The Willingness to Do More with Jeremiah Dellas

I really love my clients and I love my interactions with them. And the more kind of interesting and complex their situations, the better, in my opinion. Welcome to the Active Advisor Podcast brought to you by Harbor Capital. Join us as we learn from pros who have helped thousands of investors live better lives. I'm Brian Moore and I'll be chatting with some of the brightest minds in the financial advisory business, bringing you insights on practice management and investment research that works for advisors and their clients. Joining me today on this episode of the Active Advisor Podcast is Jeremiah Dulles, President of Heirloom Wealth Partners. Operating out of St. Louis, Missouri. Jeremiah has a proven track record of helping clients navigate their financial goals. From personalized financial planning to managing substantial investment portfolios, he has held leadership roles at various well respected firms and is actively involved in the community focused organizations. Today we'll discuss Jeremiah's journey, his philosophy on wealth management, and how his professional accomplishments have enabled him to make a meaningful impact with his clients and in the community. Without further ado, welcome Jeremiah and thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks Brian, I appreciate it. I'm happy to be here. Looking forward to our conversation today. So, typically here on the Active Advisor, I love to get the conversation started by asking our guests, what is the first memory that you have related to money or investing? So an early memory for me is really just growing up in a single parent household and knowing that it was always difficult to make ends meet. And I would get my dad was trying to start up a business, they were divorced, but he would send me allowance of $5, I think every two weeks and I would try to contribute that to the family and my mom would never let me do that. So that's a very early memory of money for me. And one of the things that it really instilled in me was the desire to break out of the situation I was in. Like I always knew when I get older, when I grow up, I've got to do things differently so that I'm not in this particular situation that I was in. That is a very powerful reminder and I think something that kind of has a tendency to stick with you as you grow older. So that was a great story. Thank you so much for sharing that. Would love to hear. Looking back, obviously you've had some challenges and the major challenges in those early days, but would love to hear kind of what led you into financial becoming a financial advisor and I guess kind of highlights or some of the points along the way of building your business. And you know, if you look back at Them now kind of something maybe that you made a decision back then that you didn't think maybe was a good idea and now it's kind of a. Takes a bigger meaning in your advisory practice. So it's true, I did grow up in a single parent household. But while that was happening, my dad was building a business. So about the time that I turned, you know, 17 or 18, his business was thriving by that time and I started working for my dad regularly. I worked for him through high school and through college. And then I became the finance manager, or I guess you could call it controller. I called it CFO at the time, but it was really more of a finance manager for the steel company that he owned. And I was working on my MBA and he had coached me the only way to be, is to be a business owner. Be on your own. And early on during my MBA courses, he and I differed significantly about the direction of the steel company. And being kind of young and very ambitious, I left early. So 23 years ago, I left the steel company. I talked to a career coach and the career coach said, well, you liked what you did as the financial guy, so why don't you try that out? She got me a couple interviews and I thought, well, okay, worst case scenario, I'll get better at managing my own financial world. And so I'll just give it a try. And in my head I just committed to, I'm just going to give this a try. And like I said, worst case scenario, I'll be better off in my own situation as a result. And so I started early on in order. I knew I needed training, so I started at Northwestern Mutual because at the time they said they were going to give us, they would give me the best training I could get. So I was at Northwestern within two weeks. At Northwestern Mutual, I was the last one in my training class. I lasted there five years. I liked it there. I ended up moving on to investments at ubs. My wife, who has been a huge influence in my development, suggested investments over insurance as a focus. And I took her advice and I learned investment management at ubs. I joined eventually. During the financial crisis, I joined a team. It was the biggest team at Merrill lynch in St. Louis. I was the most junior person on the big team there. I learned a ton of. Because I was forced to do all the things they, they didn't want to do. So I learned insurance at Northwestern and lending and bank account type management at Merrill, where that was handed to me as something to do. I was recruited to lead wealth management for A bank called Fifth Third. And there I learned the trust side of wealth management. I also learned a more organized team approach. So I've had a collection of firms in my background, but each one contributed to what I perceive as the sort of the very well rounded financial planner that I am today. And I can really handle so many different things because of my training that was very varied is a good way to put it. And so to me, that contributes a lot to where I am now and the confidence I have to work with people in a holistic capacity on basically every aspect of their finances. That's actually great story. I think that one of the things that really kind of excites me and I'm sure your clients, when you go ask somebody and you're kind of like, oh yeah, I actually did that back in the day and kind of, I've had kind of a very broad, diverse skill sets that you bring to the table. And I think that's got to be confidence inspiring in your clients, I think so. I tend to work with, I mean, I have a, a collection of clients of many of whom I, I'm very close with, but I have a lot of relationships with business owners and I tend to work well with business owners because of that broad, diverse background, because it's the truth. I can write a, a disability buyout policy and I