
In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Joshua Kornitsky interviews Will Bearden, Co-Owner of PSA Wealth. Drawing from his background as a former West Georgia quarterback and coach, Will shares insights on the importance of trust in financial planning, especially for high-net-worth business owners. The conversation covers how PSA Wealth tailors its fee-based financial planning services to meet the unique needs of each business owner, dispelling the myth of “one size fits all” in wealth management. Will emphasizes the value of building authentic, long-term client relationships, proactive planning, and serving as a “personal CFO” for clients. He discusses the challenges business owners face—from cash flow and tax planning to succession strategies—and relates them to leadership lessons from football and coaching.
Will Bearden is a Co-Owner of PSA Wealth.
With a strong focus on financial planning for business owners, Will combines deep expertise with a client-centered approach to help individuals and families achieve their financial dreams.
Will’s philosophy centers on understanding each client’s unique goals and crafting tailored financial plans to match. Known for building enduring relationships, he leverages his extensive knowledge of financial strategies, market insights, and personalized solutions to secure his clients’ futures—whether they’re planning for retirement, protecting assets, or growing their wealth.
A Georgia native, Will’s roots run deep in his community, where he embodies the values of hard work, integrity, and family. These principles shape his approach, emphasizing stability and long-term success for his clients, from entrepreneurs to multigenerational families.
Beyond the office, Will is a devoted husband and father, cherishing time with his wife, daughter, and two golden retrievers. An active community member, he coaches high school football and supports local organizations, reflecting his commitment to giving back.
PSA Wealth provides holistic financial advice and planning to their clients through a team approach that is comprehensive, deeply personal, and highly professional.
Our team of experienced advisors have detailed knowledge in:
– Business Continuity & Succession Planning
– Investment & Asset Management
– Insurance Services
– Executive Compensation
– Estate & Legacy Planning
www.psawealth.com
Email – will@psawealth.com
Phone – 404-432-8362
Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/willbearden/
CRN202809-9460546
Episode Highlights
- The core role of trust in financial planning and how PSA Wealth builds authentic relationships with clients through personalized service and education
- Parallels between Will’s experience as a quarterback and coach to leading business owners, emphasizing teamwork, strategic vision, and adaptability in financial success
- The importance of building a reliable advisory team and suggests that business owners seek guidance when growing complexity, ensuring long-term stability and sound decision-making
About Your Host
Joshua Kornitsky is a fourth-generation entrepreneur with deep roots in technology and a track record of solving real business problems. Now, as a Professional EOS Implementer, he helps leadership teams align, create clarity, and build accountability.
He grew up in the world of small business, cut his teeth in technology and leadership, and built a path around solving complex problems with simple, effective tools. Joshua brings a practical approach to leadership, growth, and getting things done.
As a host on Cherokee Business Radio, Joshua brings his curiosity and coaching mindset to the mic, drawing out the stories, struggles, and strategies of local business leaders. It’s not just about interviews—it’s about helping the business community learn from each other, grow stronger together, and keep moving forward.
Connect with Joshua on LinkedIn.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.
Joshua Kornitsky: Welcome back to another exciting episode of High Velocity Radio. I am Joshua Kornitsky professional EOS implementer and your host. And our guest today is Will Bearden. Will is the founder and CEO of PSA Wealth. He’s a former West Georgia quarterback who later moved into coaching, but Will describes himself as being in the trust business. He’s focused on building authentic relationships and really helping people succeed through sound decisions and real connections. So Will, tell us about yourself.
Will Beardon: Yeah. Joshua, thanks. Thanks so much for for having me on. Um, like you said, I own a company called PSA wealth. We do fee based financial planning, uh, Specifically for high net worth business owners. Um, you know, starting off in the, you know, my sports background, playing football my whole life moved into coaching. Um, always had kind of an entrepreneurial spirit. I got a business degree, an MBA, and always knew I wanted to to start my own thing. Long story short, got an opportunity with a good, good friend of mine to, um, to get in the financial services space. So, um, for the first couple years, figuring things out. Found our found our niche, which is is serving business owners. Right. And so we’ve kind of built a firm around, um, you know, supporting high net worth business owners who have a growing business that have more problems than they’ve they’ve had in the past, tax problems, cash problems, um, you know, managing risk, figuring out how to grow and exit eventually. So that’s a that’s a 32nd intro if you want to.
