Jim: Welcome to another show of the essential financial advisor marketing brought to you by financial advisors.com. The consumer friendly advisor driven, comprehensive marketing service for independent financial advisors. My co-host is Ken Tucker and welcome Ken. Ken’s going to talk a little bit about our new services through financial advisors.
Ken Tucker: Yeah. So we have launched an entire series of digital marketing actually broader than digital marketing services for our financial advisors. So it starts, with reviews, social media, creating content original content website design, and then also sales funnels and lead generator tools.
So with that I’ll turn it back over to you.
Jim: Thanks very much, Ken. Today’s guest is at Cana, Anya GFO, and he is the CFO and director of planning at bay street capital holdings. And I’d like to welcome you.
Ekenna: You cannot. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here. And really looking forward to just, expanding the conversation around what we do and how we partner with financial aid.
Yeah, so very good. Yep. We’re real close. We’re getting in there.
Jim: We got that. I got it. Could you please tell us how long you’ve been at planner and where are you located in the United States? Yeah. Great question. So I’ve been doing this just about five years. Started in 2016 with Charles Schwab.
Went from Schwab to TD Ameritrade had a pretty successful career there. And now that I’m with beigey capital we’re based in the Silicon valley. We do have a clients really on both coasts. Quite frankly, we have clients in California as well as clients on the east coast side being DC, Maryland, and Virginia.
And then I, myself, I reside in Arizona part-time and then I spend the other part of my time in the bay area.
Jim: what city in the bay area do you live in? Or you spend part of your.
Ekenna: Emeryville specifically. And Emeryville is really close to Oakland. In fact, the bridge that comes from San Francisco to, the quote unquote east bay lamps, right in Emeryville as well.
And where the bay bridge connects, then everyone knows that it going towards San Francisco on the other side is in revealing.
Ekenna: the bay area. And have they changed? They changed the name back to Cal state Hayward, and I know it was Cal state Hayward and Cal state east bay.And we’ve gone back and forth three times, I think in the last 10 years, I didn’t hear that.
Jim: they changed it back. I didn’t hear that. That would be a good thing.
Ekenna: Oh, calling it. East bay was terrible.
Jim: I think they probably last lost half now, probably [00:03:00] 80% of their alumni. My trick calling it, east bay.
It’s hard to actually collect gifts from that from an alumni when you change the name of the school,
Jim: Anyway, that’s good to know. You have a particular niche that you want to discuss. And I think it has to do with diversity and inclusion.
And that’s very top of mind these days. I think it’s it’s about it’s all about time and it’s been wanting to go there for years and years. I think we’re on that road. And we’d like to be able to have. Expand upon that economics and how your firm, how, what you do with people, how you work and how and how important the.
Especially the diversity as relates to the financial advisory services that’s very important.
Ekenna: Yeah, absolutely. And so just giving a broad overview bay street, capital holdings, we are a minority owned firm based in the Silicon valley. Primarily our goal is to make our clients more money and to beat the S and P 500 which I would say most people know about that.
And that’s our goal as a firm from investment, we do a lot of different types of investments, primarily focusing on renewable energy technology, education and DEI efforts. We found that in the public equity space technology and renewable energy historically have gone really well specifically technology as we’ve seen, really time and time again, that’s the leading.
We think in the renewable energy space, it’s very well situated. Really for the incoming money that’s going to be coming from the stimulus pack, best English, sorry. Infrastructure package. There’s so many different packages out there at this point that we think that we’ll see a positive growth there.
And then also just more on the, so we do the public equity. We also do private equity as well as venture capital. And so we’re really covering the box in terms of investments, right? Just depending on your own needs, your own situation and your own risk tolerance. We can really build out a complete portfolio and maybe just a little bit more customed than the average.
So that’s what we’re doing from affirmed. And then on the DEI side, what we know is it’s very true that when you look at your 401k, there’s a group that essentially gets to choose what type of funds that you’re in. That’s usually called an investment advisor, the advisor to the plan. This is a very big industry.