understand it. I can write executive benefits. I handle retirement plans. And I know how to maximize deferrals for the owners and understand how to bolt on a cash balance plan. But at the same time, I can also build a portfolio and rebalance and diversify and do the normal things too. Yep. That's awesome. And I can definitely see that's the case. I want to take you back just a little bit. We've been talking about kind of recent now and I would love to hear, were there any major challenges you faced kind of in the. Any and any of those, I guess, different kind of backgrounds that were, you know, laying the foundation for your current job? And how did those kind of challenges impact you and kind of help you shape the way you run your business today? I'll try to be brief. The challenges have been various and heavy from time to time. I mean, I came from zero. Right. So I mean, I really came from nothing. So building a book of wealth management clients was very, very difficult. I mean, I did cold calling. I bought lists that other people had worked. I bought lists that were like, I was the fourth generation of people that had been calling that list because I got. I could buy them cheaply. And I built this practice over many years by just outworking my peers, I believe. And I guess other challenges would be bad teaming situations in the past. Also, of course, the Great Recession or the financial crisis was just absolutely terrible. I mean, we had just had our second child and times were really tough. I'm going to tell you this story. I don't really share this with that many people, but when that situation was at its peak level of toughness, my in laws actually said, look, if you want to leave that business, you want to stop being a financial advisor, we'll pay for you to go to medical school like you said you had always wanted to. And I. No one has ever said anything and offered something that special. I mean, it was one of the most special things anyone's ever offered. I did not take them up on it because I was. I felt awful if I would leave my clients who did trust me at their. At sort of the. The trough, which I hoped was the trough. And it was, thank goodness. But I didn't leave the business in 2009 when I guess a lot of people did. And it may have been easier at the time. So as far as challenges go, just trying to build a practice from zero, I didn't acquire anything. I didn't have a family member as a client for like 10 years, so. So I had no. I had to get outside my own network very quickly. To me, that's really pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, I guess, is something my parents would have said. But, you know, I firmly believe in that today, that I think this is one of the things I loved about it and why I kind of got into it is it really is a business where you can get a lot in return. You just have to put a lot of work in. And I think that's something that. And also be a decent individual doing it. And so I think that it can be very rewarding and fulfilling. And it's good to hear, you know, your story and how that's worked out for you. I think one of the things that we mentioned or you mentioned in a previous call that I thought was interesting is that you mentioned that in person marketing kind of events and has been a key contributor to growing your business. What tactics have you found to be the most successful? And love to hear kind of some organizations. Love to hear some examples of organizations or sponsorships that you feel have helped build or even deepen those relationships. Absolutely. So. So as a young business guy and also a young father and husband, the way that I was able to sort of make some of that work is I was really. We worked to intertwine our family and our passions with business. And so my wife has always been very involved in music and the arts. So one of the things we did is we helped found a music therapy, not for profit, that offered therapeutic songwriting and music therapy to kids dealing with cancer. We would take our own children to these things. We would participate in events. We would basically make sure we're engaging our kids and letting them see that we're doing things in the community. But it also allowed me to sort of do double time of dad having fun, but also contributing in the community and meeting and shaking hands and meeting people who weren't in my normal natural network. And so that sort of thing helped me tremendously. And I had a mentor early on who told me, follow up is everything. And so a lot of times when I would shake hands with someone new at one of these events, I would send them a handwritten note and it would simply say, it was a pleasure to meet you. I'm glad so and so took the time to introduce us. What a fun event. I'd love to hear more of your story, maybe over a lunch or coffee. But I was so broke that I meant coffee, not lunch. And then I always finished that with I'll give you a call to follow up. Because I never wanted to leave it up to chance. So I would set it up mentally that I wanted to hear more of their story and I was going to follow up so that when I did call them to follow up, it didn't seem so out of the blue. And so I think my follow up and my little system of handwritten notes and things like that and meeting people off the cuff helped tremendously. And then the truth is we had things in common because we did. We only did participate in things that we were genuinely passionate about, like kids rock cancer or the endangered wolf center or many other not for profits that we've been involved with in town. That's awesome. I think in our previous conversation you even mentioned a volleyball background that you had growing up and how kind of has helped kind of work in business. Would love to hear the story for the listeners. I'd love the listeners. Would love to hear the story, I'm sure of kind of what one of the things that you did in sponsoring a team. Oh, sure. Well, so let's start at the beginning. I played volleyball and in high school and I hadn't played before, so I got cut from the team when I tried out. And I had such a chip on my shoulder about that, that I worked extra hard to make the team the following year, which arguably had I made the team, I might not have worked as hard, but I didn't make the team. So I did. And the next year I made the team. The point is, all that extra effort made me get so much better at volleyball and really fall in love with it that I ended up playing in college. And once in college, I was a walk on a team. I eventually