Don’t Do That: Don’t Skip the Sounding Board with Matt Ackermann, Integrated Partners

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Every step leads to the next step, if you're willing to throw yourself out there and sometimes look silly or sometimes try something new that maybe you wouldn't have before it's it all matters, and it all works out, and it really it excites you for whatever the
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next makes you love your job 100% Welcome to the Don't Do That podcast. I'm Kelly Waltrich, CEO and Co-Founder of Intention.ly. And like me, this show is no fluff and no BS, just smart advice to help you learn from the best and level up faster. So what are we not doing today? Let's find out.
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Hi everyone, and welcome to the don't do that podcast. I'm your host. Kelly Waltrich, and with me today, I have a man who needs no introduction, my friend. Matt Ackermann, what's up?
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Matt? Hello, Kelly. Excited to be here today.
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This is weird.
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You are usually the one doing the interviewing. This is
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weird for me, too. Believe me, it is so much easier for me to ask questions and answer them. So this is, like, bare my soul. Sure What's the worst that could happen?
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I feel like I have, like, 20 years of questions build up for you that I haven't gotten to ask. So here we go. You're ready.
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I'm ready. I'm a little nervous, like I always say it's like, it is so much easier to ask questions, and then just wait, you listen, you figure out the next one to ask, but yeah, when you're having to be the one answer the question, that's where it gets a little nerve wracking. I know why.
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People will sometimes say to me, can you give me the questions in advance? And I always fight that. I fight that so hard
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I know you do All right, so just in case there's someone on the line who doesn't know about you, give us a sense of your background and and where you are today.
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So I kind of grew up in this industry through the media side, started as a reporter, an editor, and got asked the best interview question ever when I started investment news. Mark Vernon, now a real good friend of mine, said to me, forget about this job. I think I was applying to be a web editor. He said, If you could do anything, what would you do? And I was like, I've always dreamed about hosting a reality show where I could fix advisors practices, and I'd called practice makeover. And he said, that is crazy, but if we ever find anybody who'll do that with us, sure you could do that.
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We ended up hosting seven seasons of practice makeover.
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And from there, I really got to do a lot of really creative things with multimedia, at investment news. I was at every industry conference, traveling all over the place, doing interviews with so many incredible people. And got to do some really amazing creative things, especially working with you. Kelly, we got to do I got to live on a houseboat because of you for a week with, with, with a with a great Mormon family in Utah.
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I loved it. Mark said, that's crazy. And then you called me and said, Let's do this. Yes, let's do something crazy. Another crazy person, exactly.
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That's the whole game is, can I find another crazy person that I can get excited about this idea? And usually you were very high on the list of the crazy people.
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And I it's so funny to me, because I think this industry is full of great people and great relationships. And you know, you meet somebody, and from the outside looking in, they think it's serious and about money.
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And it is, there's a lot of things to be serious about. But yeah, I think it is about family and relationships. And now, today, five years ago, I got to join integrated partners continue to do amazing creative things for our network of advisors and CPAs and help them to stand out from the crowd, like we use the term dice all the time. Are we helping people to be dice? Are we helping to be different, interesting, compelling, exciting? It's this is an industry also that can get a little humdrum, and I love to add some color outside the lines to that.
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I love that. Oh my gosh. Well, I can totally relate to that, because as a marketing professional and financial services, everybody says to me, like, how did you end up in financial services as a marketer, it's not the sexiest thing to promote. I'm like, Yeah, you're right, but there are definitely ways to spice it up. Every now and then I have a client right now that is about to sign a major celebrity deal for an endorse, for an ambassador, and I'm super excited, like there's just so many there are things, there are things on the fringes everywhere, where people are really trying to spice things up, as you always are.
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I just think that like doing the same old, same old is really only going to make you harder to distinguish from the crowd. So it's like we Yes, there are lots of ways to just do what people have always done. We could put compasses and yachts on every website imaginable. But wouldn't it be more interesting to add the color of who you really are onto that site. I mean, there's ways to liven up anything, if you're willing to just stand out and put yourself out there a
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little bit. I love it. Okay, so I'm going to ask the question the pivot from the media side to the RA side is a big one. Yeah. And it's a big change for you, and it's a it's like a colossal shift in the way that the industry had to start to think about you myself included. So give me a sense of like that shift for you, and the process and what you're loving about being in house with integrated
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so I'm going to take you back to 2020, and obviously it was a period of time where everybody was kind of reconsidering a lot of things, reconsidering who you are, your what motivates you, and really where you can make the biggest impact. We hit a really interesting inflection point at investment news. There was kind of some new ownership in place.
