(Rhonda Ducote) We always talk about our tagline
“significance beyond success”.
I think that that is different
for every single person because everybody
every single person’s
definition of success is different.
(Joshua Garland) Hello Apriem family and welcome
to episode nine of Apriem Financial Cents.
Now, while this is technically
the ninth episode of our Apriem
Financial Cents series, it’s actually
the first time that we are replacing
our traditional monthly live webinar
with this prerecorded format.
We’re looking to do this
kind of moving forward.
We think we can bring you better quality
content this way.
Sound quality is good, video
quality is good.
We’re not to worry about Internet cutting
out and or anything along those lines.
And so on top of that,
we’re also considering starting a podcast
and so what we’ve done is about halfway
through this particular recording,
we switched to an all audio only format
just trying things out.
So let us know what you think.
Personally, I really enjoy the audio only format.
You know, if I’m at home and I’m washing
dishes or I’m folding laundry,
I can just put my headphones in and I can just listen
and I can pause it and come back later.
So anyway, that’s not for me to decide, though.
That’s for you to decide. So you tell us what you think
and if you enjoy the audio only version,
we can move towards that version only.
Or if you enjoy having the video, we can keep that going as well.
So let us know your thoughts.
With all that said, please enjoy this episode when I get to sit
with our president, Rhonda Ducote, and we unpack who Apriem Advisors is.
After celebrating its 25 year anniversary.
I mean, if you were to go back to the start,
when you started, when you came on board,
you know, and think through the years,
what would be some of those key milestones that you would focus on
if you’re telling the story?
(Rhonda Ducote) Yeah,
I think that’s a great place to start.
Of course, Mark Iwamoto and Harmon Kong founded
Apriem back in 1998. I joined in the year 2000.
I met Mark & Harmon at Fidelity Investments
in my early twenties.
And,
Harmon’s dream was always to,
you know, get back to the basics,
take the corporate structure and agendas away
from what we do here today at Apriem.
And so the dream was to sit across the table from our clients
and dedicate 100% of our time,
helping them and serving them and educating them on financial freedom.
And that’s really the premise of why
I joined them back in the year 2000.
And, as I look backwards, this is our 25th anniversary.
And I’m very proud of that.
It’s a long way.
A long way to come.
And it doesn’t seem like 25 years.
Because it’s been fun.
You know,
we really enjoy what we do.
I think when you work for a large
corporation, you get caught up in, just how big and always.
Harmon and I laugh all the time going,
less is more. And that’s exactly what we did.
More isn’t more meaning more clients,
more corporate agendas, more corporate events.
Having a smaller company and really dedicating
our entire being around, helping our clients
and educating them on their financial plan
and understanding what they own
and why they own
it sure has been really important.
(Joshua Garland) So if you don’t mind my asking.
So I think that a lot of folks
that will watch watch this.
They don’t they don’t necessarily know
the industry like us.
So I know what you mean when you’re
saying, you know, it’s different.
But why couldn’t
you guys do that where you were like,
why did you have to start a different company
to be to be able to do that in general?
(Rhonda Ducote) Yeah, when you work for a big company,
which Fidelity was a great training ground, I mean, it’s a fantastic company.
they do a really great job for the masses. What they do is,
they have buckets they need to fill to continue to be profitable.
You know, so again, more is more.
And so, you were continuously trying.
When I left, I probably was working with in excess
of 350 people by myself and not having a lot of resources.
Yeah, I was completely responsible for,
contacting them, making sure that they were happy
and they were getting what they needed.
But we didn’t have the autonomy to dig deep.
We didn’t have the capabilities
to spend the amount of time that it takes to, do a financial plan
to educate clients on asset allocation,
diversification, risk tolerance.
It was really just making sure that they stayed at Fidelity
and we were required to bring in more clients.
That was that was our goal.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just time.