Joshua Kornitsky: Well, so I want to jump on something that came from, from our initial dialog, which was, which was around this very, very important concept of trust. Right? And with you being in the trust business, help us understand what that really means, particularly for the types of folks that you deal with. Because if you’re dealing with high net worth individuals, my assumption is, uh, trust is not easily earned and is deeply, deeply guarded.
Will Beardon: Yeah, 100%. So the way, the way we think about this is there’s a lot of information out there today. Like, if you could say anything about today’s world, there’s no lack of access to information.
Joshua Kornitsky: That’s for.
Will Beardon: Sure. Especially now with with AI. And at any moment anybody can have a piece of information at their fingertips. Right. Um, but the next question typically is like, how do I trust this information I’m getting right? And so, um, with, with our clients, there’s really kind of two things we talk about. One is I don’t want to have thousands of clients, okay? I want I want to be able to pick up the phone when you, when you call, uh, we want to be accessible. We’re never going to be the cheapest, but we want to provide authentic, real, quality advice that our clients can trust and know that we can work through solutions and problems with them. Right. Um, and the second thing is like, how do we do that? The first way is just through education. Uh, we tell our clients, we don’t. You know, I’m not just going to, like, give you a list of things to do and say, hey, good luck. Go do it. Here’s what you here’s your recommendations. Have fun. Right. It’s just educating them to to make their own decisions. Right. My job is to put all the information in front of you, let you make empowered decisions on your own. Right? And then the beauty of of what we do is comes at the last part, which is just execution, right? I can tell you all the the quote unquote perfect advice in the world, but if it doesn’t actually get done, it doesn’t get implemented, it doesn’t matter. Right? So I think all of that together, you know, is is tailored around Trust. And, you know, I could, you know, have a really wide, uh, spread and go for every single person that ever existed and provide financial advice to everybody or.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right.
Will Beardon: Yeah. Target one specific group and go in really deep within that group. And that’s kind of what we’re building here. Um, so that they, they do trust what we’re saying. They do trust that we can actually get things done for them.
Joshua Kornitsky: So is it one size fits all, or do you get to know your clients so that you know their priorities are.
Will Beardon: Yeah, I would say it’s anything but one size fits all. Of course there’s commonalities, right? But every client that walks through the door, we don’t put them into our process, into our system. It’s like, no, let’s break all the walls down and let’s go to them. Because, as you know, a business owner, there’s no two business owners that are alike, right? So everybody’s got a different business. Everybody’s got a different personal Financial. Um, you know, situation to where we we go to them. There’s pillars we talk through, obviously. Um, but we try to build a custom design model, both on the service side and the advice side to where we can meet them, where they’re at, and then just help be a partner. We like to say like, hey, I want to be your personal CFO, right? So it’s more so that than just, hey, here’s a bunch of recommendations, trust me, and I’ll see you next year.
Joshua Kornitsky: So, so it’s really it’s tailored to the individual, to their needs, to the things that matter to them.
Will Beardon: 100%.
Joshua Kornitsky: And that’s got to make a big difference. And and I guess that’s really the, the foundation of where that trust comes from. Because you’re not just saying, hey, here’s the portfolio, put your money in it and just trust that it’ll grow.
Will Beardon: Right. You know, I related a lot to, um, like, uh, exercise and nutrition, right? Everyone knows how you get fit. Is is exercise and eat, right? Like, everyone knows the answer. Everyone knows the the cheat code, right? It’s like, why isn’t everybody successful at that? Well, it’s like it’s hard to be consistent and do that over time, right? That’s why you hire a personal trainer. Our industry is no different. Like, hey, hey, guys, this revolutionary just, uh, spend less than you make and then save a bunch of money and whatever you have.
