really good with technology. I prefer, I do prefer the investments and I do a lot of, I guess I do the relationship management, business development. So we, I think the main thing is just kind of stay in your lane, figure out what you’re good at and

I mean, I really like relationships and people and I, and, and, and, so, you know, I try to, I try to stay, stick to, you know, trying to keep the clients. have, Don, believe it or not, I have some clients I’ve talked to every single week. And, so maybe I’ve trained them, I’ve trained them wrong, but I just, I just like keeping up with people and relationships and

and I don’t wanna get ahead of myself, but I was thinking about one thing that kind of makes me different than others is it is sort of the relationship building. I have friends that I’ve known since I was in first grade that I keep up with once a week, every two weeks. And I guess I just really like people and relationships and anyway, high touch kind of stuff, so.

Donald Patrick
Yeah. So you have clear division of duties with UNSAL.

Wes Littlejohn
That’s the main thing is clear division of duties, figuring out what she likes to do. And she’s helped me with the website. I do a lot with LinkedIn. I don’t know if you ever read my LinkedIn post, Don, but I had a post yesterday that got a thousand views, believe it or not. Yeah, it was a good one. It was about one of my clients who’s an umpire.

Donald Patrick
my gosh.

Wes Littlejohn
he was umpiring the Georgia Tech game and I had a picture of my son and I don’t know, it was a good post. But anyway, I’m trying to, I don’t know if I can put on a piece of paper how much business I’ve gotten from that type of activity. But anyway, I do like to go to networking meetings. I like to be involved with different organizations. I’ve been president of the Toastmasters Club. I’m president of my Homeowners Association.

So I’m really kind of trying to get my name out as much as I can. anyway, so yeah, we figure out what we’re good at and what we like to do. that’s, and Sally gets a lot done. She was the treasurer of the drama club this year. And they said she was the best treasurer they’ve had in five years. She was getting things paid. Anyway, so there’s actually a lot to being president or treasurer of the drama club. Cause we got like

They’ve got a lot of money, a lot of things going in and out. But anyway, that’s the key. like I said, Sam is great to having the virtual assistant when I’m out of town. I can have her take care of things for me. I don’t have to worry about. I remember when I was out in Colorado and I was a one man show at the old firm and not having a good signal in Colorado and person needed money out of their account. it was, like I said, it was kind of a mess.

Donald Patrick
Yeah, so.

Donald Patrick
How are you two keeping the marriage as well as a business partnership?

Wes Littlejohn
Well, I’ll tell you what, Don, it’s a little different being married versus if you have an employee. If you think about, if you have an employee, you say, all right, well, I need this done. I need these 10 things done. if you’re married, you’ve got to just kind of, yeah, I think the main thing is, again, I think it’s figuring out what she likes to do and not.

worrying too much about, I like to get things done almost immediately when I get a client request. I don’t know, it’s just a different, I don’t know, you just have to figure out, like I said, I really appreciate the fact that she knows technology. She’s really good with technology and I’m not particularly good at technology. And so she can, if we get a new client, they can get all the information over to her and.

and we’ve got input forms for the new clients and so forth. It’s worked out well. I I think it’s actually a perfect mix for her. She worked 20 years in corporate America and at Coke and she’s got a lot of flexibility and she can do what she likes doing. And she has friends that have worked at working at Coke that have gotten, a lot of folks in their 50s are not working right now because corporate America is…

you know, always cutting back. I think the timing was great. I had plenty of work for us to build on. And so, I think it’s still working. It’s working well. And we just have to stay out of each other’s way. And it’s OK if I take a two hour lunch. know, exactly, exactly. anyway.

Donald Patrick
You don’t have to give you don’t have to get permission, huh? You guys stock business after hours or do you have like a Chinese wall or does it matter?

Wes Littlejohn
Uh, we do. We, yeah, we actually do talk business a little bit after hours. I, I, I don’t know. It’s, I guess we, we don’t talk about it too much on vacations. Uh, but, but yeah, we’re, uh, yeah, I don’t know. We’re always kind of thinking about how we can, you know, serve the clients better or, or, um, you know, I don’t know, but, but yeah, no, we.

