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Billy Bloom on Building Bloom Financial and the Retire As You Desire Philosophy 3-4-26
00:25:27
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- [00:00]
A
Working across teams is tough, but Asana helps you handle it. That's because Asana is where humans and AI coordinate work together. AI can spot roadblocks and assign work in a snap. So everything and everyone stays on track. That's how work gets handled. That's Asana. Visit us@asana.com that's a S a n a dot com.
- [00:30]
B
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business in the Becker Private Equity podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by a founder, a leader, a wealth manager, a really good and bright person who, who lives with great integrity. We're joined today by Bill Bloom, who's the founder of Bloom Financial. And we're going to dig into Bill and, and how we started Boom Financial and a lot more. Bill, can you take a moment? First, I'll ask you to introduce yourself. But with that, what inspired you to start Bloom Financial and what were you trying to fill? What void were you trying to fill in the financial services business?
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C
Hey, Scott, thank you so much for having me back on the show. And I mean, back in 2014, when I started my company, being 28, I realized that there was a huge suitability void, actually, in my industry. I came from a very proprietary system at a massive financial and insurance company, and I realized that things weren't always being done the right way. Things were being done where people, where the managers wanted to get their, their quotas, per se, and I just couldn't live like that anymore. So at 28, I said, you know what, I'm going to start my company. I'll figure it out. And, and if anything doesn't work out, I could always go move back in with my parents. That was my thought on the whole entire situation.
- [01:56]
B
Well, talk about that, because many of us at that point in life are in exactly that spot. And I love the analog to said tongue in cheek, but that I'd have to move back in with the parents. But talk about at that point, I know now you've got a burgeoning growing family and so forth, but at that point in 28, starting your own business, how did you feel about that risk? And was that the reality that if it went poorly, you would have to move back in with the family? What. How did you look at that and what did you, what steps did you take to sort of give yourself comfort that it wasn't going to come to that, that. That you were going to be able to get going and move in the right direction?
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C
Well, I had to pick up the phone. You had to do the work. I Think that goes without saying, but I think a lot of folks in this world think things come easily for people. And it's just they don't see the reps, they don't see you making the phone calls, they don't see you networking, they don't see you getting out there and making things happen for people. Because it was all about my people. I literally lost all my clients. I couldn't contact them for nine months and two years. So I started out from scratch and it was, I think I netted $24,000 of income that year. It was really difficult, Scott. It was. But I paid off my student loans and I had no debt going into it. So I set myself up from a good financial standpoint that if things were difficult, I could withstand that. And I had savings and I had other investments. So it's just like setting up a retirement income plan. You have to have the foundation and know when to spend the money, what to invest in and go for it. But when you put yourself up against the wall, that's when magic happens.
- [03:31]
B
And talk about that because, you know, anybody who's a founder or in, in a business or driving a business remembers those first year revenues almost like they were yesterday. I, I, you mentioned the number 28,000. I remember this goes back a long time ago, starting to build a law practice. And the first year of revenues were literally $7,000. And that's not a typo, that's a real number. And how did you get yourself, did you view that 28,000 is sort of motivating. Okay. People will start to work with me or discouraging. How did you balance that view in the first year? And I know you'll know this number, what was that number in the second year after the first year is 28,000.
- [04:12]
C
Yeah, it was right over 100,000 because I was starting to get my old clients back. So I was able to start generating some revenue there and start bringing other people on board. And then a lot of the folks from our yacht club started reaching out to me just because, you know, within a minute of meeting someone, if you like them or not, or if you can trust them. And I've just built up that reputation where I volunteered a lot of time and gave a lot of energy. So folks started to reach out to me and it was just that natural progression where first year was really tough, second year was much better. But I was still not at the point where I wanted to be. I wanted to 10x that and more. But some of the things I wish I would have done is hired more people faster, Scott. And got more people in the right places. Instead of me trying to do everything. I was still not at that comfortable point yet. And I wish I would have done that sooner. That would have been a huge, huge impact for the business and really for our clients.
- [05:16]
B
Take a moment. At what point you felt comfortable? When did you have your first hire? When did you start to hire people and what did that start to look like in starting to build a team?
- [05:26]
C
So I was really scared at first. I just hired a part time person. She worked maybe 20, 30 hours a week at times. Some weeks it was much slower than other weeks. But I had one person after my second year and then slowly that didn't work out. Then I hired another person part time that didn't work out. And I realized I can't be doing this part time thing because I'm not running a part time business. This is a real, live, thriving, growing business and our clients are the most fantastic people on the planet. So I realized I needed to hire full time staff, full time team members. And when I stopped doing all the things I hated doing, that's when business really picked up. Cause I was in my unique ability and really just being in front of people and doing the planning and doing stuff like this, because I love this, that's when the fun happens. That's where the magic happens for us. Scott is just getting out of your own way and realizing that you're only good at one or two things and you should stick to them and hire around all that. That's when your business is going to grow.