Joshua Kornitsky: Low sell high.
Will Beardon: Yeah, well, you know, it’s like there’s there’s. I didn’t invent anything. We do. Right? But it’s keeping our clients accountable, making sure we’re staying on top and proactively planning throughout the year, not just once a year. Um, so. Yes.
Joshua Kornitsky: Well, so let me ask you on that. Right. You’ve you’ve narrowed your focus, which is certainly something I can appreciate. And you know exactly who it is that you’re serving best. What are some of the misconceptions that that those clients that that you know, you aligned well with? What are some of the misconceptions that they show up with that you have to help them better understand because to your earlier point, the world is full of information. There’s also a lot of bad information.
Will Beardon: Yeah, for sure, for sure. I think the biggest one in our industry in general, they think, hey, I’m going to go if I’m going to go hire a financial advisor, right? I’m just going to give my money to some random person. I’m going to see them once a year. We’re going to look at a spreadsheet that has a return like a, you know, a internal rate of return on it. And then if the market’s down, you’re going to call and you’re going to complain the market’s up, you’re not going to hear from anybody. So like that I think is you know the the stereotype in our industry. Right. And certainly that is out there. Um, and that is maybe good for some people. However like what we do, we try to really hone in on on the term financial planning. And in my eyes, it’s so different than just traditional wealth management. We do wealth management. And I feel like we do a really, really good job at that. But it’s about 20% of what we do, right? There’s such a, you know, a big, broad world of financial planning that needs to go into somebody’s, you know, personal like financial plan. Right. Um, for them to get the most out of it. So a common misconception is that, like, hey, this is just one singular focus and that’s helping you invest money in most business owners, they think, and they’re probably right. I can do a better job investing in my business, you know? But it’s like, hey, what about all the other pieces of the puzzle that you have not addressed in your financial plan? So I think that’s something I have to get our clients over. The hurdle of when we first meet.
Joshua Kornitsky: Makes sense to me. And I know based on my own experience of particularly working with folks who have a very entrepreneurial mindset, they typically approach problems from a I know how to solve this perspective because they have historically gone, ready, fire, aim and figured it out as they went. But when you’re talking about any kind of financial planning or services. You’re welcome to do that. But my presumption is it can be awfully expensive if you take that approach.
Will Beardon: Yeah, 100%, I say in my, um, as you’ll learn, Josh, I have a lot of, like, slogans, right? And all of them I’ve stolen from other people. But I got this one from Alex, from Ozy. But he says.
Joshua Kornitsky: Taking inspiration from.
Will Beardon: Yeah. That’s right, that’s right. Um, he says the the biggest tax we all pay every year is our ignorance tax. Right? And so when you kind of look at your business and your, your personal financials through that lens, like it’s really easy to start adding up some numbers, right. Um, because specifically with our business owners, right. We’re talking about developing their personal financial plan. We’re talking about growing the enterprise value of their business and understanding what what moves that needle for people, how to manage their cash and their cash flow in the business, how to mitigate some taxes, whether it be capital gains, income tax Estate tax. Right. Mitigating risk in their business and in their personal world. And then how are we going to, you know, create an exit succession plan for our business one day? Right. So when you. Yeah. Like that just in that what I just mentioned, like you’re talking about, you know, tons and tons of value that not like we’re not the ones solving every problem by ourselves, but it’s like, who’s the advisory team that we can build around you. We can help play quarterback a little bit, but but we’re going to build an advisory team to help check these boxes to where you can go run your business. And hey, the the random tax question that comes up or the random legal question or the estate question or whatever it may be, it’s like, I’m just going to go bring this to my team and I have confidence they’re going to solve that problem.
Joshua Kornitsky: So you brought it up. So I’ve got to ask, right. You you’ve been the literal quarterback of a team. You’ve also been a coach of a team. Presumably you’ve done many roles within both both coaching and as a player. It sounds to me like at a high level, a lot of your perspective comes from that strategic vision that you’ve got to bring into a game, right? How how does your background as a quarterback and as a coach factor into how you advise?