I think it, yeah, we know each other’s strengths. We know each other’s weaknesses. But we do talk some on the weekends about what’s going on. And then sometimes my daughter will say, you guys only talk about business. don’t you lay off, take a break from it? But I always think, and I don’t want to ramble too much, but I always think that my daughter would be really good in this business.

because she’s a people person. She’s, she’s done some businesses in the neighborhood with, with dog sitting and camps. And, and I think she’d be perfect. And then she, she says, well, your job is boring. Oh, what are you talking about? But anyway, that’s a, but yeah, we, we, make it work and, like I said, figure out what we’re good at. And, then if things don’t work out with something kind of doing a debrief on

why we didn’t get a particular client for whatever reason or if something went wrong with anything. So anyway, it’s good to have that. yeah, she’s a big asset.

Donald Patrick
So I think we know the answer to this. How’d you get the name Marathon?

Wes Littlejohn
So, yeah, so marathon was, I was telling you, I ran cross country and in high school and college. And I had to brag, Don, but I ran a 308 Boston marathon when I was 32 years old. I was a 720 mile. And on my bucket list when I was 30,

Donald Patrick
That’s crazy.

Wes Littlejohn
I wanted to do a marathon. did the Chicago marathon and it was, yeah, so for my 30th birthday, that was my thing. But I always thought when I think about financial planning, I think it’s a lot like a marathon. And I think about, I think about a lot of people want to get rich quick or they want to, I think about financial planning being sort of the long game versus the sprint.

And it was something I was passionate about running. And I forget how I met somebody who said, oh, you should do marathon financial. And I thought, wow, that’s cool. Unfortunately, I can’t do marathons anymore, but I am doing, I swim 30 days a week and staying active. But I just think the concept of marathon fits my personality. I’m sort of a.

a guy that’s a slow plotter, steady, I think about the first one about steady plotting brings prosperity, hasty speculation brings poverty. And I think about marathons just being you’ve got to train, you’ve got to do all this preparation before you can be successful. And it takes lots of time and energy. so yeah, was my marathon fit, my personality and…

And I think we talked about changing the name when Sally came on board, I wouldn’t let her because that was my thing.

Donald Patrick
love it. So where do most of your new clients come from? Do track that?

Wes Littlejohn
Well, I would say that a lot of them come from referrals from my better clients. If I kind of look at the last few that have come over, but I have had success with, was telling you that I am involved with the neighborhood and my church. And so I’m the president of the homeowners association, my neighborhood. I’ve been on the board at my

my swim and tennis, I’ve been captain 25 seasons on Alta. So I know a lot of folks from tennis, Toastmasters, I’ve been doing that for 11 years. And I do get some business from that. And interesting, have gotten some business from the CFP website. I think that people like the fact that I’m a CPA. And I think that’s my differentiator.

Donald Patrick
how about that?

Wes Littlejohn
When you do that, when you’re looking for a CPP, you can zero in on the zip code and the CPA designation as well as the CPP. so anyway, I’ve gotten some business from that. But if I kind of boiled it down to my biggest clients are probably coming from referrals. But when I talked to Madge, she says, you want to have some business from a lot of different

areas. You can’t just rely on one area to get business. So anyway, we’re having a good year, by the way. I guess, yeah.

Donald Patrick
fantastic even with the war going on.

Wes Littlejohn
Exactly, exactly. There’s always reasons not to invest or.

Problems going on. It might actually be good Don I think about the best time to get business is when there’s uncertainty in the world and when when things are too good, then people just say well I can just do it on my own or My advisor he doesn’t do anything for me other than invest money He you know, I need to stay with him. You’re like, huh? Maybe maybe maybe so anyway

Donald Patrick
I agree, absolutely.

Donald Patrick
Right? So let’s say you’ve gotten a new referral. What’s the next step with that prospective client?

Wes Littlejohn
Well, typically I would have an introductory phone call with them, find out a little bit about them. Maybe it’s 15 or 20 minutes. Then I’ve got a sheet that I send them with a questionnaire and it’s done electronically. And we’ll spend about an hour with the new client. And I think upfront we say, we have a really strong upfront contract and we say, all right, the meeting’s going to last an hour.