Multi-billion dollar industry in current. About 98.5% of it is managed by white male owned companies. And so from a DEI perspective one,
Ken Tucker: okay. Just for our listeners. Can you explain what DEI is? Okay. Yeah.
Ekenna: Diversity, equity and inclusion. And so it’s really the thought process that, Hey, some things aren’t always equal and that you have to almost give it a push to even get close to the quality.
It’s been a while. I think that, people have thought about this for a while, but now it’s really out there. And so from an inclusion piece what bay street is saying is, Hey, from an investment advisor standpoint for, managing money from an investment advisor standpoint, for helping with 401k plans and things of that nature.
Right now there’s essentially, it’s really cornered into one area and that’s essentially white melon organizations 98.5%. Meaning that 1.5% of all the money managed. And this is a billion multi-cam multi-billion dollar industry is for everyone else. Not even just minorities. This includes a woman led organizations, things like that.
And so we spent a lot of time talking about this. We start to fill that we’re really starting to see the difference. Even in the last couple of months, we’ve seen a couple of different RFPs or requests for proposal and assessing. Now there’s a diversity section at the bottom.
That’s something that in my whole career I’ve never seen. It’s just a, what’s the information about your firm. Now they’re asking, more about diversity metrics. Now. It’s not just a black and white thing. It’s how many women do you have women leadership? What type of other ethnicities do you have?
What we are starting to see that the. Forward. And so from a DEI standpoint, this is something that’s very dear to myself. And I think that there’s, look at how many large organizations are out there with 401ks that this can help. And so that’s what we’re doing on the institutional side. More on the public equities and kind of the retail, what we consider just more of the individual side.
What we’re doing there is really just helping with the financial literacy. For the most part minorities have trailed kind of their white peers in investing historically. We did see one of the biggest jumps in 2020 almost 20 plus percent of minorities entered into the stock market. I think it has to do with kind of the game, don’t Hate me for this, but I think, [00:08:00] there was a lot more free time people had, some additional money potentially, although it was during COVID, but we saw that change.
And so that’s what made me on our side. And we’re really trying to just push the envelope and make our clients more money.
Ken Tucker: Yeah. Yeah. Really it’s the, I really, there are two components of it. One is internally how you run and manage your from. And make a difference throughout the entire industry, but then the second thing is outreach to all of the potential clients to get more inclusion and diversity and equity across the entire populace.
Ekenna: Exactly. Yeah.
Jim: Okay, cool. How does that work? It can you said 98%. You’re talking about. When, Procter and Gamble’s, I heard Proctor and gamble or some big fortune 500 sends out an RFP because I’ve heard that when it comes to institutional money managers, they out of every 10, they keep the top nine and throw the 10th one out. So it’s all about delivering alpha. And if you can’t deliver alpha, then you’re out. So what you’re saying is that right now, This is 98% are controlled by white control investment managers. Then you’re starting to see that including the RFPs. Is that the fact that well, We understand that return is the bottom line, but there’s more than just a bottom line.
We want to diversify the people that manage our assets. And we want to know more about who comprises who are the principals of that company. And we want to spread this around a little bit.
Ekenna: Is that what exactly? And it’s still a lot of work needs to be done. I think what we’re noticing is that. A lot of institutions. I think the first thing that they’ve done is said, Hey, we have a hundred percent that we normally allocate to X amount of companies. We’re now going to reserve in the number that we have found is 3% now for diverse managers up to 10% or whatever percent that they I would say 3% is what we’ll find in the endowment space.
More on the 401k space, maybe a little bit more just depending on who’s making the decision. And that’s what they’re doing, once again, a very much dominated 98%. And by at least giving us the minority managers, the opportunity to get into the door, we think that will change. In fact just today I was on another call and they were talking about.
UC system that saw tremendous growth, something like 29% for their fiscal year. And a lot of that growth was attributed that they gave 10% of the their whole endowment to a minority firm that minority firm outpaced and essentially performed better than everyone else. And so the largest part of that 29% came from that.
And I think that you’ll notice that. In life and, in any boardroom or really any decision, if you have everyone that looks the same similar type of answers, where when you start to diversify, you will notice that your returns also will start to go up as well. And this has been a trend that.
