Thinking Outside The Box with Go Far With Kovar's Taylor Kovar

0:00
Welcome to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. I'm Josh Elledge, Founder and CEO of UpMyInfluence.com. We turn entrepreneurs into media celebrities, grow their authority, and help them build partnerships with top influencers. We believe that every person has a unique message that can positively impact the world. Stick around to the end of the show; we'll reveal how you can be our next guest on one of the fastest growing daily inspiration podcasts on the planet in 15 to 20 minutes. Let's go.

And with us right now, we've got Taylor, Kovar. Taylor, you're the CEO of Kovar Wealth Management and the CEO of Premier Pediatric Therapy. Also, I'm a fan of GoFarWithKovar.com. If nothing else for the name with you and I were joking. You're you're set for a political campaign. I am

0:57
that's my plan. So I'm I'm ready to run for president. It's already there.

1:01
So give me kind of a backstory on how you got into both pediatric therapy, and also wealth management.

1:10
Yeah, so I grew up my parents were blue collar workers, and you know, never really had more than a few dollars between them gave away everything to charity that they did get that my dad was really, you know, stressed on us that hey, you know, if you if you want to do something, it's gonna be up to you. It's gonna be through hard work and and really putting your mind to nano. And so, you know, I was at 18 that jumped into debt trying to impress a girl. And, you know, it worked for a little bit and talk and afford to rent one month and I was asking her, Hey, I could borrow some money. I should like, Hey, listen, if you think you're gonna marry me, I'm probably gonna have to figure out money. And so my parents obviously knew nothing about money. So I went interviewed a bunch of people, read all the books I get my hands on, went to college, got my finding work my way through college and my finance degree, and luckily graduated when the market collapsed in oh eight and so you Nobody was hiring finance people. And so my brother and I started a, he had already been building a healthcare software company, I joined it, and took over operations. And so I consulted with pediatric therapy agencies all across the country for several years, ended up selling out of it, and joining a very large wealth management firm thinking, I wanted to get back into investments and help people like my parents, you know, manage, manage their money and and build up a nest egg. And so realize that the way they did things wasn't the way I want to do things. So I left and started cohort wealth management. And that's been about five years ago. And so we do a lot. We're a boutique firm, and then we do our best just to help anybody we can. It's really what we do. And through that, we really hone in on a few certain niches that we do well with, and then a bunch of our clients are in the healthcare space, and they're interested in alternative investments and so we I was still doing brokerage and consulting for healthcare companies, we found premier pediatric therapy and decided to buy it and acquire it. Wow. 17 and we took over and they had about 100 patients then it was a home health pediatric therapy company just based out of Houston. Since then, we were we have over 1000 patients all across the state of Texas and have plans to move into a couple of more states this year. So and, and through Kovar Wealth Management and premier we've we've opened up an insurance company to kind of better serve the needs of our clients and the patients and their families. We have opened up a actual consulting firm in order to help our our clients and a few other other businesses. I was being asked to speak and write on personal finance and just just business in general and and so I write an article for newspapers kind of across the country, and then realize, hey, I need a website. This all kind of pulls back to write the things that I'm having And about and so it created Go Far With Kovar is kind of a way just as a resource of the things that I'm I'm passionate about, which is, you know, family and business and obviously personal finance.

4:11
Yeah. So how does someone who doesn't really have a background in pediatric therapy say, Okay, I'm going to go be the CEO went into that decision making process, obviously, you know, is probably a good opportunity. Right, you know, without a background in that. Were you worried? Like, what do I yeah,

4:29
it has been a crazy ride. So, you know, I was on the software side of things with pediatric therapy. So So from the outside looking in, you know, I thought I knew what I was doing. And then when I got into it, I actually had a business partner that was going to run the business and so I was just going to be more silent partner, right and bring some other expertise. So that partnership didn't work out. And so somebody had to fill the shoes of CEO and so I jumped in with both feet. And you know, there's a lot of trial and error, but you know, luckily, we've been enlist. So,

5:01
wow, no kidding. Now was this How did you get connected with them and you saw that there was an opportunity for you to step in?

