Steve’s passion is coaching financial planners and advisors. His career adventure has been entirely in the financial services industry. It begins with 15 years as a stockbroker, 15 years with SAFECO, 15 years with USAA, and the last 4 years split as a coach for financial advisors at a local RIA and writing a book specifically for financial advisors. The book explores how to become an advisor clients and prospects trust, hire, and refer. Released in 2025 on Amazon, the book qualified as a National Bestseller.
He started in the late 1970’s as a stockbroker in San Francisco when Silicon Valley and the burgeoning biotech industry were capturing the attention of Wall Street. His 15 years as a stockbroker were filled with opportunities to learn the value of trust and importance of character as key ingredients for successful long term client relationships. It was easy to overlook both of these ingredients when IPOs like Apple, Dell, Microsoft and Genentech were headliners and a new asset class called “junk bonds” was becoming popular. Shortsighted stockbrokers focused on the money at the expense of client trust. It is certainly possible to enjoy both, but that requires discipline, self-control, and integrity on the part of the advisor.
Steve’s time as a stockbroker taught him the difference between selling a product and providing a solution. This new insight prompted Steve to earn the CFP designation which he completed in 1986. This experience cemented his fundamental belief that money follows trust. This is the cornerstone for his approach to coaching. One favorite coaching analogy illustrates the client-advisor relationship. Steve views it like a bank account with trust being the currency. Each client meeting, phone call, email, etc. either makes a deposit or withdrawal of trust in the client relationship account. This perspective encourages purposeful meeting preparation, and opens the door for what he calls “spectacular recoveries”. Mistakes will happen. Spectacular recoveries are possible when client trust is the foundation of the relationship.
At SAFECO he learned the property casualty business as a marketing rep for both personal and commercial lines. He leveraged his experience as a stockbroker to serve as a wholesaler for SAFECO Mutual Funds. His performance earned him an invitation to home office to lead a new distribution channel for SAFECO Life and Investments Company. As Vice-President he managed the channel and was responsible for all relationships and sales of life and investment products to broker-dealers, agencies, RIAs, and banks.
He moved to USAA after SAFECO sold the Life and Investments Company. At that time USAA had over 150 CFPs in the San Antonio home office. As part of the financial planning leadership team, it was here that Steve refined his coaching skills and understanding of the art of financial planning and advice. He literally delivered thousands of coaching sessions with advisors from the highly advanced to the beginner. It was a rich environment for developing best practices in almost every area of practice management and financial planning.
What Motivates High Performance for a Financial Advisor?
High performance, by an individual or team, requires passion. Passion is a core coaching concept for Steve because it is the fuel for exciting goal achievement. Alignment of beliefs, values, dreams and goals creates the “secret sauce” for long term passion. Passion generates the motivation to execute the daily habits of discipline and self-control which deliver desired outcomes. Big audacious goals are achieved because intentional habits of discipline are executed daily.
Outside Coaching
Steve enjoys traveling and the outdoors. He has done some lengthy backpacking, including the John Muir Trail. He loves family, friends, and dogs…not always in that order. His marriage of 44 years is his most meaningful audacious goal and still requires daily habits of discipline.
What do Steve’s clients say about him?
*Our conversations were always productive and I appreciate the moments of laughter that lightened the atmosphere and made the learning enjoyable.
*Your examples of leadership and coaching to motivate and guide the steps for turning dreams into incremental goals is terrific.
*I had the unique pleasure of being coached by Steve one-on-one. With his experience and insight, I wanted to write down almost everything that came out of his mouth because it was always some piece of wisdom perfectly distilled.