negotiated a full scholarship at a different program. And so I played in college. And then given the fact that I'm not the tallest person, the next step for me after college was the beach tour because it's two on two. So it's less, it's less important to be six foot nine. You can actually, if you're a well rounded player, you can still play the game. So I traveled around on the beach tour. So something I'm passionate about is volleyball. And last year I had the opportunity to make a sponsorship for a pro women's beach volleyball team. And it, nothing has made me happier. It has been a great partnership with those two. They did really well. Made me so happy to see them representing Heirloom wealth partners, my team. They competed well. They're nice people. They're great. They have great character. They're super athletes, they're superhuman. And so I, I just found it to be terrific. And now that opens some other doors. So now I have some additional business opportunities as a result of that. And we're also producing. Now I'm partnering with another friend who the conversation started because of the sponsorship. Now I'm actually producing a beach volleyball documentary about the legends, the guys from the early 90s. Yeah, I think that's awesome. What you've been able to do there is marry your kind of own passions, your own loves and even your families with really kind of aligning those of the interests of your clients and really being able to kind of capitalize on both of those. Both of those things, which I think is tremendously intelligent of you to do and obviously is paying rewards. It is. But it makes me so happy to be able to do things like my undergraduate degree was biochemistry and then eventually an MBA I worked on and a cert, a CFP certified financial planner. But like the Wolf center was great because I was able to really immerse myself in biology. Right. Which is a love of mine also. We can, you can have many things that you enjoy. So volleyball, biology, biochemistry, kids, rock cancer. My wife's friend, as well as my little sister both dealt with Childhood cancer. So that was a special place. So really everything we do is at least we, we attempt to make it really genuine to our cores and then we try to involve our children as well so that they get a good model of giving back and participating in your community. That's awesome. Truly. Is turning looking at your business now and Heirloom Wealth Partners would love to hear more about the services that you offer and obviously with kind of the diversification and kind of the in person marketing events that you've done and, and being able to morph that with some of your own personal lives. Is there, do you have a typical client or is it really kind of run the gamut because of the joint interest that you and your clients have? I think it really runs the gamut is to tell you the truth. And so many times I hear advisors say, well, I only work with doctors, I only work with this or I only work with plumbers, whatever. I love the fact that I work with, I do work with a lot of business owners, but I love the fact that I work with a lot of sort of interesting characters. It keeps my day job. So I guess for lack of a better word, interesting. I get to see, oh, I don't know, a physician who's a business owner and then the next meeting is a maybe someone that owns a forklift company and the next one is a just a person, an individual, single individual or a corporate executive. It's just so many different people and I really get a kick out of it. I also do partner and work with not for profit foundations. I handle retirement plans for different companies. So that keeps things interesting. Yeah, we got so much, so many people. I just love, I really love my clients and I love my interactions with them. And the more kind of interesting and complex their situations, the better in my opinion. So to kind of get to the question you asked about services offered. It's general financial planning, it's investment management. We do everything from helping someone with a break even analysis on a refinance, although we certainly don't sell refinances, we help them with the math of it, to making a decision whether to pursue a Roth conversion strategy or add deferred comp at their work for their top employees in order to add some golden handcuffs and attract, retain and reward their good employees. So it's a little bit of everything. But I would say general financial planning. Excellent. Is there. You've already got so many great stories that you've mentioned that my mind's reeling on kind of questions I have. But I would Love to hear if there's maybe one or two stories that stick out in your mind where you really made a positive impact in the client's life. And both you and them walked away going, wow, we did something special here today. Sure. So one of the first ones that I can think of that just pops into my mind was when I was at the bank leading the wealth management team. There I was, I happened to be in one of the branches because I needed a spot to stop and do some work, return some emails. And in walks a woman who was requesting a check from her account, a cashier's check for, I think $500,000 for taxes. The teller said, hey, you probably should talk to Jeremiah because, I mean, that's an awfully lot to be paying in taxes. Well, we ended up talking and we sat down and we realized that she and her husband, with very few employees, were just. Their business had effectively caught fire in a positive way and was really making money. And they were, they were paying a ton of taxes as a result. They didn't have a 401k plan. They were really just using, I believe, IRAs at the time. And we suggested a 401. I suggested with my partners and TPAs and things like that, suggested a cash balance plan as a bolt on to a 401k and they were able to put away 200,000 each. Each the next year, the following year. Can't fix the year that she was on. But for the following year, we put 200,000 each into the cash balance plan, which led to a savings of roughly $180,000 in taxes that following year. And of course every year thereafter that they participated. So that was a huge win where, I mean, you could really count the savings in terms of taxes. They just, no one had ever brought that up. So to me, that was just a really good one that had very significant results and savings all within one year. The other thing is, the thing that I get the most joy out of these days is helping people cross the line into retirement. Because, yeah, the question