On this episode of the Circuit of Success, host Brett Gilliland interviews Amy Parvaneh, a successful business owner and entrepreneur. Amy shares her experiences of starting her own business and her challenges, emphasizing the importance of developing technical skills and personal branding. She also talks about dealing with competition and anxiety and provides advice for people who don’t enjoy networking. Tune in to learn how to break stereotypes and succeed in your career!
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Speaker Brett Gilliland: Welcome to the Circuit of Success. I am your host, Brett Gilliland, and Damey, to Damien. Today, I’ve got Amy, Parvaneh with me. How you doing? Speaker Amy Parvaneh: I’m doing great. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Well, it’s good to have you. I forgot to ask you where are you calling in from? What part of the country? Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Orange County, California. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Orange County. Beautiful. It’s an awesome area. We were out in my wife and four kids. We were in LA, Santa Monica area, which I know is not Orange County, but out there in April. So it was a lot of fun. It’s a cheap place to live, it looks like. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Oh, very cheap. Yeah. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. It’s like, goodness gracious. I’m like, this place is great. Was crazy. Yeah. With four Gilliland, my wife and I, you know, it’s like you couldn’t do anything for under a couple hundred dollars for, like, lunch. It was nuts. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: It’s not New York though. At New York, I I bought one latte for ten dollars. I think I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like before? Or Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. It was nuts. We the first night we got there, we got to our hotel, and I ordered a glass of wine for my wife, and I got an old fashioned, you know, been traveling and guy comes back. He’s like, gotta be fifty seven dollars. I’m like, oh, alright. Welcome to welcome to California. So, anyway, We could chat about that all day, but you are the founder and CEO of Select Advisors Institute. You are big in the RIA space, which is what visionary wealth advisors were registered investment advisor. And you do outside CMO work. It’s a chief marketing officer type work, and I know branding and sales helping firms across the country and referral a referral litics is another thing that you all do and Gilliland, so we’ll talk about that throughout the podcast. But if you can, maybe just give us a little background, Amy, and what’s made you the woman you are today. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I started off my own career in finance and investment banking at Citi Group. I actually started my career on, the same week as 09:11. So talk about your upbringing, in your career, the two towers, crumble in front of me. So that was a very, very challenging, obviously, view to have as a, you know, off your career. But I was also the beginning of me falling in love with the financial industry. I’ve, first and foremost, always myself a lover of the industry of investments finance. But while I was in investment bank gave, I found I really love talking about corporate banking and, you know, M and A and mergers, you know, you know, P and L statements as much as I like working with specific individuals, individuals around their wealth and around their financial needs. So I went to business school, at Duke University, and I it was recruited by Goldman Sachs. Went through about twenty five rounds of interviews with them, did my internship there. And got a job in their private wealth management division in New York where their minimum account size was about ten million dollars. And this is when I was twenty six years old, knew Speaker Brett Gilliland: no one that even had a million dollars Speaker Amy Parvaneh: letter along that level. Wow. But one thing I did know was that I needed to succeed in that career because it was just such a amazing opportunity for me I was willing to do cup of noodles a mindset and just hustle, because I felt like it was kinda like, it’s like, I felt like I didn’t belong there, frankly, because I was, like, that was, like, a lot of like Parvaneh, you know, Yale. It grew up with a lot of wealth, and I was, like, well, don’t have any of that. So that really was a great thing for me because I almost made me want to outshine everyone else. And so I was there at Goldman for about five and a half years there. While I was there, I broke a lot of records, as far as, you know, how fast I brought in clients, the type of clients I got front of. And I just fell in love with, like, the the finding of Speaker Brett Gilliland: the Sure. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Like the finding the sourcing it, finding who’s may just made well. How do I get in front of them? What do say to them. And they told me this is what you’re supposed to say. This is the script. And I was like, if I say that within a year, I’m gonna get laid off. It’s not really gonna work for me. So I really also embraced, honing in on your own language, what you could feel really comfortable saying, within the purview of a larger organization. So I I really enjoyed that. And I all along while I was at Goldman, I was like, I wanna be a business owner. You know, even though I know I’m like owning a book here, I don’t feel like I will ever have that level of, you know, zero ceiling that a business owner has, where it’s like, I if I work hard, I literally will, like, it’s like one for Gilliland so I left to start my own business just found that I was expecting my own, my first baby. And so as you know, that’s horrible timing. Went to join another large, established company that was Pymco, and at Pymco, it opened up my eyes to the entire world of RIA’s. I went from a warehouse world to RIA’s. At pimco, my job was to pretty myself to RIA’s, be a consultant to them around Pymco strategies, but Speaker Brett Gilliland: Sure. