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Bill Coppel: Welcome back to Synergize. I'm Bill Copell, Director of Client Growth at Trade PMR, a Robinhood company.
Ryan Neal: And I'm Ryan Neal, editorial manager at Trade PMR Robinhood. And you're listening to the Synergize podcast. And Bill, back with another episode. And I'm just going to get the elephant in the room out of the way right at the top. I'm not a golf guy. I grew up around golf. My dad actually worked for John Deere selling golf of course equipment to the Lake Tahoe area. I did lessons–everything, but I just wasn't very good. And I don't play today. And I know... It shocks many of my Florida coworkers who are, you know, in the intersection of Florida and financial advice. There's also a whole bunch of golf, but I'm just not on board. But how about you? Do you play?
Bill Coppel: Yeah, I love playing golf. I played a lot when I was younger, you know, after college for a couple of years, and then kids came along and that golf went right out the window. But as it turns out, my oldest son is a superintendent, and was at a couple of different clubs. He's now back in North Carolina, which is one of the great, great locations here on the East Coast for golf. What's interesting about our guests today, Ryan, as I think about this, is that not only is it challenging to go to a top school from an academic standpoint, but then to pick up a D1 sport, that's pretty, pretty impressive. And, you know, both take tremendous amounts of work and effort. And our guest today, Greg Wells, is yeah really a special person. You know, and he spent three years as a professional golfer here and throughout North America. Before he kind of transitioned and became an advisor with EP Wealth. Now, instead of navigating greens and fairways, he's partner he's a partner and a regional director for a company that's really aimed at helping clients achieve what matters most to them in life and has really taken a tremendous a step forward by applying a lot of what he learned in the golf world, which is what we want to explore today.
Ryan Neal: I love that line, by the way, that was some good writing and it wasn't me. But I know Greg, he did one of our early articles for RA Reflections called In Pursuit of the Perfect Round. You can check it out on our website today. It's a really good story. It was a big hit for us. But now we're excited to kind of get into the nuts and bolts of his life as an advisor. So, Greg, welcome to the podcast.
Greg Wells: Thank you guys. Happy to be here. Appreciate your time.
Bill Coppel: Well, we can also ask him a little bit about golf, okay? I mean, and don't get the chance I don't get a chance often talk to a professional golfer, so I'm going to slip a couple of those in, Ryan.
Ryan Neal: Absolutely. Yeah, I'm into it. And, you know, it's just throwing it out there because I love having you here and love your story. Even though I'm not a golf guy, I thought the whole thing was fascinating to me. For anyone that didn't read the story, Greg, do you want to maybe just start off telling a little bit about yourself and your journey from, as Bill said, from the greens to the boardroom, I guess.
Greg Wells: Sure, sure. So, I mean, I grew up and golf was my whole life, right? My dad was club champion, you know, took me to the course every day, you know, junior golf, high school golf, eventually got a college golf scholarship and played UC Santa Barbara and then played for a few years after school. So, I kind of lived and died golf. I thought that's what I wanted to do with my life and I gave it 110% and around 25, 26 years old, just wasn't good enough at that point to make a living on it. And actually saw quite a few people that didn't have a great time making a living off of it, yeah through that journey. So you know I transitioned in the financial world. I've been at EP Wealth now for 16 years. Been a really fun journey, kind of learning the business, gathering clients. Still have quite a niche with PGA Tour players and Champions Tour players as clients as well. And like you said, I learned a lot along the way about failing on the golf course, but learning throughout that journey. And that's definitely you know carried over into the financial world and I think led to some of the success I've had as well.
Ryan Neal: Go Gauchos, by the way. That's where you and I have a connection is we're UC Santa Barbara grads.
Greg Wells: That's right.
Bill Coppel: You know, I wanted to jump in here, Greg, because you said something that kind of goes back to that comment around when you made that transition. What I thought was fascinating, I learned this when I read the article, which is why I encourage all of our listeners to read this article. It's really interesting. And when you started to talk about golf as a career, what You said something to this effect, which it wasn't about whether it was possible, it was probable. And that really, I thought, was extremely interesting from a mindset standpoint. How did that recognition of not just being possible, but being likely, probable, this is what I'm going to do. When did that hit you when it came to being a financial advisor?
