From $70M to $300M: James Comblo’s Digital Transformation and Financial Planning Success Story

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Excited for today’s vest. He is the President and CEO of SFSC Wealth Advisors. And what he does is he helps people to confidently prepare for retirement. We’re gonna hear a little bit more about how he does that a little bit later.

But in the meantime, welcome to the show, James Convo. You ready to rock?

James Comblo: I am. Thank you. I’m glad to be here.

Tim Melanson: Perfect. So we always start off here in a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

James Comblo: Yeah.

So, um, going back to 2016, 17, we were really kind of struggling as a business. Um, so we’re financial planners, right? And the way we kind of measure our size is just. Based on assets that we’re managing on behalf of clients. That’s the easiest way to kind of measure things. And we were about 70 million in total assets that we’re managing.

And we had been there for about eight to 10 years, right? Roughly. Uh, and we were just struggling. How do we grow? How do we get to the next level? [00:01:00] And being a younger advisor, I was thinking, Hey. We’ve got this incredible opportunity called social media. Let’s try to do it. Um, and of course the older advisors were very uncomfortable.

Nope, we’re not doing that. And so the first thing I did was just revamp the website, right? So totally rebuilt the website, get the message out because there was two parts to our evolution. One was we’re going more digital, but two was that the old kind of model of financial planning was. Hey, call me when you retire.

We’ll roll over your 401k. And then, you know, when you get some more money calls after that as well, versus we want it to be more proactive, more holistic in our approach, we want it to help you month to month, year to year, right? Decade over decade to make sure that not just investments were going the way you wanted them to, but also tax planning, legacy planning, insurance planning, all these things, there’s five really major pillars to holistic wealth management.

So we want to incorporate all of that. And so. The question for me was how do we get this message out and get it in [00:02:00] front of the most amount of people as possible? Because like one of my older advisors said, we were one of the best kept secrets in our neighborhood. Right. And I just figured, well, we got to first get the message out.

So I revamped our website. So from there. I said, okay, we’ve got this great website. Now, how do we drive people to the website to figure out there’s better options than just rolling over your 401k? So at that point I said, even though it may be a little bit uncomfortable, I’m going to start a blog because I could at least write a blog.

I could edit it, make sure it said exactly what I wanted it to say. Um, and basically be protected, you know, in the background. So it was kind of putting myself out there, but not in a way that people could take shots at me. Uh, so we did that for about a year. We started to get a lot of traction. People were really coming to the website.

Um, then I revamped the website again, a second time. And, uh, from that 2018 period where I actually was granted my first ownership stake in the company, uh, to the end of 2019, through that process [00:03:00] of both holistic financial planning and getting the message out as best we could, uh, we were able to grow from 70 million in assets to about 110 million in total assets.

And so, you know, that was some significant success. And then from there, it’s just kind of. You know, it’s really taken off. So the, you know, COVID obviously happened in 2020 and being younger. Again, I had been trying to get to a remote work kind of situation. I was having a kid, my first kid, I’m thinking, Hey, how do I get more time at home, but still be successful?

So in 2019, we actually invested. quite a bit of money in making our entire team remote, not knowing that COVID was coming. But once it did come in early March, we said, okay, well, the whole world is pretty much going digital at this point. Let’s start marketing to that. And then we started hosting webinars and all of these things.

And so you fast forward to today, we’re approaching 300 million in total assets. Uh, as a company. So we’ve had an [00:04:00] incredible growth story. Um, we’ve been featured up, you know, in all kinds of publications and things. So, uh, it’s been, been quite exciting.

Tim Melanson: Congratulations. I bet you the hardest part was to convince the suits to go digital.

James Comblo: Yeah.

Um, you know what? It was like one of those things like, Hey, great idea. Show me, you got to show results. And so, you know, to their credit though, they gave me the leeway to go do what I wanted to do. And, um, you know, hired experts and all those kinds of things because the old ways just weren’t working anymore.

Right. So how, how do we, how do we make it happen? Um, it was a lot, I’m a research junkie. You can probably see the books behind me. I read, I, I do all of that stuff. Um, Like a maniac. And so I just put my head down, figured it out and a lot of mistakes along the way, obviously. But, um, you know, thankfully we’re, we’re growing.

