Financial Planning
Marc C. Shaffer, CFP®, AIF®, EA is a financial planner, business owner, and relationship-builder who believes that kindness isn’t just a virtue, it’s a strategy. As a partner at Searcy Financial Services, Inc., he specializes in helping individuals and families align their wealth with their values and create intentional legacies that span generations.
Marc holds a degree in Personal Financial Planning from Kansas State University and was honored as a 2023 Alumni Fellow for the K-State College of Health and Human Sciences. He has served in leadership roles for numerous community and university boards, including the Overland Park South Rotary Club, Growing Futures Early Education, and the Wabash CannonBall Steering Committee, which raises scholarship funds for future Wildcats.
A husband and father of two, Marc lives in Overland Park, Kansas, with his wife, Bridgette, and their children, Grant and Emily. An avid traveler and outdoor enthusiast, Marc has completed multi-day hikes in places like Patagonia, Peru, Iceland, Bhutan, and beyond – experiences that continue to shape his perspective on connection, generosity, and purposeful living.
His first book, One For All: How to Systemize Kindness, Grow Your Network, and Support Others Like It’s Your Job, will be available in August 2025. The system he shares in this book reflects the heart of how he lives, leads, and builds lasting relationships, with clients, community, and the people he serves every day.
___________________________________________________________________________________
-Transcript-
Brad Burrow (00:01):
Welcome to In a World With Real Media. I’m your host, Brad Burrow. In this podcast, we’ll dive into the lives of the most successful people in business. We’ll learn how they overcame adversity, took advantage of opportunities and learned from their experiences. Learn from our experts. Get inspired, then go live your story. It’s in a world with real media. Hello and welcome to the In A World With Real Media Podcast. I’m Brad Burrow, and today we have Marc Shaffer, who is a CFP, an a IF an ea. There’s probably other things, but with Sealy Financial, and Marc and I have been friends for a long time and we started out, well, I met you in a networking group called Introducing Awesome. Remember I
Marc Shaffer (00:53):
Think we were introducing awesome too. They were first groups. We were two, but we were two. And that was important too, but that was thinking about it maybe 10 years ago, at least seven. So it’s been a while, so it’s good to see again.
Brad Burrow (01:04):
Yeah. Yeah. So those were some interesting times. That was an interesting group too. We had a very diverse group of people in that group and with Mick and
Marc Shaffer (01:13):
Some people I’ve stayed in touch with real well and others I need to reach back out to. So it’s crazy how you see people once a month for, we were doing that three years probably
Brad Burrow (01:22):
Probably
Marc Shaffer (01:22):
Three years. Then you blink and it’s been seven since I’ve seen some of them. Yeah,
Brad Burrow (01:27):
That’s been a while, hasn’t it? It’s been a while.
Marc Shaffer (01:27):
Well, COVID has been five now I have to remind myself of that. I think of that.
Brad Burrow (01:30):
So it was before, yeah, I remember hearing from some of the people in our group that were like, oh man, how are we going to make it through this? The whole COVID thing, and a lot of challenging times when that was going on in-person stuff was different. Yeah. So we met then really, if I remember at the time, you were kind of working your way into a partnership in your firm at that point. Is that right? That sound
(02:02):
Right?
Marc Shaffer (02:02):
Yeah. I had become a partner and was working on transitioning the business because that stuff doesn’t happen overnight.
(02:09):
In addition to attracting a couple other wonderful people that have since then joined partnership as well and transitioned the founder out. So yeah, that was about the time where I think it was Mike Cy and myself. It’s funny because people forget that the company was around before I was born. We celebrate 50 years in our company. That’s next year. So we’re starting to put together a fun party. I was not there in 1976 when it started. So it has since transitioned from Mike Searcy to four of us, and it’s kind of fun, the growth path we’re on now.
Brad Burrow (02:37):
Yeah. Awesome. So what I like to do on the podcast is make it very human interest from a business standpoint. I love to hear about people’s career paths and kind of where your makeup came from and what’s made you into the person that you are today. And so tell me a little bit, where did you grow up? Are you originally from the Kansas City area?
Marc Shaffer (02:59):
Topeka.
Brad Burrow (03:00):
So
Marc Shaffer (03:00):
I’m not very far at all and didn’t go far from home, but went the other side of Topeka to go to school. So I went to K State. I had a little purple on, there’s no wildcat on this one, but I do bleed purple. My wife does not, but she’s learning to and we’re making that work. She’s Ku Ned graduate, which is fun. I grew up loving ku. My parents love ku, and now I have to just talk about K State a little louder with those people around me. So it’s all good. And Manhattan was a great place.
Brad Burrow (03:28):
Yeah, I saw on one of your posts you’re talking about things to do in Manhattan. That’s kind of cool.
Marc Shaffer (03:33):
I just posted that. Yeah, this week I get asked so much. I kind of have branded myself as a K State person and served on a lot of different boards associated with K State, and people ask me, what should I do? I’m taking, I keep kind of saying some of the same stuff and some stuff gets left out and businesses I have closed there. The restaurant I worked, ATS closed, so I was like, I’m going to write a blog, almost like a nostalgia of a memory lane for me, but also for my friends at that time. And now I have an answer for everybody that asks that whose son or daughter is going to tour K State, but they’re not an alum.
Brad Burrow (04:05):
Here’s
Marc Shaffer (04:05):
The blog post. Read it. You can check it all out. But people are there quick and Manhattan small, but there’s still plenty of fun things to do.
Brad Burrow (04:11):
So a couple things I wanted to say, my youngest, my oldest went to ku. My middle son loves ku, but he was a pitcher in college, so he pitched at several of colleges and then my youngest is going to K State and he loves it. He’s just loves it up there. And back in the day when I was a full-time musician, do you remember Brothers? Do you remember the Bar Brothers?
Marc Shaffer (04:39):
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Brad Burrow (04:41):
It’s
Marc Shaffer (04:41):
Changed to another name now.
Brad Burrow (04:42):
Yes. Yeah, it’s several reiterations, I think
Marc Shaffer (04:45):
Bobby t now. But yes, I remember it.