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A lot of the people that had kind of got a chance to really work closely with there had had kind of found some new opportunities. And I was kind of just at this point where I was like, Where can I make a great impact? I had a great opportunity when I was at investment news, to get to meet Paul sagani, the CEO at integrated, get to meet Andre more, who's now president at the time, was chief implementation officer, and I just saw so much amazing potential in the firm.
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And from the time I was talking to them, one of the people who's no longer at integrated said to me, integrated is one of the best kept secrets in this business. And I was like, You shouldn't want to be that. You shouldn't want to be a secret.
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If you've got something that makes you unique and amazing, you should be shouting it from the rooftop, right? And it was almost like they didn't know that that was how it should be.
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It was almost like they felt like being a secret was who they should be. And I was like, Man, you have some an amazing story to tell. Let's tell it in a unique way. Let's do something cool. It was funny, because when I first went to Paul and talked to him about it, I pitched another idea to him that I was going to try, which might be that my don't do that, but I still believe it is a do that, but so we can save that for later. But I pitched in that idea to him and he he told someone, I don't love Matt's idea, but I love Matt, and he's all about who, not how. He's all about finding great people and then finding the right spot for them will kind of, they'll find their way to that. I love that.
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Paul saw that kind of energy in me, when, to your point, the industry saw me as this interviewer guy or this creative media person. And it's funny, because there's people that told Paul, after a year. Well, I'm surprised Matt's still there. I thought this was only a lily pad for him, and kind of somewhere else he would bounce to. And I really believe I found a home at integrated because for so many reasons, and the biggest being the culture that exists here.
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So Graham Thomas and I did a don't do that recently, and we were talking about how we kind of both believe that there's going to be 10% of your career where you really feel like you're with the right people, doing the right things, getting paid the right amount. Like, where everything feels good, and we so often, like, are so ready to jump to the next thing or try to find a better thing. But like, if you find that 10% of things like, hold on to it for dear life, and that sounds to me every time I talk to you, what integrated is for you?
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Oh, absolutely, it's it is so much about people that trust you, even at times when you're like, I can't believe they're trusting me to do this. The annual meeting for integrated is something that from the moment I walked in the door, I wanted to take to another level. The first one I went to, before I even joined there we it was very small. It was in a conference room. They were very they embraced kind of this bootstrap mentality of of this community and this mindset.
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And I was like, you're getting bigger. You have to kind of lean in and and take this and even as I was starting to build it out and trying to make it more of an experience, I was shocked that, like they were trusting me with not only the keys, but like, yep, if that's what you believe in, go for it. If you think we should do that, go for it. And, you know, making it really, like I said, an experience and a story. I mean, the first year that I ran it. We brought out a Tom Cruise impersonator in San Diego to do a whole skit with me. We opened last year, and I was wearing yellow chaps on stage as we were in Austin, Texas. I I just believe the show of this has to emulate. Our advisors are growing. They expect more from us, and we have to kind of do this, and no one fought me. I mean, there was back and forth, believe me, there was people that pushed back. I have ideas that are even bigger, you know that, but, but at the end of the day, there is a trust in this culture that you have our best interest at heart, and we're behind you 100% and that to your point of the 10% I feel that 10% every day.
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I love it. Okay, so tell me, like, what are some of the craziest things that you've pitched to Andre even just lately, I imagine there's been a few, Matt,
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there are a lot of craziness. So first I'll go to the idea that I pitched to Paul, that he hasn't that hasn't happened yet, but I still believe it's gonna happen someday. I really wanted to want and I. Still want to build out a financial literacy engine for kids that is like Sesame Street with puppets, with kids where you because I, my belief is nobody wants to be the person that with the wrong answers, so you let the puppets have the wrong answers. I had voices ready. I had everything like I had a whole lesson plan. I had people in inner city schools, in in New Jersey, ready to do this with me? So, like, I still believe it is a great idea. It just wasn't at the right point yet. But it is crazy. I mean, it's crazy to go to a CEO of a at the time, $12 billion Ria and say we should use puppets. But I really think we have to do things that that can stand out from the crowd. I've I pitched a reality show concept Not, not nothing like practice makeover, more like full swing, if you're a Netflix fan like I think the industry has a major problem when it comes to the way of perception around the world.