Will Beardon: Yeah, that’s a great, great question. Um, I think I think coaching football, playing football, there’s so many similarities to what we do and to business just in general. And I often think like if a business owner is struggling, I’m sure you see this all the time, right, in your business. But if a business owner is struggling, they could probably look to a college football coach and get some advice right about managing their team, helping, you know, be consistent year after year having systems and processes. Like there’s so like we could talk for three hours about that. Right. But um, I do think um, just from a financial planning perspective and what we do for clients, it is kind of like being, you know, a quarterback. It sounds cheesy. Whatever. Quarterbacks got to know what what every position is doing. They’ve got to know what everything’s going on on the field, not only on offense but also on defense. Right. Um, they’ve they’ve got to stay ahead of everything. They’ve got to know where the first down marker is and they’ve got to, you know, communicate with everybody effectively. And that’s what I feel like we do. Right. Uh, in order for our clients to get where they want to go and achieve and win the game, we got to communicate. We got to make sure everybody’s lined up doing their job effectively so we can just move the chains and get down the field. Right. So that is kind of where that analogy comes from a little bit.
Joshua Kornitsky: Um, it makes sense.
Will Beardon: Yeah for sure. And in coaching too, I feel like that’s very, very similar to like running a business. Right. Hey, build the system, make it really simple, put your players in good position to go win and then stay the heck out of the way, right? That’s at the end of the day. Like that is coaching.
Joshua Kornitsky: If you’ve got the right people in the right positions executing on a clear plan, which it sounds like are are all of the things that you’re encouraging your, your clients to do, you certainly stand a much better chance of success. Nobody can predict the the large financial movements, but if you have everybody on the same page going in the same direction, knowing what the plan is, you’re probably in a lot better of a position.
Will Beardon: Right? And you’ve all you’ve seen the both on the player and the coach side, right. The player who tries to do everything by himself. Right? Or the coach, the head coach who micromanages and does everybody’s job for them. Right. Well, it’s like, hey, if you’ve got good people and good players, let them. Let them do their job. Right, right. And so again, that’s kind of where we come into play. Like this is all I do every day. And this is my absolute dream to get to look under the hood of successful businesses and their owners to to just pull out like, hey, this is what’s working. This is what isn’t. Here’s quality sound advice, you know, let us help be a partner to get you through these uncertain, you know, things that are happening in your life.
Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and and like, uh, again to to step away. But the last tie into the football analogy, like any plan that a coach and the quarterback decide before they go into the game, you have to adapt as you play because the landscape changes.
Will Beardon: Right.
Joshua Kornitsky: And it sounds to me like you do a pretty good job of of trying to forecast within the the confines of what’s visible to you, of how to guide, but you’ve got to be flexible enough to help guide them through challenges they weren’t expecting.
Will Beardon: Right. And I think our business model is kind of adapted out of necessity. Right. So business owners their world changes weekly, if not daily. You know, there’s new opportunities that come up all the time new complexities, new business, you know, other ideas, etc. that they need to run by their team. And every, every quarter there’s new things to talk about, right? It’s tax time. We got to talk about taxes right. You know end of the year we got to reallocate funds to invest back in the business. So there’s there’s so much happening that we had to change our model and go I can’t just meet with the business owner once a year because they’re constantly changing.
Joshua Kornitsky: Sure.
Will Beardon: By that time they’re moved on. They’ve talked to a million people. They have no idea what we did last year. And so it’s like, hey, why don’t we talk to him monthly? It sounds like a crazy idea, but if we’re constantly in front of them providing value, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together, it’s it’s going to be a lot more, you know, cohesive relationship and we’re all going to get more value.
Joshua Kornitsky: You can’t take the pulse of a patient once a year and expect the patient to stay healthy.
Will Beardon: 100%, yeah.