And so that was really Mark and Harmon’s vision was to,
as I mentioned, get back to the basics,
bringing client sit across the desk with,
and spend the time needed to understand
and really get to know their family
and their family dynamics and
how we can assist them because everybody’s
different every quite different.
And how can you get to know them when you’re traveling?
Just constantly. Constantly dialing and,
you know, and making sure that,
you know, more dollars were coming in.
And that’s really not what we’re about here.
I do think that,
who we serve are people who really want
to take charge of their own financial landscape and build upon it.
And so we’ve seen over the last 25 years
people who have been in the work place
or just starting in the workplace,
business owners, self-employed
individuals, and we’ve see them
as you talk about these milestones,
we’ve seen them accomplish
what we set out to do 25 years ago.
So we’ve seen clients go from working 60 hours a week,
contributing to their 401(k)’s
or their Roth IRAs
or their brokerage investment accounts.
And to see them actually retire and fulfill
that dream of having financial success.
We always talk about our tagline
“significance beyond success”.
I think that that is different for every single person because
every single person’s definition of success is different.
And what makes that significant, Right.
Is it philanthropic means?
Is it taking care of their children or
grandchildren and leaving a legacy behind?
And so we really try to dig in
when we first meet a prospective client.
You know what? What is success to you?
What is what will make your life significant at the end of your life?
And everybody has different goals and dreams.
And you’re not able to do that in a large company
because it takes too much time to understand each person
And we take pride here and you as well
And really getting to know our clients and their families
and their kids and their kids, kids
and their brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. I’m very proud of that.
(Joshua Garland) It’s funny because, as you’re saying,
it makes me think of Landon (Yoshida). And Harmon as well.
And I mean, I think most of us
here at the firm, when we when we sit
with somebody,
we give them the time.
If you were at one of these other
large firms and it’s not just fidelity, right?
It’s the industry as a whole.
But I mean, how is a two hour
or two and a half hour or a three
hour long meeting perceived across the rest of the industry
where I feel like here it’s about taking care of those individuals
and bringing people into that dream family.
I think that that’s key.
I look at where we were 25 years ago,
where we had maybe a dozen clients.
which to me is it’s
so incredibly rewarding.
As not just an employee, but part of the management team here
to see what we what we’ve been able to do.
And we have an incredible staff who is like family.
And your family is my family.
And I think that you’d be one of the first people to say,
Joshua, that that’s what we say to our clients.
You know, we treat you like family.
You’re part of our Apriem family now.
And that’s very important to us.
And we take pride in making sure that just treat them like you would your own family.
And that’s really the basics. I mean, that is completely 100%
of what we did 25 years ago and what we’re still doing today.
(Joshua Garland) It makes me think of,
like, company culture. Yes.
And I feel like it gets thrown around a lot.
If you get interviewed or anybody’s talked about something,
it’s always about culture,
culture, culture.
I think that company culture
is really trickled down from the top,
from you and Harmon and Mark, Ben
and Landon, all the leadership at the top.
You guys do an amazing job of leading by example.
But in your mind,
So there’s what everyone sees Apriem as.
What do you know, what do you picture
what do you want Apriem culture
to be what you want people to view it as?
Because I think it’s trickling down
and being pushed through the rest of us.
(Rhonda Ducote) Yeah, I think it’s a lot of what
we were just talking about.
And you’re right,
I think in today’s society and
and with the millennial generation,
it’s all about corporate culture, right?
And again,
a lot of different definitions of that.
And, you know, we use the word
Ohana around here a lot, which means
family in Hawaiian. As long as we
treat people like family, then, the culture creates itself.
Do unto others.
Them do unto you.
And I think that that’s really where
we’ve started to work.
Make sure that first and foremost, we have
a quality staff who understands what we’re trying to achieve,
and that is making sure that we’re here for our clients.
So, my three priorities when I think about culture, is
do we have the right clients?
Because we’re not for everyone.
But we’re going to be for many
who are looking for that type of relationship.
