Become the Expert That People Need Most in Your Town

Based in Warsaw, Indiana, a town of 16,000 people, Alan Alderfer and his team brought in $64 million in new AUM in 2022. And this was on top of the $50 million that they gathered in 2021. How does he do it? Three reasons: (1) a singular focus on a niche, (2) a differentiating expertise and competence, and (3) plain, old-fashioned hard work.

In this conversation, Alan describes all three factors in detail. Although some of the factors that Alan mentions are unique to his situation, most are not. In fact, we trust that you can identify many elements of his story that are applicable and beneficial to you.

Listen to the full conversation between Alderfer and Horsesmouth Executive Coach Chris Holman in the video or read the highlights in the article below.

Background

My firm Alderfer Bergen & Co. is based in Warsaw, Indiana. So Warsaw is considered the orthopedic capital of the world—around 50% of the replacement hips and knees used around the world are made here. At one time, we had three Fortune 500 companies here making orthopedic devices, but they merged into one major employer, Zimmer Biomet. So we are not quite a one-employer town, but almost. And we’ve got a niche with orthopedic employees. We try to be the local expert in all of their benefits.

We are the local experts

First off, we have a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary here. One of my associates is the expert in the Johnson & Johnson benefits and how they all work, how the pension works, 401(k), health insurance, retiree health insurance, how all that works. He does a lot of work with the local union and knows those benefits better than anybody.

Myself, I am the local expert with the Zimmer Biomet Company. My father worked for them for 30 years, so that’s where I cut my teeth. And I know that plan better than anybody, and the local employees know that. And so they seek us out because of that.

We bring education to the big employers

When we do educational workshops, we go right into the company itself. My associate Jason will even go right to the union hall and do educational workshops a couple of times a year and will help explain how their benefits work in detail.

We will also rent space at a local restaurant to hold specific workshops for Zimmer Biomet, to dive into their benefits.

And as situations arise, we focus on the employees of other large employers in the area, too. Currently, we have a printing company in town that is getting ready to close their doors. About 500 people are losing their jobs, and we have a handful of clients from there. And so, we’re getting ready to put on an educational workshop for those people who are in transition as well.

Our ‘wow factor’

I think what makes us different is our service and what I would call our “wow factor.” Every year we have at least 20 touches with our clients. That can be things like getting a nice Hallmark birthday card (not a generic card!) signed by all of us. A lot of our clients get a birthday cookie in the mail every year. If someone is having a special anniversary, we send a nice present. And then we have our newsletters and of course face-to-face meetings. We try to have as many touches as possible because we don’t want them to ever feel forgotten or they haven’t heard from us.

One thing I don’t ever want to happen with a client of ours is this: They’re at a dinner party with their friends and their friends say, “Well, when’s the last time you talked to your financial advisor?” I don’t want our client to say, “Oh, I can’t remember the last time.”

I want them to say, “Oh gosh, my guy just sent me this really nice birthday card,” or “My parents passed, and he sent us a really nice bouquet.” It’s just really going above and beyond every single day, making sure our clients know we care about them.

Part of the local community

My business partner, Mike Bergen, and I have done a radio show for over 20 years. It plays on three different stations. The local greatest hit station, a country station and a news station, two FMs and one AM. We tape it, and then it plays over the weekends.

We have a wonderful local paper, and we write an article that runs on the front page of the business section on Saturday. About 90% of the time, the article is what we’ve covered on the radio. From there, we will also put those things on our website and social media if people want to listen to them later.

I love meeting with clients

As an advisor, I am a business owner; I have a business partner plus two associate advisors. So I do run the business. But still, my number one job is to meet with clients. And I try to run anywhere from six to eight client meetings a day.

My passion, and my best job skill is really meeting with clients and helping them solve their financial questions. And so that’s what I do all day long! I talk to clients, meet with clients and 80%–90% of those are face-to-face meetings. It’s enjoyable! I mean, a lot of these clients I’ve had for 20, 25 years. They’re sort of part of the family.

My whole work ethic is I get in at usually 6:30 in the morning. Tonight I’ve got a 5:30 appointment and I won’t leave here till probably 6:45.

On the flip side, I also take time off. So when I’m here at the office, I work 10, 12, 14 hour days. But I’ve got young daughters that are in sports and I take a lot of three-day weekends to go watch them in their sports. And we’re going to take a week off next week and then another week in July to spend some time with our kids. So I work hard, but I also take enough time away to get myself rekindled.

A crackerjack staff makes all the difference

When I go to a conference or talk to other advisors and I tell them I meet six to eight people a day, they often ask me, “how do you get anything done?” Well, I am able to do this because the only thing I do is meet with clients.

I truly have the best staff in the world. I don’t make any appointments or have any involvement on the office management side of things. We do use Redtail but I only know how to read it; I don’t know how to put an appointment into it. My assistant, Sarah, keeps track of my schedules and we have a remote assistant, Maggie, who runs Jason’s schedule and does for him all that Sarah does for me.

In addition to Jason, Sarah and Maggie, I have staff that does all the operational work. And then we have a full-time marketing person as well. And so, my best use of my time is meeting with clients who pay for our service. And that is all that I do.

Future goals

My goal for this practice is to have a $1B AUM before I retire. Bigger organizations can usually buy other practices in order to grow, but I want to do it organically. I want every client to come in because they want to be with us, not because we’re buying another firm. And so, we just want to do it one client at a time.

Currently, we’re sitting right at about $460 million. And we think the way we’ve been adding assets and if we can get some help with the markets starting to go back up, we think we can get that done.