Greg Wells: So, I mean, when you're growing up golfing, you have to believe like, I'm going to make the high school team. I'm going to make the pot. I'm going to win the tournament. I'm going to make, you know, a college team. I'm going to get a scholarship. I'm going to be the captain of the team. And then when you decide I'm going to go pro, like I'm good enough to play on the PGA Tour and make a living. And even if you just have to tell yourself, you know, fake it till you make it, that's what we as golfers do, right? I don't have it today, but I'm going to make it. I'm going to pull it off. And I think you kind of have that same mindset as a financial advisor, right? I have zero in assets and I need more. And this person I meet, I'm going to convince them to work with me and tell their friends about me and introduce me and continue to grow. So, I mean, whether you're lying to yourself or you're just trying to be a positive glass half full person, I think that's kind of the mindset I've always had. Bill is, you know, we look at things that way. So I don't know if that's answering your question or kind of the road you were referring to, but that's kind of what comes to mind.
Bill Coppel: I think you absolutely answered the question. You know, if you go into a match, my guess, not being a professional athlete, but if you've I've been in enough competitive situations as an athlete. If you go in assuming you're not going to win, you're not going to win. There's just no question about it. And that's what I took away from that.
Ryan Neal: One thing that I really liked about your story was talking about, and I didn't know this at all about the sport and how it works, but early in your career, finding the sponsors at your local club and getting people to sponsor your career and how that kind of gave you early insight into how the world of investing worked. They were investing in you. And even he I think he made a joke about writing off their losses and learning a bit about that, like lost harvesting.
Greg Wells: Yeah.
Ryan Neal: Can you talk about that and that sort of that early exposure and how it kind of gave you that second lane to turn to when the golf career was winding down?
Greg Wells: Yeah. So, I mean, like I said, you know you want to play golf. And as you get started, you realize it's expensive. I need flights. I need hotels. I need lessons. I need equipment. And, you know, we just didn't have the means for me to do all that on my own. So you kind of start at the club and you tell the story. You know, I'm going to go professional. I'm going to go to Q School and try to get my tour card. If I don't make it, I'm going to play mini tours and travel around the country and Mexico and Canada and try to make money. And, you know, here's my business plan. I think I'm going to play 20 events and I need X amount of dollars to pull that off. And, you know, I'd love to have you be a part of it. And you're also sharing with people along the way. Hey, I played great here, but I struggled there. And they're kind of coming on the journey with you. And then, like I said, some of the people that helped me were in the financial world. So one of my sponsors was an accountant and he said, hey, if we create this corporation, if investors you know lose money with you, then they can get a tax deduction. And obviously, I didn't have to worry about taxes because I wasn't making any money, but I knew tax deductions were good. And you know it's something as I tried to convince people to invest in me, you know here's the silver lining if it doesn't work out that you can also get benefits from. And so one, I gathered a large amount of money at the time for me, and I had to to understand what to do with it and how to track expenses and then how to work with accountants on how we kind of, you know, kept track of everything and tallied it up at the end. So that was my kind of first foray into the world of finance and investing. And then it's not a whole lot different than what we do now. You know, here's my story on how I invest money and can help you save on taxes and different things as an investment advisor. And you know come with me and be part of this journey at EP Wealth. So it's funny how much correlation there is.
Bill Coppel: One of the things you mentioned in the article was the similarities between, you know, your golf journey and your journey to become an advisor. And you phrased it this way, both deal with the pursuit of perfection without achieving it. Share with us that parallel in terms of what it meant for you in golf and what it means as an advisor helping people, you know, invest their money to help them achieve what's what's important in life.