I look back to several of my clients
who have been with me since the very beginning, and they are like family.
And every employee that we hire,
we look for that type of quality in them.
Are you going to… it’s not just
about a paycheck or bonuses or
what benefits you’re going to get,
Are you that type of caring person
that has that type of integrity
to fulfill our clients goals?
And you’re going to be there for them.
Sometimes it’s on the weekends and sometimes it’s at night.
Sometimes it’s in the middle of the night.
Sometimes you’re on vacation.
And I was in Europe this this past year and a client called
and I was happy to talk to them because they were going through a difficult time.
And that’s when I look
at everyone here from our operations staff
with Shawn Covarrubias heading
that to our financial planning team
with Chris Whitaker, which you’re
a part of as one of my wealth managers,
and then the trading team or investment team.
Are they looking out for the best interests of our clients
and are we doing the very best job
we can do on a day to day basis and giving 150%?
I know that I’ve achieved success when I hear the stories, when we talk
about them in our team meetings every week
about the conversations that are being had.
You mentioned Landon and, unfortunately,
we do lose clients every year they pass,
and our biggest compliment is to be included in in those services.
We’ve all at one point in time,
I know Harmon has and I have
Landon has spoken at our clients
funerals, you know, and done the eulogy. And it’s a great privilege and honor.
When you get asked by a family member, would you please say something
about my loved one? Because that’s how close you were to them.
Or when you get invited to a bar mitzvah
or if you get invited to a wedding.
It’s been you know, that’s when I know we’ve achieved that culture.
Becoming family with our clients.
(Joshua Garland) It’s funny because a couple of things
stand out to me.
So you mentioned being on vacation,
getting a call from a client, being happy to take the call,
and you’re talking about something
difficult that’s happening in their life
and that comes back to that whole concept
of Ohana and family and the fact that, our clients are our family
and we want them to be treated
and to feel like family, because
when you’re on vacation, who do you want to talk to?
you want to talk to family and it becomes okay.
So that would be number one.
Number two, I think that everything you’re talking about,
it all comes back to what is the point
of being a registered investment advisor?
Were Fiduciaries. And our job is to to act in the best interest of our clients,
which is what you do for your family.
So I think it’s interesting
the way it’s all kind of interwoven. One piece together.
I think that gives us a good update of our culture,
how we’ve gotten to where we’re at.
any obstacles along the way that stand out to you?
Let’s say you’re a young financial advisor.
You want to start your own IRA or something along those lines.
I don’t know how many listeners are out there that do that,
but I think that even our clients would be interested to know,
what kind of obstacles did you face along the way?
(Rhonda Ducote) I think that’s a great question,
and there’s been many
it definitely has been rewarding,
but there’s been challenges.
I think back to I started in the year 2000.
That was a challenge. it was Y2K If you remember that.
And it also was the beginning of the technology crises.
Back in 2001 and 2002, not to mention 9/11.
And you’re dealing with market volatility.
We were coming out of the nineties, a great bull market, right.
And then we headed right into one of the most devastating.
They call it the tech wreck for a reason.
When I was working at the large company,
I remember clients coming in just wanting the hottest mutual fund
because they were making 200% and they were hearing it on the news.
It’s crazy. And all this money was flowing into all of these tech companies.
And you couldn’t I couldn’t get anyone to really pay attention to me about,
hey, how about some bonds just for some safety?
And how about asset allocation
and a little bit of diversification.
And nobody wanted it because they wanted the quick fix.
And that’s probably our biggest challenge is
Getting our clients that we serve to to understand what their allocation
should be to stocks, to bonds, to to cash, emergency funds,
how much they should have
in each of those buckets.
So, I think the early 2000s
were a big challenge.
When the market was down
60%, 70%, 80%, some stocks were down 90%.
(Joshua Garland) And it just tracked on
for a number of years.
(Rhonda Ducote) Thousand and two was the worst of the lot.
