In this episode of Fearless Formula, Sharon Cline chats with financial planner Mike Sena. Mike shares his journey into the financial planning industry, including getting fired from two corporate jobs and starting his own financial planning firm.
He stresses the need to have a growth mindset, create personal connections with clients, and stay adaptable in financial planning. Mike also talks about the hurdles he faced in his personal life while building his business and the significance of sales, communication, marketing, and networking in the financial advisory business.
Fired from his first two corporate jobs, Mike Sena, CEO of Mike Sena Advisors, has been on his own ever since, creating and running several businesses. Along the way, he’s learned a lot about life, happiness and money.
Mike is a father, speaker, author, TEDx organizer and weekend polo player who loves working with good-fit clients to improve their circumstances and outcomes.
Most of his clients have come from other advisors, most own a business, many are seven-figure wealthy, all enjoy a personalized experience and comfort at night.
Connect with Mike on LinkedIn and Facebook.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: [00:00:08] Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio in Woodstock, Georgia. This is Fearless Formula with Sharon Cline.
Sharon Cline: [00:00:18] And welcome to Fearless Formula Friday here at Cherokee Business RadioX, where we talk about the ups and downs of the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. I’m your host, Sharon Cline, and today on the show we have a father, a speaker and author, a TEDx organizer, weekend polo player, CEO and owner. That’s one person of Mike Sena Advisors. Welcome certified financial planner Mike Sena to the show. Hello.
Mike Sena: [00:00:46] How are you today?
Sharon Cline: [00:00:47] I’m good. How are you?
Mike Sena: [00:00:48] I’m really good. You know, it was supposed to rain today and it’s absolutely gorgeous out. It’s warm, it’s humid. It’s you know, like I mentioned before, I’m waiting for the pollen to end.
Sharon Cline: [00:00:58] Well, it’ll be nice. I think tomorrow we’re supposed to get some storms or something like it’s going to be in the 50 seconds or whatever. So we’ll have the heat on again, I guess. But thankfully we can spend a little bit of time inside just for a bit to chit chat about kind of your story. I know you’ve been on Business RadioX a couple of different times, but thank you for spending time with me and I’m grateful that you’re willing to even come back on and talk about kind of like what the show is about, the fearless formula aspect of what you do. So I wanted to ask you, you have a book and I thought this was so interesting to start with. Is it okay to start kind of that way? Because I love that it’s called Raise Your Hand if because who who can’t sort of identify with a million different aspects of what it’s like to deal with your money.
Mike Sena: [00:01:40] No kidding. It’s a remarkable. In fact, I want to redo the book to version to the rest of the title is Raise Your Hand if you’ve ever done Something stupid with money And I want to cross out stupid and put human.
Sharon Cline: [00:01:53] Oh, wow. Okay.
Mike Sena: [00:01:55] Because we all do stupid stuff, whether it’s with money or not. We are human beings. We do the best we can. Most of us. We all struggle with life. We certainly all struggle with money. I don’t know anybody that hasn’t had some kind of problem with money, some kind of issue with money along the way. Sometimes it’s the way we’re raised. Sometimes it’s bluntly the way we’re wired. I don’t know how to fix that. But money is just it’s an integral part of life and you can use it to your advantage or your disadvantage when you.
Sharon Cline: [00:02:25] Say it’s how people are wired. Is there a certain type of personality that just does really, really well with money?
Mike Sena: [00:02:31] I wish I could define that. I don’t know. I’ve worked with a number of folks. Kind of an interesting story. 4 or 5, six years ago, a couple got in touch with me, this guy, and of all they were in the process of divorce. Their counselor recommended me, referred me, which is kind of odd. So they were about 58 to 60. He made around $350,000 a year. They owned a Lincoln Continental and some really nice furniture and a $500,000 house that they leased. They had $800,000 of debt. They had 32 years of practice of spending at or more than they earned. Wow. And we worked for a few months to try and. Change the way they looked at money, the way they looked at life. It was very difficult. And ultimately, the wife was she became increasingly resistant and resentful. She missed her retail therapy. I remember we we had an agreement. Birthdays were coming up for their kids. And they were I could tell as soon as I walked in the room, they were like, well, we’re kind of screwed up. Well, tell me, Tell me. Well, we spent more than we should, and we had agreed on $100 or so. They spent $2,000 on present for one kid. And wow, some of this is just hard wired. And I know another couple kind of the same thing. I probably shouldn’t tell this story, but it reminds me I have an older sister who she’s kind of wound a little tight. And years ago she tried to quit smoking cigarets and she was so nervous. After 3 or 4 weeks, her doctor told her, I said, Look, you’ll live longer if you start smoking again.
Sharon Cline: [00:04:21] No way.
Mike Sena: [00:04:22] So some people money feeds them and that’s their life. And I think one of the hardest lessons I’ve learned is there are some things, a number of things I can’t fix and some things in general can’t be fixed. We’re only here for a brief amount of time, make the most of what you have and nobody knows what’s coming around the next corner.