Joshua Kornitsky: Um, so can you think of in understanding the confidential nature of of who you interact with, not asking for any names or things like that. If you think back in the clients you’ve advised and the work that you’ve done, um, can you give us maybe a story or an example of of where you helped? I don’t want to say, right, the ship. It’s the wrong analogy where you helped either work towards their goal in a way that maybe they didn’t anticipate or work away from a danger that they thought, you know, I have no opinion on investment vehicles, but the easy thing to point out is cryptocurrency, which depending on where you fall on it, and I have no opinion, is either the greatest thing ever, the worst thing you could possibly imagine, or somewhere in between. Right. And I’m not teeing you up with crypto, just as an example. Is anything like that that you can share?
Will Beardon: No. For sure. I definitely don’t shy away from that conversation. And the answer is it depends, right? Like there are.
Joshua Kornitsky: 99% of the other questions.
Will Beardon: Yeah. Yeah. Right. You know, there are some things that are good for some people and some things that aren’t. Right. That’s that’s the, you know, cop out answer. But but to answer your other question is, um, uh, I can maybe talk through specifically one, one situation. Um, but to preface our our greatest value comes from just making complex problems seem simple. Okay. And the world we live in can get as complex as you want it to be, right? And it does nobody any good for me to talk super high over their head and try to solve their problems. Right, without them understanding. I take very, very pride. So when I, when I taught, um, after I got done coaching college football, I taught in high school for a couple years.
Joshua Kornitsky: You are brave.
Will Beardon: And I taught I taught high school geometry. So I tell people, if I can teach ninth graders geometry, I can teach anybody anything. Okay, so, um, I try to make complex problems simple so they can understand it, digest it, and then we can, you know, put it to action. So, um, we had a situation, uh, an unfortunate situation where one of our clients, um, parents had passed away and the family had was left with 50% of a pretty sizable business. And so we were we were tasked with the other partners in the relationship to create a create a plan to get the shares to the sun, to where you could step in and and run the company. Right. And so, um, taking, you know, taking about six months of meeting with the attorneys, meeting with the CPA, like it was a new relationship for us. Um, we had to step in and figure out, like, what’s the best situation for for both sides, the, the mom and the son trying to just figure out, hey, this is a family business. We gotta keep this thing running. But also, like, we want to make sure everybody’s taken care of right? In this situation, there’s another business partner. So like there’s there’s tons of complexity. Whereas like traditional financial planning lens is all just about like, hey, how much money are you investing? Right. What are we doing? But it’s like, no, how do we solve this problem in this business? And so it took about six months, but we created a really good plan for, for the son to, to purchase, um, shares of the business from mom.
Will Beardon: Mom’s taken care of, and she can kind of retire and do the things that she wants to do. And the son can take over and eventually own 50% and the rest of the business. Um, but it was six months of hard work coordinating with the attorney, the CPAs, making sure things were filed and done the right way. And and there’s also a big tax component of like, hey, how do we how do we not pay buckets of, of taxes while we’re trying to to fund this buyout? So it becomes a cash flow problem as well, right. All of this was going on while he’s just trying to keep the business alive and keep it. Keep it going. And so it’s a just a really quick and obviously vague example of it goes beyond just like X’s and O’s of financial planning. It’s like, hey, this is a situation our clients are going through. That’s why they’re they’re paying us to be able to be the glue and put a plan in place to where we can work with an advisory team. In that situation, we had to get some new partners in in the situation as well to help bring value from their perspective. But, um, you know, that’s just one a lot of times every year we do renewals with clients, right? So we sit down and it’s not it’s never dollar figures right on a sheet that says, hey, here’s what we’re worth. It’s here’s the things we got done. Like here’s what we actually did. Like that’s the stuff that matters. It’s more about the relationship than anything.
Joshua Kornitsky: Sure. And and that’s, uh, Dan Sullivan from Strategic Approach will tell you that measuring the progress you’ve made from start is, is a much healthier gauge of success than setting a distant goal and aiming the ship towards it. I think that’s a.