Brad Burrow (04:47):
So Brothers was right on the main drag through Aggie, but we would play there. The band I was in, there were several bands that played there, but I always loved that place. And that was when the drinking age was 18, so it was crazy. But we would play an afternoon set on Friday. I don’t know if you ever remember that, if that was there when you were at school, but the afternoon set was a blast. People would come after school and we’d play just one set and then we’d go back and rest and come back that night and it would be literally so packed that you couldn’t get off stage in between sets. That’s what
Marc Shaffer (05:23):
I miss about it.
Brad Burrow (05:24):
It was crazy. And those were some of the best times that I can remember when I was playing. Like the kids were all around you. I mean the stage was right there. You’re up in front of ’em. It was like a rock concert.
Marc Shaffer (05:37):
And the nice thing about Aggie v building, so compact and a lot of college cities have this is you get tired of that scene. You go to the next one and it’s a hundred steps next door. Yeah, I miss live music and the bar scene has changed a lot. Still live music, but not that brothers isn’t there. Another bar almost is unrecognizable. So when I was writing post, I had to tweak some of it to say, this was great back then. Here’s there now.
(06:02):
But in any event, the end, and maybe you can relate to this, especially your son experiencing it now, is it’s the people that kind of are wonderful. And a lot of cities can be said, but Bill Snyder even talks about, it’s the people that lead people to K State Manhattan. It’s the people that have them come back and then the ones that stay. And what I love is I have friends that live in Manhattan now. I graduated 2005, so 20 years ago it was the town you had to get out of, get a good job. The airport has improved, so you can now work in Manhattan and get to, I think Denver, Chicago or Dallas from their small airport. So people can live there, do the remote thing, raise their family. And that town has gotten bigger, but it’s a place that people can stay even after they graduate now, which 20 years ago you did not do that.
Brad Burrow (06:46):
Yeah, my son loves it. He’s really blossomed there and gotten involved in some of the campus ministry stuff that’s happening, which is really amazing. I mean,
Marc Shaffer (06:58):
It’s interesting you say that because Manhattan was a direction I was probably going to go, whether I went to K State or not. And ministry was something I was interested in.
Brad Burrow (07:05):
Really
Marc Shaffer (07:05):
Manhattan Christian College is across the street from K State. And I went to a church and grew up in a church in Topeka where I feel like half of the student life from Northland Christian Church is where I grew up. Went to Manhattan Christian College, and at that time there was some soccer scholarships going on. And then I did not pursue
Brad Burrow (07:22):
Soccer.
Marc Shaffer (07:23):
My best friend from high school did and second semester was living with me in Marla Hall at K State afterwards. Wonderful experience. But it’s interesting how you have Manhattan, Christian College K State’s pretty much wrapped around it, right by Aggie. But at one time I was planning to be a youth minister. Is that right? Yes,
Brad Burrow (07:38):
Yes. Had no idea. Well, so my son’s involved had no idea the podcast was going to go this way, but I love it. He’s involved in Christian challenge, Christian Challenge and Stumo he’s been involved in as well. But I think there is something happening like a revival in that age group right now. I mean it’s amazing on how on fire they are. And he’s down in a camp called Pine Cove in Texas this summer that goes around doing vacation bible schools. It’s not vacation Bibles, it’s like that. But they’re traveling. So every week they go to a different location.
Marc Shaffer (08:17):
That’s probably fun for him experiencing different cultures, even though you’re still safe and at home in the United States, traveling internationally from ministry is interesting too. We can talk about that. But that’s good for
Brad Burrow (08:26):
Him. And they stay in host homes in every city. They take away their phones, so we can’t talk to
Marc Shaffer (08:33):
Him.
Brad Burrow (08:34):
Well, Saturdays we have an hour window. We can talk to him on Saturday. So hopefully he wants to talk to his mom and dad. True. But it’s just all of that is a result of the culture at K State that is allowing kids to kind of, I don’t know, blossom spiritually. It’s really cool.
Marc Shaffer (08:51):
And it’s probably interesting how COVID impacted that too, that this is a podcast about COVID, but did he graduate around that time from high school? High school experiences were interesting
Brad Burrow (09:01):
In COVID too. Well, he was a junior, so he lost his junior year. No, he lost his sophomore year of, he’s a baseball player too, and he lost his sophomore year of baseball. So I
Marc Shaffer (09:13):
Think that’s right. You kind of come out of what they experienced and either they embrace the fact that they want to be around people and helping them, or for some people it was the total opposite and they had some mental health issues. I mean, COVID did a lot. Years later we’re going to hear a lot of studies about how it impacted a generation, but I try to find the silver lining and everything. So there’s possibly a lot of silver lining come about it, even though we don’t see it yet. Maybe. Yeah,
Brad Burrow (09:38):
Well, very interesting. I had no idea it would go this way, but I love it. So let’s switch gears a little bit. So graduate from K State and choose financial planning as a career. My middle son works at Fidelity now. Oh, nice. So he’s done the three tests. I know there’s more, but that was a challenge. He had to work really hard to pass. Those is a series seven, I think is one of ’em. I
Marc Shaffer (10:03):
Took that one. Yep. 2005 also. You’re right. Well, in any career there can be a lot of credentialing and at finance, I don’t know if there’s hundreds, but there’s a lot and you kind of got to choose your path. But yeah, I moved away from K State. My degree was called Family Studies and Human Services, which is interesting. So it’s now been rebranded to personal financial planning, but it’s very focused on people. And actually the whole college motto, which is the College of Health and Human Science is in a world where we focus on things, we focus on people first. So my background’s in financial therapy, behavioral scripts, how people grow up with money, family dynamics. We’re often navigating people through divorce or death or job transition and life is always something else. And there’s good things too, like job promotion or success in a company or selling a company. So it kind of dealt with the social side of that. But it sounds to me like your son. I still did the series 65, series seven. There were three CFP since then, a IF, the stuff you mentioned, which we can talk about credentials a bit, but I did it in a way that I moved away after I left K State for one year. I went to all the way on the other side of Missouri to a city called St. Louis. So I didn’t go far.
Brad Burrow (11:17):
Wait, wait, I’ve heard of that.
Marc Shaffer (11:18):
Yeah, people have been there before. And sometimes those rivalry with Kansas City.