Has been pretty consistent. And so we’re just trying to get the message out that, Hey, by going with a diverse firm and not just say, Hey, I’m doing this to feel good for, you’re doing this to feel good and make money, which once again, basically says, Hey, we’re trying to make our clients money.
Ken Tucker: Yeah. Are used to manage. Back when I worked for an information technology company, I manage the solutions business for a woman and minority owned firm. And we did what we were able to do a lot of business with the federal government. And the federal government has always had, some very specific programs, in place for the ADA program and things like that.
Corporate world, they typically my experience with that. That they have what they call vendor lists and you have the right to be one of 10 vendors or something like that. How you’re saying it working right now, where you’re one of them, a multitude of players. And yet, because you still have to prove yourself, you still have to perform.
That’s always going to be the name of the game, regardless of who you.
Ekenna: Yeah. And I think it’s a little bit of, one, when we talk to organizations, large organizations, I won’t say any names today, but often it’s Hey, we’ve thought about this, but we just can’t find them. And we always say Hey, Different resources out there that you can find organizations that would fit into what you’re looking for.
So that’s the first thing, right? So I think there’s a quick, easy way of there’s only 10 of them. We, in a week, we’ve talked to them already. It doesn’t work where now we’re trying to point out different areas where there are actually ways to figure out these additional vendors or people that can help.
And then I think a big barrier for a long time. That the requirements to even apply generally are going to be top 1% companies, if that makes sense. And often when we look at just the spread of how the companies and RAs institutions, you name it when it comes to finance top 1% still very much looks similar.
And even the requirements to apply at times have been somewhat exclusionary. And I think when firms start to make the actual decision that, Hey, we’re going to use 3% or 10% or whatever percent or amount that they would like to allocate. I think by making that decision, they’re starting to realize, okay, we may have to change the requirements.
The reality, if you can get the performance, but you may have to adjust slightly. And so that’s something that we’re seeing on our side. And it’s something that I think people are coming in more and more aware of, last year I, I’ve been doing this for a while and this year is the first time seeing back to back RFPs where they had some type of diversity.
Ken Tucker: What’s really interesting too is, and I don’t know if you’ve experienced this yet or not, but actually it puts an undue burden on your marketing and sales efforts because you actually, you have to connect with a champion in the organization. Every large organization is going to have some diversity office.
So you have to connect with them. They’re cheerleaders for you. They can connect you, but they can’t purchase. Then you have to make you work with the purchasing people and then you have to work with the ultimate decision makers. So you actually have to have a three-pronged approach. To, to actually have the opportunity for that business.
And I don’t think a lot of people really realize that. And, if you understand how that game works and you’re really good at it, you can be very effective at it, but it is extra work and a lot more marketing and sales, energy and activity than would normally be required.
Ekenna: Oh, I completely. Yeah. So
Jim: If you look at this from a, from mutual fund, because mutual funds are companies themselves, and there’s always restrict, there is restrictions with regards to mutual funds with how they’re diversified. I per last time I checked you couldn’t have more than one, more than 10% in one specific company.
Depends upon them. You have mutual funds set up, but what you’re, if you look at it from that point, you’re saying that. The people on the committee, are so undiversified that 98% of them are all
the same and that they took the same rules they have for mutual funds.
Ekenna: would be illegal. Everyone understands what happens when you don’t diversify, right?
That’s the reality of investing in this is just what we find time and time again. And it’s an implicit bias, right? It’s just It’s been there for so long that you’re really trying in something that bay street realizes we’re trying to almost reshape someone’s mind because often when we do go into a firm, now this is more on the institutional side, not on the individual.
I think individuals themselves understand okay. Yeah. That’s that makes sense. Let’s work together. But I think on the institutional side, then you start to run into I’m actually the person who signed off on this, I don’t want to necessarily be found to be wrong. And so that’s one thing, or you just get someone that can deflect and say This is actually how it’s been for the last 20 years.
I don’t want to actually change that. And as we, so those are the things that we’re dealing with on a day to day. But I do believe that as we shaped kind of the mentality that by going with a diverse farm, you can still make more money. I think that we’re going to start to see more and more people hopping on board the deed.