Sharon Cline: [00:04:46] Well, let’s talk about how you got into the industry. You. I’m sorry. I’m laughing because I know that you said you famously say that you’ve been fired from two jobs and and now you are here where you are now. So what will you tell us a little bit about that story and the lessons you learned about being fired from two jobs?
Mike Sena: [00:05:06] Well, I was fired from my first two corporate jobs. And I’ll tell you, the first one, I went out to Spokane, Washington, to help open a cable TV franchise for Cox Cable. Okay. It was my dream job. And there were a number of things going on and I thought I was hot stuff. I tell you, I show these yokels how to run an office. And I realized pretty quickly how little I knew. And I never saw it coming After a year and a half. My boss invited me into the office and he closed the door and he says, Let’s have a drink. I said, okay.
Sharon Cline: [00:05:37] Oh, jeez.
Mike Sena: [00:05:38] And we toasted to here to better days. I’m letting you go.
Sharon Cline: [00:05:43] Oh, my goodness. And I was pretty devastated.
Mike Sena: [00:05:46] I had never been fired before. I’d been working since I was 12, doing a number of things. And it really hurt me for a while. I came back to Atlanta with my tail between my legs and got my second job that I was fired from. And I was. Thank you. I really hate this. Thank you. Let me find something a little better suited for me. And I’ve been pretty much on my own ever since. I have created and run four different businesses. I was in the IT business for a number of years. I had a business partner who was the IT side. I was the business side, and the first 15 years were a ton of fun. The last ten years less so. Oh, and I started thinking about something else that I wanted to do. And one of the key drivers is I did not want employees anymore. It was just. Stress city. There was a lot of stress in my life with a number of married kid. Gotcha. All of this stuff. And I looked at a number of different things and I kind of stumbled on this relatively new field of fee only financial planning and money management, which basically means I don’t sell anything, I don’t sell securities, I don’t sell insurance, I don’t sell annuities. You and I, we have a meeting of the minds. We reach an agreement, we settle on an annual fee. I manage your money and I provide ongoing comprehensive financial planning. And I found it immensely rewarding. It took me a number of years to kind of figure the business out.
Sharon Cline: [00:07:18] How did you do it? Where did you go first?
Mike Sena: [00:07:20] Well, I started on my own and I wanted to work with younger, less affluent people. You know, the millionaire next door. They got bull’s eyes all over them. Every financial adviser, insurance agent, annuity guy or gal, that’s who they’re going after. And I said, Well, I’m going to go after another crowd. And everybody that knew anything about my business told me I would never make any money. And I’m like, you know, here, hold my beer. Well, they were right. There’s no way to serve younger, lesser, fluent people without selling them insurance or annuities. And it just wasn’t my thing. So I stumbled. For a number of years. I went through a pretty long, devastating divorce and finished raising my son. And there was a lot going on with that. And there was a lady I knew in the fee only financial planning community named Bobby Monroe. Lovely woman, smart as a whip. Knew her from Atlanta. She had moved to Florida, north of Tallahassee, a little town, Havana, Florida. And I called her up one day and I said, What do you think about combining our two practices? And we talked about it and we did. And I worked for her for about five years. And I learned a lot. And in the end, we were not a good fit. I left and started my senior advisors. She’s still down in Florida doing her thing. Very grateful to her. There’s another guy here in Woodstock named David Holstrom, who I got to know. Do you know David?
Sharon Cline: [00:08:52] I do. I’ve heard his name before. Anyway.
Mike Sena: [00:08:54] You know, I will tell you everything good I learned about financial planning, money management. David was instrumental in. He’s one of the smartest guys I know, and he’s eminently ethical. Ai just a prince of a guy. And it kind of goes back to what you and I were talking about a little bit earlier, the community here of Cherokee County in Woodstock. David and I are direct competitors, but I would be happy to send him a client. That’s not a good fit for me. And I think the world of him would be happy to help him in any way I can because he helped me in the first six, eight months of trying to figure out what I was doing.
Sharon Cline: [00:09:34] You know, it’s nice when you sort of look back and see that there are people like we talk about this on the show all the time, about surrounding yourself with the right people, having the right support. But even your beginning on this journey with Bobby Wright, to be able to have her have faith in you, to be able to take you on. And I think that’s says a lot about your work ethic as well, someone who’s already in it and they’re willing to kind of take you along. I love that. I mean, it sounds very. Like your almost altruistic. Let me help you. You help me. We all win. There’s plenty for everyone.
Mike Sena: [00:10:08] There is. There is an air of abundance wherever you might be. And you know, so much of life. It comes down to mindset. I’ll digress a little bit. There was a book I read about eight years ago called Mindset, written by a lady named Carol Dweck, and it was a changer for me. It was like flipping a switch. She talked in the book about the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. And making that transition. And I was kind of halfway in between. But actually reading and understanding how a growth mindset enables you to continue to grow and yet have fun along the way. You learn from your mistakes. You just kind of keep going. It’s like we talked about before, We’re all human, we’re all screw up. We all make mistakes. We all have. Mistakes that we wish we could go back and redo. But that’s just a pleasant fantasy. All we can do is just deal with what we have today and move on.