(11:23):
And when I moved there, and the funny joke was St. Louis is, it’s the east coast side of Missouri, and I told everybody I moved here from Manhattan. They’re like, oh man, you’re New York City. That’s awesome. No, no, no. It’s a nice small little apple town. There’re very little K staters there, a lot of mizou, a lot of University of Illinois, a lot of relation to Chicago and their rivalry is Chicago and St. Louis. And it was the first year, well the last year that the old Bush stadium was there and it’s a baseball town, so I got to experience that a lot. But having said that, move away from friends relationships, didn’t know people. So I was able to get those credentials all out of the way. In one year I’d work at my job I’d study, and because I didn’t know anybody, I decided to get a bartending job at a bar in Clayton, Missouri, which was a block down from my financial planning job. So I changed into the serving bartending outfit, walk down the street work, and then I’d study after that. But I didn’t have friends asking me to do something all the time.
(12:18):
So while I spend a little time there and I say I didn’t like St. Louis, I also didn’t give it a chance, but I knew it. Sooner or later I’d end up closer to home. And I’ve been Kansas City now 19 years and at the same job for 19 years.
Brad Burrow (12:30):
So what was it about financial planning that you really liked? I mean obviously you’ve made a career out of that.
Marc Shaffer (12:36):
Yeah, I started in engineering and so I actually, for those that are Case staters, know that Marla Hall is an all guys dorm. Fifth level of Marla Hall is all engineers, like a quiet hall for people that were serious about engineering. And if you get far enough into engineering, you do studio and you kind of commit to it for more than four years. And you can’t have a job because studio is your job, meaning time committed to learning that profession. And I love, we could talk about travel, but I love manmade things. So civil engineering was of interest to me,
(13:07):
But I learned that I really liked people and my parents saved for me to go to college. And they said, here’s the money we save for you. You should meet with our financial planner. And it wasn’t a lot, but as an 18-year-old, I was like, I can do whatever I want then. And back then there wasn’t 5 29 plans that are kind of earMarced for college funding, so there’s consequences to use it for other things. So it was just after tax money. So I bought a motorcycle. I was smart with it and it lasted through college, but I also got a scholarship, which meant that as long as I kept a certain GPA, it was almost a full ride, which meant I didn’t need to use this pile of money that my parents gave me. So I really got to know their financial planner who was also in Topeka. And at that time he was probably late thirties, so very similar to where I am in my career now. I’m in my early forties. But I got to know him and I was like, I would love to do this. Why I should consider financial planning.
(13:57):
Went to the College of Business and they had finance as you know. But then how did I meet a mentor of mine that I’m still in touch with today was I was in an organization called Silver Key my freshman year, and it’s an honors society that does service projects around K State. And he told me about the major in the College of Health and Human Sciences. And I joined that late my freshman year and I took me four years to do K State, and I’m sad it didn’t take me five, but that’s kind of the story to fall into it. And I actually maintain a relationship with my parents, Edward Jones advisor at the time. And I did my internship at K State my junior and senior year for an Edward Jones financial planner in Manhattan. And I learned Edward Jones is a great company, but back then it was more the door knocking and sales and I would’ve failed miserably. Well, who knows? I didn’t have the confidence.
Brad Burrow (14:47):
Sales completely changed now, hasn’t it?
Marc Shaffer (14:49):
Yeah, we can talk about my book in a bit too. That’s more about what it is. And Edward Jones is involved with those times too. So the people that can do that at a young age can do very well. But also the financial services industry is less about sales and more about service than it used to be 20 years ago. So everything else that’s evolving. But I love my time at K State and the involvement in academics and then just student life was a wonderful thing that keeps me coming back.
Brad Burrow (15:15):
Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. So then how did you connect with ccy? How did that whole thing
Marc Shaffer (15:21):
Happen?
Brad Burrow (15:22):
Probably about
Marc Shaffer (15:24):
When we first met. I have the business card that Mike Sealy gave me. I sat the major encouraged students and brought them maybe once or twice a year and still do. So this is great. Financial Planning Association has a chapter here. I just had a meeting on Wednesday, so I sat next to a young K State student, but now I’m thinking that was me 20 years ago and I sat next to Mike Searcy at the table. Is that right? Gave me the card and it’s like fate maybe. But it’s funny because Mike challenges me all the time. I’ve told this story a ton, but he’s like, why would I hire you? You have no experience. Did he say that to you? Oh yeah. And Mike and I have this relationship where he is always nudged me and pushed me. And so I thank him for it. Now like we’ll say, everybody says that I never get a chance anywhere. And so I went to St. Louis, found a job there, but I called him maybe seven months, eight months later and I said, I don’t know what you call experience, but I’ve passed a couple things and I would really like to come back to Kansas City. And timing
Brad Burrow (16:17):
Was right. So you reached out to Mike
Marc Shaffer (16:18):
Then? Yeah, I stayed in contact. It’s funny, I coach a lot of younger. We have an intern that’s here for two months is you stay in contact with everybody, you never know what’s going to come back around, create your own database that’s maybe not tied to your business, it’s tied to you personally because things come up years later and social media helps with this LinkedIn, particularly if it’s a business relationship. But 20 years ago it wasn’t like that. You didn’t just connect with everybody.
(16:42):
So I kept business cards and I have business cards from 2003 to 2005 of people I was meeting as a student for opportunities. And I think that I always knew I wanted to come back to Kansas City or to Topeka, actually, I almost took a job in Lawrence, almost went to the dark side for a bit, but Mike Searcy was hiring at the time, and little did I know he was transitioning someone out, so I was replacing somebody, but it worked out really well. That person had two weeks to train me. So going from a fine job in St. Louis, but it was a newer firm that didn’t have structure in place. They said, you do our financial planning. There were three guys that started a firm three years ago and wasn’t really established. They’re doing great now in St. Louis by the way, but I needed as a 22-year-old, tell me what you need me to do. I need help. And they needed a lot of help at CRC and they gave me a lot of responsibility. And so learning very quickly was good, but man, I was overwhelmed for the first few years in a good way. If you get pushed, if you step up to the push, it’s a good place later on.
(17:44):
So that was 2006, and that’s been since got more credentialed after the CFP and those series exams we talked about. But also a few years after I started, 2008 and nine happened. So that was a very new experience as the frontline person taking the calls of people that were scared.
Brad Burrow (18:06):
Great
Marc Shaffer (18:06):
Recession. I bought this building in
Brad Burrow (18:08):
2008.
Marc Shaffer (18:09):
Oh,
Brad Burrow (18:09):
Which was the worst time, time to buy a building.
