Retiring Right: Smart Steps for Exiting Corporate America with Jake Falcon

In this episode of Author Hour, Scribe Media CEO Travis Stoliker sits down with Jake Falcon, author of Retiring Right: Smart Steps for Exiting Corporate America, the founder and CEO of Falcon Wealth Advisors.

After 20 years specializing in retirement planning, Jake could not find a single book he trusted enough to hand his clients, so he wrote his own. He talks about using the book as his new business card, drawing in aligned clients without cold pitching, and why he already wants to write another one.

Travis Stoliker: Excellent. So it's been a few years since your book came out and we just wanted to touch base and see how everything went and talk about what brought you to scribe, what got you to take that leap into becoming an author and wanted to really have just an open conversation about what got you here. Sounds perfect. Yeah. I'm happy to share. Excellent. So what brought you to scribe originally?

Jake Falcon: Well, I, you know, I thought about writing a book for quite some time and, and I'm sure we'll get into the premise of my book, but as you know, the, for someone that's not a full-time author, it's actually quite daunting to go out there and figure out, do you self publish? Do you work with a publisher? Do you hire a literary agent? And all of this research and things, and I stumbled across scribe just literally by researching things online. And I was really impressed by the simplicity and the directness of your company and how streamlined everything was and how I could pick and choose. I don't know if you still do it this way, but at the time there was different packages and ways that I could engage with scribe and I found one that worked perfect for me and that was it. We were off and sailing, but it was very, the simplicity and the directness of why I chose scribe.

Travis Stoliker: Oh, that's excellent. And can you tell us a little bit about your book and what the premise is and what you cover in the book and what goal you are looking to achieve for yourself and for the reader?

Jake Falcon: Absolutely. Yeah. So I, my full-time job, I'm a wealth advisor. I'm a founder and CEO of a wealth management company here in Kansas city. We have clients in 35 states and for the large majority of my career, I've specialized in retirement planning. And so as you can imagine, as these new books present themselves based on retirement, I tend to gobble them up and read them. But however, doing this for 20 years now, I couldn't ever find a book that I was confident in giving to my clients saying, Hey, here is what you should read as you're approaching retirement. I really like a lot of what this book has to say. Either they were dated or they were pitching products or annuities. Just there would be little things in all of these books that I didn't necessarily agree with. And so that's why I decided to write my own. And so I decided to write my own book to serve not as a, not as a, basically an example for a client to be able to use as a guide to do everything on their own, but just really, I wanted to talk about the topics and the things that they should be thinking about as they ultimately approach retirement. And that's what I was able to accomplish with the help of Scribe, of course. But that's, that's why I wrote my book. I couldn't find a book out there that I could give to my clients. So I decided just to write my own.

Travis Stoliker: That is great. And how do you use your book in your business?

Jake Falcon: Yeah. So what's, what's been great about it today, it's, you can think of it as a more robust business card, a deeper website, you know, to me, it's the new website. So if you want to, if you want to put yourself out as a professional that truly believes that in my situation, enhancing financial literacy, it's the way that I get to accomplish that. And so I give a copy to every single person that I meet with on that initial meeting, it's out there on Amazon. I did an audio version actually with Scribe's help as well. So I've got it out there, but it's, it's really, yes, it's cool that I sell books online and from time to time, but I'm really just using it as a, as a gateway for potential clients to get to know who I am and what our company stands for before they engage with us. And to actually help current clients talk about things that maybe they haven't thought of in a few years that maybe we talked about five years ago, but they have forgotten them. So that's really what I'm using it for. It's really just a financial literacy staple, something that to hang my hat on be like, this is, this is what I think about when it comes to retirement planning.

Travis Stoliker: It has to make you stand out much higher for your clients, especially when they're just a prospect having that book to be able to provide them so they can take it home when you're comparing yourself against your competitors, I imagine.

Jake Falcon: A hundred percent. Yeah. So it gives me instant legitimacy and like you said, it separates me, but what's great is I've been able to put my opinion in this book. So just as a professional, it's somewhat sometimes exhausting reiterating what you stand for. So now it's all right there. It's in black and white. Everything that I think and stand for when it comes to my philosophy on retirement planning, what people should really care about and think about. It's all right there. And I don't have to repeat myself, even though I'm happy to do that. I don't have to do that as often as I was before.