Ken Tucker: It’s the old from the information technology world, it’s like nobody ever lost their job by hiring IBM.
Jim: exactly right.
Ken Tucker: And unfortunately you have to do that. Part of what your guys are doing, I’d love to know how you guys are doing this. You’ve talked a little bit about it, but, there’s education that you have to do and that’s gotta be a really important aspect of, your go to market strategy.
So can you talk a little bit more maybe about some of the educational things that you’re doing?
Ekenna: Yeah. We look at it from a everything in the individual over to the institutional side of things on the individual side it’s where we start even for the institutional, it sounds a little different, but we’re big in financial literacy, meaning that, as we talk to our clients we’re always trying to give them the information of why we make decisions.
It’s one thing to fall in love with the company’s performance. I think it’s a whole another theme. You find lifetime clients when they fall in love with your decision-making process. And so that’s what we spend a lot of time on our individual side, really helping out our clients do. And so that’s how we’ve provided education there.
Now on the institutional is slightly different. What we’ve found is that, financial literacy is a real thing. The average person if you ask them about their 401k. May not even know really what they’re invested in. If you were to ask can you tell us about the fees in your 401k? That’s also a north of 90% number where the average person, not even just average most people, right?
We’ll say I couldn’t tell you any type of, I have no idea. And so there’s a big education piece to that. And so what we’ve done is we’ve rolled out this very wide range of financial literacy from people who are just starting in the current. People just starting with certain companies, we have an African-American ERG, you have an ERG for women, actually.
That’s our most popular woman in finance. We have one, for just really all types of lifestyles. And so we’ve been able to do that. And what we’ve done is we’ve entered into different companies through kind of their ERG channels and really have found that, people like the information that we’re providing.
They inquire. How can we work more as we start to develop those relationships? Sometimes you find someone who knows someone who then is now you’re talking to someone who’s actually decision-maker. And so we’ve grown our own business just by giving people information that they didn’t have.
And by doing that, they try to tell someone else and eventually. Claimed a telephone game. Someone picks up the phone who really does have insight or has the ear of someone who’s has the insight of actually, how do you become an advisor to a planner? And so it’s somewhat of a longer process. Like I said shaping the reality that this is how it’s been for, decades, really, since the finances started.
And now we’re a year and a half into really making this big push. And we’re seeing some tremendous.
Ken Tucker: You know that, that’s interesting. I’m curious to see, and maybe it’s too early to tell, but when you make that level of investment with education, my experience is that usually winds up getting you to have better clients.
Correct because they understand what you do, why you do it, what your values are, how certain things are important. That just maybe not. Aren’t very obvious. And so I think if it hasn’t manifested itself yet, I think it probably will in a big way.
Ekenna: Oh, yeah. We’ve definitely seen a big growth in our clients.
From the account openings, we can see every seminar that we do and every time we do financial literacy, there’s definitely a small spike in that. And so we’re starting to see that. And for us we have to name pillars. There’s other pillars, but the ones that we rely on most being transparency and follow through.
Jim: I can, are you still there? Are there you go?
Ekenna: Yes. Sorry about that. My computer was acting a little weird, but yes. And so that’s what we’re doing on our side and we have found. Really it is a longer process, but clients are more happy. Our retention rate stays very high. I am really able to retain growing our own business.
Ken Tucker: So is there any digital aspect of that or are these in-person seminars that you’re doing and education?
Ekenna: Yeah. It’s almost all digital quite frankly. Once again, I live in Arizona, part-time in the bay area. And in my business partner, he lives in the bay area.
One of my other owners are kind of colleagues loose in Southern California. And so we’re spread out. And so what we’re doing is, across the country, Doing just different zoom meetings with the different ERG providing them kind of any material that we need beforehand. And that’s what we’ve been able to really spread our wings and say, Hey, we can cover really all types of geographical locations. Okay.
Ken Tucker: Is that is that something you’re doing individually one-on-one with different parties or is there any public facing component to the education that you guys are.