We’re going to, you’re going to have questions for us. We’re going to have questions for you. And at the end of the conversation, might say, look, this is not a good fit. We’re not going to work together. But on the other hand, you might say, hey, I think you really can help us. So just kind of upfront. So we spent a good hour on the front end, probably our second meeting.

And then after that, when they say they’re on board, they’re not on board, we, you know, we start collecting information from them. And, it’s it’s a pretty, you know, it’s a pretty long, um, yeah, there’s, there’s multiple meetings in the beginning to kind of get things squared away. And once we get things squared away, we’re gonna, uh, you know, we’re going to keep up with folks and we’re going to meet with them. Uh, we could meet with them once a year or four times a year or whatever they.

whatever they want, it just kind of depends on the situation, what’s going on.

Donald Patrick
So you have introductory call, then you have an hour long meeting with this electronic kind of fact finder. Then you gather more of their information and there’s another meeting.

Wes Littlejohn
Mm-hmm.

Wes Littlejohn
Yeah, I so we get sort of the basics in the first meeting, you know, sort of what their goals are, their priorities and so forth. We get kind of a read on whether they would be a good fit for us and whether we would be a good fit for them. And then, you know, at the end, at the end, they, you know, they’re on board and we start, we’re starting to collect information from them. And, and we’ll probably, maybe the first meeting, I don’t know, maybe we’re going to be talking about investments and.

Maybe our next meeting will be talking about tax planning and then estate planning and it’ll take a while to get things going. yeah, so we do it in modules and anyway, takes some time initially, but I think the better you know somebody, the better you know their goals and priorities.

Donald Patrick
So you kind of do it in modules.

Wes Littlejohn
the better the process is. think what I’ve made a mistake in in the past was I haven’t had a process, haven’t had good, basically I didn’t lay out what the expectations were and get an idea of what they were looking for. And maybe I didn’t ask enough questions on the front end. maybe the experience, it wasn’t as smooth as it possibly could be.

I think ultimately what we’re trying to create better experiences and I was talking about our quarterly meetings. If we have better experiences, then we’re more referable. And I think that’s the goal was to take all the pressure, the stress off of the meeting and figure out how we can help them solve their problems.

Donald Patrick
Do you charge separate fees for the planning or do you incorporate it into AUM?

Wes Littlejohn
I generally incorporate it in the AUM. I have done some one-off financial plans for folks. Those are kind of unusual. I guess if I saw somebody that had some potential and maybe they didn’t have the assets at the time, I would do a…

a financial planning type bill. But yeah, but I incorporate it all with the hopes. I mean, hopefully they don’t work with me two months or three months and then say, well, I got everything I need and move the assets. I mean, I guess in the back of my mind, think, well, there’s a little bit of risk here. But that’s generally the way we do it. And it works out. It works out well.

Donald Patrick
Okay, so for the clients that want to meet four times a year, what is the agenda like for those four meetings? Is it the same? Does it get varied? What does that look like?

Wes Littlejohn
Well, I mean, I would say in the old days, was four meetings to talk about your investments. Are you up or are you down? And since that time, we broadened it so we would talk more about certain areas. We would maybe talk more about taxes in one meeting. We’d talk more about different areas. I mean, we might have all this stuff on the agenda, but…

Donald Patrick
That’s it.

Wes Littlejohn
But anyway, we try to break up the major components of financial planning with folks. But yeah, mean, there’s some people that have a lot going on. Maybe they have a new job or maybe they have a divorce or maybe they, and that would necessitate more meetings and more strategy and so forth.

Donald Patrick
So what are some of the biggest business challenges you’re facing currently?

Wes Littlejohn
So I was telling you that probably my biggest business challenge is that I’ve got to just stay up on technology and making sure that my clients have a good experience and expectations are clear and I’m communicating enough with clients. And it seems like every other week there is a

some new technology, I just, feel like if I think about this jump AI where it records client meetings, I mean, I think that that’s going to save me a lot of time. And, and, and I think, it’s just hard to, I know there’s some estate planning, AI tools that are out there, but it’s just hard for me to, it’s hard for me to do every last one of these and, be good at it. So.