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Knowing me, I wasn’t there passionate about talking about fake income as much as I was about, like, what is this? Where am I? Like, how is this three man shop managing five hundred million dollars? It seemed crazy to me that they would be wearing so many different hats. So in two thousand fourteen, even though I was expect like, I had my second child, I was like, this is it. I’m starting my business. Moved from New York to California, even Pymco, I was in the New York office. And, I basically started select advisers Institute. And my first, take on, you know, every business has different chapter. My first take on it was just to go help RIA sell. Teaching them how to go prospect. And then I would say, okay, when you go to this meeting, like, you know, over the next two weeks, do this, this, and this. So I would be their coach. And they would come back and not have done a lot of those things. So I realized pretty early on, I needed to actually do the work for them too, do the marketing work, take that on, So long story short short since two thousand fourteen, I basically built the infrastructure needed to be a replacement for an entire marketing division, that, you know, a, a Pymco or a Goldman or a Vanguard has. Like, you know, all the design all that those people, you know, one man or five man or twenty man shop, can’t typically focus on those or or bring those in house. So we do a lot of that as an outsource. Speaker Brett Gilliland: A niche in the financial services market only. Right? That’s that’s all you work with. The financial advisors? Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Absolutely. Ninety percent of our clients are RIA’s ten percent in the Wire House world, we do coaching for them. But, yeah, only financial advisors. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. So what we know that from a lens of what you work with and and how you do that there’s obviously more people than just financial advisors and listen to this. There are a lot of financial advisors that listen. But, but let’s so let’s have that discussion today really around, kind of the way I would look at it is how do you how do you promote creativity? Right? I think a lot of people, whether you’re an attorney less than this or a financial advisor accountant, whatever it may be, we wanna be creative. Right? We have creative minds, but we may not have the team to do it. And let’s say they haven’t met you yet. They haven’t hired you and you your firm. How do you promote creativity in your world, and and time to promote creativity? Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Yeah. Yeah. That that’s part of the reason I actually stopped being a financial advisor myself is because I feel like my right brain, the creative side is a lot more powerful than my left brain. So I think the first thing is everyone should admit to themselves which side am I on? Am I more creative or am I more the analytical, the numbers per and where people get into trouble is where they are the the numbers person. They they’re very good at the money management. And the actual, you know, of leadership skills, but they want to somehow also do the creative side. Right? They wanna, like, get on to social media, for example, but social media isn’t all about, like, uploading your latest q three reports and portal, you know, your your latest, you know, analysis on what’s going on in the markets and having a line out the door. It requires creativity, being raw, being Gilliland so if if you’re able to figure out that you’re not a creative and outsource that to someone who will be creative for you and not get in the way within the compliance fair boundaries, I think that’s the most important is, marketing does require a lot of creativity and thinking outside the box. And financial folks, a lot of times, they have to think inside the box. So you know, it it I think then you you have a really good equation. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yep. What do you see in most businesses are doing to fail in social media and what they doing to succeed in social media? Speaker Amy Parvaneh: The only thing I’ve seen that works on social media has been literally, branding the human within, you know, within the within the elements of, a firm as well as really, you know, providing value that could be shareable. You know, you look at LinkedIn, some of the things that are like, ten thousand likes and seven thousand reshares. They’re really going, you know, out of their way to create things that are really giving it away. Right? Giving away a lot of content. And I wanna share them. You know, other people wanna share to them. Or you talk about you as a human being, you know, kinda like you said, you might you saw my post about me revealing my actual name or talking about my vulnerabilities, the more vulnerable you could become, the more people could feel close to you without having met you yet. So those are the really the the only ways that I’ve seen really work on social media. The folks that are not, unfortunately, it’s they they know it too. They’re not like they’re they’re not blind to it, but they’re not willing to take that risk. They and I call it a risk because it is a risk. You’re really putting yourself out there. They are not willing to even have, like, a little typo or a little, like, you know, misspelling, but those are the little things that actually make you human and they make it look, you know, like you’re a human being too. And those folks, you’re just not gonna get the views or the, you know, any anything out of this. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. Well, it’s funny you say that. So I I hundred percent believe in that as Gilliland the the transparency, the vulnerability that we have to have, I think, as as leaders, as as advisors, when with our clients, but also on that social media front. I I’ve been very open with my struggles with anxiety throughout my life and to produce countless videos on how I’ve overcome it, how important it is to me, the meditation, the journaling, all these different things that I’ve done, And I noticed in my research for you, you you struggled that as well. Right? And I think so immediately when I read that, I’m like, okay, there’s a connection right there. Right? We both have shared even though you don’t know that about me, I know that about you, is there’s an immediate connection there that allows for us to connect on a deeper level that maybe I wouldn’t know if you just put out what happened in, you know, q two of the stock market. Right? Is so I’m just validating. So So talk about that. You were you shared that. You have intense anxiety you shared. I’ve had it as well. Still have it. How do you overcome that? And how are you how have you made that your friend? Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Yeah. And I think you’re talking about my latest post that I wrote recently that I think there are whole societies. So, like, especially the younger generation, they’re so worried about anxiety. They think anxiety is like the biggest culprit that could, you know, disable them and they run from a lot of anxiety, like, you know, the whole term anxiety, a panic attack where I had an anxiety attack. Right. And I found that I used to, you know, run away from it or let it weaken me. But now, you know, as you age, you you learned coping mechanisms, and it’s not even a coping mechanism. I actually embrace it. It’s like stage fright. Someone once told me if you don’t have stage fright, you’re not gonna do well on stage. Well, I I embrace it because I think, that level of anxiety is just fear inside you to keep going and and do better. And it’s been, that basically the fuel for me to, to embrace and be like, what am I what am I worried about? You know, I’m worried about not getting clients, but let me go get more clients right now. Helped me. And, you know, and I think just being able to, like, extra I exercise a lot. I’m really into fitness. And I like to do those alone I like to run alone, that allows me to, like, just meditate, you know, think. I don’t wanna turn that into another competition. You know, people are like, will you run marathons? I’m like, no. I don’t need any more competition in my life as a business owner. We’re competing all day long. So Yep. But that’s been really helpful to me. And, you know, just like re re living the, I guess, reigniting the anxiety into a good thing. Been really great. My Speaker Brett Gilliland: I’ve I’ve found I’ve found too for me. It’s, if I talk trash to it, like, if I’m getting anxious about some thing. It’s like, alright, man. Like, I know what you’re doing here. I’ve seen this movie before. I know the end. I’m gonna be fine. Like, you know, I kinda talked to it. And then I immediately try to redirect my mind into something positive and something I’m excited for. Like, even if it’s travel anxiety, getting on a plane and traveling and doing all that stuff. I found last few years that that if if I embrace it, yes, it’s there. I see it. I feel you I hear you. You’re on my left shoulder here talking to me, but now, like, kinda flip that thing off and come over here and talk to the right shoulder, and and try to give that one power. And I’ve also read that the brain doesn’t know the difference between excitement and anxiousness. Right? The wavelengths are the same between the two things. If you actually put it under, you know, whatever they put it under some imaging center, the brain is the same for excitement as it is for anxiety. And so now it’s trying to trick your body into understanding, hey, maybe it’s not as anxious as it is. I’m really excited about this. I’m really excited about getting to go So when you hear me say that, what comes to mind for you? Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Yeah. I mean, that I think is is critical. Like, you know, I know it sounds, weird, but sometimes I tell myself if I was to have a glass of wine right now, this Problem still exists. Right? It’s all mental. Right? And that’s actually another thing is, like, you know, reducing I feel like our society is, like, fueled drugs, alcohol. We’re trying to let this go, but why not face it and see, like, can I turn this into a positive thing? Can I, you know, can I turn this, like, anxious? So I, like, you know, I wanna I wanna bottle up my energy and be able to use it in a positive way. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yep. So what what have you had in your career that maybe has held you back? Maybe it’s anxiety. Maybe it’s something different. But do you have anything that’s really kinda held you back for a little bit? But then you broke through it and your comfort zone got a lot bigger. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Yeah. That’s a great question. So my comfort zone, yeah, I always, like, was worried about, you know, not not being good enough you know, because a lot of times you look at businesses and they’re either funded by someone else or they are, you know, they’ve got They’ve got all the right recipes, you know, and I always feel like I, you know, I don’t like to promote myself or not for, you know, nothing. Right? Or I’m not in an old boys club to, you know, to be networking and things like that. So I found believe it or not, Brad, that the number one thing that’s helped me, and it helped me at Goldman, it helped me at Pymco, and it’s obviously helped me with what I do. It’s like, the good old fashioned be the one that actually puts in the work, right, puts in the real work So I’m the one, like, on Saturdays. Like, my my kids are, you know, I have classes and things like, I’m working every single Saturday. Like, from eight till 3PM, I’m working. I’m logging that time in. And when that pays off, every single time that reduces my my worry that I’m gonna be behind, because I know I’m out out working you know, anyone that I’m worried about. So I think that that ability to rely on your work ethic and your ability to think outside the box. And the other thing is my brain. I feel like my brain always gives me great ideas, and I know that’s all like crazy. But, like, even during COVID, I was like, holy crap. What are we gonna who’s gonna wanna coach right now? You know, during this crisis. And, like, ideas came to, wait, what about this? And, like, I feel like that’s always been really there for me that survivalist, like, mine said, that you need as a business owner to pivot and not go down that same. So my whether you call it my brain or a calling, like, I keep getting, like, ideas. That I rely on because that’s always helped me, you know, think about new ways to improve my career. Speaker Brett Gilliland: So how do you how do you work with those ideas? Like, I so I’m a idea person as well. There’s constantly things rolling through my mind. But what what do you do with those ideas? You have a spot in your phone? Do you have a journal? Like, what do you do with them? And then do you test them out to make sure they’d work before you kinda go live with any of those? Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Yeah. Well, when you’re really good at marketing, that’s actually a problem because you could literally Yeah. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Didn’t turn off. Yeah. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Well, no. You could also make any business kind of work out. Like, I always think my biggest problem right now is I don’t have time because I have like five other business ideas that, like, you know, I could, like, kick off it. Like, I could start a kid’s school program. I’m really I think there’s so much of a need right now for different types of schooling. Like, teaching kids etiquette, teaching kids leadership public speaking. If I had the time, I would I would build it. So what I do is I do have, like, on my to do list. We used to use this program called to do is for project management. Now we all moved to Asana, which I really love. But I have I have like a personal section and it’s, like, called ideas. And I just, like, write it, you know, I just write it down when it’s, like, outside the really out there. But a lot of times when it’s like business ideas, a lot of times I just test it out with clients. I say like, oh, we we also offer this. We do offer this. If you’re gonna come, I do that. So I I’m also a really big fan of, you know, the Kevin Cosner movie, field of dreams that says Speaker Brett Gilliland: Oh yeah. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: You build it, they will come. I believe the opposite. If they come, you will make it. Is, like, it’s always a philosophy. So I always, like, kinda pitch the idea softly to clients as they we do this. Just to see if because as long as I know we could do this. Right? Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: And then if there’s demand, I build it. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. So you kinda build it for you build it second after you see there’s a manned. And, yeah, I I I watched the Richard Branson on Master Class or whatever it was, and he talked about, you know, he started an airline, he started a magazine, all these things. He started out of frustration of another process. Right? He was standing in line. It took forever, bag, you know, to pay money for his bag, all this stuff. He’s like, you know what? I’ll fix this. I’m just gonna start my own airline. So it’s kinda what I’m hearing from you is that somebody needs it, somebody desires it, and then you don’t get stuck by the old paralysis by analysis is what I’m hearing. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: No. I don’t. In fact, that’s the problem. Speaker Brett Gilliland: I love that. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Like, running with too many ideas and if I had the time because I know SEO really well, I know blog writing skills, I know how to promote a social media. I could easily get that up and running. But right now, I have enough on my play doing that for my existing client. So Yeah. I feel like not only do I have selected advisors, but I have like, you know, twenty at a time clients that we’re promoting, helping the market. So it’s more than enough. Yeah. Exactly. And our clients are really like they’re different than financial advisors because they’re a lot hands on, and it’s almost like I’m part of their team, basically. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yep. Yep. That’s awesome. So when you hear that though, I talked about paralysis by analysis. Are you seeing that out in the marketplace and what advice would you have for that man or woman listening right now? How to overcome that because I’ve seen it and it’s hard to just tell us me, hey, don’t worry about it, man. Just just go do what, you know, the rest of us do and just go build it as you go and and it’s they don’t don’t work that way. So how do you help them with that? Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Well, that happens all the time, you know, with the paralysis, analysis by over analysis. In fact, I I have a test on my, on my website that I actually created literally to help people, like, make a decision really quickly. Which I could send you. But I think it it all boils down to that word that we use, which is risk. Right? A firm, let’s say, has been in business for thirty, forty, fifty years. They’ve built their client base, and they did it by word-of-mouth, building this great reputation. Now, if it’s not in here, it comes Amy and telling them to, like, let’s start posting on social media. And they’re like, well, we haven’t needed this before, and now we could potentially this is the part that they’re worried about. We could potentially risk our reputation. And yeah, I agree. Your reputation is all you have to go for it. So I’ve believe it or not, I’ve stopped basically pushing so hard. Speaker Brett Gilliland: That’s another thing you you learn as you Speaker Amy Parvaneh: grow, the more mature you I’ve stopped pushing it and I just do it for my social media. I go crazy with social media. I test on my account So I could show them like, look, I did this. I shared my full name. I shared my vulnerabilities, and it worked. Now, you could choose if you wanna do that to kinda like painting, you know, like, you could keep your room clean and let them make their room a mess and see which one they choose they like more. I’d like to talk to your blue in the face, telling people to do social media. And then if it really doesn’t work, because so much if it out of your control, then you’re left with, you know, an embarrassment. So I just take them to the water and I let them drink if they want it. I’ll build out their platform. I’ll make it look as ready to go. I’ll write them their message. The firms and the clients that do really well are the ones that are like, you’re the expert. I mean, you just go wild. Go do what you want. Just run it by compliance, and those are the ones that get the traction, get the get the views, get the followings, and, you know, they also understand it’s a long term game. Right? Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Just like I wouldn’t ask a financial advisor what’s been your performance over the past year? You know, marketing is the same. You’re building equity. You’re building, you know, something that will pay dividends for years. Is the way I look at marketing. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. And I think so many people too, they wanna see that immediate thing. Well, Brett, I’ve been I’ve been doing this posting thing for, like, two months. I’m like, Dude, congrats. I’ve been doing this podcast for, you know, six and a half years. Like, it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s it’s gotta be consistent. You gotta show up. Gotta do the work. And, and and it is what it is. And you fail along the way. You succeed along the way, but you gotta take action. You gotta do it. And so this morning I was with, I don’t know, forty five or fifty high school kids, and it was fun because I get to speak to them and and, you know, you bring out this energy they have at seventeen, eighteen years Gilliland and it and, you know, they ask questions that makes you dust off the old, you know, folders and files of things you did when you’re in your twenties and and now here I am in my mid forties. And and so it was a good use of time this morning, but it it made me think about a question I wanted to ask for you today is advice for yourself. That was something they asked me a lot of. What advice would you give yourself of the seventeen, eighteen year old or the twenty two year old, Brett? What advice would there be? And and, you know, I kinda came up with my three things. But the first one was just relax dude. It’s gonna be okay. Right? Yeah. And then I gave him three other things. But what advice would Amy have, for that, you know, twenty, twenty five year old, Amy, that maybe needing some advice at this moment. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Yeah. Well, one of the things when I was you know, starting out as a financial advisor, and I see this happening with a lot of the younger advisors too. Is this like you know, imposter syndrome, do I belong here? Is this sixty year old guy gonna be giving me his money? I think that’s a very common thing that people who are young in their, you know, I still, like, I can’t believe I’ve even said, like, that I feel I I I feel like not that old, but Right. But I I feel it’s weird, like, talking to your all younger self. But, yeah, I mean, I feel like if you don’t have the gray hair, if you if you don’t have the experience, you’re going to feel, you know, kind of, like you’re missing something. And one of the things I did was, I was not, finance, as I mentioned, was not my expertise. Like, I could talk all day long about who just sold their business. You asked me how the, you know, the what the Fed did that day or interest rates or the FX markets and I would freeze. That was my Achilles heel, one of them that I felt like, oh, you know, like, I I would dread it. And I think one of the things I would teach I would tell myself, looking back, is work on those technical skills that you feel you’re low on because the younger you are, the better you better be those areas to make up for that, lack of experience. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: You know, a sixteen year old guy would take a guy in his twenties really seriously, if he was talking with confidence about the markets, even if he wasn’t there during all the historical, you know, crises and, you know, happenings in the market. The other thing is I I tried too hard, and I think I wrote about this too in some of my posts. I tried too hard to fit in, you know, to be, like, you know, to do the small talk, play golf. And I felt like those were, like, I needed to do those, but you don’t need to do those. Right? Like, try to outshine and other other places, in order to, you know, to really succeed. And, yeah, I think the other thing I would have done is you know, started even building my business even sooner. You know, that would be another thing is, like, if you feel you’re good at selling, and marketing yourself and personal branding, go work for yourself because otherwise you’re just really, you know, kind of making someone else successful, you know, like they say, they’ll work eighty five hours, then work forty hours for someone else. Yeah. So, yeah, But only if you know down in your core that you’re great at selling and marketing yourself because those are the two things you really need in order to be a good business owner. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. It’s funny you say that. So another one of the questions today that that, and they were very clear. They said you know, this has nothing to do with your personal life. What are you most proud of? But professionally, they said, what are you most proud of? And, you know, I talked about our firm and you know, the culture and all that stuff. But then it it also hit me too. I’m like, you know, I have never worked for somebody. I I’ve never had a quote quote job. I I started right out of college and, you know, I get this diploma and I go work a hundred percent commission, you know, and thank god. My Fiance, now wife at the time, and wife now, but fiance at the time, you know, believed in me supported me. My parents didn’t they weren’t like We did what? We paid for your college, and now you’re gonna go work a hundred percent commission. You full. Right? Like, that wasn’t there, but I’ve never I’ve never got a paycheck. I’ve had earn every dollar that I’ve made, and and I’m proud of that. But I think it does take that unique person because I’ve also had people that now in our forties are like, you know, I wish I would have done something like that when I was in my twenties. But, you know, now they’re like, I got a house. I got two or three kids. It’s hard to go do that. Right? But I think sooner or later, they’ve gotta take that step and and be willing to fail. And I think once that passion and that desire, when we started visionary wealth advisors, when I left my previous firm, we had three kids. My wife was pregnant with our fourth. We had just built a home. But I wanted it. Right? I was hungry and I wanted to go out and build this thing and and and we were able to do it and we pulled it off. But I think sometimes you just gotta believe and you just gotta go take action. Thoughts on that? Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Absolutely. I mean, that goes back again to, that that’s why I said if you’re good at but you probably knew one thing that you’re good at building building a story, building a thing, you know, building a vision. That’s probably why, you know, you’re probably successful at it. Same with me. I knew I was I I broke every stereotype, getting the job at Citi Gilliland investment banking. Yep. You know, built one, block in me knowing building my confidence, then at Gilliland, then I knew so I knew, you know, my career was showing me I’m good at building things. Right? So I think that’s one of the things I’m really proud of is that I’ve been able to break all stereotypes you know, coming to the US as an immigrant and getting a job that only Parvaneh and Yale kids were getting, you know, that job at City Group, I had an investment banking. That was the only one that went to I went to undergrad at Stonybrook, which is like a name. No. You probably may have not ever heard of it. That was my undergrad. Every other kid was like Ivy League. So Right. That was stereotype break because I didn’t speak English until I was twelve years old. So, like, to get that Parvaneh then to, literally pull the band aid out of Pymco, and I was getting a really nice paycheck there. And even then, I I also got a few other job offers, and they were double that even, but I still gave those up to start select advisors. That’s what I’m really proud of is like what I’ve built. And I I I think it’s really important to also be proud of something you’ve built a hundred percent on your own. You know, one funded me. It’s a hundred percent self funded. I did go to some investors at the beginning, and they were like, yeah, this isn’t gonna work. And, you know, now it’s too late because I feel like I’ve built it and it’s pretty expensive. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Now they wanna invest in it. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Yeah. Exactly. So you know, all of that just builds my confidence and I know what I’ve been doing has been right along the way. Speaker Brett Gilliland: So what would I find if I were to follow you around and, follow you with a camera so this would be not to be creepy. Right? But I follow you around to see your habits. Right? And so what would I see kind of the no mis items in Amy’s life day in and day out? No mis items. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: No missed items. Yeah. So like I said, I’m really adamant about my running. Yep. So that’s like my That’s my sanity. One of my sanity is I run even when there’s like a fire here in California. Like nothing stops me from that. That’s my sanctuary. A lot of time thinking about work and doing work, and then it’s kids. You know, I’m a single mom, so I handle my own kids, on my own. So, you know, it’s work, run, and then the kids. And then, you know, my time alone. I really am into, like, music. So I’m all about, like, going to concerts and music fast of all. Very cool. And it’s like my, like, work hard play hard, you know, approach. Because I feel like that’s, like, the only thing that, like, really reignites my energy. I also see a lot of creativity in those places. I see a lot of cool, like graffiti art and, like, the the type of sponsorships of, like, brands with music, and, like, I like to bring some elements of that into the financial world. You’re, like, how do you co brand with a large name or things like that? So that inspires me too. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Well, I get bucket list items. You’re a bucket list person? Speaker Amy Parvaneh: I am. I am. Yeah. Although I feel like I actually wanted to write somewhere that I feel like I’ve pretty much lived most of my bucket list items because I feel like I’ve you know, building select advisors is like one of the biggest things. You know, bucket list is supposed to be something that’s like, kind of almost like impossible to get to. Gilliland I think I have. But I do have one bucket list, which is to stay at the Mandarin and Gilliland Lake like, calm off. That’s, like, it’s, like, sitting there. Ready to go. Yeah. That Speaker Brett Gilliland: one, please. Somebody called it an effort list. Just like, effort. I’m gonna do that. Right? It’s not a bucket list to your point because I was like, I’m just gonna do it. Right? And so I’ve thought about that. I’m like, I like that. I like that way of saying because you’re right. Buck list seems like, This is a pipe dream. This will never happen. But I think if we, you know, have clarity around where we wanna go and and create time in our calendars, we can make those things happen. So just say the effort list. So you have your outside CMO. You’d help with branding. We talked about that referral litics. Tell us a little bit about that, brag about your company Select Advisors Institute. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Yeah. So as we said, we basically are one stop shop for Financial firms and teams to do all their marketing. You know, the only three things we don’t do is advertising. I’m not a big fan of paid marketing, you know, Google ads, things like that. I’ve never spent on advertising, and I don’t want clients to feel like they need to. Unless you’re willing to compete with the firms, like, Fisher investments that have a three hundred thousand dollar a week budget. Right? You don’t need to do that. You could do organic marketing. So I’m all about, you know, so we don’t do, advertising. We don’t do any printing, and then we also don’t do any, like, we don’t we’re not event planners, but everything else we’re doing, within select advisors from all the way from, like, I’ve renamed at least a dozen firms. Oh, wow. And then I’ve basically rebranded and built out an entire marketing material Gilliland collateral for about a thousand RIA firms and teams. So helping them with branding, coming up with unique ways of saying who they are. And then from the day to day, you know, posting on social media, writing your blogs, website, maintenance, website coding, all of that. I like it. And every four weeks, like, Yeah. Referraltics is just like an ancillary part of what we do. It’s for firms who have a really nice rolodex of clients, but it really hasn’t come about, who those people know. We actually research and do the analytics on those people. So that that way, instead of the small talk that you have during your quarterly reviews, you could actually say, hey, I noticed you’re on this board, and I noticed someone else went to Stony Brook. Would you mind referring me to that person? So you’re making it easier. I’m basically saying I already know your person. Can you just, like I Speaker Brett Gilliland: know you know him. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Yeah. Exactly. Speaker Brett Gilliland: That’s awesome. That’s the step ahead of the step. Right? Last couple of questions here for you, Amy. So, how about you know, in our business and again, whether I think a lot of businesses you’re in sales. Right? I mean, even doctors you gotta sell while your practice is better than next. Right? And so How do you what advice do you have for people that don’t enjoy networking? And they don’t enjoy, you know, going to the cocktail party and shaking hands. Like for me, I know I I just I don’t enjoy that Gilliland so, but what advice do you have for people like me or like others that may not enjoy it, but we know we still gotta go do it sometimes. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: We’re both doing it right now because I don’t enjoy not working either. I don’t enjoy Galas, at all. Like, that’s not how I built any of the purposes, and you don’t saying. So, yeah. So believe it or not, majority of successful business owners are introvert or or, you know, or I guess, social introverts. Right? We we don’t get energy from going to those. In fact, those don’t work, typically. Like, going to gala, like spending the whole night and spending all this money and meeting one person. I like to do what you’re doing, which is broad marketing, like lots of different people. Whether it’s using social media. I do a lot of email blasts, you know, to to, you know, get get email lists, get by email distribution lists, whether, you know, or or have someone like our firm research those names for you, get by CEO list, by RIA list and start, you know, dripping on them. And, and that’s, for me, the most efficient way. I also have a lot of people on my social media team were adding, you know, helping me organize my social media, list. You could you know, you you really if you don’t enjoy the broad, you know, or the networking, that’s it’s actually a good thing. You should but you should start embracing these other ways. More digital basically digital should be your friend. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. And are you finding that that’s the way a lot of people are getting business these days? Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Website leads coming through. People, like, you look at some of the firms out there with millions of followers. They are writing blogs, writing books, you know, they’re not out there networking. They’re just people come to them at a certain point. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yep. Yeah. I would say it’s like the it’s like the train, the the the the magnets either connect or they don’t connect. Right? They repel each other. And I think if, you know, you have good values, you get good Gilliland you’re doing good work, the the referrals come in. I, you know, I know when I was in my twenties, it was begging people for referrals. I’m like, oh, gives me anxiety even thinking about that. But, yeah, I just I just think that’s, that’s good. It’s good to hear and can firm that it’s it’s not around, you know, networking events and and it’s not the way to build it because I I hundred percent agree. So, kinda last question for you. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: I was just gonna have one more thing. Yeah. So it’s it’s not either networking or nothing. Right? And I feel like that one of the best quotes I heard recently was doing a good job is not a marketing strategy. Like, that’s not, you know, you can’t just rely on that. So you have to have something that’s actively being done. And it’s you don’t need to go network to balance, but at least do something which is more digital. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yep. Yep. I agree. So how many of the fears you’ve put in your mind over your career? It’s one of my favorite questions to ask. So how many of the fears you’ve put in your mind over your career have actually blown up to the magnitude you put them in your mind to be? Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Zero. You’re right. I mean, yeah, the bag I I still have the bag lady syndrome worry, you know, that you’re gonna, like, end up being homeless. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Right. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: And, you know, it’s been a good thing, right, the big fear that’s is that anxiety But, but, I mean, when you hear the stats of, like, well, I can’t you probably know this better than I do that, like, sixty percent of the US is living paycheck to paycheck. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. Crazy. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Or they don’t have more than, like, a hundred thousand dollars in retirement. You and I could start being like, we’re like, what’s wrong? Like, why are we thinking this way? You know? What what are they thinking that I’m not thinking? So I think we’re a little bit too worried about things, the worst case scenario. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yep. Yep. I agree. So I said last question might lie. This is last question. You can see here this sticker if you’re watching, future greater than your past. So our our firm’s, mission is to help people achieve a future greater than their past. Again, doesn’t mean people have a bad past, but I think everybody wants a better future. So when you hear that, kinda what’s that what’s that feeling it gives you to help you achieve a future greater than past? Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Yeah. I mean, I feel like I’m, right now, select advisors at one of the best places they possibly be. We have an amazing team in house outsource that I’ve also sourced and found. Yeah. Love the best talent I could think of. And, we basically have our recipe down, how we write what we think. So it’s that’s what I’m excited about. It’s like, you know, now it’s no longer like each time we’re like, oh my gosh, what where do we start here? It’s every single time we come to a client with even more and more resources and and capabilities and tools. And that’s what makes me really excited. It’s like it it’s like almost like going to a college that’s gonna basically be paying for itself down the line for for any client that joins us. So that’s what I’m really excited about. It’s like knowing that that’s something that they’re, you know, that I’m able to give to my clients. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Awesome. I love it. Well, Amy, working on listeners find more of you. Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Oh, on our website, select dash advisers dot com, plural, or go to amy’s linkedin dot com. And that’s Speaker Brett Gilliland: Amy’s linkedin dot com. Yeah. It’s that’s the It’s a nice and easy one right there. You got lucky on that one, Speaker Amy Parvaneh: Right. You should get that. Go to, go to GoDaddy and see if Brett’s linkedin dot com as it will. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Oh, nice. I like it. I’ll have to check there. So there’s we could have had this whole podcast. Just be that. You say that. We cut it and we’re done. Just gotta go daddy and Speaker Amy Parvaneh: find it. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Speaker Brett Gilliland: I like it. I love it. Awesome. We will put all this in the show notes and send people your way, Amy. It’s been awesome having you and, appreciate your time on this of success.