Travis Stoliker: Right. And then Javier was telling me that you had like a $9,000 client come directly out of your book. Is that, can you tell me that story?

Jake Falcon: Yeah. Yeah. We're still on, we're still on the, they haven't signed up yet exactly, but it was, it was awesome. Yeah. So, you know, they'll generate, you know, nine, 10, $12,000 a year in potential revenue, they're not a client yet, but what was fascinating is they just reached out to me and they listened to my audio book on Spotify and I don't do any advertising for the audio book. They just stumbled across it. They found it. And what was great, you know, I'm in Kansas city. I believe they were on the East coast and they already knew everything about me and my firm and what I stood for. So when we had meetings to talk about their situation and their plan, we were able to get much deeper because I didn't have to spend time explaining who I was and what I thought they already knew that. And I love the fact that they had an interest in educating themselves financially. Those are the types of clients I actually love to work with. You know, some of our clients don't know anything about finance and that's fine and we're happy to help them. But I think the people that have already self-educated themselves and realize that they need a professional to help them. That's the people that I love. They get to read this book and realize the value that we bring to them and they offer. So it's great. That was just the other day. And again, like you mentioned, it's been a couple of years since I originally published the book. So there's still a lot of momentum there behind it. And I feel like I'm still just getting started with it.

Travis Stoliker: Yeah. And Eric Jorgensen, he talks about how the book acts as your lighthouse, that it attracts the kind of people that you want to work with so that it's kind of that instead of having to talk to leads that might not be aligned on a values or philosophy when it comes to retirement. Now you've already cast that your whole message is out there and people can seek you out because they identify with the message that you're putting out through your book and your audio book.

Jake Falcon: Exactly. Yeah. You almost don't have to waste time. Like I don't want to convince someone to work with me. That's not aligned. That's painful for me and it's painful for them. Like why not go find the people that want, that believe that what we believe and need the help and the services that we offer, it's exactly right.

Travis Stoliker: And do I have this crap too, that you're basically like an invite only kind of shop where you only work with people that have an introduction or you basically are interviewing your prospects. Is that right?

Jake Falcon: Yes, absolutely. I mean, we're, we've been very fortunate that we've grown rather quickly for our age, I'm 45 and the other owners in his thirties. And so, you know, we managed today a billion dollars and we're very fortunate that we still sign up somewhere between 50 or a hundred new clients a year. But, you know, as part of that, we have to politely turn away clients that aren't good fits because we don't, we're not trying to build our company for scale. I think I, I think I took a wrong turn and at a point in my career, I thought that that was the way to go. I read these business books and they talk about building your business like McDonald's did and franchises and, and scale. But I realized I don't want to do that. I don't want to optimize for a company. I want to optimize for our clients. And so we're very particular on who we work with, even though we're signing up 50 to a hundred clients a year, if somebody is not a good fit, we will build a plan for them pro bono and give them some good free advice and kind of point them in a direction of where, of where they, we think they're going to be better served. And then we do engage and sign up clients that we think we have a good offer for. And so, but yeah, we're very, you know, it's not a, we're not very, we're not very retail where we're not just taking on anyone that walks in the door. It's very selective on who we work with.

Travis Stoliker: Yeah. As a business nerd myself, that really resonates because, you know, we hear all of, especially now in the era of podcasts, we listened to one person that says this. And then the next person says the exact contradictory advice, but they're both really successful and it's really hard to know who to listen to. I I'd love to know more about when you went down that wrong path and how did the book play into that strategy of now you being able to just turn away the clients that aren't, that aren't the perfect fit?