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When people hear financial advisor, they think Gordon Gekko, and really it's more moms and dads, it's amazing people, and we have to do a better job of showcasing the people that are really financial advisors.
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It's not slick back hair and and$1,000 suits. It's people that are ultimately helpers. So that was a that was a pretty crazy idea that we haven't done yet.
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But I, like I said, I keep a lot of ideas in my pocket so that when someone says to me, Matt, what's your craziest idea? I'm like, Okay, here's what I'm thinking.
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Okay, well, that so what you just said about like, showcasing advisors as real people, I feel like that's a perfect segue into the really fun effort that you and I did together. And I know we've talked about this a lot, so if you've listened to me and Matt before and you've heard this, you can tune out for the next couple of seconds, but so well, Matt was in investment news. So here's the thing, trade publications, we have friends with all the people at them.
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Love them, but I do. I don't generally want to be the person that you come to with, like, Hey, do you want to do a webinar next week?
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You know, I really should have written down the top five ideas that if either of us here, we start to tune out. Webinar would have been, if this is Family Feud webinar, it was your number one answer. We've heard it. Email blast Yes, yes. Email blast number two on the charts. I agree. Like we've heard from our trade publication friends the same things. And it's like, even when I thought I had good ideas, if I came to anybody, especially somebody like Kelly, with it, like three times, she's like, we've already done that. Like, we've already done a video series with you at a conference.
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Come up with a better idea.
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That's what it was, Matt, now that you said that, that's totally what it was. It was you said, Hey, I'm going to be at so and so conference record, your executives. It'll cost this month much. And I was like, let's do something better. Come on. Okay, so what we did, guys, and I'll let Matt tell the full story, but we we did the secret, secret life, and we went into advisors. At the time I was Eddie money, so we had such amazing advisors who were very planning focused. And we went, we stuck Matt in their lives to just tell the stories of like, what great access to planning tools allowed them to do for themselves, for their families, for their clients, that the you know, spending time that they would otherwise have to spend, doing a lot of those things manually. So there was a course, a tie into the business. You have to do that occasion,
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like, basically, the story is, hey, because of this great technology behind me, I have more time in my life to do these things that I love. And we got to sit there and see an advisor at a great family and they're watching football in Philadelphia, and then watching the Eagles and but my favorite one that we were able to do was on a houseboat in Utah with an amazing advisor named Tom Hall and his family. During planning, we always kind of talked about with him, like you do a planning call, where you kind of were trying to get to what's the thing, what's going to be the show to this tell, an interview is great, but if we can liven it up with some with so he said to us, well, my family loves to spend weekends together on a houseboat on Lake Powell in Utah. It's gorgeous. He sent us couple pictures. Hey, we go fly boarding there. If anybody doesn't know what fly boarding is, basically you attach a hose back of a jet ski, and you put it on your feet, and it's like a jet pack, and you do flips in the air. These were the two things he told us, family houseboat, flyboard. I was like, great. I'm in at the time. I'm at investment news. And Steve Lam, who to this day, I love Steve, because Steve would get a call after a crazy idea, and have to make it into something that was affordable, could actually be shot and done on a budget. So Steve would get like, Hey, we're going to a houseboat with a family in Utah, and we're gonna go flyboarding. And Steve went, Okay, we'll figure it out.
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Okay, sure, no problem.
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The folks. Be money. We're like, Well, Kelly, you're going with them, right? I was like, No, I don't think there's showers on that boat.
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I'm not doing
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there weren't there. I think there may have been a we didn't have shower for the whole week. We were there for a week. The biggest thing that that is not said until we kind of arrive, is when I thought family, I thought we were talking about four people, five people, big, big, even if it's a big family. I mean, I grew up with with, I'm one of eight kids, so so big family didn't concern me. We were bringing a crew of four people, so, you know, we were going to add to this boat anyway. The boat was very large, but when they said family, they meant extended family. There had to be 12 folks on the boat, plus us.
