Interview with Jeremy Lach, President of Empire Marketing Partners-Building a Family-Centered, High-Performance Advisor Community

Welcome to Influential Entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts,

sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level.

Here's your host, Mike Saunders.

Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs.

This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach.

Today we have back with this Jeremy Latch, who's the president of Empire Marketing Partners,

and we'll be talking about building a family-centered, high-performance advisor community.

Jeremy, welcome back to the program.

So good to be back. Mike, appreciate it.

Hey, you are welcome, and I've loved our conversations because you bring a fresh perspective

to things that I think sometimes people go, oh, I'm been there, done that, but that's a

new unique way to look at that. So, man, when you hear the phrase high-performance

advisor, you tend to think someone that's just out there being, you know, the used car salesman,

bully, let's just get her done, leaving collateral damage in the wake, but when you then tie in,

family-centered community, that kind of makes people sit back and go, huh, how can you be both?

So, talk a little bit about what a family-centered, high-performance community is, and why culture

matters more than compensation when working with and choosing an IMO.

For sure, I mean, you know, first of all, higher comp doesn't mean anything if there isn't any

collaboration or mentorship right, Mike. So, I mean, you know, that's that's a big part of what we

when we do have them, cup is just me. You get those conversations with advisors when it comes to

when it comes to cup. Yeah. They want to know, and they want everybody who wants more and more,

but ultimately, you know, higher comp doesn't mean anything if there really isn't any support.

And, you know, culture is going to determine, you know, that determines whether you're just

contracted with somebody or you're actually truly invested in by that, by that firm, okay? So,

a strong culture, you know, which we have at Empire, I very feel like, and I feel like we're

growing it. We're still a small boutique IMO in the early stages of my, of my career here.

Mike and what we're building, but I'm super excited about it because I feel like our culture is

going to really create loyalty and, you know, shared standards and stuff like that, which I think

is going to help us all with more sustainable growth in the future. So, you know, when when

leadership knows that you're, you know, knows your goals and actively checks in on progress and

stuff like that, you operate differently. You're not just writing business with a firm, you know,

you're, you're building something alongside people who actually care about your success, you know?

So, that, that's where I feel we are. I mean, that sense of shared mission kind of kind of creates

that stability and this isn't just about, you know, short-term production spikes. We're looking

for long-term relationships here. You know, you mentioned leadership and I think that's really

important to think about because if you're just another cog in the wheel, it's like, okay, maybe

the comp is nice, but talk a little bit about how important accessibility to the leadership is

when an advisor is looking for the right I'm out of partner with because that can be a

make a break, right? Oh, for sure, if you don't have access to the leadership of the organization

you're with, you're always going through some kind of a layer, you know, trying to get answers

and trying to get help. You know, so, and again, if that happens, guess what happens, production slips,

you know, and then, you know, at that point, you know, it's the support system is real Mike,

you got to have somebody that's going to push you and not because they have to, but because

they truly want to see you win, you know, so that's where I am. I mean, as the as the leader of

employer and the leader of my company, you know, we're looking for advisors to bring them into our

family culture because that family culture we have here, what it does, it just removes ego,

and it just encourages complete transparency to people. You know, you can share all the challenges

that you have openly. And, you know, you're not going to get that, again, at all, maybe a big,

big box organization and, and again, it's, it's, everyone's experiences are going to be a little

bit different, but being the boutique smaller, IMO, we really have, you know, those advantages to

where you could have that openness and you get that transparency and all of that stuff is, is going

to accelerate learning. And hopefully, I'm going to throw a, not a curve ball, but like a,

contrarian perspective out, question wise, because most of the time people are like, oh, look at my

IMO, I'm great come see me, but in reality, there are some qualities that you will look for in

an advisor when deciding if it's a good fit for your IMO. What are some of those qualities you're

looking for to, and not to say no, you're out, but just to kindly say, hey, look, I don't know

that we're fit because, but what are some of those qualities because it's not just if you'll sign

on the line, you're in, what do you look for? Well, I think a lot of it, I look for the advisors

that are always pushing for more compensation. That's, that's one. Okay, so, you know, because,

again, if you're pushing for that higher comp, you know, that, that's going to become a problem.

And because ultimately, we start losing that, that collaboration that we need to have on the front

end to be successful at doing what we want to do here at Empire, you know, as a family for you.

You know, and advisors that don't have that type of mentorship and support, they eventually

plateau anyways because of, of, of payout. And then you know what they do, they want more, you know,

and again, so first and foremost, one of the things that, that, that becomes a reply for me,

if it's always about the higher compensation, you know, that, it may, it may mean that our,

our culture here, and our family culture here is not going to work. And again, what that kind of

brings into play is a little bit of an ego. Now, in our industry, you have a lot of different levels

of production inside organizations, and some people are going to get a little bit more compensation

than others. But staying consistent with it is what matters. And we try to continue to do that

here, because that's important for us as just consistency with that. You know, I mean,

everyone's got to, everyone's got to rise together here, Michael. You know, we, we, we definitely,

we want to celebrate our wins together. We want to, we want to push each other to raise the

standards, right? So, but it, everyone wants to rise together. We want to see everybody win. And

if somebody is completely one-sided, whether it's on the compensation side or it's like, hey,

it's me, me, me, then, you know, I don't think, you know, now growth really isn't part of your

culture, but that's definitely a part of ours. And we don't want anybody here that's going to

have just individual goals. Yeah, I love that. So we, we kind of talked about, you know, building

family centered. What does it really mean to operate like a family, but still produce at a high level?