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B
Talk about the notion. The whole world has moved towards shift work to part time work. I'm a huge believer in what you said a few minutes ago, that at the end of the day, no matter what business you're in, even if you want to be today's solopreneur, 1099 person, whatever it is, that you need a few people that are really working with you, if not full time, 60%, 75% time. So they're vested, you're vested, so you're really together in what you're doing. Talk about that philosophy of working with people. There might be things you could have tasks done that could be 10 hour work, 10 hours a week jobs. But largely if you're going to build a real business, you need a handful of people that are really with you, if not full time, pretty close to it. Can you talk about that for a second?
- [07:10]
C
Well, just like when you're running your law firm, you can't be doing every single little thing. You can't be doing every brief, every draft. You have to have team members who you could trust to do that work. Especially if you're going to be in the courtroom or you're going to be in the boardroom, you just will run out of energy. It's just if you want to do your social media or your podcast or your TV show or whatever you're trying to accomplish or sales, you have to have people. There's human equity. I call it human equity. The people are there to help grow your business and their own lives. When you take care of your people, beautiful things happen. And that's how truly you're going to see that dynamic growth. From just a solo entrepreneur to a whole team. You don't need a million people. If you have three or four. You could run a multi, multi, multi million, $100 Million business if you really do that right.
- [08:03]
B
And that's somewhat of the beauty of the leveraging in the business that you're in. Not leveraging financial, not loans, but leveraging people. You don't need a dozen people to run 10 million in money. You might need a dozen run 300 million in money or 500 million in money, whatever the number is, to manage that kind of money for people and then staying close with your clients. Talk a little bit about your core philosophy because you talk about this and write about this a lot and you've written several books. Core philosophy when it comes to money management and how do you help clients develop and build long term wealth and manage risk? Talk about your core philosophy and how you help clients build longer term wealth.
- [08:45]
C
Yeah, so I want to start on the risk side of things first because we primarily help people who are entrepreneurs or people who are 50 and older. And we create the retire as you desire lifestyle retirement income plan. It's all about retire as you desire puts a smile on people's face. The first thing that we look at is how close are you to actually leaving the workforce if you so choose to. We try and make every day a Saturday for you and just let the money be used to make that happen. What we're doing for our clients right now. And again, Scott, this is not a blanket recommendation. I'm not trying to say everyone needs to do this. This is just what we're doing. This is like our intellectual property from like a planning standpoint is we're really looking to use different types of structures, whether it's a buffered note or a structured note from a bank where we're trying to Mitigate risk. Those three to five years before you retire, those are the most critical years that you cannot afford to take a 20, 30, 40, 50% loss. So we're being very proactive with our people to put structured outcomes in place before we get to that point, because that way we're taking a lot of risk off the table. And another big risk that people take when they go into retirement is what I've seen as they make their investments more way too conservative because they think they can't afford again that loss. But we have to understand, do you only need a 3% return on your money or a 10% return on your money for you to live the lifestyle that you want? So we let the numbers do the talking versus just guessing. Everyone's different. So we let all of our people know what type of return they should be wanting to receive in order to do the things they want to do. The numbers need to do the storytelling.
- [10:42]
B
But I think, Bill, that's a brilliant perspective. Because somebody has $10 million put away, they would be well advised to be a little more cautious on risk because they already probably have what they need to retire. And how do you balance that with somebody that's got 500,000 put away, who needs to grow that amount to be able to retire how they want to retire, but at the same time doesn't want to take excessive risk? How do you think about those?
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C
Well, you have to be honest with the person. And that $500,000 person, if they have $100,000 a year salary and they've only saved 500,000, the numbers don't add up very well.
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B
It depends a little bit on what age they are though too. Right. Because if they're 30, it might work, but if they're 65, it's no good.
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C
Precisely. If you're 65, that's what I was referring to. It's just probably the numbers won't work out. But if you're 30, much different story. You're probably not going to be retired when you're 30. So from a 30 year old's perspective, because I'm 40 now, you just keep investing. Just keep investing. I don't really believe in just buying an index and let it sit for 30, 40 years. I think you have to be much more intentional. That's like an average way to invest. And we don't want our people to be average. We want to do better than average. So just buying an index and letting it sit forever, I don't really think that works. I don't think that's going to work in the next 20, 30 years just because of AI and what it's going to do to investing. You have to have a much more defined plan. But that 65 year old, if they have 500,000 or 10 million, the truth is they're both scared. Probably the person with 10 million is more scared. I just had a conversation with one of our folks. They're 67 and 73. They've got almost $5 million and they're worried. It's almost like the more money you have, the more worried you get. And we try and eliminate those fears for you just by putting your assets into places that's going to give you comfort and a ton of confidence. You actually sleep well at night. Because if you have all this money and you're scared all the time, what's the purpose of it?