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So now there is 16. They were Mormons. So there was no alcohol on this boat at all. There was no caffeine on the boat. So there wasn't like, so like the element, there was so many factors here that I didn't factor in. And it's like, okay.
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Also where the crew slept was on the top of the boat in sleeping bags. There was one hammock, but, like, literally, I was in a sleeping bag on like a mat that was kind of built more for a lounge chair and and we slept on this boat. And I remember Steve, it had to be late at night. We were sleeping, honestly, within like 12 inches of one another.
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And he said, Hey, Matt, do you think Mark Bruno would like this? I was like, No, Mark would not if you don't know Mark. Mark is the kind of guy who dresses$1,000 suit slick back hair very well put together. Mark Kelly, you neither would find yourself sleeping on top of a houseboat, probably
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for a week. I bet you it was beautiful, though. I bet it was gorgeous. It was amazing.
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It was gorgeous.
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And I fly boarded. I did that. I didn't get very high off the water before smacking into it, but I did. I try everything. I love you
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so much for that. That will go down as like one of my career highlights forever.
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It was amazing.
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And I think the whole thing that made it better is there was great show to the tell of the story. The Advisor Tom Hall was amazing, and it was an incredible adventure that was part of all of these adventures that leads to another adventure where it's like, hey, if I can do that, I could go shoot a documentary about impact investing in Haiti next after that. Because, hey, if I can live on a houseboat, I can live in Haiti for a week. And, you know, learn all about impact investing's real impact that happens out there. And that documentary debuted at the United Nations because of that.
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So it's like every step leads to the next step. If you're willing to throw yourself out there and sometimes look silly or sometimes try something new that maybe you wouldn't have before, it's it all matters, and it all works out. And it really it excites you for whatever the
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next makes you love your job 100% I, you know, I always tell people, Matt, so I my leadership team intentionally will tell you, I'm not a lover of complainers like that is just not my thing. Like, I'm like, come to the solution and we'll figure it out. But like, the complaining, like, really gets me. And I always tell people like, you own your the love of your your job, like, don't rely on me. You can rely on me a little bit. I'm gonna create a great environment for you. I'm gonna create a great culture.
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I'm gonna hire great people, but you've gotta come in here every day with the right energy. Like, you have to think of ways to contribute and make everything better, and you have to figure out, what is it going to take for you to like, love and dig in. And so I think sometimes people forget, like that's that's your job too. It's not just the leaders of your firm that are responsible for that.
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You know,
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it's so interesting, because what you think sometimes is your job is only a part of it. Like it's interesting, because I think integrated hires me as Chief Content Officer, writing content, creating videos, whatever is a part of what I do, and then now I'm Chief Brand Officer. But like my wife, when she met Paul for the first time, we're in New York City eating dinner, and my wife says to Paul, what is Matt's job?
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Because I don't understand it at all. My wife says, like, quiet Mars, don't say that. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, screw the pooch here on us. But so and he said, Matt's a connector. Matt is really good at listening and hearing an idea over here and bringing good people together, because people like to be around him. And it was just such a nice way that I never thought of as what I do, but it like really kind of changed my mindset, too, and it connects exactly what you were just saying is, I'm going to empower you to do great things, but then you have to take the reins and go do it.
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Yeah, I forget.
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I think so. We just went to the PA conference for women, a big group of us said intentionally, and Hoda, love Hoda. He was up there, and she was just, like, some they asked her, like, why are you always happy? Like, Why does it always seem like you're happy? And she's like, I seek it. She's like, it doesn't just fall in your lap. I look for reasons to be happy. I look for happy people. I look for joy and everything. She's like, it's a, like, it's a, it's a thing where you have to be involved in it.