Sharon Cline: [00:11:07] So there are some people that seem to be more amenable to growth all the time and have sort of this attitude of there are no mistakes, you know, they’re just learning. You know, it’s like, well, now I know how not to do something, you know? And it’s so positive and such a great framing of it as being not something to judge yourself by. But I always feel like I’m like in a bit of a survival mode and like, not really thinking or if I’m growing, it’s because I’m like really forced to grow. And I kind of like the idea of being able to frame it as something that’s like actually a very natural, healthy thing to be doing rather than No, no, no, no, no. I don’t want to go through this.
Mike Sena: [00:11:43] Well, I hear you. And there are times it’s it’s nice to be comfortable. But in the end, comfort is not where life is. And I’ve had like it or not, I’ve always enjoyed figuring things out on my own. I haven’t fit into anybody’s mold. I am not a I can’t deal with the politics of corporate life being in the IT business. I learned an awful lot. But in the end, managing employees just became very stressful and a pain in the rear. And I can’t even fathom today having 15, 20, 30, 50 employees that you’re having to deal with. I went to Greece for Christmas. I had a wonderful time. I had a friend that was over there and we met a friend of his who owns four burger joints and an Italian restaurant. He’s got 400 employees and it’s universal, the same thing. We can’t get people to show up. They want more money. The government wants this. And it was.
Sharon Cline: [00:12:44] The personalities, too.
Mike Sena: [00:12:46] Yes, it was the same thing. And I just love what I’m doing now. And like I said, it took me a number of years to kind of figure out this business. And one of the things that has been most beneficial is understanding who is a good fit for me.
Sharon Cline: [00:13:01] It’s actually one of my questions is and.
Mike Sena: [00:13:02] Who I’m a good fit for.
Sharon Cline: [00:13:05] Well, before we say that, I wanted to ask you, what do you what do you think the aspects of are of your personality that make this so successful for you?
Mike Sena: [00:13:18] I. To me, it’s like putting a jigsaw puzzle together without the top. I love solving problems and I’ve done that my whole life. And. Actually getting to know somebody. Number one, first and foremost, understanding what’s really going on in their life, what’s really driving them. Early on in this business, I would ask a prospect, How are you thinking I could help you? And it was amazing how many times they really didn’t know. And this notion of learning to ask the right questions in the right order and being patient and listening, that’s a whole nother thing. You and I talked a little bit about that when we met a few weeks ago that I wish I had that skill set when my son was younger, but I learned to listen much better and he and I had a meaningful conversation and I just listened for 45 minutes and let him. It changed the nature of our relationship, created.
Sharon Cline: [00:14:19] A safe space for him to to feel and be.
Mike Sena: [00:14:22] And one of the other things I’ve learned, if you’re a really good listener, people will think of you as a terrific conversationalist and you really don’t have to say anything.
Sharon Cline: [00:14:34] Oh, that’s good to know. I don’t have to speak that much on this show then.
Mike Sena: [00:14:38] Well, you’re the leader. No.
Sharon Cline: [00:14:40] Oh, nice. Really. All right. Just for, like 30 minutes or so, once a week. Do I lead anything? Who’s your ideal client?
Mike Sena: [00:14:49] That’s a good question. And I wish I mean, I can define it on paper, who I’d like to work with. But the bottom line is there in my business, it’s highly personalized. It’s very boutique. There is an emotional and an intellectual connection. Generally to start to have the conversation. Typically married, couple of kids. One spouse owns a business. There’s a comfortable six figure income. There’s at least a half $1 million or more of investable assets. That kind of sets the table that we can actually proceed going forward. I do have clients that have much less that are younger. I love working with younger people. It it’s just got to be the right fit. And it only it only it takes a number of conversations to kind of figure out if we’re a good fit or not. I’ve had a couple of folks that I would like to work with, but as we talked more and more, one of the things I do know is I don’t want a co money manager.
Sharon Cline: [00:15:49] Oh, you don’t want to be micromanaged for yourself.
Mike Sena: [00:15:53] And somebody that is open to. Implementation of different strategies that will make a difference in their life. One of the things I focus on that kind of turned some people’s heads, even though I’m a financial planner and I believe very strongly in planning for the future. I try to get my clients to focus on the present and making the most of what they have. If COVID, the lockdowns have taught us anything is nobody knows what’s coming around the corner. And I’ve had some financial planners that we would kind of get into a little tiff over. They would do these incredibly gorgeous 30, 40 page financial plans that are minutely detailed. You know, in 12 years, we’re going to plan a wedding and then every seven and a half years we’re going to buy a car. And I’m like, that’s just a bunch of crap. I typically go out about five years detail plans. The rest is a little more gauzy and we’ll see what happens because.
