Advisor Spotlight with Russ Story, Douglas, GA

18 Jul Advisor Spotlight with Russ Story, Douglas, GA

We are pleased to bring you the next installment of the Summit Advisor Spotlight. These interviews aim to demonstrate how advisors have dramatically increased their production by leveraging tools and services provided by Cetera Advisor Networks LLC and Summit Financial Networks.

This edition of Advisor Spotlight features Stephen “Russ” Story of Story Wealth Management Group, located in Douglas, GA. Russ recently sat down with Josh Gomez, Summit’s Sr. Relationship Manager, and Gordon Jahnig, Summit’s Director of Sales Support. We are grateful to Russ for taking time out of his busy day to share his insights. Let’s get started.

JG: Good Afternoon. We like to start these interviews with an easy question. Can you tell us a little about what why you got into the business?

RS: Growing up my dad worked all the time. At one point he was teaching high school biology, running a hardware store and had an insurance agency, all at the same time. So, my grandfather took me fishing a lot. After my grandfather died, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother. I saw how she had trouble back in the 80s with interest rate volatility. She was dependent on that income to support her and that really affected her. I saw firsthand how inflation can have a real impact on folks after they retire and what can happen if they are not prepared for it. My grandmother liked having a new car and she used to trade cars every few years but when her income dropped, she ended up driving the same car for the last 11-12 years before she passed. Long story short, seeing her struggles in retirement, I understand what can happen when you don’t have proper financial plans for retirement and that motivates me to help my clients avoid those same issues.

GJ: Can you tell us briefly where you got your start in this business and how you got here?

RS: I worked at a few financial services companies but not as a registered person.  I was working at a broker-dealer in Atlanta when I got my Series 7 in April 1992. I started as an advisor in 1993 at Edward Jones and then I went to Raymond James in 1999 before I came to Summit in 2014.

GJ: Why did you choose to join Summit?   

RS: At the time I was frustrated with my broker-dealer, and I wasn’t accomplishing my goals. So, I was exploring what other firms had to offer me. I had been talking with the folks at Summit for a while and I had the opportunity to visit the office in Boca Raton and meet Marshall Leeds. I realized during our conversation that he seemed to understand the business better than anybody else I had spoken with in the industry. I really felt like this was a place I should be. It was a great decision and one I have not regretted.

JG: We are certainly glad you’re here and enjoy working with you. One of the things I think you’re proud of and where I think you provide value to your clients is that you run your own investment models and you’re heavily involved in the investment selection.

RS: Moving to advisory was different because I had been doing transactional business for so long. Frankly, it’s difficult to step out of what is comfortable, but I felt like I could improve on what I was offering to my clients. The shift has been very positive for us. In the last year, we have seen significant growth in our advisory assets and our total assets. In addition to growing assets, it’s important for me to believe in what I am recommending. I’ve always tried not to be a maverick, but I want to find the best way to do business I believe in doing. I want to help clients understand why it is good for them. As far as model portfolios, we have primarily five models. We have a process, it is math based, and we have multiple layers of analysis. We feel like there are a lot of benefits to our approach and methodology. I think it’s important to have consistency, remove emotion and rely on your process. Is our process perfect? No, I don’t believe there is a perfect process but ours is working really well. Obviously, we feel good about it and our clients seem to be satisfied as well.

JG: So why did you decide to make this shift to incorporate advisory accounts into your business?

RS: In the past I had used some third-party managers in advisory accounts, and I was becoming somewhat disillusioned with them. I felt like I didn’t always have a great answer for my clients when they would ask me to explain the “what” and “why” questions related to decisions the managers were making. There is a quote attributed to Peter Lynch about knowing what you own and why you own it. As an advisor, I feel like I owed that to my clients to explain in detail why we buy or sell a position and how it relates to the portfolio’s overall strategy.

GJ: I recently introduced you to the Advanced Time Segmentation (ATS) that Cetera has brought to its advisors. Can you talk a little about your experience using ATS and the appeal of adding a tool like this to your practice?

RS: You did, and I appreciate it. It’s something we’ve been seeking for quite a while. ATS allows us to illustrate to the client the importance of time. First, some investments need time to run through the cycle and second, what happens over time when you have a plan in place. I call them buckets for the different objectives we allocate their money into, and the clients understand the “why” much better.

When it comes to asset allocation, in my experience, clients have a tendency to be more content over time because they understand the plan. From the start, we help clients understand that when a portion of the portfolio is set up for growth investments, short-term fluctuations in the market won’t impact their goals because we’ve set up other buckets to cover their short- and medium-term needs for capital. We’ve used analogies to try and help clients understand this for years. I tell clients that it is about time invested in the market, not about perfectly timing the market. We obviously can’t predict what will happen in the future, but there are some things that history has shown us, and we use these disciplines so that we can improve the chances of meeting our clients’ goals.