Marc Shaffer (18:11):
It was the real estate. Yeah, probably since then it’s been good. But for time you didn’t feel very good about it. And as a young inexperienced financial planner especially then there was someone always answered the phone, now we have answering services. So you kind of break the ice between, oh, you want to talk about that, then that’s going to be someone else. But I took a lot of the front end calls, but because of that, it made me realize that we are going to go through cycles. There’s going to be ups and downs. We’re going through another one now.
Brad Burrow (18:39):
Yes,
Marc Shaffer (18:39):
We are. So the communication that I learned at K State about how to navigate crucial conversations of the book became helpful in just periods of high anxiety, I guess I would
Brad Burrow (18:49):
Say.
(18:50):
Yeah. Boy, that makes total sense. So you became partner and now actually, so you’ve transitioned. So what is your role now at CRC? Yeah,
Marc Shaffer (19:01):
So I started when there was fewer of us. I have to count now, I dunno how many we are, but we’re still a small independent financial planning firm. My role that started at the beginning as a financial planning associate and has evolved and as we’ve evolved, we first did StrengthFinders, if you’re familiar with that. It’s Marcus Buckingham. So this is probably 15 years ago. What strengths do people have and how do we get people in flow working on what they’re best at? That was really nice because at some point you grow a business and you get to scale and you get to hire for things you aren’t as good at. Mine kept falling more into, you don’t want to make the calls to clients, but I do. I don’t want to do all the investment research and be behind the computer all day. So it was kind of like, let’s just trade that we can all win here. And you like doing that,
Brad Burrow (19:51):
So you’re more of a relationship guy. Then
Marc Shaffer (19:53):
I kind of kept falling into that and I was never hired to do sales or developments, but it kind of started happening after a while in terms of the enjoyment of it. And there’s a whole story of when I started, we worked with clients and I think there was a minimum of a million dollars.
(20:10):
None of my friends had a million dollars 23, we created a second company that does allow for helping people with no minimum. So we can talk about that for a bit, but that allowed me to at least meet with people and find a spot to help them where otherwise I’d meet with them and say, oh man, I’d love to help you, but you don’t have a million dollars. Call me in 20 years. Didn’t get or never right, and nobody’s going to do that. They should have established a wonderful relationship by then. But my role kept kind of learning what I can delegate and delegation is a skill. I’m still learning as a perfectionist, it’s hard to delegate anything. So we kept hiring people that were talented in different areas and used a called the Culture Index to do that. And so my role as a partner to Mike Cy was to learn and evolve because we knew that eventually the business would transition with the primary responsibility of making sure clients would be okay if Mike was not working for his own firm anymore. So I was that relationship with existing business, but it led to a comfort level with finding new business,
(21:11):
The things I was not good at. Well, I’m not the CEO, so I don’t do the operations part of the business. I do not do training in one-on-ones. So there’s a partner that does people things, hr, I do not do the investment research anymore. So there is more of a back office invest, CIO, chief Investment Officer that also does our technology. I like it when technology works, but setting all this up, I’m sure it’s a lot
Brad Burrow (21:36):
Of work.
Marc Shaffer (21:37):
So I don’t have to worry about that. Matter of fact, I go in today and there’s a new TV on the wall, the computer’s hooked up my be ready for my meeting. But my role that everybody knows and appreciates because it isn’t easy, although it looks fun, is to be out in the community connecting people and resources. And of course that leads to business development, but I do it in a way that doesn’t have any expectations.
Brad Burrow (21:56):
So let’s switch gears. That’s awesome. Let’s talk about the book one for all and the idea behind supporting others. I mean, that’s been a big part of your mission since I’ve known you really supporting non-for-profits, other organizations, helping people talk about that a little bit.
Marc Shaffer (22:15):
Yeah, I personally, I decided to go the route as a person in a company to grow revenue, but do it by giving back, doing well by doing good. And what I have kind of taken to heart, and I heard it from a long time ago from I think it was Brian Bini, if you don’t know who that is, he helps coach real estate agents how to be wonderful agents, but he helps other industries. But he said it, and I say it in my book, it’s an Irish proverb. If you hand it out in slices, it comes back in loaves. And so I kind of like, well, that’s it. I just got to hand that out in slices, but what does that mean to me? And let me tell you, it doesn’t have to have anything to do with business and there’s no expectation for the loaves. But after you do it for a long time, 19 years now, for me, it’s starting to come back in ways I didn’t dream of some of them financial, some of them content, some of them in relationships.
Brad Burrow (23:03):
But
Marc Shaffer (23:04):
What I learned is, well, years ago, Mike Searcy asked me to write a process for how some of these people were finally saying yes to hire us. I was like, it’s not a check. 10 things. And then they transfer money. We do financial planning. It’s wonderful. I said, it’s more of a culture and I don’t know if I can create a checklist. At one time, I created this whole process that was just ugly writing, and then it was probably a little over a year and a half ago, someone said, why you present on how you develop relationships? Why don’t you write a book? And I was like, because I don’t have time to write a book.
(23:33):
But there are wonderful people that can help with that. Streamlined books, we can talk about my process. But the book was really internally, what I’d like to do for creating a culture and my team of how we grow our business is just by helping other people. If no one ever brings on business and our company, that’s fine. But I got to believe that if you have a process for just helping and being kind of remembered for your brand and the brand is who you are, but also a brand is what you do for your vocation, like financial planning. So if I’m promoting who I am as a person and people are remembering I’m a financial planner, that comes back around.
Brad Burrow (24:06):
But
Marc Shaffer (24:06):
You do it in such a way that it’s not transaction based or sales based. So the reason it’s a process in the book too is because when people get busy, guess what slips? It’s easy to say, well, I guess I don’t have to think about helping people. I have enough business now. But if it’s a process, you just keep going through how to help them when the next thing
Brad Burrow (24:23):
Comes up, do it over and over and over.
Marc Shaffer (24:24):
And you do it with people that will never become clients. But I’ll tell you that some of those people that aren’t clients became the best advocates that introduced people that were.
Brad Burrow (24:32):
And
Marc Shaffer (24:32):
So what looks like overnight, I’ll call it success, but winning of new business to my team, the book is about all the other things that go on behind the scenes about helping people to arrive at the yes or I want you to help me or your team. We need your team to do this For us. It’s a whole lot more than just asking for business. It’s helping first. And that can be for eight years before someone says yes.