Sharon Cline: [00:16:51] Life is so unpredictable that way, right?
Mike Sena: [00:16:53] Life is very unpredictable. I never expected to be where I am today 15 years ago. I imagine the same for you and probably 95% of the people listening to us.
Sharon Cline: [00:17:05] That’s kind of interesting aspect of business ownership here, even in Woodstock. The people I’ve had on the show talk about how well I didn’t know, like even we were talking earlier, bananas and beehives and how they didn’t know that they were going to have to wholesale to be successful. And it was just not even on their radar. And now they are. And but that they’re really happy. You know, so there must be an element of flexibility, I suppose, with life in general, but also with you. I was thinking regarding money. People are so emotional and how do you deal with people’s emotions that are so tied?
Mike Sena: [00:17:40] It’s been a learning process because.
Sharon Cline: [00:17:43] You’re a problem solver. You know, you are analytical. The way I think of of how you say you could put a puzzle together.
Mike Sena: [00:17:49] I am. I’m your typical left brain introvert and learning to be more open. And we talked about this this notion of vulnerability. There’s a little of that. But getting people to open up about what’s really going on inside their lives. And it’s hard to peel back these layers. It is like and have them trust.
Sharon Cline: [00:18:08] You, right? Like have them be willing to kind of share that vulnerability, especially when it comes to what they can build their lives on Money.
Mike Sena: [00:18:16] I had a relatively new client. This unfolded over several months and he’s got he fits the bill all the way down the line. Love this guy, love his wife, terrific people. They’ve done very well in life and they have lived their whole life. Kind of the millionaire next door. They have lived on less than they’ve earned. They’ve made smart investments. They’re fine. And he had a pretty large portfolio with Fidelity Investments. They were managing it for him. In the end, what he wanted. If something happened to him. He wanted his wife to have something more than an 800 number to call. So he asked me to review his portfolio and I took a few days and I went through it. And I went back to him and I said, look, it’s not really the way I would do it, but there’s nothing wrong with this. If you do nothing, you’ll be fine. And I think that kind of clinched the deal for him.
Sharon Cline: [00:19:12] And you didn’t make up a problem?
Mike Sena: [00:19:16] Well, there really wasn’t one.
Sharon Cline: [00:19:18] But some people would write, Yeah, here’s how I could help you and be valuable to you.
Mike Sena: [00:19:22] You know the main benefit I bring, I tend to be local and I. Somebody that, you know, that you see. And it’s not an 800 number. There are any number of ways to get financial advice. There’s what’s called robo advisors, where it’s all artificial intelligence, so to speak, and there’s an algorithm that manages it. And it’s it’s pretty inexpensive. It works well for younger people that have limited budgets. My clientele tend to want a little more than that. And I delve pretty deeply into estate and legacy planning. That’s a difficult conversation for most people, really. Just coming up with the term nobody term estate. Nobody likes estate. Some legacy planning or whatever it might be. But having these conversations now while you can makes a world of difference and trying to facilitate these difficult conversations. I spent a lot of time on tax planning. I spent a lot of time on insurance review, even though I don’t sell insurance. If you need it, I’ll get the right policy for you and you’ll damn well know how it works and how much you’re paying for it. A story that I love. One of my early clients, lovely couple, relatively young. They made very good money. They were immigrants from Kenya. And one of the things I loved about them, they got America. It’s just like, wow, okay, let’s go.
Mike Sena: [00:20:48] So their number two, their two objectives, first and foremost, they wanted their kids to go to Harvard or Yale and they wanted to have money for their parents back home. And we started that conversation from that perspective. But as we got a little deeper, it turned out the husband had purchased a rental property, a home in 2006 2008. The economy slides into the abyss. They’re upside down on this home, and it’s what’s called cash flow negative. They’re paying more than they’re getting in a lot of stress in that marriage. And we talked for a couple of years about it, and they made good money. They had enough money to actually get rid of the house, put some money in it, take the loss, move on. But they were reluctant to admit the mistake, and I kind of flipped it on them. And I said, look, here’s they’re really only needed about 30 grand. They were going in the hole about $300 a month. I said, if I could show you an investment, that would guarantee a 12% return. For $35,000. Would you take it? Yeah. Put it into this house, Sell the house and get out of it. And get on with your lives. And in there, I will say their marriage dramatically improved.
Sharon Cline: [00:22:09] How much do you see that of, you know, the financial stress? I mean, isn’t that like number 1 or 2 of reasons for marriages not working?