5:08
Yeah, so just being involved as I stayed involved in the healthcare, you know, atmosphere, and I was still doing consulting and for some companies, and also brokerage. And so, this company, I heard, Hey there, they're looking to be put on the market to sale units woman wanting to sell their business, and we went to look at it as somebody to broker the sale of it and realized, hey, this could be a really good fit for, you know, some of our investors and the rest is kind of history. So co bars, Wealth Management has done very well. And in how many years now? Five, so five years, you guys have done some pretty great business. So what would you attribute that to? Honestly, you know, it's, you know, everybody can say hard work. But really, it's it's really trying to figure out, we're not afraid to try new things. And and that's a big I tell people Hey, listen, we're not corporate, right? So I'm not a Merrill Lynch or Morgan Stanley or Edward Jones. If I try to compete with them the way they do things we're going to lose, right? We don't have, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars to put toward advertising. So I'm doing the same things the way they do them, we're going to lose. And so when I started, I just said, Hey, we gotta do something different, right? And I think that's really been the key to all of it is just not being scared to say, hey, just because that's the way it's always been done. Doesn't mean it's the right way. And so that that's, that's really create a lot of success for us. Just in the way we do business.

6:36
Yeah. And how does one go about meeting Paris Hilton?

6:42
I saw that, oh, we were in Vegas. And she was there. And we were I was with a group and they were like, I think that's Paris Hilton. And I obviously knew who she was, but didn't you know, I wouldn't recognize her. Right? And they're like, Yeah, but that's her. You know, just go say hi. And the people I was with, were kind of scared to go do it. So well, I'll go right I'm not I'm not scared to go say hi. Yeah, right, right. Yes. I just want to like, Hey, you burst Hilton. Yeah. Awesome. Nice. You know, I let my friends thought so I said hi and walked off, am I and I went back to the table. They're like you didn't even try to get a picture with her. I was like, Oh, yeah, I guess that I guess that makes sense. Let's let's go back and check with her again. Yeah, she was nice. probably thought I was a creeper which, you know, in hindsight probably was, but it was a fun experience.

7:30
Yeah, yeah. So who was your Who's your first hire with Kovar Wealth.

7:36
So I brought in one of my buddies, isn't the old gas builder or was for a long time and being in Texas and dealing with alternatives. We had a lot, a lot of people that were interested in, in the energy sector. And so he came on and join me as as really overseeing that part of the business. And so he took a lot of that side of things off my plate and we have a really large energy, enter. sector that that we deal with and and he's done really great with it and so he was he was the first hire there. And then after we after we picked up premiere I hired a girl fresh out of college named Claudia and she has been phenomenal so she's she does a lot of our investment management and client relationships. She's She's awesome. She's She's really the I say the backbone of what we do today. So been a huge help. And we've added another another advisor and just this year, we added a kind of community liaison, public relations person as well who's who's really jumped in with both feet and down fantastic.

8:39
Yeah, so obviously you do a lot of personal finance education as well on on your blog, your webs your personal blog and website. So, again, we're recording this it's kind of its beginning of May. What would you What are you generally advising audiences in terms of You know, kind of riding out the storm that we're in financially?

9:04
Yeah, you know, that's, it's tough because no one knows what's gonna happen, you know, we don't know what, six months, six months from now is gonna live, we don't know what tomorrow is gonna look like, you know, with their personal finances and within the stock market. You know, we have 30 million people on unemployment now, and all happened in the last few weeks. And so what I've told everybody, you know, almost regardless of what situation they're in, is to as just just kind of circle the wagons, let's let's be smart. Right? So if you don't need to spend extra money, don't, right. Buffett always says cash is game he's sitting on, you know, 150 billion dollars. And so, you know, I think now's the perfect time to say that, hey, let's go ahead and, you know, let it get rid of some of those excesses. Call, you know, call your credit card and ask for a lower, lower lower interest rate or you can delay payments or, you know, really just kind of thinking outside the box of how you can limit those expenses because we don't know what We don't know what tomorrow holds.

10:01
So, yeah, right. Right. So, so just basically kind of, like kind of concentrate on your keep keeping a healthy balance, you know, you know, you know whether that, you know, I guess if you were kind of going back to having the three month cushion in our accounts, you know, have liquid assets ready to kind of use from this would be perfect time for that. What about investments?