Brad Burrow (24:56):
I dunno if I ever told you this, but I probably mentioned this on several podcasts, but I got to spend a day with Zig Ziglar.
Marc Shaffer (25:02):
Oh yeah, love that. Zig,
Brad Burrow (25:03):
I’d love one of the things that, so we were shooting interviews with him and I can’t do an impression of him, but it’s got the southern accent. And when he said, one of the things he said is, if you want to be successful, help somebody else be successful. And it’s basically the same thing that you’re talking about. It’s like help other people and you’re going to be successful,
Marc Shaffer (25:27):
Help people get what they want and you’ll get what you want. And if you do it without expectation, it comes back more than you thought. And that’s not very
Brad Burrow (25:33):
Prevalent in our
Marc Shaffer (25:34):
Society
Brad Burrow (25:34):
Today, and especially in business,
Marc Shaffer (25:36):
A lot of things. I am just a big fan of sending notes. That doesn’t happen. It’s not hard. But I can tell you that that is the difference. Sometimes when it’s a series of a hundred things, just the note could be the difference maker. And I’ve got notes that people go through hard times in life, and sometimes the note is what it takes to make me realize there’s silver lining in everything. So I’m a personal notes person, but I always tell people it’s really easy not to be successful, but it’s really easy to be successful if you just do the little extra things that add up rocket science. Really, I’m not doing, we work with a lot of physicians. I’m not doing rocket science or I’m not saving lives, but the work we do is very important and it’s good to stand out.
Brad Burrow (26:19):
Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. Giving. Talk about the importance of giving. I mean, we’ve hit on it a little bit, but I think that’s the same thing when we give, even if our time, money, resources, whatever it is, it really, it’s biblical.
Marc Shaffer (26:35):
Yep. Yeah, it’s definitely, at first I decided to do it just because at K there were all these service organizations to be a part of, and then you get in the real world and it’s like all that student life stuff that you were a part of, you got to find again in college that kind of finds you. And so for me, I watched the founder involved in Rotary, and I initially joined Rotary. So that was my initial introduction to staying engaged in a community from a professional standpoint. But Rotary also is service to others. That’s one of their underlying things. And business of course. So joining the Overland Park, south Rotary introduced me to Children’s Charities, which was every Rotary Club has a theme that was ours. We also did the Jazz in the Woods event, which I would love to bring back. There’s some commotion about
Brad Burrow (27:20):
That that shows up on your LinkedIn.
Marc Shaffer (27:22):
I chaired it, this is a long time ago. I loved it because it got everybody on board in the Rotary Club to work together to bring up a free event for the community that still netted our best year, 150,000. So we had to raise three 50 because we put out a $50,000 stage and speakers, and then we didn’t charge anybody to come. So it was sponsorship. And then three beneficiaries from that event were children’s Charity. So introduced me to kids. And what I tell about Rotary is when I was 23, I hadn’t been through life enough to know what setbacks or struggles that I might face. Children’s Charities happened to be one of ’em. I didn’t get married young. And then I had fertility issues, so that could be a whole podcast. So I volunteered with kids stuff because I thought I want to make an impact even if I don’t have my own. Now I have two wonderful kids, but it also introduced me to all the other organizations because Rotary brings in charity, and I don’t know if it was seven, eight years ago, my mom got leukemia. And so LLS became a big deal to me.
Brad Burrow (28:18):
My
Marc Shaffer (28:18):
Dad has since beat lymphoma, so just the blood cancer in my family. But at 23, you don’t know what you’re going to go through or you’ve never even heard of LLS. But I’ve just chosen to do that in a way to give back to the community. Part of it is the joke with my wife. It’s like I don’t sit still very long, so I like to just have activities going on. But the fulfillment you get around it, the connections that you get to make because of it, and then the end result is whatever the cause is, that’s what becomes kind of the true thing to, I guess make the community and you’re
Brad Burrow (28:46):
Better. Yeah. That’s really awesome. So let’s talk about some of the non-for-profits that you support. I know I’ve seen lots of different ones. True. Tell me some of them. Give me kind of the highlight list of who you really, two most
Marc Shaffer (29:02):
Recent ones. I’ll start with the easy one. Alum. My wife and I are chairing an event next year. It’s called Wabash Cannonball. Have you heard of it?
Brad Burrow (29:10):
No, I have not.
Marc Shaffer (29:11):
For KU people, it’s their rock chalk ball. I think. I’ve never been to that one. But Wabash Cannonball is an event that started, we’ll be chairing the 19th year, and it’s a black tie event that brings people together in Kansas City that are proud K State alum. And it’s a fundraiser, so the tables aren’t cheap, tuxedos are worn, but it’s allowed me to see friends that I might not see every year because life gets busy. But at this event, they’re there. And your wife agreed to do that, huh? She did. She’s going to wear purple. She looks good purple, but she’s sharing it, so she’s volunteering on it. And I can say this here, my plan is we always have, if you didn’t know Greg Musel, he’s a great guy, great er, he gets up and he’s the mc and he pokes at ku, the school across. And I’ll get to do that too as the chair in front of a thousand. I think we have 1,011 hundred people there. And I can make fun of ku. My wife can’t say anything about it. We have a fun relationship with it, but she won’t be able to do that in front of a Big K state crowd.
(30:04):
But yeah, it is done. And it’s an easy event because the Alumni Association helps and it raises money for local area students to go to K State. So easy. Cause I think we end up giving away 55 scholarships over those 19 years. I think we have over 3 million to endow that to go on, because we didn’t have it in COVID year, but we still gave 55 scholarships from that fund.
Brad Burrow (30:27):
Wow,
Marc Shaffer (30:27):
Amazing. So that’s really fun for me. K State, it ties things together and it’s not a lot of work ran by the alumni. We’re steering committee. But the other one that I’m very involved with also is called Growing Futures Early Education Center.
Brad Burrow (30:39):
And
Marc Shaffer (30:40):
It’s actually, we’re in Overland Park. It’s an old town, Overland Park, so just north a little bit. And it’s been there for years. It’s a Head Start program. And again, it ties back to kids not knowing if I would have ’em. So I’ve been on this board since before I had kids, which was really interesting for me because Headstart serves zero to five. I didn’t know how much they were learning. It’s a baby. They don’t talk yet, but they’re learning a ton and it’s very engaged. And typically families without resources, kids aren’t learning the same way that families with resources are because they discount what they’re learning. Zero to five if you don’t have resources. So Growing Futures serves, I think 200 plus kids. And in Johnson County, people think there aren’t, I’ll just say people without resources, but there is a big population that needs help. I don’t know what the numbers are, 10 different, 20 different languages spoke there. Very diverse. Is
Brad Burrow (31:31):
That right? Wow.