Mike Sena: [00:22:17] It’s a huge deal. And part of this is the dynamic between the husband and the wife and bluntly trying to figure out, you know, who’s really making the decision. I’m going to tell you almost all the time, it’s the wife, it’s the woman. And it’s amazing. I don’t want to get into gender politics, but women have an enormous amount of power and control. There was one of my early clients that I we’ve been together 12 years or so. And I whenever there’s a husband and wife, I try to have confidential conversations with each one individually, kind of get a feel for each of them. And the husband’s going, I just wish you could get Carolyn on the plan. She won’t stay on the plan. And she’s like, I wish you could get him to just lighten up and enjoy life a little. So there were an interesting couple. I’ve done a number of really good things for them over the years. They’re doing quite well. They were spending too much money. They were used to making a lot of money, but they were spending too much of their retirement. And in some circles this is almost a four letter word. We ended up doing a reverse mortgage on their home to free up some cash free money. They don’t have any kids. They had roughly 800 grand of equity in a home that they couldn’t tap. They were taking too much money out of the retirement account. They were getting creamed on taxes. So that kind of flipped their world a little bit. And they I hate this term, too, but they sleep much better at night.
Sharon Cline: [00:23:47] Those are good. Sort of. What are they? Euphemisms phrases. You get the energy behind them, but it makes sense.
Mike Sena: [00:23:54] It really that’s all that it comes down to, is sleeping well at night, feeling comfortable. And I try to get people to feel comfortable about an unknown future. And once again, going back, make the most of what you have and live in the present, because that’s really all that counts.
Sharon Cline: [00:24:11] Well, if you’re just joining us, we are speaking with Mike Zina of Mike Zina Advisors. What do you think is the biggest misconception of your industry or or maybe even what do you think people are so reluctant to do? Like, what are their reluctant reluctance is that they won’t come see someone like you?
Mike Sena: [00:24:28] There’s a number. But I’m going to say, first and foremost, I don’t know anybody that hasn’t been. Screwed by a financial adviser and typically insurance agents or stockbrokers. And I know a lot of fine insurance agents. I know a lot of fine stockbrokers, but they make their money on selling a product or a transaction. And one of the things I tried to explain to people is Wall Street, so to speak, is no different from Johnson and Johnson, General Motors or DuPont. It manufactures financial products to sell, and there’s a home for pretty much everything they manufacture, generally not your home. And that’s where people tend to get into trouble. And the insurance industry, the annuity business, it’s almost designed for planned obsolescence so that ten, 12 years down the road, as your life changes and this particular product really doesn’t fit you as well, it’s oh, my word, we’ve got a wonderful new product. Let us roll you into it. And I get really bent. Over, particularly insurance agents if they will swear up and down. I don’t collect a fee. It’s a commission. Well, the client doesn’t pay me. The company pays me well, the client’s paying the company, and I’ve gotten into it from time to time. There was. I was at a networking meeting some years ago. There’s a guy that sells a product called Indexed Universal Life Insurance. It’s not a bad product. It fits some people very well. I don’t even know.
Sharon Cline: [00:25:55] What that all that means. I’m trying to, like, understand all those words put together.
Mike Sena: [00:26:00] That’s another thing. There’s a lot of jargon and a lot of people try to speak above and going back to women there. I hear this over and over again. The women is dissed in the conversation. The wife is left out most of the time, and I find that disheartening. Well, disheartening is a nice way to put it, but it’s wrong headed. And it’s anyway, that’s a whole nother conversation. But this guy got up and pointed to me across the table. This man is going to charge you a fee.
Sharon Cline: [00:26:32] You’re the bad guy. Anyway.
Mike Sena: [00:26:36] One of my common refrains there is no free lunch.
Sharon Cline: [00:26:39] Yeah, I mean, the goal is for everyone to win. Yeah, I.
Mike Sena: [00:26:42] Have no problem with a lot of this. But so much in the insurance and annuity industry, the fees are hidden. It’s very opaque. It’s osmosis. Getting money out of your pocket into their pocket, and nobody it’s like.
Sharon Cline: [00:26:55] You don’t even see it frictionless. Yeah.
Mike Sena: [00:26:57] Wow. The other thing is that you have to have a lot of money to work with an advisor. And look, it helps, but that’s not always the case. I’m always willing and. Eager to have a conversation with someone They may or may not be a good fit, but I’m always happy to answer questions and sometimes it’s a good fit. Younger, less affluent people. Sometimes it’s not. I think those two things that if you don’t have money, you really can’t. And that’s a myth. Everybody has everybody has gotten bad advice or sold a product that they wish they hadn’t.
Sharon Cline: [00:27:33] Do you feel like now you are approached more by younger people? It’s more you’re more likely to over the years that you’ve been in this industry, like what changes have you seen as you’ve gotten into it?
Mike Sena: [00:27:47] A lot of changes. It’s. We went through 2008. Yes, the economy slid into the abyss. A lot of people got hurt pretty bad. A lot of people got disillusioned. One of the things that I deal with with younger people is this. Enormous burden of college debt. So many times, me and so many of my colleagues, we wish we had a time machine. We could just go back ten years and let’s not do it this way. I don’t have a really good answer for that, but I can tell you, if you can’t get a job taking on more debt to get a master’s degree is not your answer. There are any number of ways to earn a living, and you’ve got to be flexible. There’s a guy that I have listened to over the years. You may have heard of him, Dave Ramsey. He’s made a fortune. And he most of his advice is pretty spot on. I don’t agree with everything, but one of the things that I learned from him is your present situation isn’t forever. Like if you’re trying to get out of debt, you know, buy a piece of crap car, drive it for a year and a year down the road, you move up and in three years you’ll be able to buy a new car. Your present situation isn’t the rest of your life. And so many times kind of the focus of your show, the fear. Yes, being resilient. You’re in a bad spot and you see nothing positive going, but you have to get those legs moving. You’ve got to formulate a plan and you’ve got to implement it one step at a time.