Tim Melanson: Oh, that’s a good segue into the next part, because along with the good note comes some bad notes, right? There are going to be some mistakes along the way. So I like to kind of normalize that and let people know that this [00:05:00] is normal. And, you know, you can still come out of the, the other side and be successful.

So I’m wondering, can you share with us something, you know, something big, maybe that, that happened that we can learn from?

James Comblo: Yeah. So, okay. So, I mean, the first website rebuild that I did did not go well. So that was kind of like, we just threw a lot of money at it. We listened to the so called experts at the time. And, um, It just didn’t work. So we had to go back to the drawing board, but something more significant than marketing and that kind of stuff is that my former business partner in 2020 was diagnosed with, um, and it’s still difficult for me to talk about it, but diagnosed with a terminal illness where, you know, he didn’t have a lot of time and we had been building a process to say.

We’re team oriented, right? It’s no longer one advisor where you go in and this is your guy. He knows everything about you. Anything like that. We wanted a team approach so that when somebody calls if. You know, if James Conville is on vacation, the next person knows everything they [00:06:00] need to know about this client.

That client is familiar with that person. Uh, but we didn’t, we didn’t get all the way there. Right. And so, um, we were about halfway there and unfortunately he passed away. Um, thankfully the outcome for his family was still good financially because we had built enough protections to protect them, but also for his clients, which is the most important part, right?

How do we make sure they’re all taken care of? And so. We basically it made me look at our business and say are we what I call due diligence ready, right? And so what that means is? Is this business solely dependent on one person, right? And if that person goes away, will the business be, you know, have a, will that have a huge negative impact?

Um, and do we have a growth strategy in case something catastrophic did happen that we know is both predictable and profitable? And then third is, Um, are the systems are the processes are the team members, the clients is all the things that are [00:07:00] important for somebody to be able to walk in off the street, read the manual and say, Hey, this is what we have to do or all of those things documented.

Um, and so that life change with losing my former partner, um, that really, we were already getting there, but it’s, it’s solidified in my mind. Hey, we need to make sure that we’re ready, that if God forbid, James goes down next time, somebody can step in. And so from?

that point forward. Every one of my clients has met what I call a second chair.

They know my assistants. I have multiple assistants. They’re on the phone with them all the time. I make it a point to introduce them whenever the opportunity, you know, shows up. I pull up the website and say, Hey, here’s, here’s Courtney, here’s Barbara, here’s Liz, right? Like these are the people on the team.

So there’s a face with the name. Um, and that’s also something that we help small business owners do, right? We want to make sure you’re doing everything heading into retirement. To make sure your business is not only sellable, but we’ll continue on because that’s typically your legacy, right? [00:08:00] After you retire, if you want to retire, um, how do we make sure that it continues after you’re no longer there making sure it’s successful?

Tim Melanson: Oh, great. Um, and so, uh, and so how did that work out? Like, so now, now you’ve got a pretty decent process in place, right?

James Comblo: Yeah. So I am kind of a lunatic about the processes. Um, I make sure everybody. I hate to say we’re like McDonald’s, but, um, because we’re not cheap, but, you know, everybody follows the same process. It’s the same, you know, let’s say you’re a new client that’s coming in and it’s, Hey, James, great to meet you.

We go through our first meeting before that we have what we call the right fit ball, because we want to make sure our personalities fit. We can actually help you do what you need done. Um, but then you come in for the first meeting, whether it’s on zoom or in person. Um, we do that meeting. Then there’s a second meeting.

Then there’s a third meeting after that, right, where we get back together and say, Hey, here’s everything we learned about you. This is what you told us that you want to do. Um, here’s what we would [00:09:00] do. What we would recommend for you. And then it’s really interactive, right? You know, I don’t like this or I do like that, that kind of thing.

Then we finalize the plan, we start to implement it. And then there’s the fourth, which is the ongoing process of just maintaining a relationship, making any adjustments, um, which I think is the most important part because. Everything’s constantly changing. So great. You built the plan, but now you got to make sure it’s keeping up with the real world.

Um, and things are always changing. And so I made sure that all of our advisors and especially the new ones that come on, they follow our process to a tee. And of course there’s always, you know, everything is different, right?

So there’s always little tweaks and things you got to make, but we always are going back and analyzing, do we have this documented properly?

