Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with

financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading financial

advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight

from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the

next level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis.

Welcome, everyone. Welcome to the 98th episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast.

My guest on today's podcast is Zach Toich. Zach is the founder of Values Added Financial, an independent

R.A. in the D.C. area that has quickly grown to more than $300,000 in recurring retainer

fees since launching under 18 months ago. What's unique about Zach, though, is that in a world

where we as financial advisors are typically trained to never talk about religion or politics

with clients,

Zach has specifically formed a niche in working with progressive Democrats,

which undoubtedly drives some prospects away,

but has also quickly accelerated the growth process for his firm in reaching the primary clients he wanted to work with anyway.

In this episode, we talk in depth about how picking a niche even based

on politics can actually be quite effective, precisely because it helps to deepen the relationship

with clients by having a shared set of beliefs. The kinds of clientele that Zach has been able to

attract by focusing on a political niche, the way he's created a sliding scale retainer pricing model specifically

to fit his target clientele, and how he's now developing his investment process specifically

to combine impact in ESG investing, tax loss harvesting, and an additional layer of charitable

giving that his clients are uniquely engaged in. We also talk about the rest of Zach's financial planning process

with clients, which isn't just about working with progressives, but also simply the fact that

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