Spotlight on Jeremy Busch; Certified Financial Planner™

Jeremy’s mission is to provide exceptional customer service to all clients and anyone who engages Keystone for financial advice through utilization of industry knowledge and tactical advice pertinent to each individual’s evolving financial needs.

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Contact Josh Nelson: https://www.keystonefinancial.com
Contact Jeremy Busch: https//www.keystonefinancial.com
Podcast Editor: Tim Leaman/info.primegen@gmail.com

Transcript

Wiser Financial Advisor – Spotlight on Jeremy

Hi Everyone, and welcome to the Wiser Financial Advisor at Keystone Financial Services where we get real, we get honest and we get clear about the financial world and your money. Let the financial fun begin! 

 Jeremy: Welcome to the Wiser Financial Advisor Podcast Takeover once again. I am Certified Financial Planner Jeremy Bush, and with me today is Jen Walter. Well, Jen, what is the topic of our takeover today?

 Jen: Today's topic is to focus on you, Jeremy, and get to know you better.    Jeremy: Fair enough. That's a rocky road, but all right, we'll go down it. 

 Jen: This will be fun. So, most everyone listening probably knows that you've been with Keystone for a while, but let's go farther back. How did you get into this business? Tell us about your career journey.

 Jeremy:  I love what I do. And I'm so glad I found this company. But becoming a financial planner did take me a while. I often look back at what led to this. A good place to start is when I was a senior in college at Fort Lewis. I remember thinking I should probably find a big boy job because my college days were coming to an end. So, I started throwing applications out to whoever and wherever. And of course, the ones that bit were sales types positions, right? They'll hire anybody and they don't require any experience. One of the first ones to respond was a sales position out in Chicagoland. A couple months later, I had packed up everything I owned and I drove to Chicago. I was in the suburbs out there and went to work for this business-to-business sales company. It was horrible, absolutely the roughest thing I've ever done. Imagine the heat of Chicago in the summertime, and I had to wear a suit and tie every day, working 15, 16 hour days, Monday through Friday. It was brutal. You'd show up, everybody rally around to get the troops pumped up, and then head out to whatever territory you were in. And so that didn't last very long, about three or four months. The work itself was not fun, but I did learn some good stuff.

Jen: I bet.

 Jeremy: That was quite the learning experience, especially right out of college.

 Jen: I bet. A lot of knocking on doors, a lot of closed doors.

 Jeremy: Oh yeah. You grow a thick skin really fast because people would immediately dismiss you, as soon as you walk in the door.

 Jen: Quite the intro to sales.

 Jeremy: Yes. Sink or swim. 

 Jen: And what was the next step after that?

 Jeremy: I went a different direction. It was still somewhat of a sales role, but I became an admissions advisor for Keller Graduate School of Management. It was a step up from walking the streets of Chicago, but it was cubicle land. All day you take phone calls and reach out to people and help them get enrolled in graduate school. So I did that for a couple years. The best thing that came out of that for me was that I started my master's degree because we had basically free tuition, which is pretty tough to pass up on. I started going down the road of my MBA there and minoring in accounting and finance. So that was pretty good. 

 As I was coming to an end there, my wife was about nine months pregnant and we were sitting on the couch one night. I don't know how we got on the subject, but we both looked at each other and said, “We don't want to raise a kid here.” We’d been out there for almost three years at this point but we realized this is not for us. It was fun for a few years as a young married couple in the big city. But as soon as the kid came, we moved back to Colorado. Thankfully, we had a lot of family that helped us out with that. 

 Jen: Oh, that's good. Did you know at that point what career path you wanted to be on?

 Jeremy: I had no clue what I was doing. I'm very lucky that I'm married to one of the most patient women I've ever met. She has been patient with me over my big career changes. When we got back to Colorado, we were staying at my parents' house for a while. My dad got a position out in California for a year, so it just worked out to stay in their house. They were very gracious with that. And so I started throwing out applications. I didn't want to do sales. And where I ended up was because I was doing my master's degree. I hadn't quite finished it yet but I was able to get a position with Poudre School District in Fort Collins, as a grant accountant for the special education.

 Jen: Very nice.

 Jeremy: Yeah. That was a good crew, a fun time, and I learned a lot. When I was in college, I hated accounting classes but I had to take them to get the right credits. And along the way somewhere, everything clicked into place with accounting, and it all made sense.

 Jen: You're good at it. If it didn’t come naturally to you at first, you’d never know that now because you're so good at it. That's funny sometimes about life. Years ago, you thought you’d never want to do that. And then you step into something and see it from a different perspective and have appreciation for it. And it’s something you enjoy doing. That's funny about life.