Are we teaching it properly? Can the next person come in and pick it up quickly? Great. And so, Yeah.

it’s, it’s a pretty solid process in my opinion.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Love it. Yeah. Yeah. Those types of really good onboarding. It makes all the difference, right. When bringing in new people. Now you mentioned social media a little bit earlier. [00:10:00] So let’s talk a little bit about how you get fans, how you get people that are going to actually, you know, follow you and, and, and check out your stuff.

Like, I mean, you wrote a blog too. Like how does all this stuff work?

James Comblo: Yeah.

So it’s, the first thing is it’s gotta be one at a time, right? You can’t just do everything. So, as I said earlier, the blog was kind of a safe space for me. I decided I was going to do it once every couple of months and just kind of see how it went and get my feet wet. Then I started to do it every month.

Then I started doing it every week. I wrote a blog every week for like three years straight. And it changed what, you know, tax code changed. Okay. let’s talk about what changed. And then, you know, different investment strategies, right? COVID happened. What are we thinking about? There was a piece during COVID that came out from Fidelity.

And basically, it said, 30 percent of all the people with, with retirement accounts or assets on the Fidelity platform had taken their money out of the [00:11:00] market at the bottom in late March and never reinvested it. Right? So now these people lost 35 percent in a month and missed all that comeback over the next year.

Um, and so I wrote in, I think it was in April or May of that year, I wrote a piece about how we approach markets and things and why our plan, we call it the bucket plan, why the bucket planning process helps us to avoid all those mistakes. That unfortunately those people missed out on. Um, so it, it became about current events, right?

I’ve done book reviews, right? Different financial planning books, different life books. You can see behind me, extreme ownership is one of my favorite books in the world. Um, but you know, it, it became, what are people talking about? What should we be talking about? And then it evolved into social media posts, it evolved into webinars.

So we decided we can. You know, we can pay money to have ads generate interest in a webinar that we’re doing [00:12:00] about tax planning, which was a free one hour webinar, just to get the message out, right? Here’s all the things you should be thinking about. If you’re near retirement, we’re not going to charge anything for it.

If you want to talk to us after grade, but we’re going to give it to you up front. Um, and so that helped us to really create, um, an email list essentially, which is, I think it’s over three or 4, 000 people at this point, but we get over 50 percent open rates. every single month when we send out our monthly update email, which is incredible.

Um, and it just tells me that, hey, we’re giving people actionable information that they want to hear. They keep opening it, right? Um, so that’s kind of how our story evolved. And now I’m doing more and more, um, videos. So if you went to like our Instagram or LinkedIn or Facebook page, You would see me even talking about if you’re a small business owner being due diligence ready.

The 3 things that you got to absolutely know within a 5 minute period that, hey, this is squared away. And if not, you know, we got to get to [00:13:00] work on it.

Tim Melanson: Okay. I get a lot of questions and even myself. I mean, when you’re doing all this content and you’re talking about weekly stuff, like how do you keep coming up with new ideas or do you, do you keep doing the same ideas over and over again? Like, how does that work?

James Comblo: Yeah, that’s a great question. So it’s a combination, right? So, um. Just thinking back a couple months ago, every year the president puts out, right, President Biden put out his green book. Every president does it every year. It’s their budget, what they want to see happen from the tax code over the next year so that they can effectively run the government and accomplish all their goals.

Well, there was some significant changes there. And so that’s an easy one. Like, Hey, here’s the changes that we have to be thinking about. And you can’t wait until it comes because you’ll miss the opportunity. But then there’s other ones. Like I just rewrote a blog from a couple of years back. I wrote this one in 2022.

It just went out last week. It’s about the four documents you absolutely have to have for your estate [00:14:00] to make sure that everything goes the way you want it to, if something were to happen to you. Um, and all I did was update it, right? Cause rules change. And so I just made some simple tweaks. I update it and then we repost it.

Um, so there’s some things that are just always going to be topics and conversations that you got to just update and refresh a little bit, but then there’s always new topics coming as well, right? Inflation in 2022. I just did a quick, I think it was an Instagram live, like, Hey, we just got an 8 percent inflation number, right?