10:28
Yeah, so you know, I say that kind of circling the wagons and grabbing, you know, gathering cash is because on the investing side, it's an amazing time to be an investor. You know, the stock market's going crazy. And so, we've seen some really good buying opportunities lately. I think we're going to see even more in the coming months, but also on the alternatives with real estate, with all and gas with boats or yachts or you know, anything really. I think you're going to have amazing opportunities to pick up deals. I think you know, in the vacation rental area, you Airbnb owners, you're going to see some great opportunities over the coming months, this kind of foreclosures come up to acquire some great properties, if that's something you're interested in. And so I'm a fan of gathering cash to be able to pounce on opportunities, you know, so would you generally again, we're nobody knows right? But I mean, oil is at a low right that we've not seen and Okay, just for the, for someone who's not really paying attention, what's going on in oil right now and what do you expect will happen? Yeah, you know, there's, you know, all got decimated when all this it just, it was a perfect storm of things happening all there in February and early March, which is has really put a hurt on things. You know, I think we're, we're going to be hurt for a while, because people aren't going to be traveling as much. You know, cruise ships aren't going airplanes aren't flying as much. People aren't driving as much and so I think we're in for a longer road with oil. I think Long term, you're going to see some of the premier players, the ones who are doing business without being super, super leveraged, and who think they're gonna come out really well. So that's those are the ones we're looking at. And, and I think long term, I think long term, we're gonna be in a good spot. So yeah,

12:18
yeah. Good, good, good. Good. So in terms of leading during this time, I would imagine, you know, with pediatric care, um, you you have had to make some adjustments. I would imagine. Yeah, yeah, you do mainly pediatric therapies. So it looks like you do play therapy and a lot of other physical therapy, speech therapy. And and those might be considered kind of, I don't know, an essential I'm not I don't Yeah,

12:47
yeah. And so with that, you know, we our business is home health, so we actually send a therapist into the patient's home. Well, you know, most parents who say, hey, my kid can go a few weeks, possibly without without therapy. Yeah, put everybody on hold because, you know, they didn't want a therapist who was going to other people's homes coming into their home and potentially, you know, affecting their child. And so, you know, right after Coronavirus it, we ended up seeing a 70% decline in business. And so, you know, as a business from the very beginning, we knew one that that we want to build a remote work remotely as much as possible. So we already had our phone systems all worn through the internet, all of our employees had laptops and desktops. Great. And so it was fairly easy for our office staff to quickly transition to working from home. But as business owners, we had to sit and say, Okay, what does this look like, right? If we're down 70%, this week, it's gonna be 90% next week, or, you know, is gonna be 70% a month from now, or what can we do? And so we really had to pivot as a company to say, one, how can we help our How can we help our patients and employees during this time, but also what do we do as a business, you know, so we started circling those wagons, we cut a lot of our extra expenditures that we were we were going to do Irie shifted our priorities. And luckily, you know, we're we're a month and a half into this and even though we're still down, we're only down five to 10% instead of 70%. And, you know, I, I value that based upon those pivots that we had to make of a change was happening. And when most of our competitors were either shutting down saying, Hey, we're not going to do anything at all, you know, we're just going to give a few weeks, we said, Hey, listen, if your kid wants therapy, and we have a therapist that wants to work, we're going to we're going to do it. And we really focus a lot on digital advertising and digital communication. And so we've been very fortunate. Yeah,

14:38
yeah. What do you expect in terms of you go back over to the cove our wealth management Sorry, I see. I see a lot with you, but you do many things. So I do. Yes. Follow my curiosity here. You're good. So for Kovar Wealth Management, you know what does a wealth management firm do to attract new people Clients typically.