Marc Shaffer (31:32):
And so I’m on that board and we do a lot of different ways, things to raise money to make sure that we’re bringing what they need. And it’s also the place where we bring the resources to the kids. Some of their parents don’t have a relationship with a dentist. Well, there’s an onsite dentist that comes and does all that work for them.
Brad Burrow (31:48):
Very cool.
Marc Shaffer (31:48):
And also parents, that’s single parent, family. They don’t get time off work to pick up the kids, take ’em to dinner, they don’t have to worry about it. Dietician on staff there. So these kids are graduating the program and going to kindergarten ready significantly more than they would’ve from other daycares and homes. And I send my kids to the daycare and it’s expensive. We spend a lot of money, very
Brad Burrow (32:10):
Expensive.
Marc Shaffer (32:10):
But I will tell you that I’m proud to help Growing Futures, doing a wonderful job serving kids that need it. And the families, they’re advocates for the families too.
Brad Burrow (32:18):
So how would somebody reach out to them?
Marc Shaffer (32:21):
I would love to connect with someone that’s interested in early ed, so reach out to me. But Larry Lewis is our executive director, and I’ll tell a quick story about him too. That’s why I’m staying engaged. My time almost rolled off after three years. The person that had been there for years was retiring. And so we had a hiring committee. Larry’s a case Stater.
Brad Burrow (32:39):
Yeah,
Marc Shaffer (32:40):
Of course. And this story is interesting. He should be on your podcast. He played football for Bill Snyder and Bill Snyder said, you need to volunteer in the community like he does to all the athletes. He volunteered for the Boys and Girls Club in Manhattan, Kansas, which led him into an interest in early ed, early ed
Brad Burrow (32:56):
Childhood.
Marc Shaffer (32:57):
And he worked for Boys and Girls Club for years after he graduated from K State. But he came to us with a new passion, also a man in early ed. There’s not a lot of men. I mean even now, we just hired a new development director and it’s another man, which is awesome. But the whole other staff, it might be all women and men in children’s lives is very important. So I love and Larry’s a minority. I love that he’s leading with that. So Larry has coffee with anybody as well. So I would love to connect anybody to Larry Lewis.
Brad Burrow (33:25):
Yeah, that’s awesome. Very cool. And then the Wabash, what is it called? Wabash?
Marc Shaffer (33:29):
Wabash Canon Ball.
Brad Burrow (33:30):
Yep. Cannonball like the song,
Marc Shaffer (33:33):
And it’s the dance at the football games. Yep. Cannonball. It’s unique. So if you want to learn about that, the alumni association puts it on. So if you go to that website, you’ll learn about it there. That is a once a year event in Kansas City. It’s gotten so popular that I think it’s now in Denver, north Dallas, Houston, smaller, less case skaters. But I would love to host people. But that’s, it’s usually late February, the last Friday in February. So the planning has started
Brad Burrow (34:01):
Next year. Awesome. So let’s switch gears a little bit. I have just a couple more questions. One of ’em is about the future of financial planning. I mean, we are inundated with AI and let AI do your stock trades and just crazy stuff happening. I mean, every business is dealing with that. What about financial
Marc Shaffer (34:25):
Planning? Yeah, so I think I led into it earlier is 15 years ago we started this subsidiary company called allos Investment Advisors. And at that time, roboadvisors were coming about, do you remember this? Someone will manage the money actively. And it’s like RoboAdvisor, no human attached to it. And we thought that humans still needs to be attached to it. And my degree and all financial planners can relate to the biggest value you bring is the human interaction, the telling you you’re doing it right or coming and saying, we need to get on the same page.
(34:55):
The questions you ask people that make a lot of times a husband and husband and wife think differently about the future because when you’re busy with kids, you just get through the day and you think about tomorrow, let alone five years and a hundred years if you want to leave a legacy. So Allos was created to compete with the roboadvisors and just manage money. Well, people hired us, they worked with us, and then they wanted more, which led me to believe that the RoboAdvisor industry, there’s a place for that. There’s also a place for TurboTax. People will do their own tax return and say they don’t want an accountant. So we are in the business to help the people that find value of the open dialogue about leading people to where they want to go. Because when people get busy, it becomes less of a
(35:39):
Personal trainer. I could work out on my own, but I’d sure do a whole lot better if I have someone pushing and leading and then telling me when I need to do something different. So I will tell you that it’s almost 20 years in this industry. There’s always something else. And something else lately is ai. And I love it. I’ve started using it for a few things that are not competing, and we can talk about a couple of those, but that are helping. And I read on message boards, I’m a Reddit person, so when I can’t sleep, I can read for too long on financial planning, Reddit boards. But I think the younger generation hasn’t started grasping that. There’s still a human element needed. So they’re really worried about this. And I can tell you on the other side of it, we still have people helping.
(36:21):
We’re confident in what we’re doing, but we already have relationships where maybe young people don’t have established relationships. So partnering with a Affirm, I think is what the answer is for young people. But ai, one of them we just got is one that listens in on meetings. So I could turn it on my phone right here and it would interpret, I did it yesterday with a client and center, the analytics from it. And the analytics is, I talked 49%, you talked 50, and then here’s when you were excited and what you’re excited about. Here’s when you’re anxious and what you said, which reinforces what you need to bring back up or readdress because you shouldn’t let anxious things sit. And some people can get that out of a meeting, but now I don’t have to sit there and take notes. She was nervous about this and I need to talk about it. You just have a dialogue and you have all this data available to you afterwards to do something with.
Brad Burrow (37:10):
So I’m using a tool called Fathom for that.
Marc Shaffer (37:13):
It’s very similar. Yep, very similar.
Brad Burrow (37:15):
And man, I tell you what, but the problem with Fathom is it only works on Zoom calls or online calls. They need to come up with a version that you can set in a meeting. It records everything. It recognizes everybody’s voice and do the same thing that it does on a Zoom call.