What does that mean for you? So, um, it was just quick, Hey, this is what you need to know. And then move on. But, um, one of the things that I’ve done is scheduled time on my calendar to make sure that I have time to do those things. And it’s not, it’s not incredibly long. It’s a two hour window every other Friday where I could say, these are the topics I’m going to do.

This is what I’m going to do it. And it just allows me to be efficient. And in fact, eventually you create a process, right? Um, I’m sure you have a process for the [00:15:00] podcast where it makes it efficient and, and we all get what we need to do. Um, and so that’s kind of the way I did that.

Tim Melanson: Love it. Okay. That’s awesome. Yeah. Cause I think that you’re right. That there’s the things that kind of keep coming back that you can just update and refresh. And, uh, I think So going into the music thing, right? So as a musician, when I go to a gig, you don’t play the same song twice.

James Comblo: Right.

Tim Melanson: And I think there’s a mentality of that too.

Like, Oh, I already did that blog. Okay. What am I going to do next? Right. And you’re always trying to think of new things and you can get real blocked real fast.

James Comblo: Oh, yeah.

Tim Melanson: but I mean, the bottom line is that there are probably people that are new to your list that have not seen that they weren’t there a year ago.

So they didn’t see that, you know, last time you did it. And then the other part is that there people need refreshers, you know. So it’s, it’s, it’s not necessarily that it’s, it’s one gig and you have to play a different song every like that whole gig, it’s like, you can play the same song every [00:16:00] gig, right?

James Comblo: I think, I think about when you say that, I think about like Billy Joel, if I go to a Billy Joel concert, I want to hear him play piano, man, he’s played it a million times, but I want to hear it because that’s what I’m here for. Right. But I also probably want to hear his new stuff that he just came out with as well.

Tim Melanson: And it’s probably, that’s a really good analogy because it would probably be very similar. You’d have some staples, some things that people keep asking and they keep wanting to know. And then, you 20 percent of new stuff that you’re bringing in and some of that stuff will end up being a hit. And now it’ll end up being one of the staples, right?

That’s a great analogy. I love it.

James Comblo: One of the things, you know, it’s interesting that a myth about retirement planning is. Defer as much income as you can. Don’t pay the taxes on it. Now, when you retire, you’re going to be in a lower tax bracket. And so you’re going to pay less taxes, right? When you take the money out at that point. Well, in 2017, we get the tax cuts and jobs act.

Essentially, I looked [00:17:00] at as this was the opportunity that All these people have been waiting for over the past 30 years. So let’s get as much money out of these pre tax accounts at these much lower tax rates. From a historical standpoint, they were exceedingly low. And let’s move them over to never taxed again accounts.

And so, you know, that’s one of those like big changes that happened for the most part, it’s just like, yeah, we want to invest in one do all this stuff, but Hey, here’s this one new thing. That’s huge. And now we’re approaching the sunset of that provision. So now I’m talking to everybody about the great sunset.

Hey, we’ve got this opportunity here, this window of two years where we can do is a lot of planning to set you up for the future. But we’ve got to actually do it right. And people have to be aware that it’s coming.

Tim Melanson: right. So let’s talk a little bit about money. Money is a, it’s a tough one. A lot of people have issues with that, right? And, uh, when it comes to cashflow and, you know, bringing more money in than you, than you spend, I mean, that seems like a real simple I think we can kind of get [00:18:00] that, but yet people keep getting in trouble with it.

So why do you think that is? I mean, you’re right on the ground floor of this. So you see that happening. Why do you think people let the cashflow get away from them?

James Comblo: Yeah. So I think it’s, um, it’s interesting. So I was at a conference last week because again, I’m always just trying to learn and improve my own craft and what we’re doing for clients. And one of the one of the main speakers said success often masks what’s happening under the surface, right? So if you’re growing your top line revenue by 30% You may not understand that you’re missing another 20 percent somewhere because there’s a flaw in your process or, you know, however you’re positioning, whatever your offer is.

Um, and so really having a self analysis tool to look at it and say, Hey, this is what actually came in here was our successes. Here were our failures and what went wrong in these failures to maybe get that [00:19:00] 30 percent growth to 50 percent growth. Um, you know, fidelity. So, you know, again, I’m, I’m in the wealth management space.