Sharon Cline: [00:29:23] I had spoken to a different financial advisor at one point about young people and how I don’t really feel that there’s a disservice that’s done to people who graduate school and graduate college, and they really don’t have a really good grasp on how to manage money from the very beginning. What do you think of that?
Mike Sena: [00:29:46] There’s been a lot of talk about bringing financial literacy into the public school system, a great.
Sharon Cline: [00:29:52] Way to say it, Financial literacy. Yeah.
Mike Sena: [00:29:54] And part of my thing is careful what you wish for. There’s a number of things that have been introduced to the education system that has not worked out well. Ultimately, this comes from the home and I think some of it I touched on before is hardwired and I hope my son isn’t listening. But I will never forget this. He was four years old. He had some birthday money. We went to Walmart to buy something specific for him and Walmart was out of it. They didn’t have it, but that money burned a hole in his pocket. He had to spend it. He had to spend it. And to a degree, he’s that way now. So it’s not so much financial literacy, but it goes back to mindset. And people that generally have money. You can divide people into a lot of different categories. I tend to divide them. People that think about spending money, people that think about making money. And if you think about spending money, you will never have any wealth. If you think about making money, you will eventually generate wealth over time.
Sharon Cline: [00:30:59] And you don’t know when you’re meeting someone which mindset they have about you can.
Mike Sena: [00:31:04] Figure it out pretty quick and sometimes you can change it, sometimes you can’t. You know, one of the things Dave Ramsey talks about that I love you know, you’re kind of you’re sitting in a bucket of poop, you know, and it’s you know, it’s awful. It’s your poop, but it’s comfortable. You’re familiar with it. You have got to be in more pain than the pain it takes to change. You’ve got to be fed up. And I don’t care what addiction you have, you’ve got to reach a point that what was a Howard Beale from the movie Network? I’m mad as hell. I’m not going to take it anymore. You’ve got to get mad as hell and change and find the courage to change and take it a step at a time and see something in the near horizon that is better than what you have now. And stay focused on that.
Sharon Cline: [00:31:52] Because there’s always the instant gratification, right, that just this minute, you know.
Mike Sena: [00:31:57] Some people can’t get over that. It’s a crack habit. It’s it’s alcohol, it’s gambling, it’s porn, it’s any number of things. And it kind of goes back to what we’re talking about before. You’ve got to find a way to change your environment, sometimes change your friends, sometimes change your room, change. You’ve got to focus on what I call cognitive therapy and introduce a new thought to replace the bad thought that takes work. And I’ve been very fortunate in my life. I’ve had a number of terrific mentors. Everybody needs help. Everybody needs a mentor. And typically the mentors I’ve had, we’ve helped each other over the years and you just got to want something more different than what you have. It sounds simple, but it’s really hard for a lot of folks.
Sharon Cline: [00:32:45] How did the pandemic affect your business? Did it did it affect your business?
Mike Sena: [00:32:51] Well, it did. I pretty lucky with that and that I worked from my home. Most of my clients were fine. One of the things I will tell you is periods of great stress are wonderful drivers for financial advisors to get new business because people are freaked out. People whenever you move somebody from a position of comfort to discomfort, they’re going to be looking for something, a.
Sharon Cline: [00:33:17] Safety net.
Mike Sena: [00:33:18] Something that will make them comfortable again. And for the most part, the pandemic helped my business pretty enormously. What we’re going through now, a lot of people kind of freaked out what’s going on. To me, we’re living in the Twilight Zone. I can’t make heads or tails of half of what’s going on in our country. But what I try to get people again to focus on is, number one, control you and yours. Stay focused on your situation. Once you kind of got that under hand, then branch out locally, get involved locally. If you want to get involved, get involved locally first, help non profits or, you know, become a party chairperson or whatever, whatever your flavor is. But start out kind of like pebbles on a pond before you try to become benevolent dictator for a day. Take care of your own home.
Sharon Cline: [00:34:09] I love that you talk about starting locally because that’s what we were talking about before the show. How and you touched on a bit how great Woodstock is, because everyone really does have everyone that I have interacted with. I’ve not had one moment where I haven’t felt like they were really interested in what I do and how they can help me. And I feel the same. And it’s just been really encouraging because I don’t feel like I’m alone, you know, even even though I am alone in my business, it still feels like I have resources and people. And when I go down into downtown Woodstock, often see someone I know. And so I feel like I have a little family and support, which it’s it’s and it comes from a true place. It’s not just lip service. And I really I appreciate that about our town. And like you said, knowing that you have two people competing in the same industry, but you really do want to see each other succeed. There’s like the energy behind that is for good for everyone. You know, it is.
