After working in college admissions, a pivotal moment shifted the course of Stephen Good's career. Encouraged by a friend, he decided to explore a path in financial services. A powerful experience with a deserving student’s family made him realize he wanted to make a more significant impact. Since then, Stephen has spent the past 22 years embracing a variety of roles in the financial services industry, driven by the desire to help others secure their financial futures and improve their lives. We sat down with Stephen to learn more about his journey.

How long have you been in the financial services industry?
I started in the beginning of 2002 (22 years).

What made you decide to join the financial services industry?
At one of my very good friend’s weddings in Miami, my friend Pedro (who I work with today) and a few other friends told me that I should give the financial services industry a chance and that I would be good at it.

I was doing college admissions at Miami and loved it and felt like I was helping families and making a difference. I had a student who was extremely deserving of a scholarship and I helped her obtain that scholarship. I was so happy that I was able to help her. I still remember getting the phone call from her mom, who was crying what I thought were tears of happiness, but were actually tears of sadness because even with ¾ of the tuition being paid, she still couldn’t afford to send her daughter to Miami. This was a turning point for me because I always felt that I was helping people, but I realized I wasn’t really doing anything. The financial services industry came to me as a way to actually help people and a way to help put people in a better place.

What roles have you had along the way?
I’ve done just about everything – started off as a financial professional, when I moved to Washington D.C. as a recommendation from Pedro and joined a team that he thought would be a great one to learn from. After about six months, they said I should start considering Firm Leadership. I was actually one of the youngest to go through Prudential’s Leadership Program. I stayed at Prudential for about four years and then transitioned over to Guardian, eventually transitioning to firm leadership there as well. I spent almost my entire career in firm leadership, with the exception of five years as a life product wholesaler for the West Coast for Mass Mutual.

How long have you been with your current firm?
I’ve been with them over five years now.

What does your firm have that others don’t? What makes you stand out?
For me, the difference here is the people we have. Every firm talks about support and resources, where with our firm, it’s about the experienced people we have to support financial professionals. They are part of our team so they truly have a vested interest in our shared success. Our firm-level support is extensive and the beauty of it is that you don’t need to call a “1-800” number for support, you are actually calling someone on their cell phone.

Give an example of how you’ve helped a financial professional grow their business.
There was a financial professional years ago that I hired who had an average of $100-150k in production for the previous 15 years or so. When he joined us, we introduced him to teaming and helped him formulate his succession plan. After doing both of those things, he almost doubled his production to be at $450k the year that he had his succession plan in place. His clients were reassured by having a next generation financial professional in place on his team. It excited his clients to continue working with him.

How do you support financial professionals?
It’s everything from getting cases put through to business planning. Any financial professional that I work with would say that improving language is one of the biggest things I help them with. I will help them figure out how to phrase or re-phrase something to a client/prospect/COI.

What mistakes do financial professionals make when joining a new firm?
The biggest mistake that financial professionals make when joining a new firm is doing the same exact thing they were doing before and expecting to get better results. Ideally, you should be joining a new firm to do things differently to obtain those different results. Many FPs will think that just because they are getting a new email address that they will have different results versus them realizing it’s about the different effort and opportunities that they are now availed with their new firm. That is what will get them better results.

Describe your ideal recruit.
For me, it is a financial professional who is 3-10 years out from retirement who doesn’t currently have a solid succession plan. Questions that they would be asking themselves – How do I sell my practice? Who do I sell it to? What does that look like for the next couple of years? I like helping financial professionals at this stage of their career.

What do you for fun? In your free time?
I have 10-12 year old daughters so they definitely keep me busy. I also try to give back where opportunities avail themselves. When we moved back to Florida from Seattle, I wanted to find something that the whole family could get involved in, which brought me to becoming president of Equine-Assisted Therapies. My kids want to volunteer as much as I can take them to. On my daughter Courtney’s 11^th birthday, she had 20+ girls volunteering at the barn volunteering. That’s not a typical 11 year old girl’s thought process to be volunteering for a non-profit for her birthday. I want my girls to realize what is out there in the world and to get involved. I also enjoy being as involved as I can with NAIFA. Giving back when I have the opportunity is really important to me.

Connect with Stephen on LinkedIn.

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