Welcome back to the 285th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Ryan Townsley. Ryan is the founder of Town Capital, an independent RIA based in Bel Air, Maryland, that oversees nearly $50 million in AUM for 65 client households.
What’s unique about Ryan, though, is how he spent the first 15 years of his career as a nuclear power plant supervisor, and then subsequently transitioned to become a financial advisor that quickly grew to nearly $50M of assets under management in under 4 years by developing a high-touch service back to those who he knew so well in the nuclear power industry.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how, after years of giving informal financial advice to his nuclear power colleagues, Ryan was inspired to build the only financial planning firm in the country dedicated to nuclear power professionals, how Ryan worked tirelessly to develop his financial planning process to reflect nuclear power plant procedures and engineering workflows (going so far as to run redundant financial projections in different software platforms because nuclear engineers always check their numbers twice), and why Ryan chooses to meet with potential clients over a several month period before onboarding to allow their relationship to progress naturally rather than make them feel like they are in a sales process.
We also talk about how Ryan realized his passion for personal finance while leveraging the GI bill to receive his MBA for business purposes, how joining a large financial services firm as his first step into the industry helped Ryan quickly understand that he enjoyed financial planning more than the sales and investments sides of the industry, and how Ryan ultimately decided the best way to build his client base was to launch his own firm so that he could serve clients exactly the way that he wanted to see them served.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Ryan shares how he was surprised at how few referrals he received when first launching his firm despite having years of nuclear power expertise and a specialized niche, how the combination of competitiveness, an inability to quit on himself, and concentrating on the number of accomplishments in the first year of his career transition gave Ryan the motivation to keep pushing forward until the new client momentum began to build, and why Ryan still follows the words of his mentor that the key to being successful is being pleased and proud, but never satisfied.
So whether you’re interested in learning about how Ryan made the transition from nuclear power plant supervisor to niched financial advisor, how a short stint at a large advisory firm helped Ryan realize he would have a better impact in clients’ lives by launching his own firm, or how Ryan still leverages his experience in nuclear power to structure detailed financial plans that truly connect with his unique clientele, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Ryan Townsley.
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