Mike Sena: [00:35:04] This is a wonderful community, Cherokee County, city of Woodstock. There is a vibe and an energy that flows. I wish I could tap into it more, but I’ve really enjoyed getting to know a number of business people. I know the previous mayor, Donnie and Ricky. I knew the current mayor, Michael Caldwell. I think the world of Michael Caldwell. In fact, I doubt I’ll embarrass him. But one of my favorite stories, his father, Mark Caldwell, did a presentation at the Circuit, which is a co-working space and community center in downtown Woodstock. And Mark Caldwell was talking about how to raise money for a business. And he went through the whole thing. Friends and family, 401 K venture capital, Angel investors, all of that stuff. And he was talking about his sons, Michael and I don’t know the other one, but he would make them stand in front of the mirror, I think like once a week, raise their hand, repeat your name. I am responsible for the decisions I make and the consequences they’re from.
Sharon Cline: [00:36:12] Oh, dang.
Mike Sena: [00:36:13] And I got to tell you, that is right up my alley. I love that. And you got to hand it to Michael. He is. He’s a wonderful man and he’s very accomplished. He’s got a lot going for he and his family. And I enjoyed getting to know his dad, who has done quite well over the years, terrific family, terrific people. And there’s just a lot of that in Cherokee County.
Sharon Cline: [00:36:40] Yeah, I like to blame other people for my problems.
Speaker3: [00:36:44] That’s you can do it, but.
Sharon Cline: [00:36:47] It’s not very empowering.
Mike Sena: [00:36:48] It’s not going to get you anywhere.
Sharon Cline: [00:36:50] I feel better for the moment, the instant gratification. So what was it about? Did you have any times when you were kind of getting into this industry that you did have those sort of natural feelings of, I don’t know what I’m doing or, you know, I think about people who are listening, who have their dreams and maybe want to become a financial advisor, but have sort of those feelings that maybe they don’t know enough or they’re not, you know, there are too many people in the industry. I’m never going to be able to compete well. How did you manage your emotion around that?
Mike Sena: [00:37:19] There were really two things, but I I’ve just learned to keep going. Part of it was going through the divorce and trying to raise my son. There was a lot of. Stuff going on. And you and I might have touched on that when we met a little bit, but I felt I’ve never really felt a failure in business, but I felt a failure as a husband, a failure as a father. And that was the toughest thing to get over. But I had no choice. I had to make some money. I had to figure it out. I twice thought about going back to the IT business, which would have been very easy, but I didn’t want to do that. I hate going backwards. I’d rather go forward and anybody thinking about getting into the financial advisory business and I would say any business. But what I didn’t really understand getting into it is how much of it is people related, sales related, communication related. It doesn’t make any difference how smart I am or how well I manage money. In the end, if I’m not able to connect with people in a way that makes them feel comfortable and draws them to me, I’m not going to be successful. And that was my biggest obstacle, was figuring out how to connect with people in that kind of level.
Sharon Cline: [00:38:39] Was it just it was trial and error then for you? Because really, we talk about this on the show all the time, how the business is people you’re dealing with people. And that’s part of why I like the show, because when we have people on the show, they don’t talk about just being part of diesel. David You know, what’s diesel? David Well, when you get to know who these people are, it’s really nice to be able to identify someone’s motivation and personality and kind of have an energy as opposed to just a logo or a name.
Mike Sena: [00:39:07] Well, the businesses I had before, bluntly, we did very good work. We had a wonderful reputation. We really didn’t have to sell. And generally we turned as much business down as we got. And I got into a business and I was naively thinking, you know, if you build it, they will come. Well, they weren’t coming. Like, where are they? Don’t they know me?
Speaker3: [00:39:29] Don’t they don’t they know how great I am? It’s like.
Mike Sena: [00:39:35] So I certainly misjudged that and a lot of it was mindset work and learning how to communicate. Really learning how to listen made a big difference. And some people are more gifted on what I call the sales side, and I know a number of advisors, you know, they offload a lot of their work, but they are wonderful rainmakers connectors. They know how to bring the business in and that’s something I’ve never really been good at, but I’ve learned and so far I’m getting better. You know, I just want to get better each month.
Sharon Cline: [00:40:14] It’s nice you even have like monthly goals as opposed to like, what’s your five year plan? You know, you’re like, I just want to have a good month.
Mike Sena: [00:40:23] Well, I got plan A, B, C and D, so I try to get people to be flexible with their with their plans. But yeah, I just a little better today than I was yesterday. And again, I I’m involved in a couple of peer to peer mastermind groups which are enormously helpful. I recommend any business owner to get involved in some kind of group where it’s very safe to talk about what’s going on in your business. And others. Will we all have the kind of the same problems, a little different depending upon the nature of your business. But it all comes down to particularly these days, people you know, when I first kind of got into the business, it was more transactional, But it’s become very much about people and very much it’s highly personalized. And I’ve kind of built this into this personalized boutique practice and. I’m not for everybody. Everybody is not for me. Like I said, you can there’s a number of different ways that you can go about having financial help from different sources. I don’t recommend you Google it.