Maybe like I said, the summer getting a better CRM system and being able to track client meetings better and having better workflows for client meetings. And that’s what I’m gonna tackle this summer. I think maybe, I mean, I’m feeling good about whole list of plan, but there are some things on wealth, money, just kind of staying.

on top of what’s, maybe the updates they have with that. But yeah, technology is my biggest hangup. I will say it’s a little bit hard when I’m out of town. In some ways I think, well, it’d be nice if I had another, maybe at some point, maybe I’ll have another advisor working with me and they can handle, you know, some of the problems that I have when I’m on the road. But anyway, it’s a…

I feel like I run a pretty lean shop and I think sometimes it’d be nice to have another hand in there to help keep me up to date with everything that’s going on in the world.

Donald Patrick
Yeah. So you’ve been with IFG, the consortium, about 11 years roughly. So what made you decide to join IFG?

Wes Littlejohn
Well, I’ll tell you what, I was very lucky to get in with IFG. think Lan sent a message through LinkedIn and I had no idea what I was walking into. I think about even today, I contacted a member of IFG who was an expert on military retirement. he was just like more than willing to help me with, I think it’s really, if you think about the collaboration,

The fact that people were humble and they want to help and they care. And I got that with, I’ve had some difficult insurance cases that I’ve had somebody in the consortium that’s helped me with these cases. I think those are just things that you just don’t get most places. Also, I always get the impression that we have quarterly meetings with you or Andrews and.

And I never get the feeling that you guys just want us to reach our full potential. You want us to do our best and do our best for clients. There’s not this pressure to generate more business or do things that are, I mean, you guys are so ethical. But that was, if I think about it, I really didn’t have any structure where I was before. I was on an island, had no idea.

what technologies were out there. I didn’t know how people were getting paid for their services, for being a financial planner. And so you guys provided that structure that there’s also just a lot of things like the trading group. I have somebody who handles the trades now for me, which saves me a lot of time. Again, when I talked about the ASAP team, having somebody who can get through paperwork. I remember at my old firm,

we didn’t have electronic signatures. And so I remember paper applications going back and forth with clients and then, and it’s just so smooth that you just send it to a client or I have my virtual assistant send it and then it comes back and I’m wow, this is like magic. I never thought this was possible. But there’s so many things. mean, the mastermind groups are wonderful. I’ve got,

Wes Littlejohn
folks that are lot smarter than I am that have a lot more experience and they don’t mind if I have questions about different things. they, again, it’s really interesting because if I think about the model of a big wire house, I think about the wire house being, and maybe this isn’t the case, but I think that it’s like every dog, everybody’s out there for themselves and maybe that’s not the case, but.

Everybody in this consortium wants you to be successful. They want you to do well and treat your clients right. And I appreciate that. That’s something I didn’t get before.

Donald Patrick
That’s fantastic. And that’s what it’s all about. That’s the Buring Trust at work.

Wes Littlejohn
Yeah, exactly. I remember once upon a time you asked me that question. You said, why did you join this group? And I said, well, I got a nice office. And and and you said a nice office. Is that all you got? I don’t think I didn’t answer that question the right way. No, it’s really. Exactly. But but I like I said, I think about, you know, all the.

Donald Patrick
I should have given you some time to think about it,

Wes Littlejohn
Obviously I have an office in the corporate office and having, I think about the front desk person, Naim, he’s just so nice and he’s got a nice friendly smile. Everybody is just so great. I’m just, like I said, I’m just thankful that I got the chance to find you guys. It was really just pretty lucky.

Donald Patrick
Fantastic. So let’s have some fun, a couple of fun questions. So use three words to describe your talents and strengths.

Wes Littlejohn
So I want to, I’ll tell you what’s interesting, Don. I thought about this question and sometimes you think about your childhood and you think, well, your childhood really, you develop these traits when you’re older. And I think about, first of all, I was thinking about empathy. And I remember my mom was a second grade teacher and there was a kid in the class and I was in about second or third grade and there was a kid that none of the kids liked.

They all got, he got picked on and I went into the class and I had made him, I made him feel like he was important. And so everybody in the class started treating the kid like he was important, that he was, didn’t have problems. And so I think about the word empathy. And then I also think about the word persistency. And I think about when I was six years old, I was on the swim team.

