Neil Vannoy, CFP®, MBA
Waco, TX
Garrett Member Since 2007

“Prior to joining the Network, the bulk of my experience in the financial services industry was as a fee-based financial advisor. Although I enjoyed the work I was doing for my clients, I still had a hard time with the fact that part of my earnings came from commissions. After all, if I wouldn’t pay commissions for advice, how could I justify asking my clients to pay them. So, I decided I needed to make a change and I took a break from the industry. During my time away from financial planning I’d always tell my wife how great it would be if I could make a living just providing financial advice to people. They’d come into my office with their questions, I’d tell them what to do and they would pay me. That would be it. No high-pressured sales and no commissions. After hearing me say this for a few years she finally asked me, “Neil, why don’t you do it? I thought, “Yeah, why not?”

When I started my business planning I knew there were two things that I wanted in my practice. Number one was I wanted to be fee-only. I didn’t want any conflicts of interests from commissions. And number two was I wanted to be independent. I didn’t want to be limited in the advice I could provide to my clients. I wanted to be able to send them anywhere to get any product or service that they needed. So, I knew what I wanted my practice to look like, but I had no idea how to go about starting it. Well, luckily, a couple of days into my planning I stumbled onto the Garrett Planning Network’s website. After scouring the website and reading Garrett’s Guide to Financial Planning, I knew that joining the Garrett Network would be the quickest and easiest way to get the information that I needed to get my business started.

Regarding my experiences with the Network so far, I have to say that I’ve been impressed. The most immediate benefit of membership was the Quick Start Manual and other start-up help provided when you join with information on everything I needed as far as how to get registered, what software to purchase and what forms I need to run my practice has saved me countless hours of research during the start-up phase of my business. Another benefit of the Network is just simply to know that I am not alone. The webinars, conference calls and continuing education opportunities provided by the Network keep me from feeling disconnected even though I’m an independent advisor. The discussion section of the Knowledge Bank also turned out to be an unexpected benefit for me. I’m generally not a fan of most message boards, but the posts to this one are top-notch and other advisors are always quick to reply if you have any questions. In conclusion, my business wouldn’t be where it is today if I hadn’t joined the Garrett Planning Network. I’m glad I joined and I highly recommend it to others.”

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