That's good question. You know, I'll go back to operating like a family. When you think about

your family, and you're sitting down and Thanksgiving at dinner, you know, Thanksgiving dinner,

and you see a lot of those relatives you haven't seen, you know, maybe once a year, Mike, you

get those that show up to Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner, it's that same thing. The

biggest thing for me is ego, removing the ego and encouraging transparency. That is a huge part

of what being a family is and the family culture. And also, like I mentioned here, but just, just

a little bit ago, celebrating together on the wins, you know, talking about those, if you have that

that openness with your firm, you know, hey, this didn't work for me. Oh, hey, man, this didn't

work for me or this worked for this guy, but it didn't work for that guy. You've got advisors

all over that are willing to share their successes and their failures and those willing to learn

about those from the outside as they meet other firms and other advisors throughout empire that

work with us that are willing to share that stuff. It allowed when you're willing to see what

other people have done and people are willing to share where they've already failed. You know,

that makes it so much easier for you to kind of step into the process, you know, as hey,

this is where I failed, but now why I'm having a lot of success. Families share that stuff together.

That is removing ego, separating our competition from me. You know, hey, I know you're another

advisor from this state or this state or this city or this city. When you separate all that stuff

and you have that family cultural atmosphere, which I really firmly believe we do and we're

going to continue to do because we drive it home constantly when we're having conversations.

That support system is real and knowing that knowing that you have that again, this is

when an advisor feels super safe and he can share his wins and his losses, everybody is going to

improve much faster around here. Yeah, and you know, I like the Thanksgiving analogy except for the

fact that sometimes those can get to be into a melee, but let's even follow it back up with,

but then 10 minutes later, you're hugging in high five and again. So that's what family does.

So I think that's really, really huge. So can you think of a time that one of your advisors

in your community shared an idea or strategy that helps someone else really generate something

better, like more income or cases or better client outcomes? Absolutely. You know, we host

events with some of our top advisor firms that are willing to share what they do. You know,

I mean, imagine having a firm, Mike, that brings on over 100 billion plus of assets a year.

You know, that says, Hey, I'm going to open up my book and I'm going to teach you why we're good

at what we do, why we have success. I'm talking process from the very beginning to the close of the

business, exactly what we do. You know, we have those and we have those with a few different

offices that come out here and anybody can have an opportunity to see this a year this and we,

when we have these, what it allows is that complete, you know, collaboration where again,

collaboration like this, that shortens, that shortens the learning curve. You know, instead of

having to figure things out all by yourself, you could leverage other experiences that people

have and that's going to do a lot, right? And just what you just mentioned, when we can implose,

you know, excuse me, when we can improve closing ratios or whatever it is that we have our case

design or provide different ideas or alternatives to what another advisor has been used in the past.

And they immediately call you back and say, Holy, Holy cow, Jeremy, I can't believe this. I've

gotten way more attendance at my workshops now because I switched to this simple idea. And yeah,

you know, all of those and the smile it brings to my face, but guess what, guess what emperor

remembers? Like this has nothing to do with me. This has to do with the family culture relationship

that we built here and the other advisors that are willing to share. That's why we're so grateful.

We're just surrounded by wonderful people that are able to, you know, share not only their failures,

but there's successes. And, you know, the, you know, PJ Flock who's the head coach of the

Minnesota Gofer football team here, Mike is, he's got the saying is, is I don't hire anybody until

unless they've failed. And the rationale and the logic behind all of that, right, is these guys

have gone through all these trials and tribulations and they know what they need to do to be successful.

You know, and how do they pick themselves up? Because that's what you're looking for. How do

they pick themselves up? What do they do differently? Are they, what are they changing in their business?

I love that about PJ and how he runs his program and the culture that he runs his program.

Not that we're implementing the exact same thing here because it's completely different

industry. This is not sports, but that could teach us a lot about life, right. And what we're doing

and ultimately to me is I've got advisors that have started from nothing and built themselves up

into incredible firms. And the reason they do that is because they failed and they're willing to

learn. And now they're willing to educate and teach others why they did. So they don't do the same

mistakes that they had in the past. Love it. I mean, it's just all about, um, can I, C-A-N-I, Tony

Roberts talks about it constant and never ending improvement personally, corporately as a group.