So fidelity came out with a study. I was at the 40 under 40 last year, um, in Manhattan, and they said most advisors are running at least half their businesses and not for profit. And because how many they’re paying people, they they’re doing all this stuff, but they don’t realize that they’re not actually generating enough revenue by account in order to justify what they’re doing.

And about half of every advisor’s business is pretty much nonprofit or a loss. But it’s masked by the half that is doing exceedingly well. And so that was an eye opener for me. I knew that it was there, but you know, it made me look at what we’re doing and say, well, how much am I paying my employees per hour to service this?

How much is my time, right? All of these things are the people we work with, the other companies we deal with, how much are we paying them? And then at the end of the day, you know, what’s the [00:20:00] actual profitability by client, right? And so that can be messed. If If I’m growing by 20 percent year over year, I just say, Hey, things are good.

The money’s coming in, we’re growing, everyone’s happy, but really we’re missing out on a lot of opportunities under the surface.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I mean, that makes so much sense. And I, I mean, I’ve experienced that myself when things are good, you’re not even looking at anything. And as soon as things sort of dry up for whatever reason, I mean, it could be in your control or not. Then all of a sudden you notice that, Oh, okay,

James Comblo: right.

Tim Melanson: now I’m in trouble.

And then you start to get behind. Right.

James Comblo: yeah. And like in my world and with me personally, I want to help everybody. I want to help as many people as I possibly can. Right. But at the same time, I have to make sure that I keep my business profitable so that I can make sure the people, my clients, my employees, my other advisors, my family, Right.

the people who depend on it, that we’re still here when they need us. [00:21:00]

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And, and that, that is kind of, I mean, we go back to music again, because music is, is very notorious for being something that people will do for fun. And it’s like, it doesn’t necessarily need to make money. I mean, people will go out there and play because they love to play. And, uh, but, but the bottom line is that if you are going to run music as a business, you’re eventually going to starve if you’re not charging for what you do.

And, you know, it’s the same thing happens in any other business. I mean, if you start your own business, that’s your baby. And you think, oh, I just want to help as many people as I can. And oh, sure. I’ll do that for you. And I’ll do that for you too. And I’ll do that for you as well. And next thing, you know, I mean, things start to get pretty rough.

And if you’re doing that. Well, then you’re, you’re really yourself short. Cause now you love what you do. You’re really good at what you do. And you’re really good at helping people. And now you can’t do it anymore because your business just went bankrupt. Right.

James Comblo: And you know, it’s, it’s one of those things [00:22:00] where, you know, it’s, it’s never about money because money’s just a tool in my opinion, but you need money to do things right in life, right? Like we need to be able to eat. We need to have a roof over our head, all these things. And so if you’re losing money, imagine the stress.

Right. In your case, if you’re a musician, imagine the stress, not having money because you’re doing it for love, but then can you make the quality of music that you were destined to make if you’re stressed about this other situation on the side? Um, I think they probably, they go hand in hand.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Yeah. And I mean, a lot of musicians will end up having a job that, uh, keeps them busy and keeps them away from the music that they want to produce when really, when it comes down to it, there is a business to be made with music that if they were charging appropriately, maybe they would be able to, You know, cut down to part-time and actually spend more time with their music.

Like, it’s, it’s just, but, but I mean, this is not, um, you know, just about music. It can be about any business that you love, that you’re, [00:23:00] you know, not necessarily charging what you should be charging for. Right.

James Comblo: Yeah. And, and look, we, you know, we have clients that we know we’re not going to be profitable on, um, but we allow a certain amount of, you know, I guess attorneys call it pro bono work. Um, essentially we have the same kind of thought process within limits, right? We’re not going to, you know, we, we just can’t take on hundreds of clients that we’re not going to make money on, but, or that they’re not going to be profitable, but we will allow a certain amount every year to make sure that we are giving back and giving people the advice they need.

Tim Melanson: Well, and, and I would assume, and I, I don’t know that’s for sure, but you probably. Who’s clients specifically that either have a big impact on people, meaning there is a, like a, a return on that investment when it comes to how they help other people, or maybe if you can help someone out of a hole, now they can become a client is that.

The strategy that you guys use or

James Comblo: Yeah, I mean, [00:24:00] um, I guess all the above. Yes. Um, I’ll give you like a, a specific example. Last year, I met this, I met a young lady who just started in her professional career. She’d come from a, not a great jobs, You know, situation. And I just wanted to make sure that she got off on the right foot. Right. So we, we gave her as much advice as we could based on her current situation.