Jake Falcon: Yeah, I think I was on the perimeter with the book. So I was going down the road with the book, but what I really learned is from my staff actually is what, when my staff started coming to me looking for ways to opt them, I mean, they even called one of the groups, a department and I'm like, well, well, well, we don't have departments where we're too small to have a department. What do you mean? Like I've got 20 people that work at, at my company, Falcon Wealth Advisors. It's like, we don't need departments. And that was really the red flag that I was like, I am, I, as a leader, I'm leading my team into thinking they need departments and that we should be optimizing for scale. And, and that I was like, no, no, no, all we, it's very simple. We just need to take care of our clients. And so the book though, was there already because the book is talking about retirement planning. The book's not the really is the book's not for business owners. The book isn't for young people. The book is for people that have worked at a corporation for 20, 30, 40 years. They are W2 employees that have stock options, restricted stock units, 401ks. That's who we cater to. That's our core client. And that's who we add the most value to. And I've really doubled down on that since the book and this whole department discussion that's allowed me to actually gain more clarity. And in fact, we're growing just as fast, but what's great is we're signing up the right type of clients instead of just anybody. And so, yes, but it's really my team put the mirror up and made me realize that I was, I was going down a road that I didn't want to go down.

Travis Stoliker: And how do you, how does the podcast, because you have a successful podcast as well. So how does that play into your strategy of acting as a lighthouse and attracting those right candidates?

Jake Falcon: So what's great now is I'm using the podcast to promote the book and I, you know, and so those are, those are keying off each other. But I'll always remember this. I feel like I'll always remember. It's fresh in my mind now is I have a, I have a really good client who I think we've done like 400 episodes, but let's say we were on episode 300 or 250 when he came in my office and my first time meeting him, Travis, he said, I listened to every one of your podcasts. And I was humbled by that. I'm like, really? I almost wanted to apologize because I'm sure the first 20 were horrible, but he said, but he listened to every one of them. And so same with the book. He knew what I stood for. He knew about me personally because I talk about my personal life on the podcast. He knew about me professionally. And so it was just, it was very easy engagement. And we got to be that much deeper in his plan for him and his wife and his family instead of me having to talk about myself. So, but now I'm using it, you know, as a, as a spoke in a wheel, I've got the podcast, I've got the book, right? I've got an audio book. So those are all things tying together that are just all out there saying who I am and what I do. And the podcast is about retirement planning. Corey and I, my fellow business owner, we talk about retirement planning on the podcast. That's what we're talking about because that's who we cater to.

Travis Stoliker: What do you think people get wrong about retirement or what is the most common misconception that you run into?

Jake Falcon: Yeah, well, two of the problems we solve, and then I'll talk about a misconception, two of the problems we solve are one, most people don't know how much money they need to be able to retire. And two, they don't know how to turn $4 million into an income stream to last them for 30, 40 years. So those are two very big problems. But the big misconception that I think is slowly starting to shift in America, at least, is that a lot of people think retirement is the finish line and they're supposed to stop being aggressive in their investments or they're not going to make income ever again. Or they feel a little bit lost. And that's not necessarily the case. To me, retirement is getting you to choose what you do, when you do it, and with whom you do it with. And so you and I could be retired right now as executives because we're doing what we want to do, when we want to do it, and with whom we want to do it with. So if people start thinking about retirement more in those terms, the money we can certainly line up with their plan, but a lot of people think it's a finish line and it's not. It's a new phase of your life.

Travis Stoliker: Wow, that hits home. I had my first big business exit at 35. Got the sweatpants and the t-shirt and thought I was retired. I thought I was retired. I thought I was hanging it up after that. And that was not fulfilling at all, which is, I think you nailed the perfect definition of retirement. Doing what you want, when you want, with the people that you want to do it with. That's exactly right. That's what we're going for.

Jake Falcon: Right. That's what everyone should be striving for. I call that retirement and that's what it should be. And hopefully you're doing that now or you're that much closer because you're right. I'm 45 and I play golf, but I'm not very good at it. I don't want to do it every day. I don't want to do it four days a week. I'd much rather be in my office helping educate people and prepare them so they can go do what they want to do, when they want to do it, with whom they want to do it with. So, yeah, that's a big part of what we do.

Travis Stoliker: How do you instill that in your children? Do you have children, Jake?

Jake Falcon: Not yet. I'm going to be the old guy on the soccer field. My wife is pregnant. She's due here soon. Thank you. Thank you. We're very excited. My wife is obviously younger than me. First kid for both of us. Baby boy coming in August. But I'm a nerd. So I've thought about this a lot. We've even talked about, like, what schools. We don't even have a kid yet, right? But we've thought about all these things. So your question was, how do I teach financial literacy to my child?