And everybody thought it was, again,
after 9/11, this tragedy in our country.
So you had a lot of emotions.
And I do think that that’s what we do really well, too, is
we have to listen to people, understand
what emotions they’re
feeling at the time because the markets
are very psychological.
And sometimes I think of us as almost like
therapists in our own right,
because sometimes
you do have to walk people off the ledge.
And that’s what we did back
then, is that, everybody,
in the early 2000, you either
you wanted the quick fix,
but then when you saw it go down so much,
everybody wanted out.
Had they just stuck to their allocation
and, had a good mix
between these assets, it would have recovered a lot faster.
Rather than jumping in and out of the market.
(Joshua Garland) And losses would have happened,
but there would have been more limited.
That wouldn’t have been
as severe.
(Rhonda Ducote) Yeah, because once you once
you sell at a loss that big,
it takes a long time to recover from that
because now you’ve locked in those losses.
Rather than okay, things will get better.
I think a lot of people worry about companies going bankrupt
and they did. a lot of companies
didn’t make it.
However, if you’re looking at it.
And I think that that’s what registered investment advisory firms
do, is that they’re looking at companies
that not that are super speculative and, super risky.
They’re looking at the financials and valuations
and the fundamentals of these companies
and if we did go into a bad time, are these companies
still going to be solvent down the road? And so that’s what
I think we do really well, is that,
we each client has an asset allocation
that we talk about prior to investing one dime of our clients assets.
(Joshua Garland) Which is why starting with planning is very important.
(Rhonda Ducote) Absolutely, absolutely.
So the 2004 were an obstacle.
And then we had a nice recovery
and then we get into the 2008
financial crises where our central banking
system almost failed.
That was probably one of the longest recessions in my career
over the last 35 years that we had to hurdle and tackle.
And again, it was tough because, again,
a lot of emotions are out there.
So those were probably
two of the biggest ones
with the emotions of the market,
but with that comes a lot of joy, too.
So I think there’s obstacles, but
there’s with obstacles come opportunities.
And in those times you’re a big Warren Buffet fan
“buy low, sell high”.
if you keep it as simple as that. 2002 2008 were the biggest opportunities,
even though they were the biggest obstacles.
And if you would have stuck to your financial plan,
you would have been just fine tenfold.
(Joshua Garland) I think that Buffet was also
the one that said “investing is simple, but not easy”.
Because it’s very difficult to be buying
when you’re in an economic environment
like that.
Even though everyone knows
that’s what you’re supposed to do,
But everyone wants to buy when it’s way up
Here, it’s way up there.
(Rhonda Ducote) If it’s up already 200%,
you might want to go to a different story,
(Joshua Garland) I can think there’s a number of
of investment ideas that are coming to my head but I won’t say it
Jen (Olson) would get mad at me and say, you have to cut that out for sure.
And so I’m not even going to say it.
How about what’s going on with Apriem right now
this year, 2023?
Well, 2023 has been our 25th anniversary.
I reflect back on some of things that we’ve overcome, mistakes that have been made,
and we’ve made plenty,
but we’ve also overcome them.
And as I look to the future for the next 25 years,
it’s really making sure that, I’m going to go back to the basics of
we have the right employees, we have the right clients that we’re serving,
and then you have the company.
my wish would be that we continue
to grow and serve clients as we have been.
But more importantly,
I’m responsible for 16 souls here
and their families and making sure that
that all of you are okay
and that you’re happy and that
I’m providing resources
that give you the
the tools to help our clients,
whether it’s with technology,
whether it’s with office space.
I would like to see Apriem continue in perpetuity
long after myself and Harmon are gone.
And that would be very rewarding for me.
And so the next 25 years I see as building the foundation to continue on.
We have just shy of $1 billion dollars under management right now,
and I’m very proud of that.
To make sure that I get to see your kids
grow up and go to college and become, part of our community.
To continue to give back to the community.
And we’re very involved with Apriem Cares and I’m very proud of that.