Marc Shaffer (37:32):
It’s getting better. And I don’t know about Fathom, but Jump is what we are using and jump’s made for financial planners. It’s secure data. You’re talking about finances,
Brad Burrow (37:39):
Right?
Marc Shaffer (37:40):
So it’s made for the wealth management industry, but I’ve used it in a coffee shop. And if I’m at my claims, sometimes it hears the conversation right over there. So it’s not perfect because it’s
Brad Burrow (37:50):
Loud,
Marc Shaffer (37:50):
But I have used it in client meetings where maybe the internet wasn’t connected, but I’ve learned that you have to introduce yourself. I’m the financial planner, I Marc, and then it will pick up on the voices. I used it for fun. I was at a hemp event and the hemp events, tell your story, go around the table. I turned it on and it captured everybody’s information at least otherwise I’m like, that person worked for that company, I want to reach out to ’em now I have it all recorded and it records it and saves it for
Brad Burrow (38:18):
You.
Marc Shaffer (38:19):
So even if it doesn’t decode it or whatever that word is, that it gives it to you in text,
Brad Burrow (38:24):
You
Marc Shaffer (38:24):
Can go back and listen to it. I mean,
Brad Burrow (38:25):
Fathom is when you’re actually on a Zoom call, it’s amazing. I mean, here’s the to-do list. This was the pain point. And then it can analyze all of the data based on what the conversation was about with this sales call. Was this a Marceting thing or was it
Marc Shaffer (38:43):
Exactly. So I can even push a button now that says this was a new discovery meeting, and when I’m meeting with a new potential client, I want it to capture a whole lot more about their family. I want to know about them where it’s a client meeting. I should know all of that. So you can say, interpret the notes to be different based on what type of meeting it is. And now because it’s trainable, we’re asking it to, I’m hoping that I had to substitute and do the secretary minutes for a board meeting. I’m not very good at that. But if you could do it on here and it says second motion to prove and it captures minutes of a
Brad Burrow (39:17):
Meeting,
Marc Shaffer (39:18):
You can teach it to do stuff like that too, because that is not a, I don’t like that job, but there’s other things you can teach it to and it will only get better. So I’m excited. That’s just a listening tool. But AI in general, I use it to answer some client’s questions with additional clarity over what I already know, or sometimes I have a bias in what I’m saying to somebody, take the bias out of it or make it sound less. Yeah, it’s all about prompts
Brad Burrow (39:44):
When you’re doing that type of thing. So we have a client that we’re working with that does lawn care and 28 videos on different, here’s Verta cutting, here’s hand mowing, that kind of thing. And so they used AI to write all of their scripts, and
Marc Shaffer (40:02):
I might be using this company. They do a good job. I wonder if it’s the same one. I can
Brad Burrow (40:06):
Tell you who it
Marc Shaffer (40:06):
Is, Heartland. Actually it is. That’s who I use.
Brad Burrow (40:09):
Yes,
Marc Shaffer (40:10):
Jackson. Yep.
Brad Burrow (40:11):
Yeah. Yeah. So they’re really awesome. So we’re doing all this content form to explain different services, but the problem is, and Sam is the one that was doing the voiceover. Great. That was fine. But the problem is that the AI writes things in a flowery way, and it doesn’t sound like them necessarily
Marc Shaffer (40:32):
True.
Brad Burrow (40:33):
That was my, he asked me about all of the scripts and I said, well, they’re great, but I’m concerned they don’t sound quite like you. So I think AI can get you to a place that’s pretty good, but you still need to have your touch on it,
Marc Shaffer (40:51):
If that
Brad Burrow (40:52):
Makes
Marc Shaffer (40:52):
Sense. Yep. And totally. So you leverage it as an extension of you also, if you haven’t done this for other people using ai, it has to get to know you. So I have input, I write blogs for my company website. So I enter all those. It knows about my travel history, it knows that I do bike ms, I haven’t done in a while.
Brad Burrow (41:09):
It
Marc Shaffer (41:09):
Knows about a history of me, which allows it to answer things differently about me based on what it knows. It’s only learning more and more. And you can ask it to be harder on you or to change the tone of the way it’s responding. And every month, I guess I heard this, I was at an AI meeting this week, every month, a new version of it, and I’ve chosen to use TPT. It used to be Claude, but a new version comes out where it’s only getting better and it’s kind of fascinating what is going to be coming. It is.
Brad Burrow (41:37):
I have one that has 20 different engines in it, Gronk and a whole bunch of, and you can kind of pick based on responses and it’ll change.
Marc Shaffer (41:45):
I asked the person speaking and I was like, all right, is the normal person, I’m just using it. No one showed me how to use it. There’s got to be something. And I know they advertise to me that take a week off and learn how to use five different types, but I’m like, is that worth it? I don’t know. You wonder because you don’t want to waste time, but if you don’t start, you never learn. So starting is what I just tell people to do.
Brad Burrow (42:07):
We’re using it. Also, we’re working on a documentary right now on the history of women’s basketball and it’s all pre-Title ix, so before 1972. And so a lot of the media that we have are still images, but they’re pretty low res, a lot of cases grainy. So we’re using AI to actually up res those to 4K so that they can go into the documentary. And it’s pretty amazing. And we’ve been working on the documentary three or four years now, and just in the last year, year and a half, just seeing the difference in its ability to up res and to or faster. Sometimes it takes a long time faster, and the results are when we first started, for example, if you added in a background or something like that, it would do weird things, give people six fingers and things that now it’s not doing those types of things. And it is getting better and better and better.
Marc Shaffer (43:03):
I think the AI person that spoke at a group I was at called it AI hallucinations. So whenever you have little mistakes or it didn’t capture something, and that’s the stuff that’s getting better and better, but the energy it uses to make video, and that’s just crazy to me.
Brad Burrow (43:16):
So yeah, not to go down this rabbit trail, but energy, that’s probably a really good investment strategy right now because of ai. I mean, I know
Marc Shaffer (43:26):
That scarcity not enough. The demand, the things people are going to be using it to do that maybe they’re not even allowing us to use it for yet because of
Brad Burrow (43:33):
That
Marc Shaffer (43:34):
Is going to open up.
Brad Burrow (43:35):
Well, meta is, they’re building energy plants
Marc Shaffer (43:38):
Now.
Brad Burrow (43:39):
Isn’t that crazy?
