Josh Hile 0:02
Hello, my name is Josh Hile and I’m the co -founder and CEO of Citizen Mint, a platform that provides simple access to exclusive private market investments. This is our second episode of the Advisors View podcast, where we will highlight exceptional wealth management firms, including what led them to the space, how they built their business, how they may use alternative investments in their client portfolios, and what trends they are seeing in wealth management. Our guest today is Adam Wisher, co -chief investment officer and advisor at the First Pacific Financial.
where he has worked for almost two decades. He’s a founding member of the investment committee, the senior advisor for his team and plays an integral role in many facets of the firm. Adam’s ambitions as an advisor is to advocate for simplicity. He does this by turning complicated financial problems into understandable solutions that clients can implement with confidence. Welcome Adam to the advisors view podcast.
Adam Wishard 00:53
Thanks for having me, Josh. Appreciate it.
Josh Hile 00:55
So what led you to be a financial advisor?
Adam Wishard 01:01
Yeah, I have a math and statistics background. So coming out of school, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I actually kind of thought I’d go back into teaching or become a professor or something and then just happened to stumble along a financial advisory practice, which happened to be for a specific financial way back when, close to 20 years ago now. But I had a much more focus on investments when I first started out. It wasn’t until five or six years in that I decided to actually be.
an advisor and work directly with clients. I was more on the investment research, doing trades for the office, and that’s kind of where my passion initially started. And then five or six years in, I decided I really wanted to be working with people and trying to help. So that’s when I obtained my CFP. So was until a few years in and then kind of transitioned to primarily working with clients day to day.
Josh Hile 01:59
And just out of curiosity, so how many people were at the firm when you first joined? Because that’s a long time. And so it’s like a big difference from where you are today.
Adam Wishard 02:08
Yeah, I think we were at five or six or so and then a few advisors were retiring and going in different directions. So I think at one point for specific from where it is today, over 30 people, I think it was like three and a half. And that was.
2007, 2008 time period and so much different firm way back then but kind of hit our stream and grow in the 2010, 2012 and started to kind of have a different approach and where we’re working in teams and kind of where we’re at today.
Josh Hile 02:57
Yeah. And what’s your favorite part of your job? I mean, you made that transition. You kind of mentioned, you know, working with clients as kind of a big motivator, but what is that favorite
Adam Wishard 03:09
Yeah, that’s exactly right. just noticed early on in my career that I didn’t as much as I love spreadsheets, I didn’t want to be sitting behind a computer screen, you know, doing spreadsheets, place and trades. I really wanted to work with people and help people. It’s amazing over the years, you know, the type of impact you can have on on clients lives and seeing.
You know, people send their kids to college or, you know, retire early, know, way earlier than they initially thought they could, or pass on wealth between generations. And there’s so much areas where we’re helping clients. And that’s really ultimately what I want to do is serve people. So that’s what I do enjoy most and just helping people.
Josh Hile 03:57
Mm -hmm. Yeah, that’s great. you know, wealth management, there’s a lot of firms out there. So what really differentiates First Pacific from other wealth managers?
Adam Wishard 04:09
This is going to sound really funny or probably kind of dumb from anyone that’s not in our industry. But I think the biggest differentiator is that we actually give good advice. It’s kind of sad. know, our industry, you know, has a history of, know, whether it’s, you know, stockbrokers or people just selling stuff, selling investments to end clients. And really, it was all about that.
sort of transaction. Whereas from, you know, basically the beginning of my career and the approach that we’ve had is, like I said, helping people. And we’ve give tons of advice over the years that isn’t, you know, definitely affects the way that we’re compensated, whether it’s recommending clients give away significant portion of their wealth to charities or onto the next generation.
Whether it’s, I think with this huge amount of money that you’re getting from selling a business, I don’t think it makes sense to invest all that. I think it makes sense to maybe buy rentals or have a real estate portfolio that were, it’s not just all about the assets that are management or anything like that. so
I’d say it’s very hard to market. And why most of our new business and growth over the years is from referrals and you can’t say, you know, do an advertisement on TV and say, hey, we give good advice. You should come to us. It’s quite cheesy. I’d say the other thing that differentiates us is this team approach that is really ultimately best for clients and not having.
just a single point of contact that they’re looking to for advice and having that kind of financial partnership, but also, you know, a whole team to lean on, you know, and then on the flip side, that also is what provides a career path for an industry that’s really hard to get into and for some of those younger advisors that are either just at a school or making a career change, they don’t have to go out
Adam Wishard 06:28
you know, from day one be 99 % business development and try to bring on, you know, their aunts and uncles and grandparents as clients, they can actually learn the craft of financial planning and work in that team approach. And ultimately, yes, they might eventually bring on their own clients and all that, but, you know, have a career path for advisors and then also the other teams within the firm. We’ve got a client service team
and investment team that I think is a little bit unique in our industry. I think we’re at the scale now where we can really do a great job for clients, but on the flip side, also have a really awesome place to work and where advisors want to start their careers or transition their careers to.