To continue to build on that and to make sure that that everyone
is getting exactly what we’ve promised them.
And I believe we do that very well.
And I think that we can see it with, clients coming back
I get emails every so often from clients just thanking me
for their service and thanking me for the time that the wealth manager
spent with them or that their plan is top notch and that they understand it.
I think that’s the biggest thing, right?
Is that because we are fiduciaries
and we are a registered investment
advisory company, our responsibility
is not just to invest our clients assets.
And it’s not just about obviously
making them money.
That would be nice along the way.
And it does happen over time. It’s the goal.
But it’s making sure that they understand what we’re doing
and why we’re doing it right and that’s probably the biggest challenge
some people are very interested
Some people may not be.
And I think that our role is to make sure that they that they understand
that and that we keep educating,
even if they’ve been with us a year or if they’ve been with us for 25 years.
The education never stops and we’re here to serve them and
and to provide them with advice and to make sure
that they’re following the plan. And we’re executing on that.
(Joshua Garland) Right. Earlier, you talked about the four kind
of different departments. Have we always had four departments?
Has it always been that structure?
Why do we have it that way?
Are they siloed or do they work together?
Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
(Rhonda Ducote) Yeah, we’ve morphed quite a bit from the beginning.
It used to be three of us, so we were all our own operations persons.
So, we all opened up our own accounts and we all invested
our own accounts, with clients that we worked with.
And we kind of did a little bit of everything as we’ve grown.
Again, I talk about the resources as you grow
my mission was always have about a 50 to 1 ratio.
50 clients to each employee per se,
even though we all work as a team
and we don’t segregate like that,
we don’t like have 50 clients for Rhonda
50 clients for Joshua
they’re all of our clients and we all work together
to provide them the service that we do.
And so as we’ve grown, we’ve added staff
and then as we’ve added staff
we have gone to more of a structure
where we look at people’s strengths
And let’s put them in that role
where they’re going to find happiness and success.
And that’s why when Ben first started, our CIO,
he was a wealth manager like me.
And where his love became
was investments.
And so, when Mark decided to just be wealth manager and
kind of take a step back from the company and just work with clients,
Ben took the role of CIO because that was his passion
and that was his love, and that’s where his strengths.
Many of our clients know Ben because he’ll come in to meetings and talk
about what the vision is for the economy or for the markets and for our portfolios.
And so, the four departments, as I mentioned before,
it’s kind of morphed into that,
to where you’re most comfortable
and where you’re going to find success.
So, we have our investment team, which Ben heads up
with Jose and Kenneth and Andrew and Jennifer and Mark as well. But Ben leads the team there
and then we have our financial planning department, which you’re a part of
as well with the wealth managers.
You’re with Christopher, Landon
You also have Megan and Cole, who are the associate financial planners and planners.
And so I kind of look at financial planning and wealth management together,
even though they’re two separate departments.
And then you have our operations team,
which is really the nucleus of our team.
They make everything happen.
The heartbeat.
They make sure that our clients
are getting the service that they need,
getting their accounts opened
all of the services that come along with that,
if they need any type of money
movement, check writing, address changes.
We all work together collectively, but I think it’s been much
more efficient having the departments and everybody knows their role.
And they help out where they can
if need be.
(Joshua Garland) So how about the roughly two or more advisors
or folks at Apriem teammates that join in in most client appointments?
Where did that all come from?
Has that been around since the start?
(Rhonda Ducote) Well, not in the very beginning
because there was only three of us, but it was divide and conquer.
But as you’re going through those growing pains.
But yes, I feel really good about that, I think two is better than one.
Back in the day I really wanted two people in each appointment
because you can feed off of each other and again, everyone has different strengths.
And so, I look at you and Landon
as the dynamic duo and in meetings.
With our Industrial Services division of the team
and you guys get out on the road or come in here.
I know you have a few appointments today
You’re going to be going to Whittier with Landon today. You feed off of one another.