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And I'm like, Oh, love that. And I feel like more people in our industry need to take that approach. Like, how can we be different? How can we be creative? How can we be more fun? How can we, like, raise everybody around us up? I want to see, I want to see more of that. I think you do a really nice job the,
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I mean, the people we were, I was talking before about relationships, and it's interesting, the people you gravitate towards in this industry, the people that I always say, the people you pick up the phone on the first ring, for the people that you have text chains to you see at conferences you want to be around. And we talk about it a lot, and it's like, it's kind of two factors. It's what you said, I gravitate towards happy, kind nice people, yeah. And I also think a lot of it is, who are the people that are a good hang?
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I think it was Ricky Williamson from red tail that kind of brought me awareness to that.
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Ricky said, I said, Why do so many good people tend to be around each other? It's like because they're a good hang.
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They're a person that when you see them, you want to be around them, because no matter the situation, they're going to find some joy in it. They're going to be happy these events can can be wearing on you when you're traveling a lot, or you're on the road a lot, you you need to find joy in those moments too, and you and you got to find people that you're looking forward to spending time to especially when you're away from family and stuff. You
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You have interviewed 1000s and 1000s of people in this industry. There's not a conference that you guys are gonna go to where you don't see Matt with a microphone, even now that he's integrated. So Matt, tell me like some favorites, like some favorite interviews.
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Oh, so, so I was really lucky very early, when we started this, I got to give Brian hamburger credit and market Council where we would get to interview people that were a little outside the industry. So, you know, getting to interview an Eliot Spitzer or Mark Cuban, you know, you get those kind of celebrity kind of interviews, and those are really fun. We went to, I think trying to, I think it might have been a Carson event. We got to interview Jim haba. So getting those kind of things are always fun in this industry. One of my favorites was Judd Bergman.
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Before he passed away, an invest net Judd not only was a great interview, he's just a great person. He would talk to every person in the crew the same way he would talk to the best CEO in the space. My favorite story was he, they used to have to send a handler with him, because otherwise he would just talk. He would talk to a camera person for 30 minutes about the traveling wheelberries, when he was supposed to be on camera with me for two minutes before he went over here to speak on this stage, he would come over to me at events and want to practice jokes and his opening before he hit the stage of t3 because he wasn't sure if a joke was going to land. And everyone was like, Judd, my jokes don't always land, so please, like, don't always take my word for it, but he was always one of my favorites. Anytime you got to get to go to an event and begin to develop real relationships with people, the interviews would get better, you know, because they would trust that you're going to get them to a good space. You're not going to hit him with some sort of crazy curveball. That was never my intention. My intention was, how can I make you look great, obviously, people that started his interviews and become friends, those were always great, too. People like Brian McLaughlin and people like Tony steak, like, they're gonna always stand out. Because, okay, Tony, I'm gonna do a game with you where you gotta pick a card and answer a question. Like, when people trust you enough to do that too, that that stands out. So like, yes, there's great celebrity interviews, and those are fun, but it was way more fun. You know, Simon Sinek is great, but, but wasn't it? It was so much more fun when, like Brian McLaughlin and I would play a game on camera where we would give each other a word and see if you could work aluminum siding into your interview, or dilapidated or it didn't matter what words Steve would give us, we would then it would just be, became fun for all of us, and that that that really made those things stand out.
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Oh my gosh.
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Okay, so you said something about the goal being to make people look good, which I love.
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And so tell me how you're doing that at integrated with the advisors that you're working with.
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So much of it is, I love to kind of meet an advisor where they're at and take them wherever they want to go. So I think so much of it begins with listening, and it also it's this. I want advisors to feel a level of concierge service. For me that feels like you're getting something behind the velvet ropes you can't get anywhere else. You want to feel like I'm I have advisors and integrated say to me, I want to hear your crazy idea, Matt. I want to be that guinea pig for you. So I'll bring them an idea that sometimes can feel maybe it's not fully baked yet, but it's like, Hey, I just checked out this new product or this tool at here, and I want to work with you first, with. On it before anybody else gets it.
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Because I think we can get in at the beta level, and then you'll get better pricing. So what we want our advisors to feel like always is they are the star. So they want an idea that's our first, our most original, but they also want ideas and insights from around the industry that they can't get anywhere else. I think it begins what we were talking about, opening with joy, being a person that they pick up the phone and can't wait to talk to, being open to a quick text, whatever it is, so that they know you're not doing this because it's your job. You're doing this because, really, you were thinking about them, what they're up to at that moment, and how ultimately you can help.