Josh Hile 07:16
Yeah, no, and I think that’s really important, especially on the advice side, because, you know, I obviously talked to a lot of advisors and, know, having that kind of fiduciary standard of what’s what is in the best interest of clients, but also understanding what you’re doing from a recommendation standpoint, because I hear a lot of things where where advisors do tell me something I’m like, well, that’s not actually accurate. I mean, I worked at a large wealth manager and I hear these things. like, well, no.
Josh Hile 07:46
That’s not true. And so there is unfortunately just some bad advice out there or advisors working towards their own goals rather than the client’s goals, which is ultimately what matters.
Adam Wishard 08:00
Absolutely, yeah, it is kind of unfortunate, but it also just takes experience and even being in the industry this long, I’m learning new things every day. And the nice thing is there’s resources when you have a firm our size that you can go to and an advisor that, hey, have you dealt with this type of situation before?
Josh Hile 08:20
Yeah. How have you seen the financial advising space kind of evolve over the last decade?
Adam Wishard 08:28
Yeah, I think the biggest thing that I’ve seen is just the services that we give to clients just keeps growing. And I think it’s going to continue to grow in a good way where, you know, I think there are still firms out there or advisors out there that are just primarily giving investment advice and managing a portfolio. But over time, we’ve we’ve definitely prioritized, you know, financial planning.
whether it’s estate or tax planning and really looking at that whole picture is one thing, but above and beyond that, seeing clients need help with digital protection and privacy and areas that we maybe didn’t necessarily know that we’d be going down or didn’t initially get educated in just to become a financial advisor.
Real estate transactions, complicated business, succession planning. And then one of the things that comes up very often is just almost like counseling. know, money is so emotional for people and there’s a lot of behavioral finance that goes into just working with a couple and helping them.
you know, unify their goals and be able to have a venue for them to talk about money, which sometimes may not happen in people’s busy lives. So I think that service list of what we do for clients is just gonna continue to grow. But I think that’s the biggest thing that I’ve seen over the last 10 years is, you know, with technology’s help, the ability to kind of leverage our face time with clients and continue to do
what’s needed and it’s kind of exciting to know what’s gonna, or to not know what’s gonna come next, what areas we’re gonna continue to help clients with.
Josh Hile 10:32
Yeah, and I think that’s a great point. think you can’t like, because, know, wealth management firms in traditionally is like, hey, we did investments, we do financial planning. But I think, you know, it comes down to this, comprehensive wealth management and, you know, taking all that into one bucket, especially as you move upstream, and you’re helping these clients with more significant wealth, they
expect you to be there for kind of all financial aspects of their life and how they’re going to plan it out, whether it’s charitable giving or estate planning or whatever it might be. And really for you to be that kind of quarterback for them. How do you see your business evolving over the next few years?
Adam Wishard 11:17
I think this is really an extension of my previous answer and kind of starting to, I mean, we’re already leveraging technology. I still remember the days of placing trades by hand and typing in dollar amounts for placing trades or doing data entry into financial planning software. there’s just artificial intelligence definitely coming in our industry.
programs that will read tax returns and fill out all the tax information from every box on a tax return to programs that will read estate plans, complicated wills and trusts, and give us a clear picture and a diagram of here’s what the beneficiary looks like based on AI’s read of what the will says and who’s the key players, the executors, and all that.
Adam Wishard 12:14
that allows us to really do more and more for clients. you know, maybe this is also just something that we probably take for granted after the pandemic, but we were starting to use Zoom quite a bit in late 2018, 2019. And so the fact that we actually onboarded, we helped an advisor retire up in Juneau, Alaska during the pandemic.
Just doing complete virtual meetings and getting to know these clients, doing joint meetings with that retiring advisor. mean, that 10 years ago wasn’t even possible. So to kind of think five, 10 years from now where that’s going to take us, are we going to be basically with VR in the same room as them?