So you, you have that type of chemistry
that a client really appreciates that where
Landon has his specialties, you have yours
and together you’re unbeatable, in my opinion.
(Joshua Garland) Well, now I agree.
I’ve noticed that it really is a benefit to the clients in the long run,
you know, especially if one of us is out
and one of us isn’t around, you know, and
and the fact that there is more than one
individual that they can go to because
like you said earlier, where I have folks that maybe I’m responsible
to maintain a relationship with,
But they’re not Josh’s person or Josh’s, they really a part of the family.
And we’re all here to support them.
Let’s talk about compensation, because I think that the compensation
structure here is different than it is.
And I love the way that things are set up.
I think it’s probably good for people to hear
and to know why you guys
have structured it the way that you have.
Because in my opinion, I think that over time,
the rest of the industry will follow
because I just think it’s the right way to do things.
(Rhonda Ducote) Yeah, I look a lot at that.
Compensation is always one important for
each person here because it’s
your livelihood, it’s how you take care of your family.
But this industry, financial services
industry has always been a little,
you eat what you kill,
basically kind of structure.
And what I mean by that is,
especially when I was at the large corporation,
if you sell this and you fill all the buckets,
you get compensated for filling all the buckets.
Yeah, but if you only fill two of the buckets, you don’t get compensated.
So you had a little bit of a conflict
A conflict to say,
I’ve got to fill up my buckets or I don’t get my bonus.
And I never really liked that structure because again, it always goes back
to what is most beneficial for the client, right?
So, I changed the compensation
structure about eight years ago here
where most salespeople would get paid
a percentage of revenues of what they sold.
I mean, that’s just sales 101.
And I never liked that.
I always thought because I never wanted anyone here at Apriem to
feel like they had to sell a product or service.
And by removing that, Compensation of a percentage of revenues
for what you do took that conflict away.
So at Apriem we went to a salary only
type of compensation plan
that everybody has a fair, salary.
And we’re all part of one team.
And we’re all here to do the same thing,
which is serve the client
and to make sure that we’re giving
the client the best service possible.
But then we are on a bonus structure as well.
And the way that that works, as you know,
is that we all participate if we have a good year in the bonus structure.
So it’s not you get more than you or so on and so forth.
But we all participate in the good years
and we all participate in the bad.
(Joshua Garland) And I can speak for myself
as an advisor on the front end.
I think removing that reward, selling this or
selling that or hey, we really want to push this,
we’re really focused on this right now.
It removes that from the back of the advisor’s mind
so that the advisor can literally just go, you know what,
Nothing changes with the recommendation that I make.
And so I can really just focus on doing
what’s right for the person in front of me.
And as you know, I used to work on,
as a as a wholesaler.
And so my clients were advisors
and I’ve never met an advisor in my life
that didn’t say, I do
what’s in the best interest of my client.
Nobody’s ever going to say
that they don’t do what’s in the best interest of their clients.
Everyone says I do it in the best interests of my clients.
But actions speak louder than words, right?
and I saw things happen on the other end.
And so I think that having this environment where
there is no conflict of interests, there’s
nothing that pushes you to do
one thing over another.
It is what’s in the best interests of clients.
It does give them better results. So I appreciate it.
I think it’s something everyone should know about
and everyone should hear,
because I hope that other leaders
that are out there do the same.
(Rhonda Ducote) yeah, I think the industry as a whole
is moving in that direction.
You hear from clients that are coming from another advisor
You know, how they were treated or,
or the lack of communication
or I felt like I was being sold something.
And nobody wants that feeling of.
“I’m just in it, to get them a commission or to make them money.
I just felt like a number”. We hear that a lot.
Especially with, with clients coming from other advisors.
I do think that the industry is changing.
Obviously with technology, the Internet, how fast money moves now.
There’s more players in the game.