Travis Stoliker: Yeah, I guess now, and also, I was late, too. I have an eight-year-old and I have a 15-month-old now. I mean, you're going to be a terrific father. It's everything that everybody tells you about. It's the best. It makes everything in life more rewarding. So how are you going to instill that view of retirement and that view of financial literacy into your kids?

Jake Falcon: Yeah, it's going to be difficult. Corey and I have debated this on our podcast, Uptix. And there's a fine line between being a parent and wanting the best for your child, while also, you don't want to run into this entitlement piece. So I'm going to have to work very hard with my wife. And we're going to have to dance between the two and instill both of our blue-collar mentalities into our child, while also still setting them up for success. So one of my big things, which might be a little bit controversial, is that I think a child should be raised. And my wife might not agree with this, but she's not on the show today. So I think a child should be raised to strive to go into a field of work where they are compensated appropriately. And I don't want to knock people that volunteer or people that work for nonprofits or even teachers. I'm not saying my son shouldn't be a teacher, but he should look to maximize his income as a teacher, right? Go get your MBA if that's going to pay you the highest salary. Work in the summers. Don't take all summer off. Because sadly, in America, that's where we live. If you want to have opportunity and access, you've got to play the game and you've got to earn income and get that going. Because if you earn enough, and you want to be charitable with your time or your money later in life, you can do that. And so I think a lot of people in today's, from what I've witnessed from my clients' children, is that this whole thing of just doing what you want to do, I don't necessarily think that cuts it. I think you've got to have a purpose and passion, but you've also got to get compensated for it. And another side note, this might not be as relevant, is like, I don't know if I'll be one to let my kid live with me when they're 25 years old. I moved out when I was 18, and I don't want to be this hard dad. But I learned a lot by going to college and learning to become an adult and a man. And I felt the struggle of not doing my laundry right or not cooking good food or what I learned how to become an adult. And I feel like the new generations aren't learning that because the parents are probably trying to help them. And it is tough. I mean, a starter home is 400 grand now. How is somebody supposed to afford that? Or I get it. Things are more. But that's where it all comes back to. You've got to want to understand money and how you can go make a good income so that you can be self-sufficient and financially independent and then retire. So I think it's important.

Travis Stoliker: That hits home so directly because I had that exact same view. I was like, there's no way. 18, you've got to spread your wings like I did. And now he's 8. And did you see that little meme that was going around the Internet showing the graph of like how much of your time is gone by the time they turn 18? Did you happen to see that one? No, I haven't seen that one. No. Oh, my God. Basically, this meme suggests that like 95% of your time with your kids are gone by the time they turn 18 because they're out. You know, maybe you get to see him a couple of weekends a year and and that like hit like a harpoon to the chest. And then all of a sudden, I flipped, Jake. I was like, I want to commune. I don't want to ever let them leave. I just want. But of course, that's obviously the wrong choice for them. That's that's going to build this dependency and not going to have all that resilience and all the experiences that you and I had to have in order to get us to the places that we are. But that that tension is real. That's real.

Jake Falcon: Yes. Yeah, I'm excited to learn more about it because it's it's easy for me right now to talk about it. My my business partner, he's got a two year old daughter. I think she's two or three. I think she's two. So he has he already has a different perspective than I do because he's, you know, he's raising this his daughter and his wife's pregnant again with the son. And so like, so I tell him I can't relate because I'm not there yet, but I'm coming. You know, I'll be there. So my my tune may change, but I hope I stay a little bit focused on because I think some of these things are important and it might be difficult. But the whole idea is that you want to help your kid be successful. You don't want to entitle them or enable them like you don't know. I don't think anybody wants that.

Travis Stoliker: Absolutely. Absolutely. I admire. I've got a close friend who is in the process of taking over the family business and the family business has been very, very successful. And he has done it really, really well. He worked at every layer in the business all the way up. He's the one that's buying it. He had is as an example, he was just recently reaching out to me about selling both of his jet skis because he bought out the other partner. So he's going through that loss in that, you know, sacrificing the immediacy, the immediate gratification for this long term benefit. So, yeah, it's but that's a rarity, right? Absolutely. It is. Yeah. So, Jake, what has you're a finance guy. So can you quantify the ROI of your book?