 Jeremy: Absolutely. It's one of those curveball things, right? One thing leading into another. 

So I was there for five or six years in Fort Collins working as an accountant 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. We had a couple kids at this point, so I was also working part-time in the evenings for Home Depot doing closing shifts and a couple of shifts on the weekends along with finishing up my master's degree. It was a mad scramble. Then I got an opportunity to go to Greeley, which meant I could stop working at Home Depot and still get paid the same. 

 It was a good organization, I learned a lot and worked with some great people doing the accounting thing. I worked there in Greeley for another five years as an accountant. I did quit the Home Depot, but my neighbor who lived two houses down started a home inspection company, ABR Inspections. He still does it. And he told me he needed help. So I got all my certifications in home inspecting and  helped him out part-time, helped him grow his business. That was pretty fun, climbing on roofs, climbing through attics. Then Greely put me in a manager position in addition, for the records department. They had all these records that were on microfilm and microfiche.

 Jen: Oh my goodness.

 Jeremy: Very labor intensive. No digital backup of those records. That was a big project. And, as anybody who has any experience in public education in the state of Colorado knows, every budget year is different. They're always trying to pass mill levies. Greeley was trying to pass a mill levy to help out with the budget but it got voted down. And as a part of that, my accounting position got cut. At this point, I had spent almost 11 years doing accounting and it was paying the bills. Then all of a sudden, I was out of a job.

 Jen: And now what?

 Jeremy: Yeah, now what? That was a big transition time. I was still doing home inspecting on the side. And my buddy Rob, who owns the home inspection business, was saying, “We can ramp this up and you come on full time.” I liked home inspecting enough to do it for a while, but I realized I probably needed to find something else. That's when you and I crossed paths. You are friends with my wife, Christine, have been for years. Christine came home one day after talking to you and you had suggested checking out financial advising. Yes, lovely Jen here said, “Come be a financial advisor, check it out.” You set up a lunch with the advisor that you were working with at the time, and he ran me through it. I loved what I heard. From my very first investments class in college, I thought this stuff is so much fun and I’d love to be able to turn this into a career. It didn’t come about at the time. I never really thought it would be one of those things that came back around, but ultimately it did. When it did, I jumped in.

 Jen: Absolutely. Well, when I had a conversation with Christine, she was wondering, “What will be next for Jeremy?” And it seemed like you were a natural fit, in personality, work ethic and everything that would suit being an advisor. Well, you had to work hard to get that up and going because you had to get licenses, not just one but several. And getting a business off the ground.

 Jeremy: Yes, I had to go back to door knocking, this time for Edward Jones.

 Jen: Yes, because Edward Jones starts their advisors off with door knocking. I knew you had the potential to pursue this career. And we're here because of all of your hard work and dedication with that. So you were at Edward Jones for a couple years and learned a lot, got to see a lot, and then Keystone happened. So how did that transition happen from Edward Jones to Keystone?

 Jeremy: Well, Edward Jones does have a fantastic training program.

 Jen: They do.

 Jeremy: I went through all their training and then hit the ground running. I got a lot of help from all the advisors in the area, the whole district region was really great. They're very upfront too, about how, to build a business you have to knock on doors. The difference was that the products I was selling were worth it to people, something I could stand behind and believe in. So I did that for about a year and a half. But unless sales is your thing and you love it, that stuff just weighs on you. My wife would see me come home after a day of knocking on doors and ask, “Can you keep this up?” I wasn’t going to give up, but like any other sales type position, there were quotas to meet, and I did not meet my quotas for Edward Jones, which meant I had to move on. 

 I found myself wondering what do I do now? I was still home inspecting with my buddy Rob. I thought my chance to be a financial advisor was gone, and I was kind of heartbroken about it, honestly. I loved the idea of that and the whole thing behind it, but it seemed like I had lost the opportunity to go in that direction. So, I thought I would help with the inspecting business by becoming a home appraiser. I interviewed with a home appraisal company but then I found a posting for Keystone. 

 When I went in for the interview, the whole team was around the table. I can honestly say that I've never been in a more comfortable job interview than I was that day. It was long, too, lasting two or three hours just talking back and forth about how we do business. I felt like it was a really great fit, but the hiring process for Keystone took a long time. I wasn't sure I had the job. The office manager who worked here forever, Renee, would call me about every week or so and say, “We're still really interested, we're going through all the hoops to get everything connected.” And then, this appraisal company was saying I’d be a good fit for that, and it looked like a lot of fun also. Two totally different paths. So I was holding out and telling the appraisal company, “I just need another week.” 