Adam Wishard 13:06
know, giving advice all over the world. You know, we’ve got clients that do plenty of travel internationally and we’re trying to coordinate time zones to have a meeting and do their regular review when they’re, you know, across the world, which is pretty neat. I’d say technology is exciting to me and, you know, it’s amazing how much science fiction is just becoming reality.
Josh Hile 13:33
Yeah, no, definitely. And I think that technology will continue to play a role in kind of your communication styles with your clients. And especially as people are busy, especially as the world is becoming more borderless. so clients aren’t going to necessarily be living right next to your firm, but could be anywhere. And you’re also going to get those referrals that might be their friends from the new place they’re living. So that’s great for your business.
So discuss your views on alternative investments and how you kind of think about them, how you incorporate them into the portfolios where it makes sense, where it doesn’t make sense for your clients.
Adam Wishard 14:11
Yeah, for us, I think there’s definitely some that may view alternative investments as a return enhancer or a way to get returns above and beyond the public markets. But we really see those types of investments as value for their lack of correlation to the public markets and really a diversifier, I think, especially for
You know, clients that have super long time horizons or maybe they’re we’re talking about multi -generational wealth where, you know, they’re selling a business and or they’re de -leveraging out of out of real estate. you know, we don’t want to just put everything in public stocks or stocks and bonds. I think that’s a great use for alternative investments. And, you know, there we kind of more reference them as private assets.
It’s kind of one and the same, but I do think there’s a distinction there because alternative investments these days can mean anything. So that’s really what we’re referencing when we think about alternative investments is really just that private asset pool that brings a diversified different type of asset that’s going to have some lack of correlation with the rest of their stock and bond portfolio.
Josh Hile 15:39
Yeah, yeah. And I think that’s it is it goes to a little bit of behavioral issues that clients experience and how you’re trying to reduce those over time. Like if you can create some diversifiers in their portfolio, maybe like reduce potentially volatility within their portfolio, like from a mental standpoint, it does help clients to stay invested to know that like their portfolio is secure and just like
reducing that volatility can help from a behavioral standpoint. And what solutions I guess like, we’ve been kind of thinking about this from a firm level citizen mint, like thinking about client solutions. What, what solutions do you hear clients asking about whether like, tax savings, income, reduced volatility growth, like what are you hearing from clients?
Adam Wishard 16:35
Yeah, I know that’s primarily an investment question, but I think the answer that any wealth advisor would probably or should tell you is tax planning. I think that’s just front and center for our clients. And I think there’s plenty of industry studies that are starting to see that tax planning, tax efficiency within the portfolio is becoming just as important, if not more important
retirement planning or some of the other areas that we were helping clients with. So whether it’s tax strategies related to their portfolio, doing exchanges from real estate into DSTs, for example. I think tax, the other issue I think with that is that CPAs, and I think I’m talking to a recovering CPA. Josh, don’t you have your CPA? Okay.
Josh Hile 17:31
Yeah, yes I do.
Adam Wishard 17:34
Yeah, I think there’s not a lot of young people going into the tax prep or tax planning profession. I think, you know, you’re seeing just like you’re seeing advisors retire left and right, you’re seeing CPA firms sell their business or decide to retire without much of a plan in place. so that’s leaving a lot of that good tax planning and looking
you know, what’s this year’s tax gonna look like? What’s tax gonna look like five years from now, 10 years from now? What’s it gonna look like for my heirs? They’re not getting any of that from their tax preparer, so we’re needing to fill that role, absolutely. So I think.
Josh Hile 18:19
And I think that is such a key point. And I just want to highlight that because of how busy these CPAs are at this current point in time, it’s kind of just keeping up with what they’re essentially told to do. So it’s like, hey, we need you to figure this out. But it’s not the extra work of being like, hey, here’s the tax strategy you should actually implement over the next five years for you to save a ton of money on taxes. That’s just not coming into the conversation.
because they’re so busy and because they just don’t have time to work individually with each client on that unless you’re like massive and really requiring that. But I think that can be such a huge benefit for you on the other side of it to think about these tax planning situations and really become the advocate. there’s even, I think what clients are now experiencing and what they’ll continue to experience while interest rates are high.
is they’re paying a lot more taxes on that side of the portfolio and they didn’t really realize it, think about it. And even though it’s great, we’re getting higher rates and you’re getting more income in your portfolio. You are starting to move up tax brackets. You are starting to pay a lot more taxes out of your portfolio every single year just to catch up with that.