- [13:02]
B
And take a second on that because what happens is the more wealthy people are, they could either be one of two things. They either become cowboys or cowgirls where they take lots of risk and some go broke. Or they could also be way too careful because it was so hard to make it. They're scared to lose it. And certainly many people tell you it was very hard to get wealthy, it's even harder to stay wealthy. How do you manage those emotions? Because I think you hit something that's really right on tack and resonates. Many people with money are very scared to lose that money. Talk about that.
- [13:35]
C
They are, Scott. I would say this part of that whole retire as you desire process that we take our people through is we have them think in the next hundred or 100 plus years. And this is really the mind shift change that allows our people to sleep well at night. So I say to these folks, just like that 67 and 73 year old couple, I said to them, we already know how much money we're going to want to need to live off of over the next 20, 30 years of your life. Why don't we put our allocations so that your kids could benefit from this or your grandkids. And you can see the tension come off of them because they've created a new timeframe for this money. So we are very strategic about a little bit over $2 million of their $5 million nest egg to put towards future generations. So we're building wealth for the next hundred years of their estate versus just okay, I'm scared now. So it's the mindset we take them out of that and thinking to the future. And now they're happier than ever. And they're referring us to all their friends and family members because now they're comfortable. So it's just getting out of your head, getting into your heart and knowing that you're probably not going to use all this money. So why don't we appropriately invest this for a bigger and better future?
- [15:06]
B
Thank you. And how do you work with. There's this constant change in money management, wealth management, where artificial intelligence can play a part in it. But when people say that artificial intelligence will replace the wealth manager, replace the money manager, talk a little bit about, you know, we've had three years of the market's gone up almost linearly, but the market doesn't always do that. For those of us have been around for a long time. We, we've seen Even you at 40 have seen plenty of ups and downs already. Who talks to the client, to the person who's worried when things don't go as planned? How important is that mix of intelligence and personal skills in what you do?
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C
I don't think the human touch is going to go away. I think there's going to be some added ways to invest, meaning AI. There's already AI funds and AI advisors, but at the end of the day, you're not going to be talking to a robot. If you have 10, 20, $50 million, even a million dollars, it comes down to a trust factor. Are you going to trust a robot to invest your money and to always do the right thing for you? We already know and we've seen these big AI companies, their algorithms and their information is not always correct. When some of them have tried to bend, shut down, we've seen them fight back. So you can't trust in my mind fully robotics to be doing your investing or your accounting or your health. I think they're going to help, but it's not going to be fully replaced.
- [16:50]
B
Thank you. And take a second bill and sort of, how do you see sort of the money management business changing over the next five to 10 years? And then also when you see people and talked about this some already. Let me ask you a different question. First, how do you see it changing the next five to 10 years? And second, what's a client that you work with and obviously not by name, but that you get really excited working with and why?
- [17:22]
C
Well, or the next five to 10. Our whole industry is changing because the average age for an advisor is in their 60s at this point. So it's very true. From a baby boomer standpoint, assets are changing hands. There's going to be trillions of Dollars of wealth transferred from parents to children. So it's true in our industry too. Assets are going to need to change. There's going to be a huge turnover of these, I call them. I want to be polite here, Scott. Like these out these older advisors who are going to be retiring or not working anymore. So it creates a huge opportunity for people like us who have been established for so long to work with new clients. And the people who my team and I really get the most benefit from and the most excitement is solving people's retirement income problems because we know how to do it so well. But the people, they need to be grateful, like family oriented. We have a very significant no nonsense, like no jerk rule. We'll use that word. We want to work with happy people, people who are genuinely excited when they get the random phone call from us saying hey, your money is up. Or here's your monthly reports. On Saturday, when the war was breaking out, I was emailing clients like, hey, Monday, I'm moving your money for you. We're going to be proactive with things and our people are so happy about that. So what we're typically working with right now is the entrepreneur who is at 5 to 10 to $50 million of revenue. Like one of my friends who I've grown up with is running a 50 plus million dollar a year scrapyard business and we manage all their stuff for that. It's just, it's so fun because every day is different. It's so much fun, Scott.
- [19:32]
B
It's fantastic. What are some of the mistakes you see clients make and how do you help them adjust that?