 Jen: Intuition.

 Jeremy: Intuition. I really wanted to take the Keystone thing. And then Josh gave me a call and said, “We want to make it official.” I came in here and hit the ground running and never looked back. It was a great fit from day one and we've grown the company. I think this will be my 9th year with Keystone. And it feels like yesterday, right? Which tells you a lot about it. If you can remember back there, but it feels like it was just yesterday, it's probably a good fit. The clients are great and the work is fantastic and it's ever-changing. 

 Jen: So, what was the biggest surprise for you after settling into Keystone? We get a lot of questions about what sets Keystone apart. What is it that you love about Keystone that really sets it apart?

 Jeremy: By far and away it’s the family atmosphere. It's the culture. And that was brought up from day one in the very first interview I ever had. We're very specific about our culture and what we do. At the time I didn't really know what that means. Now I’m in it and  living the culture of Keystone and how we do business. We try to make everyone from employees to clients and everyone in between feel like this is our extended family here.

 Jen: Yes.

 Jeremy: And any advice we're going to give you is the advice we would give to our mom. I could always feel it from day one. Birthday calls, random acts of kindness to clients, all the educational seminars and client appreciation events. You really do get to know your clients and what's important to them. You get to see how you're making a difference, and that is the greatest thing. I mean, in my career, I've had clients break down in happy tears sitting in a meeting. They just start crying. I’m wondering if I said something wrong, but instead they say something like, “I never actually thought I was really going to be able to retire.” And I know they’ve got this. So it's very impactful. It's fascinating and so much fun. I absolutely love it.

Jen: People trust us with their financial plan and also a lot of their deep feelings. We take that and cherish it and hold it sacred, and that means a lot. We’ve heard many stories from clients, you know, good news, bad news, celebratory news. It feels like a genuine family, celebrating all the highs. We know our clients and they are not a number. We know the names of people. And because you're so personable, you can appreciate when somebody walks in the door, you know who they are.

 Jeremy: Right. No need to look them up really quick.

 Jen: That's why you're a good fit being an advisor. You have the smarts and you also have the personal side. Plus you bring a lot of fun to the office. 

 Jeremy: Gotta have fun when you're at work and it's who you work with, which goes back to that culture.

 Jen: Which is so key. I love it. Now, you are a CFP, a Certified Financial Planner. Do you want to talk about what that means and what sets an advisor apart?

 Jeremy: In the financial industry, there are various certifications you need along with the continuing education that goes with them. When I came into Keystone, I was already a fully licensed advisor. Then Josh said, “You're on the advisor track here, but I really want every advisor we have at Keystone to be a CFP.” I had always thought about it and so I said, “Yeah, let's go for it.”  

 Anyone who doesn't know the process of a CFP, it’s a two-year minimum of study, and at least two years’ worth of experience. The study itself takes 2 years because there's so much material to go over. Everything from investments, taxation, estate planning. We live it every day. If anybody's ever seen our service grid on our website, you can look at that and there are the things on your CFP test right there.  It's all of those different areas, with tests in between sections so you can progress to the next section. The CFP test is an eight-hour test at a Prometric testing center, a four-hour morning shift and a four-hour afternoon shift. Two years’ worth of knowledge poured into 8 hours in a day. Very intensive stuff. But as a CFP, pretty much no matter what comes out of a person's mouth regarding finance, you have some kind of knowledge about it. Or if you don’t know, you know how to get the answer. Which is really empowering. I’ve been in meetings where someone's brought up some wild question about something very specific. I have no problem saying, “I don't know that right now, but I am going to find out and let you know.” Anyway, getting the CFP has been a great career move. That's been almost five years now.

 Jen: Because it was 2020, right, during COVID times, which seems like yesterday, and yet it's already been five years. It has served you well.

 Jeremy: Yeah.

 Jen: Well, I feel like we've definitely gotten to know you better, and that's always so much fun. And if you listeners haven't had a conversation with Jeremy yet, I encourage you to reach out because there's a lot that he knows about. And just overall, it's just great working with you.

 Jeremy: You as well. It's been fun, and we just continue to have fun.

 Josh: We love feedback and we'd love it if you would pass it on to me directly at josh@keystonefinancial.com . Also, please stay plugged in with us, get updates on episodes, and help us promote the podcast by rating us five stars and also subscribing to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast service.

The opinions voiced on the Wiser Financial Advisor show are for general information only, and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. To determine what may be appropriate for you, consult with your own accountant, financial or tax advisor prior to investing. Investment advisory services offered through Keystone Financial Services, an SEC registered investment advisor.