Marc Shaffer (43:40):
Yeah. Well,
Brad Burrow (43:40):
They recognize the demand is only going up. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty interesting. Do you see AI doing the actual investing side?
Marc Shaffer (43:49):
That’s interesting. I think that instead of that, let me tell you how we’ve done it For years before ai, it used to be you’d have to hire a CFA on your team, and they were full-time
Brad Burrow (43:59):
CFA
Marc Shaffer (44:00):
Chartered financial analyst that is more investment based than planner based, but they’d be in your team. They do the full-time work now. Well, this is the last 30 years
(44:11):
CFAs work for a company that provides opinions and research and analysis on things. So you subscribe to that. Now AI, to me, is a whole nother extension of that. Now you subscribe to AI to help you make your investment decisions on what you’re doing with your client’s money. So it’s not that you’re outsourcing it and AI does it all, but my opinion, just using a newsletter or analysis to do it, it just becomes more efficient, which means that you can do more value added stuff for your clients or on the investment side to get more specific. But I don’t think it’s going to take over. But I will tell you there’s ways to use it that are going to be a lot better than what we had before. And anything else, people will choose to use AI for a few things, and for like HR block, you can do your own tax return and not use an accountant, right? They’re probably going to become a use AI to do your financial planner and some companies or financial planning, some companies going to be like the 800 number to the person trying to do it themselves.
Brad Burrow (45:07):
So
Marc Shaffer (45:07):
They’re not really by themselves. And that’s a service, but it’s less. So it’s just creating, I guess, different models for doing some of the same stuff for the DIY people maybe.
Brad Burrow (45:16):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting. Yeah, I mean, I get inundated with let AI make your stock picks for you and do your vying, and it’s like, I don’t know. That sounds very
Marc Shaffer (45:28):
Smart. You probably have a p and l. It’s interesting to remove company names and you can put p and ls in there and say, based on this three year track record, where’s my company going to be if I have the same expense increase over three years, the same profit, and it’ll tell you what things should grow to. And I am the cfo, so I used to build spreadsheets and proforma. That can be done in seconds, but you got to be careful what you put in there. It can become a part of the open model of information out there. But I am a spreadsheet guy, even though I’m a relationship person and it’s creating some interesting ways to see data differently, which I get excited about.
Brad Burrow (46:03):
What’s the future of Searcy? Where do you guys, and we’ll close after this, but tell me what that
Marc Shaffer (46:08):
Looks like. We are continuing to grow. We now have our intern from Utah Valley University. We have two employees that are in Salt Lake City. So it’s interesting that we’re not just here. Half of us are remote two now in Phoenix, one in Omaha, one in Charlotte. So we are doing EOS. Do you know what that is? Yes. I’m very familiar with Joe Calhoun. Talked to him almost daily. There’s great EOS coaches. We are doing it without a coach, but that may be changing doing it. We’re in June now, so we’re six months into attempting to do it on our own red traction, red rocket fuel.
(46:41):
So that is on board to say where we’re going, growth, we’re growing. We want to continue to be involved in the communities where our team is and where our clients are. And based on the book and the culture we’re creating, giving back and those communities is very important to us. But we want to, and this is what has happened from the legacy that Mike set, become a firm that goes on forever. So there will be a G three. And so now we’re already cultivating the leaders of tomorrow that will be taking care of me when I’m retired. Because taking care of Mike, even though he’s retired, he’s still part of our
Brad Burrow (47:11):
Team.
Marc Shaffer (47:13):
But that’s the hope is that you get great people and people are your greatest
Brad Burrow (47:16):
Asset. Yeah, that’s awesome.
Marc Shaffer (47:17):
So from a big standpoint, I don’t know, we’re bigger than I thought we would be several years ago, but it’s a fun ride. It’s weird just not knowing all your clients. I remember being small at one time and it was a relationship with everyone, but other people have those relationships on the team.
Brad Burrow (47:31):
Yeah, that’s right. Well, that’s awesome. EOS is a really cool, and it feels like to me, EOS has just come out of nowhere the last five years. More
Marc Shaffer (47:39):
And more people are trying it, which means there’s more and more certified coaches doing it, but the results speak for themselves. I can already see 6, 5, 6 months in why they call the book Traction. It’s starting to work for us and anything, it takes time, but it makes me excited.
Brad Burrow (47:54):
Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. Well, it’s really been cool. How would somebody get ahold of you? We’ve got the website up here, but what’s the best way to get ahold of
Marc Shaffer (48:02):
You? I’m a Facebook guy. I came around, I was in college. That’s an easy way to connect with me. Heard of Facebook. I share a lot. Yeah. Younger people. Haven’t you better get on TikTok and Instagram? Yes, I’m working on that. But that’s LinkedIn of course. I love LinkedIn always. You can email me. I’m an open book on email and I’m a yes right now person to all coffee. So I’m willing to sit down with people I Calendly link, but certainly could find me on the website, crc financial.com and that’s where all my contact information is.
Brad Burrow (48:27):
Okay, awesome. Well, I hope people reach out to you. So the last thing that we always have to do that you are somewhat prepared for is this is the Inner world with Real Media podcast and I have to do the music. You got to do the Hollywood Voiceover guy. So to do it, you got to get really close to the mic and you go in a world like that and what’s the last part in a world with real media. Okay. Okay. So look right into this camera right here.
Marc Shaffer (48:56):
In a world with Real Media, I need to practice more. That’s that first and only. You might have a career. Yeah, yeah. Well you
Brad Burrow (49:03):
Call me. I’ll have a price for that. But yes, I’ll have the bat phone and I’ll give you a call. Marc, I need you over here. Yes. Well I really appreciate you being on the podcast. This has been really fun and it’s fun kind of catching up with you. It’s been a while since you and I actually, we’ll actually do an alumni group for introducing us. We need to do some time sometime. We that, I know Mix tried to do that over the years, but we’ve never been able to quite pull that together. So that would be
Marc Shaffer (49:26):
Fun. I might take responsibility for that. I’ll be in
Brad Burrow (49:29):
Touch. Yeah, yeah, that’d be fun. So thank you for joining us. This is The In A World With Real Media Podcast. Please share this. Please subscribe, tell people about it. We’d love to have more people on our podcast. We love talking to people. So get it out there and we will see you next time. This has been In a World with Real Media. Thanks for joining us. And be sure to subscribe on iTunes and follow real media on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. So you never miss an episode.