- [19:38]
C
So one of the biggest mistakes that I see is people not spending their money. I'm the advisor who wants you to spend your money and enjoy it. That's why we create vacation funds. That's why we create the RV funds or whatever you want to do with your time. The second home funds, we have your assets correlated directly to that. People are too scared to spend their money. The money is meant to be enjoyed. The money is meant to be used. So we tell people, use the money, enjoy it. You don't have to hoard it forever. Get it circulating, then money will come back to you. It's a beautiful thing how that works. But we see too many retirees, they don't enjoy their life enough. So we really encourage them to go out and spend their money, which most advisors don't really talk about. We want people to actually use their
- [20:30]
B
money and talk about how you deal with somebody comes with that depression era mentality. I Grew up in a household where father lost his job at one point. You know, when I went to college, there was one college choice. It was the state school, because that's all we could afford. How do you deal with people that have that. A little bit of that depression era mentality, who have seen so many challenges over the course of their life when things go poorly that they're a little bit like in a bunker and a little bit scared to spend into and to invest too aggressively?
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C
Yeah, I think everybody has that negativity inside of them in one way or another. Your money concepts come from your parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. You developed your money habits when you were a child. So everybody has this in them. So we work on this with everyone. I created a course that's called Retire with purpose just for this. It's to get you out of your mind, get you into your heart and give you guidance on something that can actually give you a ton of value and show you where those blind spots are. Because literally, Scott, everybody has them. They're unconscious, they're there. But we work through them and we let the money do the talking. That's the key. You just have to know how to make that happen. And we do. But everybody is going to have part of that in their lives.
- [21:52]
B
No, I love that. And I think you're right on, on that. That none of us are unique. We all come from different places, but a lot of us are going to have a lot of those fears. So talk for a second, Bill, about where people could find out more about you and about Bloom Financial.
- [22:05]
C
Our website is bloomfinancialco.com our LinkedIn. I mean, we have our Bloom Financial call. That would be the best place to go. We have our TV show and the podcast on YouTube. That would be a great place to find us as well.
- [22:23]
B
Yeah, no, this is one of the unfairnesses of life. Bill. Bill. I have to be on radio and on audio. Bill has this beautifully attractive family and he could. And he's got. He looks great himself. So he could be on TV. Tell us about the TV show and the YouTube video and so forth and where people could find that.
- [22:42]
C
Well, when you go to YouTube, you go to retire as you desire. That's our YouTube channel. But I was asked and approached to do a TV show and I said, of course, let's do this. So I literally sat in front of a projector. We did 26 episodes. So we did a half a year run where it's an hour long TV show and it was. The company is called Now Media and they have a 35 million, they have much more than that now, but at the time they had a 35 million household viewership in America here and then they're down in Mexico as well. So we had a pretty great run rate there just to be on tv. I mean, I had to do my hair all the time. I know that's a lot of work for me, but it was just a blast. I love doing this stuff.
- [23:34]
B
And Bill, let me ask you a question because people are always curious as to whether, I mean, you have to do things like that. You have to see if they actually agree to return on investment, whether they're fun, what the best use case is and so forth. Was that worthwhile from a cost benefit standpoint? Was it helpful even if it didn't bring in direct clients to show your existing client base and the people you're talking to? Here's, here's how well versed you are in these things and how much you know about this business. Tell us the benefit of doing so and, and how you viewed that.
- [24:09]
C
Well, it all came from the heart. I saw this as an opportunity to give our almost 20 years worth of experience into real life TV shows that correlate with real life problems that people are having. If no one calls me from this or no one is going to reach out directly from us, great. But I know that we're giving value to people on the other side of things, whether they call us or not. My whole intention of this was truly to give and to know that whatever content we put out, we want to make it as accurate and correct as possible. No nonsense, no fluff, just do it the right way. And people did call us from it. We have had introductions from it. Our TV show has been sent to so many people because it's a great way to introduce our business to your friends and family. So it was worth it in the end. At the time, it was a ton of work spending hours and hours creating, creating the content. Every TV show, it's a ton of work. But I'm grateful that I did it. I was grateful for the opportunity and it was so worth it at the end because I truly believe that the content is there to just help other people. And that was my whole intention the whole time.
- [25:24]
B
Well, it's one of the things that makes you so successful. You really do have this win win view of the world. You really are. And there was a book called the Go Giver years ago, but you really are one that puts yourself forward, helps people and as you said, it comes back in different ways, but it's a beautiful thing. Bill, we've got great regard for what you're doing and what you're growing. Thank you for joining us today on the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. What a pleasure to visit with you. Thank you very much for joining us.
- [25:54]
C
Thank you, Scott.
- [25:57]
A
Working across teams is tough, but Asana helps you handle it. Asana AI can spot roadblocks and assign work to keep everything on track. That's how work gets handled. Visit us@asana.com.