The Different Facets of Wealth Management
Michael grew up in Kinnelon, NJ. Mike attended Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ where he was the Captain of the Cross Country and Track and Field Teams. After graduating from Rider University with his Bachelor’s in Finance and M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship, Mike entered the Financial Services Industry in 2013. Mike is one of the founding partners of Emeritus Wealth and holds his Life, Health, Series 6, Series 63, and Series 65 Licenses. He obtained his “Certified Family Business Specialist “designation (CFBS) through the American College in Philadelphia in 2015.
Zach was born and raised in South Brunswick, NJ. Zach attended Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ where he was a member of the Men’s Lacrosse Team. He graduated with his Bachelor’s Degree in 2012 and began his career in the Financial Services Industry. Zach has been a registered representative of MML Investors Services, LLC. since 2013, and is one of the founding partners of Emeritus Wealth. Zach holds his Life, Health, Series 7, and Series 66 licenses, and he obtained his “Certified Family Business Specialist” designation (CFBS) through the American College in Philadelphia in the summer of 2015.
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Brett:
I’m excited about our next two guests that are out of the great state of New Jersey, Michael Soroko, and Zach Zenda. They’re on a mission to help people have total financial analysis on all of what they’re doing to build their wealth, including retirement analysis, including estate strategies, including employee benefit and retention services, business continuation strategies, trust services, life insurance, and so much more. Please, welcome to the show with me, Mr. Michael Soroko, and Zach Zenda. How are you are guys doing?
Michael:
Good. Thanks so much for having us, Brett.
Brett:
I’m excited to have you guys as well. How about we start with Mike, and then we’ll go Zack, a little bit more about your story and your current focus?
Michael:
I’ve been in the business here in financial planning since 2013. Zach and I partnered up pretty much six months to a year into the business to young guys who didn’t really know too much about where we were going just said, Hey, we want to work hard and help a lot of people, and eight, nine years later, here we are with a team of staff and managing assets, helping people every day. Born and raised in New Jersey, and love the business and everything about it.
Brett:
How about you Zach?
Zach:
Similar to Mike started in the business in 2012, and Mike and I started working together pretty quickly. Fast forward almost a decade later working together and grown to probably well over 600 households and clients, over $100 million in assets, and really looking forward to the next 10 years or so of a lot of the changes that we’re going to be seeing across the board in this country. We’re already seeing it so quickly. But like Mike born and raised in New Jersey, we’re both college athletes so that similar backgrounds, totally different sports, but similar backgrounds and our work ethic and drive, and what motivates us definitely brought us together and continues to help us exceed and grow and build the business well after our, our athletic careers have long passed us. Excited to be here today, and looking forward to chatting with you, Brett.
Brett:
Thanks so much for that background. That’s really cool. Let’s dive right into the number one Secret to Building Different Facets of Wealth Management. What would you say that is. What’s the number one secret to creating different facets to make sure that you’re financially strong and stable?
Zach:
I think the first thing that you need to know is you need to have a plan. I think so many people especially in today’s, stock market with what we call the meme stocks, the gamification of the stock market, you’ve got Robin Hood, you’ve got cryptocurrencies, everybody right now is just trying to get rich quick and I think there’s a lot of people that have gotten rich quick but the majority of the people in this country are not getting rich quick by hitting a couple of nice trades in the market. I think the first and foremost is is having a game plan and understanding that it is a long term plan and it’s not just a six month or 12 months turn your $500,000 into 5 million it’s just really not the reality for most people so
Brett:
Zack anything to add to that?
Michael:
I think he hit on the head and then with the game plan comes a financial coach? Whether it’s a coach and accountability partner, someone like us that’s licensed and in the business someone like yourself we know your background, someone that could be your spouse or your parent’s aunts, uncles, somebody that at times that you might not want to think about your money, the markets, taxes, etc. You have somebody that can keep you accountable and just say, are you on track with your goals? Are your goals in line with your money and these types of things?
Brett:
As a partnership, I’m really curious about you guys. I imagine you guys have to complement gifts and strengths? Maybe different personality types. Maybe the same. I don’t know. I met you guys five minutes ago. Talk to us about the partnership? Why partner? How do you guys his gifts and talents complement one another?
Michael:
Started seven, eight years ago, Zach had been in the business and kind of as two young guys saying most of our friends and people in our natural markets didn’t have a whole high Have a lot of money. We had to level up and just go out and try to help a lot of people, and we said, it’s a lonely, lonely business by yourself. We’ve done everything from networking events, business card exchanges, cold calls, marketing, branding, and to do that yourself on some of those early mornings, late nights can be challenging. We were kind of like Zach and said, both college athletes came up and said if we’re going to go at this thing and survive it’s the very small success rate in the financial advising financial planning business, let’s go at it together, and actually, the other thing that brought us together was sharing staff and the beginning, you got to hire an assistant, you got to hire a staff, he can’t be wasting your time doing paperwork, and service items. He said, why I can’t really afford my own staff full time, he can’t really afford it. We came together split, and since then we have some more staff and other team members, but it was kind of we always say it every day as a joke was that how did we do it? How do we survive? How do we have all these clients and assets and getting referred, etc? It’s been a long journey. But sometimes our clients and we think we’ve been in the business for 30 years, I’m like, we’re only been an eight, nine years.
Brett:
Out of that Michael had, or is that?
Zach:
I think part of your question is what differences do we have? I think Mike and I are very similar, we’re very different at the same time, and Mike strengths are the organization behind the business and making sure that everything is run as smoothly as possible with our clients and, and how important it is from point A to point B with bringing on new clients and having all the systems and processes and, and then also Mike’s personality with clients and getting referred and similar to me is coming up with these ideas and marketing and going out there and continue to build our brand, and bringing that all together has allowed us to continue to go into this hyper-growth mode, which we’re looking forward to over the next decade or so from here now. Because, I feel like we’re just scratching the surface, like you just said, I feel like we’ve been doing this for 30 years. We’ve been just under 10 years, and I think the next 10 years from now, for us are just such a big run-up here for the next 10 years to continue to grow. I think I listen to one of your podcasts and you’re talking about the big wealth transfer from the baby boomer generation that’s coming and we’re starting to see that come now. We’ve already had experiences with that with some of our bigger clients now having some massive wealth transfers, and that’s only going to continue to happen, and I think we’ve positioned ourselves in such a great spot now to be able to help this transition of wealth in our country, which we’ve never seen before.
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