I actually created a lot of new materials for people in her situation. I sent them to her and I said, Hey, do this plan for two to three years and then call us back because we’ll definitely be able to help you at that point. But I couldn’t justify the fee I would charge her, you know, she wouldn’t get the impact for me to charge her a fee.

So I helped her as much as I could. I got her off on the right path and told her we’ll be here as a resource if she needed us.

Tim Melanson: nice. Yeah. And I mean, that’s an excellent idea, especially since you took some of that material, you repurposed it. So now you’re able to help a whole bunch of people with that same thing, which you [00:25:00] could potentially make some money on. Right.

James Comblo: Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

It wasn’t, it wasn’t the reason behind it, but definitely could be a, an outcome.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Right on. Okay. So, so now let’s talk a little bit about learning and do you, so do you have a coach? Do you like, how do you, how do you keep up to date on all this stuff?

James Comblo: Yeah. So mentors have been, um, game changers in my life. So my first month in this industry, I met a fellow named Al, he changed my entire life. By teaching me how to properly build, invest, and maintain portfolios on behalf of clients. And he almost treated me like a second son. Um, you know, he, he was a spiritual man.

He, we got so close. I S I’ve spent time at his house. Like. He, you know, he was incredible. Then along the way, I’ve met a few other people that have really had a massive impact on me. Um, so two that I want to name specifically, one is Dave Allison and the other is [00:26:00] Jason Smith. They created a company called Clarity to Prosperity.

And it’s basically the essence of that company is to help advisors create a better process and create better outcomes for their clients by doing things the proper ways. Um, and they’ve been incredible in my life. Um, they’re two of my best friends at this point. Um, and so, you know, a part of that, there’s experts in every sector, like there’s probably 15 sub sectors of financial planning.

And I’ve tried to learn from the best I could find in a given, you know, genre and say, Hey, how do I absorb as much as I can from this person, whether it be reading a book, listening to their podcast, whatever that is. I mentioned earlier, I was at a conference last week. It’s 120 of the best advisors from around the country.

And then on top of that, there’s a subset of 10 of us who get together the day before, and that’s our true mastermind group where we actually meet once a month as well, but we get together twice a year in person and we say, [00:27:00] Hey, you know, what’s going on? Do you see anything changing? What are best practices, but also we talk about life, right?

How are we balancing all of this stuff?

that we’re doing? Like I’m raising a family, I have a third daughter coming. Within the month. Um, so how do we make sure that if I have to step away for family reasons, the business is still running. How do we make sure that everything is still going? And, you know, it’s about getting the best ideas in the room to talk, you know, flesh it all out and then going back and trying it to see if it works.

Right. And you don’t try it across your whole business. You just implement a little bit and you say, yeah, that worked. All right, let’s try this. Let’s try that. But again, it’s about that continuing learning in life. Um, there’s something I posted on my personal Instagram a couple of years ago that it’s something to the effect that you don’t get old because of your age.

You get old when you stop learning, right? So when you stop looking for the next evolution, that’s really when you start to age.

Tim Melanson: Wow. [00:28:00] So how did you get him to listen to you and to, and to mentor you?

James Comblo: Uh, who, which one?

Tim Melanson: Whichever any one of ’em, is there, is there a process you go through?

James Comblo: yeah. So with Al, it was just a chance meeting. Um, and I think he looked at me and saw. You know, I think I was 25 at the time. He, you know, he saw this kid with a lot of potential, but very raw. And it was like, Hey, I like him. And I think I probably reminded him of himself, you know, years ago.

And then Jason and Dave, um, and there’s been plenty more. Um, but you know, these are just the three biggest in my mind. Um, they, um, we just got along really well. And, you know, I had been looking for a process, like I mentioned earlier, that I could show the. The older advisors and say, Hey, this is what I’ve been trying to Do But I didn’t have the materials to demonstrate it. And Jason, they were like, well, try this and try this. And here’s, you know, some of what we’re doing. And then you put this all together and people start to open [00:29:00] their eyes and say, yeah, this is actually what we want to do.

Tim Melanson: Do you mentor others now?