Speaker3: [00:41:35] But some people do.
Mike Sena: [00:41:37] Some people do. You know Dave Ramsey, Susie Orman, Clark Howard, there’s any number of people. They’re really, really good with generic advice. Where I make a difference is mine is very specific and very personal.
Sharon Cline: [00:41:52] Do you find that your clients are sort of your friends too, for over time? Yeah, yeah.
Mike Sena: [00:41:56] Yeah. It’s.
Sharon Cline: [00:41:59] It’s like you’re doing life together in some aspects. Yeah. Interesting.
Mike Sena: [00:42:04] It is. It’s. I have a guy that helps me in the back office with invoicing and onboarding new clients and stuff, and we talk periodically and remarked yesterday, he goes. You know an awful lot about these people.
Speaker3: [00:42:20] It’s like.
Mike Sena: [00:42:20] Well, I want you to know, too, in case I get hit by a bus.
Speaker3: [00:42:26] The to be able to offload.
Mike Sena: [00:42:29] To the correct people to be sure there’s no interruption and they’re in their situation.
Sharon Cline: [00:42:36] I have one final question for you. What do you do regarding marketing? Do you find that you need to.
Speaker3: [00:42:42] Oh, yes.
Sharon Cline: [00:42:43] Oh, okay. A lot. Some people don’t. They just put one ad on Facebook Marketplace or Facebook, whatever it is, Cherokee Connect. And that’s plenty to get the ball rolling for them. But I was wondering, what do you do? Like what how do you stand out amongst your your competitors, I suppose?
Mike Sena: [00:42:57] Well, I will say I have spent an enormous amount of money and gotten very little results depending upon different things that I’ve tried. Linkedin’s been a pretty good avenue for me. I do a video every month and I had a gentleman before COVID that produced videos for me. They were wonderful. We would go to a venue and we would shoot 8 or 10 videos and then he would produce them. We’d roll them out one a week. And right once COVID came, that all went away. And I, you know, talk about fear and overcoming fears. I finally got over my fear of the iPhone. I just started doing iPhone videos.
Speaker3: [00:43:34] Yourself myself. Well, how about that?
Mike Sena: [00:43:37] And I will tell you, at first it was fine. And then, you know, over time, I needed to learn how to edit the videos a little bit. And then I needed, well, I need to add subtitles. So what became, you know, five, ten minute kind of fun process became a 45 minute pain in the rear. And I’ve got a new woman that is helping me with videos. So far, I’m very pleased with what she’s doing and we’re rolling them out. You know, every Monday around noon time, I put a new video up and I try to post some other stuff during the week and I network a lot. I’m involved in these peer to peer kind of groups. I you never know where a conversation will lead. And I got several clients from a single conversation and a mastermind group at the National Speakers Association of Georgia. Like four years ago, just one conversation led to about four clients that came in and it was you never know.
Sharon Cline: [00:44:38] Well, I’m going to take away from this conversation with you that it’s important to not. Think that comfortable is safety. It’s not feels like safety, but it’s not really safety. And to be flexible and be willing to grow because those are things that I resist unless I’m forced to. But but I really appreciate, like you said, the framing of it as being something, well, that’s not where life really is and I’ve never really heard it phrased that way. So it kind of hit me in a good way today, so. Well, cool. Well, I do think, too, when you’re having those moments of difficulty and you’re heightened, you’re trying to survive, like in those survival modes, you do kind of whittle down what’s really most important to you because you can’t handle everything. And so sometimes I do a tremendous amount of growth in my darkest times. So I like I like the notion of that because I always want to be comfortable and safe. But maybe that’s not always the best thing for my spirit.
Mike Sena: [00:45:35] Well, I’ll leave you. Great. Adversity leads to great innovation.
Sharon Cline: [00:45:39] Oh, I could have said that in two seconds. The whole thing I was just saying just now could have been, like, nicely wound up in that. I like that ism much better than what I just said. Well, Mike, Zina, thank you. I really appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your story. It’s been really fun for me.
Mike Sena: [00:45:56] Sharon Me too. Thanks a bunch. Look forward to doing it again.
Speaker3: [00:45:59] Okay.
Sharon Cline: [00:46:00] We’ll check in again. And thank you all for listening to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX. And again, this is Sharon Cline reminding you, with knowledge and understanding, we can all have our own fearless formula. Have a great day.
Dr. Phillip Hearn Ed.D. is a results-driven entrepreneur, Senior Executive, Consultant, and Board Member with more than 20 years of success in business acquisition and real estate. His expertise in leveraging extensive experience with expansion, and financing, makes Phillip a valuable asset for companies, particularly in real estate, seeking guidance on growth opportunities and process improvement.