GJ: You mentioned being happy with your decision to join Summit. Can you talk a little about why?

RS: One thing I can say about Summit and Cetera is that they are committed to the advisors. I would also say that my relationship with Summit enhances my relationship with Cetera. I don’t know how I could honestly function day to day without the support that we receive to keep business flowing and staying in compliance with all the rules and regulations. One of the things I find helpful is the Summit Daily Investment Ideas and the Summit Mutual Fund Focus List. Gordon, I don’t know if I’ve told you this, but I look at it just about every day because it’s incredibly helpful. Lastly, I appreciate having a relationship with the Summit home office. I know them on a first-name basis and they know me.

GJ: Let’s transition to some of the fun questions. Russ, you and I have a shared love of playing music and it is something we’ve talked about on a number of occasions. For those who don’t know, tell us about your band and your role in the band.

RS: Gordon, when you’re a rock star I mean it’s easy to talk about, right? We are your classic Southern Rock band. I am the singer and rhythm guitarist for the Rampage band. We play some old country, some new country (our favorite is BlackBerry Smoke), the old Lynyrd Skynyrd, and stuff that old people like me enjoy hearing. I really enjoy being able to perform but we’ve had to scale back the amount of time we’re putting into the band; with work and kids, it’s hard to have time for everything.

GJ: Can you talk a little bit about why you enjoy playing?  I’m sure that gives you an outlet, just as it does for me.

RS: After a hard day’s work, I like to pick up the guitar, start plunking away, and ignore the wife, ignore the kids (laughs). It’s something that allows me to find some solace for about an hour.

GJ: To quote Pete Townsend of the Who, “Pick up my guitar and play, just like yesterday.”

RS:  Oh yeah.

GJ:  Not only is it a great outlet to unwind, but performing live also has its benefits. You’ve told me that your shows attract a large crowd. As you interact with the audience after a show, do you get any referrals when you play out?

RS: Yeah, we do. I mean referrals are certainly the lifeblood of new business.  But yeah, it’s fun because in a lot of the venues, we will have folks come and obviously some of them are current clients and they’ll bring their friends. It’s kind of a fun thing to be introduced to them.  It’s just another opportunity to get in front of people to let them know what we do when I’m not on stage.

GJ: You know I enjoy talking to you about music and your band, but on occasion, we also talk about new gear which includes guitars, amplifiers, and effects.  Guitarists, and I guess musicians in general, are always looking to improve their current setup, experiment with new toys and as we get older, find ways to lighten our load.   

RS: Oh yeah! I was speaking with a younger friend yesterday and he said we’ve got all these new modeling amps and digital effect pedals.  So, I tend to agree that some of this new gear is better than carrying around a huge amplifier and various effect pedals since the digital gear can come close to sounding like analog but with a much smaller footprint.

With that said, I’m really an analog musician in a digital world and I think sometimes it’s fun to break out the old tube amps and stuff.

It’s a lot like doing a big financial plan with the available software and the technology that we have which is very robust.  But sometimes, you have to just sit down, pull out the notepad and use analogies to convey to the client what we are doing and hold their hand.

JG: What is your favorite movie and why? I think everyone has a movie they’ve seen 100 times and it never gets old.

RS: That’s a tough question. I’m a little too young for all the old Western’s but I always thought Clint Eastwood movies were cool. Initially, I was thinking maybe Barfly with Mickey Rourke; the first Top Gun is great and it’s one I can watch repeatedly. I will say I took my son the see the new Spiderman movie and it was excellent. He loves going to the movies and so we try to go at least once a month and it gives us time together doing something we both enjoy.

JG: Besides your band and playing music, what else do you spend your time outside work?

RS: My wife Julie and I have a blended family. It’s amazing sometimes how well everyone gets along. When you have a whole basketball team of daughters and an 8-year-old son, life is fun and unpredictable because anything can happen anytime. They keep me on my toes.

JG: Russ again we want to thank you for taking the time to do this. We’re very happy you joined us and we look forward to supporting your business in the future.

Stephen “Russ” Story – Registered Representatives offering Securities and advisory services through Cetera Advisor Networks LLC, member FINRA/SIPC, a broker/dealer and a Registered Investment Adviser. Summit Financial Networks is a region of Cetera Advisor Networks LLC, Cetera is under separate ownership from any other named entity. 

Branch Address:

210 E. Ward Street

Douglas, GA 31533