15:01
Yeah. So traditionally, you know, you'll hear you'll hear most people say, well, it's all referrals, you know, it's word of mouth. We grow by referrals. And no, that's true. You know, you you want your clients to be evangelists for you out there out there, you know, reappraising and you think that they are, right, you'd like to say that, um, you know, it's most just aren't right most, as you say, most people, you know, they'll tell you about a bad experience, but not so much a great experience all the time. And so, for us, it's really we take very much more of a sniper approach where we say, Hey, listen, here's our ideal client, who here's who the type the type of people we want to work with, right? And we have it wrote out on our wall, this is exactly if we had to draw a picture of somebody, this is who we want to work with, and usually have the same values as we do. And the same, you know, similar goals and then we find people that match that and and basically, we we go after them so we make, you know, introductions or find people that we have in relation with and we find those introductions and then we just try to do a very good job of We don't try to come across as salesy because that's honestly I'm a horrible salesman, and I'm the first to admit it. I'm not a good salesman, and I talk people out of working with us more often than not, just because, like, hey, it's really not, you know, if you're just looking for somebody to manage your money, I can teach you how to do that. Right? Let me teach you how to do that, and then just save your money. I'm so you know, that's, that's what we do, is it's very much more, we have some digital approach, but a lot of it is we try to find people that we think would be a good fit with our, with our program. So

16:32
yeah, which, you know, I think actually makes you a much better salesperson. Just simply because that's, you know, consumers, I don't think I think they've, they've never been more savvy. So, you know, it's a lot of time, it's, you know, we're gonna do a lot more due diligence as consumers and we don't want to be sold to. So when someone starts selling to us, I think many of us were kind of recoil from that and say, Look, I'm I'm pretty Be smart. I know what I want. I know what I need, just educate me. And that's that's really what we're so I think you're, you know, you're well positioned for where consumers want to be. And so what would you imagine the kind of the future, the next? You know, kind of six to 12 months for Covar Wealth Management looking like?

17:20
Yeah, you know, I see a lot of growth in store. We felt we've had an uptick and just inbound communication from from prospects and new people over the last couple of months. And I think a lot of it is you're not relying on foot traffic walking up and down. No, not at all. Yeah. And so most of our clients in our hometown, you know, we live in a pretty small town and so most of our clients are not even in our hometown. But just based on what we do, is really it's we're set up great for this type of environment. You know, we do the stock market, which I think you know, the opposite wealth management firm we have to, but people are looking for those alternatives, something they can they put their hands on, you know, in this time when you don't know what what tomorrow holds is nice and it will go out and walk, walk through your, your hundred and 50 acre timber plantation. Right. You can see your dollars in the ground. And so that's been that's been a really nice way that we're set up. I think for us. There's tremendous growth over the next several months. I'm not going to say we predicted Coronavirus, but, you know, we were watching pretty well and made really good adjustments in February for the vast majority of our counts. And so, we came out of this, I don't wanna say, you know, unscathed I mean, everybody, you know, took a hit at some degree. But But we were luckily positioned very well moving into it with a lot of cash on hand. And so we were able to make a lot of good buys in the, you know, mid to late March. So,

18:46
all right, well, Taylor Kovar one thing that you have as well, if you go to GoFarWithKovar.com and it's K O V A R you offer a financial cure 14 day course. That folks I mean, It's actually a pretty good blog here. A lot of great content, a lot of great articles talk about PPP and SPI relief and your take on the fire, fire movement and everything. So that's great. Well, excellent. Well, Taylor Kovar again, thank you so much again. Kovar Wealth, and that's it. K O V A R Wealth.com. And, you know, folks live in your town get connected with Premier Pediatric Therapy as well. Awesome. So great. Taylor, thank you so much for joining us.

19:29
Yeah. Thank you, Josh.

Thanks for listening to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit UpMyInfluence.com slash guest. Now if you got something out of this interview would you share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you do that, tag us with the hashtag UpMyInfluence. Each month, we scour Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. We pick one winner from each platform, and you get crowned king or queen of that social media. What do you win? We're going to promote you and your business to over 120,000 social media fans totally free. Now, can you also hook us up now in your podcast player right now? Please give us a thumbs up or a rating and review. We promise to read it all and take action. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. Your feedback helps us fulfill that mission. And while you're at it, hit that subscribe button. You know why? Tomorrow, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed 15 minutes a day. My name is Josh Elledge. Let's connect on the socials. You'll find all the stuff we're doing UpMyInfluence.com. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur movement.