An Interview with America’s Top Female Wealth Advisor
Words of wisdom from a financial mastermind, shared through the lens of a proud son (Happy Mother’s Day!)
Last week, Rebecca Rothstein was named the top female wealth advisor in America by Forbes magazine. In addition to being a financial mastermind and Wall Street Journal proclaimed Rainmaker, Rebecca is the Chairman of Teen Cancer America, a charity devoted to improving the lives of Teens and Young Adults with cancer, Host of Say It Forward, a podcast sharing the life stories of fascinating entrepreneurs (launching this week), and Mother of four boys, myself being the youngest of the bunch.
Despite the fact that she moved out of her house at 16 years old and never graduated high school or stepped foot on a college campus, Rebecca has provided excellent investment returns for her clients, has helped raise millions of dollars for great causes, and has done a pretty good job raising four independent, happy, healthy and loving children (If I do say so myself).
I’ve had the privilege of learning from her my entire life, and cherish the knowledge and love she has bestowed on me throughout the years. We sat down for an impromptu family dinner as we usually do once or twice a week, and I decided to interview her in hopes that she could share some of her knowledge with my incredibly devoted 200 followers.
The Interview.
Disclaimer: It was 9pm on a Tuesday, when Rebecca is usually asleep in bed, that I used what leverage I have to get her to answer these questions.
What was the most important ingredient to your success?
Networking
What advice do you have for people trying to network?
Go everywhere, meet everyone, shake their hand, look them in their eye, and ask them to tell you about themselves. People like talking about themselves, and when you meet them you should be genuinely interested in learning about them. “Tell me what your goals are. Tell me how you’re working toward accomplishing those goals. Are you feeling fulfilled in your life? Are you on track? Are you having difficulties along the way? I’d like to understand more about your situation and I’d like to understand your business better.”
What are the next steps once you’ve built that relationship? How do you cultivate it and turn it into a revenue generating client?
Once you’ve built that relationship and really understand someone, it will generally take care of itself. They will come to you and start opening up, asking you questions, and looking to you for advice. Let them start asking questions. I have 30 years of experience and I remember what pitfalls people had throughout their lives, and I’m able to guide them along the way. The natural evolution once you are guiding someone, is they ask you, “Can you help me?” In most cases, I say, let me better understand what you need and if I can be of help to you I will. And if I’m not the right person for the job, I’m happy to help them find the right person.
Growing up tell me about your early experiences. What are the qualities you have that made you successful throughout your career?
I was successful in my first career as a buyer, and the same characteristics apply to every job, unless maybe you’re a Scientist. Networking, listening to other people, and having unbelievable tenacity. No is never the right answer.
The difference now is that I’m the boss of me. I want to set my own goals, my own targets, and I want to be responsible for my own success because I will only have myself to congratulate or myself to blame.
Tenacious resolution to get up every morning and say, these are the 150 people I’m going to call today and the desire to get to understand them better and to see if we can have a business relationship.
Did you have mentors along the way that gave you advice?
The most that I ever learned from any human being was from a guy named Bob Perry. He saw in me a raw talent and helped me cultivate that into a successful book of business.
What advice did he give you? Was there anything specific you remember?
I can still remember the day that it happened, the room it happened in, and what I was wearing that day. He hired me and the four people working for me and he observed us for a couple of weeks, and then one day he came in at the end of the business day and he brought in sandwiches and said, “We’re going to brainstorm”. He took a giant whiteboard and listed everybody’s name across the whiteboard and asked each person to write their job description. At the end of the exercise we realized that there was a lot of overlap — what I refer to as the catch-as-catch-can. If you were the person that caught that phone call or customer, then it was your job to handle everything. He taught us that if everyone had their own very specific job responsibility that we would be highly productive and less prone to mistakes. Pick a member of the team to be the leader of the team, in my case that was Herman, and give each person their own unique responsibility. We built it so there was overlap in case there was someone sick or on vacation. This allowed me to be free and solicit new business. The easiest way to build a new business is network.
How do you build a great team, find great talent, inspire them, and hold on to them?
The very first thing I look for when hiring is whether someone looks me in the eye and gives me a firm handshake. I know that sounds facetious, but if you look me in the eye and give a good handshake I know you have tenacity and that you will alway be direct. During the interview, ask them what their strengths are and take notes, and then tell them what the job description is. Once they understand the job and if it aligns well with their strengths, it’s a reasonable assumption it’s a good fit. You have to look for people without an ego, that don’t insert themselves into conversations. They come in, do their job, and enjoy teamwork. We emphasize teamwork. I have amongst the highest longevity in the industry. I have people that have worked for me for 30 years, 27 years and so on. That’s a very long tenure which is rare in my business.
You need to respect the fact that they have families, that they leave on time to be with their families, give them time off, force them out of the office, and pay them well.
It’s not okay for people to see you making good money when they’re not. They will get resentful.
How do you keep your clients happy?
You service them to death. More than anybody can imagine. You pay attention to their children, what’s going on in their personal lives, you follow the business that they’re in, the industries they’re in, and you know which of your clients fall into an industry that may be disruptive and you ask them if there is anything you can do for them. I become their trusted advisor. I know the stories with their marriages, their kids, what’s working and not working for them.
The last thing I’ll ever do is call them and ask them if they want to buy shares in a stock, because I’m an advisor, I’m not a stockbroker.
The last thing, is stay in touch with them because if you’re not staying in touch with them someone else has the opportunity to move into your space.
Being that it’s a highly competitive industry, how do you handle the competition?
I very seldom lose, but I don’t lose because by the time I get in front of a client they already know who I am. We’re not in the cold calling business. 99% of our deals come from referrals. You can’t insert yourself into people’s business. You need to understand their needs and be versatile, well-read, and understand what’s going on in their world.
In the rare occasions you do lose, how do you cope with loss?
When I lose someone it’s usually because I’ve made the decision that I’m not the right fit. I’ve learned that if someone is a cog in the wheel, they know it’s not a good fit, I say to them “I’m sensing that you’re displeased with the service that we’re giving to you, and I’m happy to refer you to someone else.”
“It’s ok to let a client go, it’s ok to let them fire you, just get out of an unpleasant relationship.“
In such a high stress job, how do you manage stress?
Believe it or not, I don’t feel stress at all with work. It’s cool. It’s interesting. I’m talking to fascinating people all the time. Some days the market is better than others, but I have no control over that. But I’m extremely religious about taking time off. I exercise 3 or 4 days a week, I don’t work Fridays, and when I was raising my children I was home when they came home from school. That was a rule. You have your work hat on during a long day of work, and then you have your mom hat on or your wife hat or your self hat.
“At the end of your life, you’re not going to be laying in your bed with your lipstick on thinking God I wish I worked another day. That’s not happening.”
I would like to thank the greatest mother in the world for these inspiring words. She is a true unicorn and I admire her everyday. Above all her accomplishments in business and finance, she has devoted so much of her life to helping others and being there for her children. Thank you, Mom.
Happy Mother’s Day!