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I love it. Love it. I love it. Okay, I feel like we are due for a collab. Don't you think
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absolutely, oh my goodness, don't even get me started. I I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I had the opportunity, but the audience doesn't knows, a week ago, I had the opportunity to go down to Philly and sit down with you a little bit, but like, man, I've and it's funny because today I got an email from somebody saying we should talk to you intentionally about doing this idea. And I was like, Yes, we should. Yes, we should. I love so I like when, like, the Kismet of the world happens where it's like, you're talking to somebody else and they bring up a name, and you're like, it just feels like the universe is saying we need to do something together.
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I feel like we had so much fun. I feel like and intentionally like anywhere else you have, we have goals to hit and all the things, and we get after it and put our heads down.
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And then we have moments like that where we all come together and we just brainstorm, and it's like, oh, this is why I love my job, because all these things are so possible. There's no, you know, there's no barriers to it, unless you want to count, like time and money and
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compliance and all that stuff, but, but, but, I say to people all the time, like, those are all not excuses, but, but, but all they are barriers, but they're not things we can't get over. I've learned in the last five years by working with compliance that you can work with compliance.
00:27:02.460 --> 00:27:06.480
They're not the enemy. They are.
00:27:02.460 --> 00:27:19.200
I can always go to them and say, I want to do this. I know I can't get all the way here, but you know, let's where do I have to stop the car? Okay? I don't want to drive off the cliff either. So, so tell me how protect me from me. Yeah.
00:27:19.679 --> 00:27:25.999
Okay. So speaking of compliance or roadblocks, tell them about the expense report.
00:27:26.719 --> 00:27:29.598
Oh, golly. I was okay. On behalf. This is Kelly.
00:27:29.598 --> 00:27:52.298
This is good. This is good. So, so we, so we got in the houseboat, and any anything that we did, you know, you're working for a company like investment news at the time. I believe we were owned by crane at that time. And so, you know, you have to file expense reports like anything else. And there seemed to be a lag after that shoot.
00:27:48.638 --> 00:28:07.019
Most expense reports would get paid. You know, right by the next pay cycle, two weeks, whatever, there seemed to be a lag in this payment. Lasted a little bit until finally, I think it was like a month and a half later, I reached out to mark Bruno and like, Hey, I haven't gotten paid on this yet.
00:28:02.878 --> 00:28:19.798
And he's like, Oh, we I have to have a conversation with you about this. No, Mark never had a conversation. Just hit Accept and it would go through. He said there was something strange in your expense report that I need to talk to you about. Oh, gosh.
00:28:16.618 --> 00:28:32.959
So we were sitting down. He'd closed the office door. So I'm like, this is serious. He's like, there is a strange thing on here. Now, we had stopped at a roadside thing as we were headed towards this houseboat, and I said to the crew, hey, I don't know what's on this boat.
00:28:33.019 --> 00:28:56.739
Guys. Grab snacks. Grab something to drink. Bring it with you, whatever it is. I'm gonna put it on this card. No problem. The sound engineer had slapped onto the countertop a pack of unlubricated condoms, he said. And truly he said, you put them over top of the microphones so that they don't get so that keeps them waterproof. They don't end up in the water when we're going flyboarding all.
00:28:53.078 --> 00:28:59.019
Mark Bruno saw on this expense report was unlubricated condoms,
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Mark, you are welcome for that moment in time.
00:29:02.039 --> 00:29:03.720
I hope that that lives on with you.
00:29:04.439 --> 00:29:20.538
Mark has both mark and Suzanne. Suzanne Syracuse, shout out to Suzanne say they had to have a separate meeting, and we're considering bringing it to HR before this conversation and Mark decided he was going to give me the benefit of the doubt. Thank goodness.
00:29:17.638 --> 00:29:22.878
Life can be comedy or it can be tragedy. This is part of the comedy of my life.
00:29:24.500 --> 00:29:30.200
I love every second of that. Oh, Suzanne and Mark, I just that
00:29:30.200 --> 00:29:32.599
is yes, too good having these having meetings.
00:29:32.720 --> 00:29:44.619
There had to be multiple meetings. And what was the I like to imagine, what the subject line was, Ackerman, Expense Report. Ackerman condoms like it was. Must have been just comedy, comedy personified.
