The power of pivotal moments

My humble beginnings growing up on a farm near Tekamah, Neb., gave me many gifts, the biggest being the gifts of perspective and work ethic. As I release my fifth book, Proven in the Trenches: 11 Principles to Maximize Advisor Value and Transform Your Firm’s Future, I’m reminded not of the milestones in my life when I experienced success but of the moments when I was met with adversity. During such an unstable time, with the unfolding pandemic and a crippled economy, I realize some of our most innovative and transformative epiphanies are born during our breaking points.

In 1983, I got my start in this business selling life insurance out of my college dorm room at the University of Nebraska. The year prior, I had flipped open an issue of Money Magazine in my high school library that contained an article listing the top 10 professions of the future. Being a certified financial planner was on the list, and I remember how much it resonated with me and how I wanted to help clients plan their financial future.

Fueled by pure enthusiasm and stubborn drive, I found a way to connect with farmers and build a business. It wasn’t easy. I put over 56,000 miles on my car in a year, driving from one small farm town to the next.

My first client was from Fairmont, Neb., a town of only a few hundred people. That first win was a $2,000 insurance premium for an older couple who were business owners. I remember getting out of my car, once I pulled out of town, because I couldn’t contain my excitement. I ran around the car, beaming with this rush of confidence that I could build something. Some 37 years later, those business owners have passed away and their children are clients.

Looking back, it was one of the first times that I had nearly reached a breaking point. That moment planted a seed in me -- a seed I would need later on in my career to endure the frustration and hopelessness that lay ahead.

In the years following, I was often terrified, wondering if I had what it took to make it as an adviser. I developed a sense of productive paranoia and worked all the time. It was an absolute grind, and soon I grew to hate the business. Remember, this was the late 80s. The markets did me no favors. I was miserable, unsuccessful and had serious thoughts about exiting financial services altogether. Finding new clients was impossible, and eventually I burned out. My once bubbling sense of enthusiasm had popped.

Then came a hot, humid summer day in Omaha. I pulled up to a busy intersection, and there was a road worker jackhammering cement in the median. Sweat was just rolling off of him. I looked at him as I waited to turn, and I realized that I envied him for a moment. Granted, it was a brief moment but powerful, nonetheless. How lucky was he to do something he loved and at the end of the day have the opportunity to go home, kick back, have a beer, enjoy time with his family and not have a worry in the world. Meanwhile, I sat there in my car, not having closed a single client all week. Worse yet, I had just been stood up on an appointment and had to go back to the office, where mountains of paperwork waited for me. (There was a lot of filing to do in those days.)

The construction worker was not only making good money, he didn’t have to take his work home with him like I did. At that moment, I would’ve swapped with him. 

Driving back to the office, I told myself, “I have to do something differently, or this is it.”

I walked into my small business suite and started calling some of my top clients. I just didn’t feel good and needed to hear a friendly voice. I had no reason to call other than to visit with them and catch up. Candidly, it was the only thing I wanted to do because it was one aspect of the job I truly enjoyed.

To my surprise, clients were shocked that I called for no reason -- no new product to pitch them, no action required on their portfolio. Nothing. And during a time when the business was overwhelmingly transaction-based, they didn’t know how to respond to a simple, “Hey there! How are you doing?”

No adviser was doing this back then, and to be honest I really wasn’t either. Little did they know I was the one who needed them in that moment instead of the other way around. Yet the clients I called were so appreciative and truly touched that I took the time to reach out.

This was the moment I came to a powerful conclusion. It was then that I came up with the concept of Love Affair Marketing and the realization that I could build a business on the foundation of putting clients first. It was then that I truly understood what separated a financial planner from every other broker pedaling product. It marked a new beginning for how I would build and sustain a business that served a higher purpose than myself. It was then – and at many points since then – that I realized I needed to evolve in order to survive.    

These two moments were turning points in my career, both as an adviser and an entrepreneur. I was pushed to the brink of collapse, feeling complete desperation and lacking any hope for what lay ahead. And yet, these were the moments that shaped me. These were the moments that revealed what I’d been looking for all along but had never been pushed hard enough to see.

To advisers who are finding themselves in this very same state of despair today, to those who have lost hope in their business amid the pandemic, to those who don’t know what the answers will be in this time of uncertainty, I say this: It is because of these moments that we become better advisers and better business owners. It is because of these moments that we evolve. It is because of these moments that we grow into the advisers who will lead this profession forward into the future. The profession may look very different from what we are today, but it will be better for it.

Fear was the ultimate motivator early in my career. Let that not be the case for you in this era. May you find that your burning desire guides you through these challenging times and pushes you to lean into those -- your clients -- who made your business what is today.

Embrace the unknown. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Because you can never take a wrong turn when you focus on doing what’s right for the client.

[More: 4 ways to build a team that believes in making an impact]

Ron Carson is CEO and founder of Carson Group, which serves advisers and investors through its businesses: Carson Group Coaching, Carson Group Partners and Carson Wealth. Follow him @RCHusker.