James Comblo: I do. I, I give back as much as I can. Um, I try even like this summer right now, I have a young college kid who thinks he may want to be in this industry later on in life. Uh, he’s interning with me. I’ve had interns the past four years. Um, always through that C2P enterprise. I try to wherever I can, I try to, you know, just last week, I think I sat with three or four different young advisors to say, Hey, here’s the success I’m having.

Here’s how we did it. And, you know, let me know if, you know, if that’s something you want to learn about, and I just received an email last night, Hey, I’d like to schedule some time. Can we talk?

Tim Melanson: Wow. So just outta curiosity, when you’re talking to your mentors, what do you think the split would be? Do you talk about your, your successes mostly or your failures mostly? Like what, what do you talk about?

James Comblo: So. I am, um, I’m somebody who’s come to love the [00:30:00] failure because I know my grandfather used to say something. He said he never met a successful person who had no failures and he never met somebody who didn’t fail and was successful.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

James Comblo: So I’ve come not to love, I hate losing, right? I hate all that and failing, but I know it’s a necessary evil.

So I tend to focus on the failures where I’m coming up short and how do I improve this. Um, but I think you also have to celebrate the wins, right? The wins build momentum, keep you coming back, and, you know, I, I guess the best thing sports analogy I could give you if I will would be golf, right? Like, I don’t know.

I’m probably like a low nineties golfer. I shoot probably low nineties, but I’ll hit one shot in the round. And I’m like, that’s why I come back, you know? So I’ll focus on all the bad shots and then I’ll hit a good one and say, okay. Um, and so I would say it’s probably 50, 50 and mostly because My mentors [00:31:00] and our, our, uh, mastermind, they, they basically keep me on track.

So we have to say, Hey, here are some of the wins over the past, you know, a few months, here’s some of the losses. Here’s some of the things I think I would like to talk about, but we put out, you know, we, we get kind of three ideas from everybody and say, what are the three best, most impactful, and let’s talk about those.

Tim Melanson: Nice. Love it. Right on. Okay. Well, it’s time for your guest solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

James Comblo: Yeah. So what’s exciting right now.

is just that I mentioned earlier, we have this great sunset, the tax sunset coming. It’s truly a window of opportunity, right? And so you, we have this two year window because January 1st, 2026, the tax code is going to revert back to what it was prior to the tax cuts and jobs act.

And so, you know, if that clock expires and you’ve done nothing. It’s not the end of the world, but you’ve not taken every step you can to make sure that you’re in the right spot. And so I’m excited just to get that message out, get people taking action and doing the things that they need to do to make sure that themselves [00:32:00] and their families are all set up for the future.

And I just think it’s a great, a great opportunity for everybody to lock in low tax rates, while doing all the other things that financial planning requires.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Right on. So who would be the, the, you know, the, the most ideal person that would, the most out of working for me, for you or with you, sorry.

James Comblo: yeah. So, um, You know, like I said earlier, we’re willing to help anybody. Um, so I say, you know, profitability wise for the company, you got to have at least 500, 000 in investable assets. But if you have less than that, you just have a question or two. Maybe you want to sign up for our email. Please feel free.

Go to our website. You can schedule a 20 minute call. We can talk specifics about you. We may not, you know, work together going forward, but at least we’ll get you going in the right direction,

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Okay. Get them going so that they can get those 500, 000. Right on. And so how do people get in touch with you then?

James Comblo: Yeah, so I think the easiest way [00:33:00] is just to go right to our website, www fsc wealth advisors.com. Um, the first thing you see is a schedule a call button. So it’s pretty easy. You can schedule right onto my, my direct calendar, so, um, you’ll be able to take advantage of that. You could also sign up for the blog where you’ll get that monthly email.

It’s actually a bimonthly email at this point, but where you’ll get all of the most up-to-date content. You can also follow us on social media, right? We have an Instagram, Facebook, um, and a Twitter. So any one of those you want to follow us, everything gets pushed out in the appropriate format and, uh, you’ll get all the best info that we have.

Tim Melanson: Love it. Right on. Well, thank you so much for rocking out with me today, James. It’s been a lot of fun.

James Comblo: Yeah. Thank you so much, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Cool. And to the listeners, make sure you subscribe, write, and comment, and we’ll see you next time on the work at home rockstar podcast.