(Joshua Garland) All the podcasts that are out there,
I mean people are out there and they’re
they’re pounding the drum
or sounding that horn saying, “Hey, people,
this is what’s going
- Pay attention. Pay attention.”
(Rhonda Ducote) And I think that that that’s
why I do think the industry is changing
and I think it will always change.
And change is good.
I think that when you
are afraid of change
and not moving in one direction, there’s hurdles
Yeah, it’s sometimes it’s tough
But I think that you have to move
with how things are so quickly changing.
(Joshua Garland) Right. And it’s happened
quite rapidly.
(Rhonda Ducote) Every single day.
You know you ask me hurdles, or obstacles.
And I think that that was probably
a big learning curve for myself
is that you have to keep up with change
and you have to continue to bring in
younger advisors who are going to be here
for the long haul.
And then your role is to bring in other advisors.
Right down the road that’s
(Joshua Garland) It’s good, keeps it fresh, keeps new ideas
come in, right?
(Rhonda Ducote) Yeah, yeah. You need to be
open to the to ideas and to change.
(Joshua Garland) So before I wrap this section up,
I just want to say, I think that this whole concept of the way
that the compensation is and doing
what’s best for people, it makes me think of Landon.
And Landon is always telling everybody in the office,
remember that we need to serve first and sell second.
(Rhonda Ducote” That’s correct.
(Joshua Garland) I think it’s
so poignant and it makes such sense.
And I think it’s really, really good
for again, it’s good for the clients.
(Rhonda Ducote) Absolutely.
(Joshua Garland) Okay. So let’s pretend
and maybe we’ll do this anyway.
One year from today,
you and I were sitting down together
and we’re having this exact
same conversation
and we’re talking about Apriem,
what’s happened, what has to have happened
over that one year of time for you
to feel really good about the progress
that the firm has made?
(Rhonda Ducote) Well, a year from now, again,
my first theme is to always make sure
that we don’t have any client complaints.
I never want to hear from a client
that they didn’t get a call back.
That an appointment was canceled
or that they felt like we didn’t care.
That’s why that’s my number one.
First thing I would say is,
did we have any client complaints over the last 12 months?
And then second would be,
are they happy?
Third would be are all of our
staff, is all of our staff happy?
Did we have any turnover? If we did, why?
and learn from that
and to continue to again grow the company.
Hopefully where we have more clients,
we have more staff,
we have good performance.
we have family that have joined
it sounds quite simple.
And I think it is. I think simple is good
It doesn’t have to be complicated.
I hope everyone’s healthy.
We’ve had a lot of illness in the past
couple of years, obviously, with COVID.
And that was a big challenge too
as we go back to that.
We all learned how to work remotely.
And I think you just hit it out of the park, Joshua
again, a learning curve for Rhonda.
learning how to use Zoom and
I learned it with a lot of our clients.
And so bringing them into
the 21st century was kind of fun.
(Joshua Garland) It’s so common now,
as everyone does it now.
(Rhonda Ducote) Well,
I think where I would like to be,
is, I always want to feel to wrap
all of what I just said up
and to maybe a sentence
is to be that elite
premier registered investment
advisory firm,
not just here in California,
across the United States and globally.
We have two locations
and in La Holla still and Torrance,
but because of the zoom and remote
working, we’ve opened the doors too.
We have clients in states.
We have clients in the States.
and a few abroad.
Which was kind of been fun.
And technology today,
you feel like they’re in your living room.
(Joshua Garland) It’s amazing
how much you can get accomplished
even when somebody
is outside of the country.
Some countries
are more difficult than others.
But that’s okay.
Well, okay,
so any last words you would want to impart
on all of the viewers and Apriem family?
(Rhonda Ducote) I just want to thank our clients
for being the very best part of us.
I appreciate
all the hard work that the staff has done.
I appreciate, every role that
that’s played here at Apriem.
And I just am very blessed
to be in the position I am in today.
And it doesn’t go and I don’t take
it for granted any one day.