00:29:44.619 --> 00:30:01.980
So that intentionally our first year, so my husband helps with my finances. Sometimes, like he'll review stuff and help me that was a part of the business that I needed. I need guidance. So our first year, he was helping me, and he called me and he.
00:29:57.940 --> 00:30:07.200
Said, Kelly, you need to have a conversation with so and so.
00:30:01.980 --> 00:30:07.200
Look at this expense submission.
00:30:07.259 --> 00:30:21.440
And there were, like, 12 pairs of pantyhose, is one of the things. And he's like, what is happening? And I don't know if you've ever so we were having a holiday party, and I don't know if you've ever seen the game where, like, you wrap the pantyhose around, you put a tennis ball in, and you
00:30:21.440 --> 00:30:23.539
like, I thought it was an orange I must be.
00:30:25.700 --> 00:30:30.559
But he's like, we're gonna have to have a discussion with them, because they're submitting panty. I'm like, Oh
00:30:34.039 --> 00:31:01.920
my gosh, if I could explain some of the things that poor Andre has to deal with on expense reports from me, we should all feel bad. They're hanging in the back of this room is a pair of chaps, which I almost feel like I should get up and get and hold in front of this camera, because they are wild and like, she still, to this day, has to deal. And I say to her, it's like, I know I must have the strangest expense reports expectations. And she's like, No, I just smile at it again. Culture. She knew who she hired getting into Yeah, knew
00:31:01.920 --> 00:31:04.440
who she hired.
00:31:01.920 --> 00:31:21.740
Oh my gosh. All right, Matt, so let's get to it. So the premise of the show is that we learn more from our mistakes than our wins. And I've had so many amazing people tell us so many things that they stepped in that they're trying to help others not do. So what? What are you telling people not to do today,
00:31:22.579 --> 00:31:34.400
I'm gonna say you have to. Sometimes need people on your side to protect you from yourself. We've talked about people like Mark Bruno.
00:31:31.640 --> 00:33:29.420
We've talked about people like Andre but I have a very specific good example story of protecting me from myself, protecting me from my overall enthusiasm, sometimes my excitement for whatever the project or creative idea was. And specifically I'm going to talk about a little project called gadget girl. So I'm at investment news. It was a very good idea. Essentially, we had a great member, person who I've mentored. She's gone on to amazing things. Soared past me, Shannon rosk, who is a very good friend. I consider her like family. I was at her wedding when she got married. We're very close. If you find one of us at an event, you could probably know where the other one will be still to this day, very early on, my favorite story about Shannon is I found her in the marketing department at investment news, and I said, You're a star. We're good. Will you? Would you like to come work with my with me and my team on multimedia? She said, I'd love to she worked for a year where she was doing two jobs and not getting paid at all for multimedia. That was the kind of dedication she knew she had an upward trajectory there. One of those early projects together was gadget girl. Gadget girl was the idea to explain difficult to understand FinTech things through cool analogies. We explained data aggregation by renting a taco truck. Speaking of weird expense reports, rent a taco truck sometime in San Diego. It's fun. So literally, that's how we explain data aggregation. And Shannon was great at this. But in the early days, we wanted to find ways to market it, explain it, showcase this, so that not only could we find other sponsors, but we could really get it to have some real lift off. So we went through a couple concepts with an animator to showcase this. My concept was gadget girl was a superhero, and she's going to be somebody who's going to be jumping out of the phone booth and ready to take off. So I walked an animator through my concept, and it was perfect purple and all this stuff. And the artist, it's like Superman.
00:33:29.420 --> 00:33:48.160
She was pulling open her shirt, and she had this giant G on it, and she was flying out and ready to go. I bring this concept to Mark. I'm so excited. We are literally the entire leadership team in investment news. We're at an off site. I get this thing. I want to show everybody how excited I am, and I show everybody on the bus, and they all begin laughing immediately.
00:33:48.339 --> 00:34:06.119
And I'm like, what? This is a great idea. And they're like, it looks like she's stripping. And I went, huh? I didn't see that at all. I didn't feel the need to check with anybody. I saw this rendering on my phone. I was excited. The concept was cool. The animation was awesome.