Jake Falcon: Yeah, that's a tough one. Like I am a finance guy and I track it. I mean, I wish I wish it were as easy as saying, you know, I gave away 500 copies and I got 10 clients and it generates this much revenue. I don't have that data. And I don't know if anybody truly can or even should. So it was cool that somebody randomly listened to it. And I think they'll become a client one day. They're just not quite they're not close enough to retirement yet for it to make sense. But I, you know, also the retention, like how many clients have I retained because of that book? I don't know. Right. So I can't quantify it. I'll tell you, it was worth every penny. I already want to do another one. My business partner wants to write a book. I just think if you if you have a passion, like I don't think someone should engage with Scribe if they're only doing it to make money. I think that's the wrong reason to write a book. And I think it'll come through in your book. Absolutely. Yeah, especially now with AI, because AI could write you a book and you could self publish it and it wouldn't probably be any good. And it's going to come across that way. But like if you are very passionate and you have experience, even if you have five years experience and you have an opinion and passion and a purpose of what you want to do, those are the people that I think should do it. And it's so cool to be able to hand that to someone. I'm confident that what the amount of hours and time and thought that went into that I did and that you guys helped me edit it to make it way better than it was. I thought it was polished when I gave you it. And it wasn't at all, which is funny to me. I had no idea that it was that raw, because I think I even hired an editor to clean it up before I engaged with Scribe. I did. And it got tore up by grammar and everything, which is great because it's much better. It's a much better book now because of that. But that's... There's no dollar amount I can put on it. I've done Amazon ads and I do sell books on there, but I don't make as much as I spend on the ads. And somebody told me that that... I think it was actually Javier might have said that you don't make money. That's very normal to spend more than you make on Amazon.

Travis Stoliker: That's right.

Jake Falcon: But if your goal is to get the book in as many hands, then to me, it's worth it. So I don't mind spending some money on Amazon to get it out there. I don't mind buying hundreds of copies and giving them away. I don't mind doing that. That's the whole point. That's the whole point of me writing the book.

Travis Stoliker: And so I talk to authors every day, and one that stands out, he had his largest sales month ever, two and a half years after he released the book. So that's another thing that, you know, it... People, as Eric used to like to say, people over index on the launch and not on the long tail of doing a little bit for your book for a long period, and then seeing a big spike when you never could have expected it.

Jake Falcon: Exactly. Exactly. I'm anxiously awaiting that, but I'm not, I'm not frustrated by it because again, I'm just, I'm getting it in people's hands. I'm making sure that it's getting out there. And then whatever happens, happens after that. That's the whole point of the book.

Travis Stoliker: Did you struggle with any fear or overcoming that anxiety when you were going through? Because you did the heavy lifting of writing the book yourself. Did you have any fear or this, you know, the imposter syndrome or what if nobody reads it?

Jake Falcon: No, no, no. Because again, if I felt like if, you know, if I, if I could just, even if it was just for my clients, it was good enough. Now, one tip that I use that helped me, because it's very difficult for a non-writer to sit in front of a blank Word doc on your computer and start pounding it out. So I went down a different road. I recorded a series of podcasts that were going to specifically, I made them specifically for the book. So then I hired a local editor to take however many episodes I had to transcribe that into the book, and then I edited it. So that helped me big time because I'm more of a talker than I am a writer. So I got to say it all out there, my thoughts, and then they helped me formalize it. And then Scribe really polished it up. And, you know, you guys got it across the finish line, of course, but that, that made it easy for me because I said, I just did an outline. These are what I want to talk about all the chapters. And then I would record a podcast. If someone doesn't have a podcast, they should just record themselves talking it and then go. I bet you guys could take it from there and make it a book.

Travis Stoliker: Absolutely. Well, Jake, this has been fantastic. I'm so glad that we were able to connect and do this and wishing you all the success in the world on the continued release of the book and how you're using it. Anything that you want to close on?

Jake Falcon: No, no, just thank you. Thank you for doing what you guys are doing. Keep doing it. And if anyone wants any more of my feedback or thoughts or tips, I'm happy to share them. You can find me probably best on LinkedIn or Instagram. Feel free to connect with me out there and I'm happy to share with anyone. So thank you, Travis. Thank you.