So that collaboration and idea sharing, you know, really does help increase production because

guess what? When one of the advisors helps out another advisor, they're being generous and

abundant mindset. But guess what else happens? It refines their own processes because they're

giving and serving. So everyone wins. So let's talk about a little bit about if an advisor is

feeling maybe isolated or unsupported, what should they be looking for in a new home, you know,

like I think that sometimes you think about, oh, I'm just over here and on zoom land. Or I,

you know, I go once a year to the corporate office. But what are some of the ways that people can

feel a little bit more supported that way? Your accept, your, your accessibility to leadership,

right? So if you can't, if you can't reach decision makers and organizations that you're working

with right now, you're likely just another number, right? So, you know, in the right environment,

you could pick up that phone, Mike, and you could get strategic input immediately. Like,

I need some help. I need case design. I've got a tough case that I'm working on. I need an

expert, you know, immediately you should be able to pick up the phone and be able to get that input

pretty fast. You know, that just having that type of accessibility alone to the leadership,

that that could prevent some mistakes. And, you know, obviously, you know, prevent missed

opportunities as well. So communication, I always go back to that term, not, I mean, not only

communication, but the speed of that communication often makes a difference, you know, for an advisor.

So like, yes, you communicate with me, but it was three days later. Yes, I asked you for this

information, but it's 24 hours later. That's unacceptable. That's unacceptable to me. You know,

so ultimately, to me, like communication is one of the lifebloods of our organization,

the lifelines of our organization that we offer, but it's not just that. It's also the speed of that,

Mike. Yep. Love it. Well, let's wrap up with this thought. Let's talk a little bit about it.

It's kind of going deeper than what we've been mentioning here on community, but what about mentorship?

What role does mentorship play in helping your advisors grow and scale to the next level?

And then what does that look like there at Empire? Like, what are some of the deliverables that

would fall up underneath of the phrase mentorship? Yeah. I mean, I think with mentorship, I mean,

the advisor needs to look for alignment that is in their vision, right? And it's with their

values, you know, so the right home and the right IMO or the organization, it should feel collaborative.

It should feel like it's growth focused. They should personally be invested in your success

when you can get that type of mentorship and that type of family culture. That's when alignment

becomes stronger. Decisions become a lot easier for you with your business. Momentum starts to build

more naturally, stuff like that. When you quit second-guessing everything that you do or your

environment and you just start focusing on growth, Mike, you know, that the right fit just brings

more clarity. I like that term. It brings more clarity. It brings you a lot more confidence.

And it's kind of like, you know, Mike with a baseball player goes to play with the New York

Yankees. You know, it's he looks at acts and feels different than he would on, I don't want to bring

up any other teams, I guess, because I don't want to offend anybody. But a minor league. Yeah,

let's just say a minor league team when he plays on some other team, you know, the expectations are

different when he plays for the Yankees. You know, they're higher. The culture's stronger. The

performance has to rise to match the level of what the New York Yankees at. This is exactly what I

want here and what I want. The same feeling for our advisors is when you're plugged into the right

spot, the right organization, the right environment, your standards are going to just elevate

naturally. And that is where I feel like we can help create your success, you know, with that type

of relationship. You know, it's like what you're saying about clarity. When you confuse, you lose.

And I think that too many times people are, you know, you know, just all over the place. And

sometimes when when people are, they get caught in their own like, oh, well, I've always done it

that way or said it that way. But sometimes when you are around other top producers, guess what

happens then? They're their perspective of possibility changes. And they're like, oh, wow,

I was producing at this level. But look at this person over here doing triple that much,

that production that I'm doing. I guess if they can do it, I can do it. Or I heard how they

explained that on that last call we had together. I'm going to try that. And so you start learning

from each other. But I think that it expands your horizon to go, well, I guess I'm just a producer

at the X level. But now all of a sudden you start seeing someone else produce in two or three

times that going, maybe I won't get there, but maybe I could get past my current level.

Yeah, I mean, if you're not locking into appointments with your client meetings and you're not

prepared and confident, you're missing out, right? You know, that is that is that is that is something

that the culture here, the family mentorship here, the what we're building here is, you know,

teaching advisors are helping advisors just be different, create higher standards with

themselves. Hold yourself to a higher standards and being around top guys does that to you. So

100%. What could could agree more? Well, Jeremy, let's wrap up with this. If someone is

listening to this going, man, family centered, high performance community, those are some words

that resonate with me. What's the best way that they can learn a little bit more and also reach out

and connect with you? Hey, Mikey, I definitely have them go directly to our website. That's www.empiremps.

That's Matt Paul Sam, m.com, mpiremps.com. There you can get all my information. You can get my,

you can get emails. You get directly to my phone access. You're going to get directly to me.

Again, the advantage of the small boutique IMO. You're going to get directly to the guy that's

built in the thing and give us a call. Let's have a 50 minute introduction call and in 15 minutes,

I think we're both going to find out if we'd like to work together.

Love it. Thank you, Jeremy. Appreciate you coming back on today.

Thank you, Mike. It's been a pleasure and appreciate you having me.

You've been listening to influential entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders to learn more about the

resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes. Visit www.influentialentrepreneursradio.com.