Ekenna: Yeah. From a one-on-one, on the individual side yet all education. So when we have an hour meeting, generally, there’s about five to 10 minutes in almost every meeting where we’re explaining thought process. Cause we really believe that if someone understands why you’re making the decision, whether you’re beating the market tied with the market or even slightly down, you really just have a more committed person. They understand that, Hey, I see why they made the decision it’s okay. And hopefully our process leads to a better return more times than not.
We could say that it has at this point, but just in case down the line. So from the individual side, that’s where we’re spending, the education and meeting the meeting. And then on the institutional side yeah, essentially what we’re finding. Larger organizations that have ERG group usually have five or six kind of ERG, whether it’s like veterans, like an LBGTQ one of those there’s usually like an African-American woman and then some type of Latin or Latin X type of.
Oh, ERG. And so what we’ve done is essentially rolled out what we consider all right, most ERDs or most companies, if they do have a U R G have these type. And so for all of the ones that we would consider to be popular, we now also have a group or a specific financial literacy seminar for them.
If not a couple. And so it keeps the information fresh. It keeps the people engaged in. We’re always trying to just push the envelope forward for the education. Yeah. Okay.
Jim: I wanted to ask you question that as far as, so you located in the Arizona, you’ve got an owner in Southern California and the bay area.
How does, how do you actually market with Ian? You mentioned education and so forth, but do you have through your. Through your websites or your digital marketing presence. Do you have, how do you put it all together or is it something that might be a challenge to you?
Ekenna: right now? Realistically, what we’ve noticed is, the power of people, Google financial advice, If you’re on a platform that when someone goes that it comes up towards the cloud, the top of that, Hey, you’re probably going to get some business right now.
And so it’s kinda determining, Hey, how much chemo for, from a marketing. But that’s where we’ve really been able to grow a lot of our individuals. And then just talking to them about what we do and, they have jobs, things like that or careers, and they say, oh, I’m part of the ERG.
Like you should. Talk to us and that’s really how we’ve gotten a lot of the, it like [00:24:00] really like door in, right? Hey, this is all the things we do. They introduce us to one person. Usually we do one ERG and then very quickly another ERG who maybe has a different member says, oh, you should do something for us.
And then it spreads out. And next thing now there’s a high level. Who’s this from who keeps doing all of these different engagements with our employees. And now they’re interested in like I said, it’s a longer process, but this is how we’ve grown.
Ken Tucker: Yeah. Do you think there’s an opportunity to actually assist or run, some kind of an expert group with these different ARGs across these different companies for. Financial literacy. I’m it, as you’re talking, it sounds to me like you have the opportunity to really become the expert, in this field and, create a forum where people can share ideas and express their concerns, beyond just which, which would just magnify, the referrals and the recommendations that you guys are.
Ekenna: Yeah. I think there’s definitely some synergies right now, given just from, we’re doing in business to business. So we haven’t necessarily added it all in one place. But I think that’s a great idea, especially, as the conversation, for the different energies is similar.
We just tweaking it to be more about that specific demographic.
Jim: Yeah. Yeah. Cause we all know that, ESG has been chip been
But I don’t believe DEI has been actually chosen. It’s it’s, the term is somewhat new to myself and it’s probably new to a lot of people.
So that’s that, to me, spells opportunity for gentlemen like yourself and his partners to really capture that. Especially with regards to the financial literacy, I’ll tie it together under the banner of diversity equity inclusion.
Ekenna: Yeah. For us we do always tell people that, Hey, we can compete with anyone, right?
So it’s not just that word diverse from beating other diverse firms. Our performance, we hold true that, Hey, this is how we’re moving the ball forward for our clients and for the institutions that we help advise on theirs. But we do think to get to the door, sometimes people have to have.
Reality kind of that glass break of, okay. I do need to look outside of what I’ve had in the last 20 years. And that’s, you hit it right on the head gym. Yeah.
Ken Tucker: Yep. Definitely. Are you doing any kind of the more traditional marketing. Direct mail or in-person networking, even though in-person networking has been a challenge obviously in the last year and a half or so.
Is there anything like that you guys have been doing and if so, is that an effective for you?