Will Beardon: I love Dan Sullivan. He is awesome.
Joshua Kornitsky: As do I. Um, so let me ask this then. So you’ve explained at a high level how you help, how you steer, what your philosophy is. Do people always know when they need your guidance? Because there are plenty of successful businesses that I’ve encountered. That and I say this with deference to what they build, that oftentimes haven’t taken the long term view of how do we plan for the future for the business, which typically means they haven’t taken a view of how do we plan for ourselves? When’s the right time for someone to to seek help from a wealth advisor?
Will Beardon: Yeah, I think that’s a great question. And and everybody’s in a different phase. Right. Um, and need different you know, obviously support behind them. I think it’s never a bad idea to just seek guidance and ask for help, right? In our industry, the great thing is every year I’ve got to justify the money we make. So if there’s no value to be provided, then I can’t charge fees for advice. You know what I mean? And so with a lot of our clients so our, our ideal is typically 25 to 45 year olds with growing businesses. I meet some younger business owners where I tell them, you just need to put your head down and work a little bit, right? You don’t have good problems to solve yet, you’re just not there. Like, hey, you’re in the first year of business. You need to get this thing going. You need to, like, you know, some basic stuff. You don’t need us today, right? However, when you get going and. And we have more money than we’ve ever made before. You have a surplus. We have some tax issues. You have a family. There’s some complexity added to your situation. I think everybody should start to build their version of what’s what I call the advisory team, right. So obviously your family, your internal, you know, CFOs, C-suite people, CPA, tax seat, um, legal, all your attorneys, um, your wealth person, all of your insurance people bringing those people to the table and going, hey, y’all are all here to work for me, right? That’s that’s typically what I would say.
Joshua Kornitsky: The fact that you’re willing to say no to business, to me, speaks very highly of your integrity, because sometimes it is too soon. And I see myself where I appreciate the fact that they are, that they have the forethought to think, gee, it’d be great to get help in this area, but sometimes help that comes too soon isn’t the help they think it is 100%.
Will Beardon: It’s like sometimes you don’t need to solve problems that aren’t there yet.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right, right. We’re we’re looking for headaches we don’t currently have.
Will Beardon: Correct. Correct.
Joshua Kornitsky: That makes a lot of sense. Um, well. Well, what what’s the best way for people to get Ahold of you or to learn more about PSA wealth?
Will Beardon: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So our website, um, does a really good job of explaining some things we do. So that’s PSA wealth. Com um, there should be a little tab at the top right that says get in touch with us. Um to schedule a call with our team, um, as well as social media. Typically LinkedIn’s the best place for me. So that’s just Will Bearden at LinkedIn or PSA wealth on LinkedIn as well.
Joshua Kornitsky: And we’ll share all those links as well. When we when we publish the interview, um, you know, we’ll I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the clarity that you bring. And it must be from having stood at the back and directed the field as a quarterback. Um, we I understand now where and how you help and and it seems to me that you step onto that field knowing what the goal is, understanding your client’s needs and helping get them there. I, I, I appreciate your time. I think you brought a lot of insight. Uh, and your voice was welcome. Thank you. Uh, will Bearden, founder and CEO of PSA wealth. We’ll have all of his information on the website. Anything to add before we close out?
Will Beardon: I think that’s it. Thanks so much for for having me on. I really enjoyed it.
Joshua Kornitsky: My absolute pleasure. So again, this is High Velocity Radio. I am your host Joshua Kornitsky professional EOS implementer. Thank you for joining us and we’ll see you next time.






Robert (Rob) Lee lives in Dallas, GA with his wife, girls, and pets. He’s an AI Branding Academy Partner, AI Persona Method Certified, REEA Gold Standard Instructor, and member of the Paulding Board of Realtors.
Tiana Neal is the Founder and CEO of 
Farrell Middleton founded 


Cory Lyons, Brand President of 

Angela R. Garmon is a leading voice for effective change management. She is the Founder and CEO of 