00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:13.559
It looked like a cartoon, and they saw her taking her shirt off. So you got to protect yourself from yourself.
00:34:10.380 --> 00:34:32.659
Sometimes protect that your enthusiasm, while it is sometimes my greatest weapon, it could also be a negative. So sometimes the best thing to do is take a deep breath and have a director of common sense on your team, where you know, before I do anything, look at this and tell me what I'm missing.
00:34:29.539 --> 00:34:43.599
Sometimes I'm the director of common sense for other people, but it's just you got to protect yourself from yourself sometimes and know that your enthusiasm can be a good thing, but it could also stand in your way a little bit too.
00:34:44.139 --> 00:35:13.320
I love that. I feel like, for all of you that are listening or don't do that today, is don't go through your career without a sounding board or a bunch of them, right? Like, that's so true. Like we all have those people in our lives that we do a gut check with. You know? Have that for my raising my kids with my mom group of friends, and certainly inside intentionally with you and others, before I do dumb things, and it's so important, like, what would we do without those people? We would, we
00:35:13.380 --> 00:35:15.719
would post stripper pictures,
00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:22.460
sure, or, or we would just, and I'm lucky too, because there's other mistakes I've made, where people gone.
00:35:22.460 --> 00:35:29.239
Oh, Matt, we know you're not We know you're not buying condoms for this, or we know you're not buying weird chaps for that.
00:35:29.239 --> 00:35:39.019
Like all my things are very strange and oddly sexual. But really, at the end of the day, I I'm in this for the right reasons. I swear I'm a good guy.
00:35:36.139 --> 00:35:55.000
It's a weird thing for anybody to say, but, but the truth of the matter is, I genuinely have a excitement and enthusiasm for what I do, and I love this industry, because I think that creatively, they need people like us that are willing to color outside the lines.
00:35:55.239 --> 00:36:14.219
I love it. So guys, this is your this is your rally call for Matt Ackerman and Kelly waldrick to say, as you're planning your 2026 plans, don't make them lame. Yeah, don't do something fun boring. Do something spice it up. Do something outside the box. Don't ask what your competitors doing.
00:36:14.460 --> 00:36:21.739
Think about what you want to be doing and then bring it to intentionally. And we'll help you, but only if it's exciting and fun, right?
00:36:21.980 --> 00:36:39.260
Because I think you guys also do such a great job of like, Hey, here's a great idea, or be in that reality check. Sometimes, when there are people like me that are sitting there, like, How about something like this? And you can make it something usable, so you always kind of like, level up, whatever the experience is.
00:36:39.318 --> 00:36:43.719
I feel like, you know, for those of you don't know, and then we'll let you go.
00:36:41.498 --> 00:36:44.199
Because Matt and I could probably
00:36:44.199 --> 00:36:47.320
talk forever. We could. I'm sorry about that, folks. No, it's good.
00:36:47.739 --> 00:37:14.460
I feel like we have a good tug of war. Matt on like being creative, but also making sure that the creativity channels into something productive, like at the end of the day, the wildness has to be fun, and it has to work for your your business, it has to work for your brand, it has to work for your culture. It has to work for the goals you're trying to meet. So that's the magic, I think, in finding the connection between those two, two things
00:37:14.519 --> 00:37:17.460
100% right? And we've had the discussion before.
00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:28.519
I'm a person that loves the beginning, loves starting things, and we need partners to help us close the door and finish the loop. And that's why it's been so great working with you for for decades, my friend,
00:37:28.940 --> 00:37:33.800
I know. All right, well, keep lobbing me crazy ideas. I will. You got them all best part of my job.
00:37:33.800 --> 00:38:11.639
All right, Matt, thank you so much, guys. I hope you like this one, and I hope you take our advice. Be more creative, be more fun. You. In. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's show, subscribe to be notified when new episodes become available, and please consider giving us a five star review on Apple or Spotify. This podcast is sponsored by intentionally a financial services growth engine design consultancy and agency. If you want to learn more, please email me at kelly@growintentionally.com, thank you again for listening and check back to hear what we're not doing next.
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The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Kelly Waltrich. The content has been made available for informational and educational purposes.