And I was the worst swimmer on the team. Swam a 153 for one lap of freestyle. And I remember everybody cheering for him because I was the last one to finish. My dad saying, well, he’s, we’ll find another sport for him. And anyway, it was just, I kept at swimming and I kept at running. Anyway, I kept up swimming. I swam year round. I ended up being a pretty good swimmer.

And so I think about persistency and I think about the CPA exam. The first time I took the CPA exam, got horrible scores and I was like, gosh, am I going to pass this thing? Well, then I went back at it and I passed it. so I would say persistency is another one. And then the last one I would say is relationship driven. And I was telling you before that I have, I have a lot of friends that I’ve known since first grade and I still keep up with them.

And that’s what I like about this business. I’ve got clients that I’ve known for 22 years and I’ve gotten to be there during all these different important parts of their lives. so those are three words that came to mind when I was thinking about my strengths and so forth. Don’t ask me about my weaknesses. I don’t have any weaknesses.

Donald Patrick
Yeah, I would agree. Well, I think this is your empathy, persistence and relationships that’s strong. So tell us something surprising about yourself that others may not know.

Wes Littlejohn
Yeah. Yeah.

Wes Littlejohn
Oh, that’s a tough question. I think I’ve answered the two that I was thinking of. I mean, the two that come to mind is I think about the fact that I used to do marathons. This kind of goes along with persistency. I did a 24-hour race once upon a time.

Donald Patrick
Thank

Wes Littlejohn
And it was out in Oregon. It was like the Olympics for 24 hour races. And there were 12 of us. We got in a van. We started off in Mount Hood. We finished up at the B. It was out in Oregon. anyway, that was just an amazing experience. I did another 24 hour race in North Georgia. And it wasn’t the same experience because I remember it wasn’t well marked.

And I remember getting in the van and they dropped us off. we, got lost because it wasn’t well marked. And so we drive six miles out of the way. Well, we got ourselves in the van. went a different direction, but, anyway, I just, I used to love these ultra these races and, and I was in Nice. I just got back from a vacation in Nice and that they have the, iron, they’ve had the iron man there, which would be really cool to do if I had better knees.

Donald Patrick
Yeah, the knees worn out.

Wes Littlejohn
Yeah, exactly. Knees are worn out and my shoulders starting to bother me now from swimming. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Donald Patrick
So, yeah, doing ultimate marathons might do that.

Donald Patrick
So what’s the best piece of advice you’ve received?

Wes Littlejohn
Well, I would say that the best piece of advice would be the, I think about the never give up, Jimmy Valvano. He, and I know you’re not as big basketball fan, Don, so forgive me, but 1983, they win a championship. North Carolina State wins a championship and they were one of the, they were a 13 C. They had no chance of winning the NCAA tournament and they somehow pulled it off. And, and I just, I

I guess I resonate with stories like Rudy of a guy that is an underdog and he ends up playing for Notre Dame. And I guess I just think about the couple of things. Don’t be afraid to take risks. If your dream is to be a business owner and anything’s possible and don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do something. And if you get knocked down,

then you’ve got to, you got to get back up. And, and, and I just, I’ve been knocked down a lot and, gotten back up. And, and so I would say just keep at it. The CPA exam, not doing well on the CPA exam, getting through that, being a bad swimmer and, you know, getting better at swimming and, and being a good swimmer. And, and, so I think anything is possible. And I do think about the mantra for, for, I F G of

you know, reaching your full potential. And I think that everybody has a shot to do something special. They just have to have passion and heart.

Donald Patrick
That’s great advice. Get knocked down, get back up, pursue your dreams. You’re a business owner, you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve done a lot. You’ve actually lived that advice, I love it.

Wes Littlejohn
Yep.

Wes Littlejohn
Yeah.

Wes Littlejohn
Yeah, exactly.

Donald Patrick
So Wes, this has been a lot of fun. I want to thank you so much for taking time sharing with us and for the listeners who are tuning in. And I want to thank you. We appreciate it. This is a lot of fun.

Wes Littlejohn
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for all you do for the consortium. And yeah, I just appreciate our friendship. All right. See you later.

Donald Patrick
All right, okay, see you Wes.