Adam Wishard 19:37
Yeah, that’s 100% right. And being able to be proactive, it’s just not something that a tax preparer is going to be able to check in with a client mid -year and say, hey, have you had any big events? Or have you sold anything in your portfolio that is going to produce a large capital gain, warranty, a change in your estimated payments? I it’s something that I think we can definitely step in and help.
either in collaboration with their tax preparer or just, or do on our own to be a little bit more proactive. And then there’s other strategies like, your recent opportunity zone. I mean, there’s definitely things that we can look at to continue to, you know, provide a ton of value and ultimately, you know, over a lifetime, you know, specifically in retirement, you
their biggest expense is going to be taxes. So we absolutely should be trying to provide value there and I think we do.
Josh Hile 20:42
Yeah, no, that’s great. We’re trying to always figure out new strategies and ways to utilize different investments for tax savings. And how do we get higher income that’s non -taxable and those different opportunities that can be really impactful for clients, especially retired clients who want income but maybe don’t want that big tax hit at the end of the year at the same time. What do you think advisory firms are facing?
challenges like just like any other industry whether it’s on the talent side the tech cost side what are you seeing as the biggest challenges that advisors are facing right
Adam Wishard 21:23
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, you know, when you really think about five, 10 plus years from now, our industry is going to, I think, struggle to stay, both stay relevant to those retiring baby boomers and the services they need, while also becoming relevant or being attractive for those younger clientele that are either going to need help.
on their own, through their own wealth creation or when then those inheritance starts being passing down in generations. I think, you know, our firm’s been around a long time and we have clients kind of all over the spectrum, but we definitely, you know, the majority of our clients fit within that typical age range of nearing retirement or recently retired or, you know, kind of that primary
baby boomer population. And so just thinking about how, you know, our industry’s been pretty slow to adopt technology. It’s hard to onboard with some of the rules and regulations in place. Even just the custodians are slow to adopt, you know, what seems like pretty basic technology. And I think if we’re not careful, we can
not be relevant to that next generation. And so that’s something we think about a lot and okay, is this new service we’re offering really just to help, you know, that baby boomer that’s trying to retire or do we need to be thinking outside the box and maybe going into other areas that we haven’t explored before. So guess that’s what keeps me up at night and making sure we’re still relevant 10 years from now.
Josh Hile 23:16
Yeah, no, that’s, that’s huge. And I think, there’s a lot of advisors out there who are running their businesses in annuity where it’s just like, Hey, I got my book of business. I’m not going to really worry about growth. And then there’s the next set of advisors, like in your cohort where you’re saying, okay, well, these next generation is going to want something probably a little bit different from what their parents wanted. And so how do
like reposition our business to hit what they want. Like they’re not gonna want really long meetings. They’re not gonna probably want in -person meetings. There’s just like a lot of things in there. They’re gonna want like possibly investments that align with their values or other things like where it’s like, hey, like kind of that coach mentality as you were saying earlier, like being their financial coach. So I think that is gonna change. And what excites you about kind of the future of the financial advisory space and your specific practice?
Adam Wishard 24:12
Yeah, mentioned technology and I think that’s just exciting to see how our industry continues to adopt it. I think one area that you just hit on too is thinking about that younger clientele and whether it’s aligning their investments in terms of sustainability or ESG, which we’ve got a lot of clients that care about those kind of issues. And I think above and beyond that is
making impact. You know, we’re in a position to really help clients make huge impact, whether it’s on their own families, whether it’s on the environment or the communities that they live or the communities that we operate in too. You know, impact is huge. know impact investing is a term in our industry that actually means something, but I think in some ways, every
Every dollar that you spend, every dollar that you invest is making an impact somehow. so helping clients align their values with the impact that they want to make is hugely exciting to me.
Josh Hile 25:25
Yeah, no, definitely. And I think that can also be to a lot of their goals, like their impact on their grandkids through paying for college or the future college, their impact on their community through DAFs or other charitable giving. I think it can be a huge impact. So where would individuals find more information about your capabilities?
Adam Wishard 25:48
Yeah, I think one area is LinkedIn. I’m fairly active on LinkedIn. So you can search Adam Wichert and then our websites. Pretty, pretty decent amount of information, but definitely don’t hesitate to reach out. fp -financial .com is a good place to start.
Josh Hile 26:09
great. Well, and if anybody wants to find out more about citizenment, what we’re providing to wealth advisors, can go to citizenment .com. And we’ll also have some info at the end of this podcast on it. But thank you so much, Adam, for your time really appreciate it and excited to continue talking to you and seeing how this whole thing evolves.
Adam Wishard 26:31
Great, thanks Josh and congrats on the launch of the podcast.
Josh Hile 26:35
Thank you.
