Larry Annello, CFP®, CPA/PFS
Farmington, CT
Garrett Member Since 2004

“I’ve been a fee-only financial planner since 1996 when I added financial planning to the list of services offered by our CPA firm here in Farmington, CT. Traditionally CPAs have used the financial planning umbrella to offer a variety of wealth management services that produce commissions and asset management fees, but my vision was different. I wanted to provide objective, unbiased financial planning free of the influences of commissions and fees so that I could remain independent just like I was as a CPA for over the past twenty years. During the early stages of this ad hoc financial planning practice that primarily serviced the wealthier clients of the CPA firm, I was alone. For several years I experimented with selecting the right financial planning software. Honestly, I must have tried them all. Coming up with a report format that did not overwhelm the client, but still communicated the recommendations I was trying to make, was a major challenge. Every report was different and I was never sure which one served the clients the best. I often asked myself, “Is there a better way I could be doing this?” You can imagine that when you are trying to reinvent the proverbial wheel, that you are not efficient.

My time spent with practice management issues was almost as much as billable time spent with clients. From a marketing standpoint I really didn’t have a message that I could offer to prospective clients because I really didn’t know what I was offering. I took on every client that came to me and I did my best to provide them with a valuable product and answer all of their questions--answer their questions on my own--reaching out to every resource that I could get my hands on to help me.

Luckily, after a few years stumbling around with a financial planning practice that was barely covering its cost, I decided to reach out beyond CT and the local FPA meetings to find a network of like-minded practitioners. I remember saying to myself at the time, “There must be a network or association out there that is committed to fee-only financial planning the way that I am.” After a few Google searches I came across the Garrett Planning Network and Sheryl Garrett, in 2004. Sure enough, on the Garrett website there was a book whose title was exactly what I was looking for: “Garrett’s Guide to Financial Planning: How to Capture the Middle Market and Increase your Profits.” After spending less than a week reading this book I was convinced that I wanted to give the girl in the red jacket on the cover of the book a call and see what this was all about. Sheryl told me there was a prospective member webinar the next week, free of charge by the way, that I should listen in to, if I was interested.

Well, from there it was onto the new member orientation program in Kansas City and a handful of more webinars about different facets of my practice. I was no longer alone. I had a new group of friends from my orientation class that I could call on and this dynamic new tool call the GPN Intranet. Think about having a knowledge bank of all of the resources that you could think of when you are starting your practice, right at your fingertips. Well, this is only a fraction of what the GPN Intranet offers you. If you’re not a tax person and have a question about a particular tax issue, post it on the discussion board and have several answers within the same day, if not within minutes. Looking to design your first brochure and have no idea where to start? Head off to the Intranet and it’s all there for you. In my opinion the value of the information available to you on the GPN Intranet is multiples of the cost of the membership in the organization.

Another competitive advantage that the Garrett Planning Network offered my practice was the national marketing exposure generated by Sheryl Garrett. Not too often does a major financial planning issue come to the media without it being sent to Sheryl for comment. Pick up your Wall Street Journal, Money Magazine or other financial periodical and there she is giving your practice national media exposure. Consumers respect what Sheryl has to say. They go to the GPN website for more information about the Network of fee-only planners and they find you. Yes, 99% of my clients now come to me. I spend little, if no time, looking for new sources of business thanks to my affiliation with the Garrett Planning Network.

Finally, your membership in the Garrett Planning Network brings friendships. The Network offers an Annual Retreat each year for its members to gather for a few days and share ideas about their practices, their clients, and frankly, their lives. After joining the Network I attended the Annual Retreats religiously and was fortunate enough to be a presenter two years ago. Last summer I had a conflict and I could not attend the Retreat and that left me with an empty feeling in my stomach that I really missed something, and that was my friends… my business associates who I look forward to meeting at Retreat. You never really appreciate the benefit of a good practice management idea from a fellow GPN member over a cocktail until you experience it at the Retreat. Better yet, the cost of the Retreat is included in the membership.

So, where am I at today? Well, coming up on my third anniversary as a member of the Garrett Planning Network, I’m happy to say that last week I hired a paraplanner to help me manage the growth of my practice. I’m also working closely with another GPN member in New Jersey, sharing clients, providing tax advice to her clients and even sharing the resources of the paraplanner so that our practices can work in harmony. When I first started out with the idea of becoming a financial planner, succession planning for me was not even on the radar screen. It is today. In the end it comes down to what is written on the logo of some of my favorite t-shirts, “Life is good. Do what you like and like what you do.””

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