is, do I have enough? Will I have enough? But also the confidence of being able to actually make the decision and being part of that with my clients and kind of walking him to the edge, the threshold, retirement and across that threshold. And I mean, there's nothing that makes me happier to help people hit their goals. I do love working with bigger organizations because we offer financial planning for all the stakeholders. So even if you're a participant with $5,000 in your 401k, we'll still give You a full financial plan and treat you like you have a million dollars with us and people take us up on that. So to me, that makes me happy also. I don't know, I probably think of more, but those are the ones that jump out right now. I think those are some great examples and really speak to not only yourself, but also your knowledge and willingness and desire to help clients. Quick question. You've got such a great diverse background of experience and you've been at Heirloom here for, you know, a good while. Been got a successful, thriving business. Would love to hear if you have any nuggets of wisdom for any advisors just starting out today or for anybody who's sitting maybe at one of those wirehouse branches who's looking to go independent. Yeah, sure. So you've heard a million people say it, but my gosh, if I can do it, anybody can do it, because I really did start from zero with no book. I started in the insurance industry, which insurance pays a little faster than investments because investments take time to build. So I do think it's good to learn it and it does help you get started. The common denominator of success, though, is the willingness to work harder than others or the willingness to do more to accomplish the same goal. That is the common denominator of success in any industry, in any field is just the willingness to do more. And I believe I had that. It faltered all the time, but I had it and I stuck with it. And that's the final thing I would say is sticking with it like treat it like the game show Survivor. If you simply continue to outlast your peers, things will eventually go your way. And if you keep working hard, then the book slowly begins to build. And in my case, it's been 23 years now and it's a good number now. But you have to give yourself time. You have to actually put in a ton of hard work and you have to trust the process. And I'll last. That is some words of advice. Thank you very much for that. I have one final question. Jeremiah at harbor, we're firm believers in active management. Though it's important to acknowledge that every financial expert has their own unique perspective. From your experience. What is your take on active management and where have you seen it making the most significant difference? Sure. So I really do like active management and I believe in it, but you really have to actually screen the funds and look for ones that are generating the opportunity to outperform. I do like hybridizing my portfolios, meaning what I mean by that is I'll have some portion of index funds or ETFs, low cost, access to markets. And I blend that with active funds, particularly in tougher times where you need more of a sniper approach than a shotgun approach, a stock pickers approach. And I really, really believe in it because I've seen the numbers bear out over time that there is outperformance out there. And my theory on actively managed funds is actively managed funds preserve the opportunity to outperform. With an index fund or a passive etf, you never will outperform. You'll always make the index minus the expense ratio. So I love to preserve the opportunity to outperform and I can say that our portfolios have excellent Last but not least, how can people find you? So people can find our team through our website, which is heirloom wp.com it's presently in a rebrand and a refresh. We got all new pictures. I'm excited to share it with everyone. Should be live in another week or two. Well, thank you very much, Jeremiah. Now we're going on to our final segment, which I love. I call it the Lightning Round, but officially it's called 60 seconds with Jeremiah Dulles. Let me know when you're ready, sir. All right. Nickname Maya Hidden talent. Pretty fancy defense in beach volleyball. If you could instantly become an expert in anything, what would it be? Internet Marketing what is the best professional advice you've ever received? Outwork your peers. What is the most memorable place you've ever traveled to? New Orleans. San Diego. What's one word that describes your investment philosophy? Active. What never fails to make you laugh? My wife's impressions. What's one question you think all clients should ask their financial advisor? Are they a fiduciary? What's one piece of advice you'd give your younger self? Think bigger and add a zero. Most rewarding part of your job Seeing people accomplish their goals, helping be part of it, and being almost feeling like a part of their family. Whether you're a seasoned advisor or just getting started, the Active Advisor, brought to you by Harbor Capital, offers professional insights for the financial advisor community. Visit us@harborcapital.com to learn more. And don't forget to subscribe to the Active Advisor on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts to stay up to date on investment trends, tried and tested research methods, and what your industry peers are up to. From all of us at Harbor Capital, thanks for tuning in. And now for important disclosures. This material is for informational purposes and is not intended to be relied upon as a forecast, research or investment advice and is not a recommendation, offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or adopt any investment strategy. The opinions expressed are as of 13th of February 2025 and are subject to change. The opinions expressed by the speakers do not necessarily represent the views of Harbor Capital Advisors, Inc. The information and opinions contained in this material are derived from proprietary and non proprietary sources deemed by Harbor Capital Advisers, Inc. To be reliable and are not necessarily all inclusive and are not guaranteed as to accuracy. This material may contain forward looking information that is not purely historical in nature. Such information may include, among other things, projections and forecasts. There is no guarantee that any of these views will come to pass. This material may not be representative of the experience of other individuals. 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