Ekenna: Yeah. Great question. The only in-person marketing we’re considering. At this point is a, at the end of the year we’re going to have that like a holiday party for our clients and ask them to bring a plus one.
But outside of that, no, it’s a hundred percent online at this point. We realized that most people, even for myself, so if there’s something, when I think of my own decision, Processes, if there’s something of all right, for example, I just hung up a TV in my bedroom. It was on a stand now it’s melted.
And I said I’ve never announced a TV. So I Googled how to Mount a TV immediately. A couple ads popped up. Now, any TV companies, I couldn’t look to those ads. One was cheaper than the other. That’s the place that came the mountain. My decision-making processes generally found it off of Google, quite frankly.
Like obviously, Hey, like I’m reading things we even did get to those articles. You’re generally starting with Google for a lot of these, just the reality of how it goes. And so for me we’ve essentially spent a lot of time Googling top financial advisor in the areas that we want.
And the organizations that popped up at the top of the list we tried our best to make a good effort to get on all of those. And by doing that [00:28:00] leave essentially. Or riding the coattails of other peoples, at least for the marketing where it’s added to us there. And then people are choosing us because we often look different from the other hikers on the platform.
We say things slightly different than the other advisors. And from that perspective, I think that’s where bay street has grown. So it’s really a kind of. The Google, those types of trends, websites the in-person event for our holiday party. And then growing through the financial literacy and just being able to speak to many people at a time it’s how we’ve grown realistically and The mail, things like that we’ve considered.
But when you find something that’s working and you see your pay every month and the amount of clients are increase every month. We, it’s hard to, sometimes you say why are you going to try to deviate from them, at least in my opinion. Sure.
Ken Tucker: Yeah. And, as you do more education and you help people understand.
Some different things. There are going to be what we call in the industry, marketing industry, long tail keywords, where people are going to start doing more complex searches than just financial advisor, plus a location. They’re going to start to add some qualifiers to that, dEI financial advisors.
Location or something like that. And you know that’s going to give you a great opportunity to jump to the top because there’s probably no competition right now for certain kinds of those things. And with the education that you guys are doing, you can map out that path.
Ekenna: Yeah, no, I agree. There’s something once you can Google I don’t work there. I promise, but Google trends, you can actually see, in certain areas, what keywords are people using? And, we write articles in we do a lot of article writing and we’re very aware of this, right? Listen to Michael Kitces.
I went from saying his name wrong, my apologies. And that’s a big thing for him is, Hey, making sure that when you’re writing things that, how is this going to appear or how will this positively affect you? So we’ve definitely listened to him. He did his advice on that. And so that’s what we’re doing.
And it’s worked her magic.
Ken Tucker: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And clarity of message. Is super important too. Like you said, when people, just because they get on your website, because you were able to get, on Google my business on the Google maps result or just the Google organic results, they still have to click.
And what they see on the homepage has to resonate and be really clear because, and I think the risk that a lot of financial advisors run and. Or bucking the norm, which I think is really good for you is that everybody sounds the same. Correct. And that’s, if you can stand out in a positive way, in a way that resonates and connects with, the site visitors, you’re going to convert those people more often than not.
Jim: When you look at the 400 thou, when you look at the 400,000 financial advisor investment advisors and the countries are probably, as you said, 80% of probably 75, 80% white white males. And then of course there’s a percentage of females and it trickles down from there. I think what Ken mentioned to you as a fact that something with a long tail keyword, like diversity equity inclusion, and that becomes part of your marketing, your there’s.
No, there’s not. There’s no competition out there for that right now. That’s not to
Ekenna: do this. Yeah, I agree. If you look at, even you take a smaller number, I saw on my CFP or certified financial planner for anyone who doesn’t know what that is, there’s something like 75,000 members out of that only about 1.5% or right about fair are African-American.
And we see time and time again, that. It’s just a small delaying we’re catching up. I think that people want, once again earlier when I said, about half of our clients are in California, other half in DMV, right? That’s not a coincidence. The DMV or the kind of tri-state area of Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia.
Big concentration of African-Americans with wealth and minorities with wealth, not just African-Americans. And so we’ve found that, people are looking to work with people that they think will understand and not to say that we don’t work with everyone else, but we look at very realistically, where are we opening accounts?
There are certain trends. And so that’s something that we found in we hope, that we continue to grow at the, at least at the rate that we’re growing.
Ken Tucker: Yeah, all this is awesome. Economic. I love hearing stuff like this because as a marketer myself, the hardest thing is to get people to understand that you don’t market to everybody for everything, right?
You don’t have enough money. There is no way you’re going to outperform everybody out there. It just isn’t going to happen. So when you find that. That niche, that core messaging, that ideal client focus and that strategy to get there. That’s where the power really is.
Jim: Have you ever read the story about Robert Johnson?
Economics? I haven’t. Yeah. Robert Johnson. Robert Johnson is a gentleman that started and owns black entertainment television,
Ekenna: B E T. And that. Okay. All right. I’ve heard of him, but I haven’t heard his story yet. Yeah.
Jim: It was marvelous story about where he, when he started, how we started talking about breaking some glass ceilings.
He was in the entertainment business with all the advertisements and why should we buy this? I’m like, I’m going to be showing this they’re going. Who’s watching it.
Ekenna: he did go through that, but he really broke ground and that was over well that probably in the 50 years ago, late sixties, early seventies, that he’s been doing it.
Jim: The the Robert Johnson of the DEI
Ekenna: social services arena. Yeah. And there’s definitely some big trailblazers that we follow on our side. I know Robert Smith has done some amazing things and really, to me. The model person of, Hey, you can help and also help bring people up along with you.
And yeah, it’s still a lot of work left to do. We are happy that we’re in a position that we’re filling that the. It was moving that we’re not just pushing onto the building and the building is staying still. It feels like we’re starting to slowly move towards a more equitable and inclusive environment as a whole.
And at our overall kind of outlook is very positive, right? From, the overall market to just where we’re seeing this go. And as Daishi grows we hope that we can do more to expedite the process of.
Ken Tucker: So Econet how can people find out more about you and basically.
Ekenna: Yeah, easiest way. Google aside, I’m kidding. Bay street, capital holdings.com is our website and also on financial advisors. So you can find this there as well. And yeah, those are the two ways to get in contact. You can always reach out to us. We’re always happy to really have the conversation and lead people in the positive direction.
Ken Tucker: Yep. Awesome.
Jim: This has been a, this has been great. It’s it’s very nice to have you as a guest. And hopefully the audience that is listening to live on Facebook would understand more now about diversity, equity and inclusion. It’s a growing thing and should be should more people should understand the benefits that accrue because there’s been many positive benefits that accrue, especially when you set up.
The fact that they had a 20% jump in, people investing, during the COVID that may have time or money, whatever the case may be. And once you take that first step, it’s you never can go back. It’s okay, I’ve crossed this threshold. What’s the next door. And it’s for a lot of people just crossing that first or second door
Jim: think what you’re doing is a good thing for the, your community and for the industry. And the United States as a whole to the truth. I think it’s great. Absolutely. We want to thank you very much. Do you do you have anything any final, last words and for me in this broadcast,
Ekenna: Not necessarily, I just want to say thank you for inviting me.We love to be able to shed light into this. We call it the biggest elephant in the room because it has the most dollars attached to it. And so we appreciate that. I appreciate it. Appreciates it, William Houston, the founder and CEO. We appreciate it as a whole. And thank you for that.
And if ever there’s another opportunity, we would love to have this chance to talk because this conversation’s been great. And we’ll look forward to seeing how this produces.
Ken Tucker: There’s gotta be a whole lot more to
Ekenna: There’s more to it.
Ken Tucker: Yup. Absolutely. Very good. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Jim: Thank you. Thank you very much, Ken, for being my co-host and. Thank all our listeners for listening to the essential financial advisor marketing show. And shouldn’t be podcast. Look forward on financial advisors, support.com.
And thank you again, everyone. And I’ll just want to wish you a great day and a better weekend coming soon. So thank you for being here.
Ekenna: Bye for now. Thanks Ken and Jen.