Greg Wells: Sure. So, I mean, you're always chasing the perfect round. You know I've had a few great rounds in my life where even then you know, you're not quite perfect. I could have made that putt. I could have hit that one shot better, even though I shot the course record or I shot my career best. There's always it could have been a little better. And I got to get back and practice and work on that next thing. I think it's also how you're dealing with when it's not perfect, because most of the time it's not. You know most of the time you're not playing well or you're not at your best, but you still need to make a check. You still need to make the cut. And so you're learning how to deal with things when they're not ideal. right it's It's windy, it's rainy, you're tired, you don't like the course, whatever it is, and investing is kind of the same way, you know, hey, we're a little worried about inflation. We're worried about interest rates. We're worried about the unemployment number. But we have to kind of keep going forward to get that rate of return. We need to make your plan work. And so you're kind of trying to always do the best with what you have that day or what you have at that time. And it's never perfect. And I think when things seem perfect as an investment advisor now, that's when you kind of get a little worried, right? you know The market's too high, the water's too calm. Now we're a little scared. So it's also about just kind of enjoying that journey and making the right decisions at tough times, I think is what it all comes down to, both in golf and investing.
Ryan Neal: Can you tell us a little bit about the work you're doing now? What do you think sort of sets you apart besides obviously your sort of unique background career? The work you're doing with your clients today, what sets you apart in how you serve them?
Greg Wells: Yeah, I mean, again, without getting too into the weeds of EP Wealth and what we do, you know, we're a very heavy tax planning focused firm and also me as an individual. And when I say tax planning, you know, investments are just so often tied to taxes. You know, I'm worried about the market, but I don't want to pay capital gains. I need money, but I want to take it out tax efficiently. I want to leave money behind to my family or my friends, but I want them to pay as little tax as possible. Right. So it's important to pick a good stock. You know, should we pick Apple or Google or Pepsi or Coke? That's part of it. But how you deal with the tax side of it, I think, is really important. I think it's something that very few advisors feel super comfortable talking about. And I think that's kind of what makes us unique here at EP Wealth. So it's planning first, it's tax first, and the investments are important. But I think those are the big things that people really gravitate to that most advisors don't talk in depth about.
Bill Coppel: And you know following along that, Greg, you know golf is the kind of sport that takes a lot of dedication, a lot of practice, a lot of discipline. You know better than most, obviously. You played competitively in college, you know high school, college, since you were a young boy. And I'm sure that like many professional golfers, you were on that driving range every day, hitting shot after shot after shot with a really disciplined approach and grinding it out. And I think that's the language you have used in the article about this notion of grinding it out every day. We made this transition from golf. I think your first quote, non-golf career was started at a company called Paychex, if I'm not mistaken.
Greg Wells: That's right.
Bill Coppel: And you were selling. Talk to our listeners about this parallel between that discipline and that grinding it out and how you've applied that to achieve the success you've achieved, not only at Paychex, but now as a senior advisor, as a partner, as a regional director within EP Wealth, have you still got that edge?
Greg Wells: Yeah I mean, I'll maybe start it with a kind of a golf story first. You know, one of the last sponsors I had the last year I was trying was a friend of Tiger Woods. Like he's, he's played with them. He's practiced with them. And, you know, I needed another couple thousand dollars to sign up for Q School, kind of my last go around. And he said, I'm going to give you this money, but I think you should know what Tiger's doing. And I think if you expect to do this, you should be doing at least as much as the best player in the world is doing if you're trying to make up ground on these people. Right. So he went through with me. This is what he does in the morning. And this is what he does after breakfast and lunch and night and gym and everything. And, you know, for the last year, I just went at it so hard and did basically the exact same thing to where I was completely maxed out. I couldn't have worked any harder than I was working at that point in time. And I think I got about as good as I could get. And now as I look back, you know, 15, 20 years later, I don't have any regrets. It's like that was as hard as I could try and I didn't make it, you know, and I didn't have the stuff and I'm okay with that. And as I got into the business world, you know, starting at Paychex, they would say, hey, 50 cold calls a day, 100 dials. It's like, all right, well I'm going to do double that. And if I do double that, I'm probably going to get better results, right, of everybody else. And I passed my quotas and I got my bonuses and all those things. And to me, it was refreshing because at golf, I would lose when I was working twice as hard as other people. But in business, I started to see results really fast. You know, if you make $10 and I make $20, I'm going to do better. If you need to do, you know, one hour of education and I do five, I'm going to do better. And so I saw like a direct correlation between those things, which felt rewarding right away. And obviously it's not happening immediately, but you just start to see that over the longer term. And then the last thing was, you know, one of my mentors, Brian Parker, who kind of got me into the business and who I still work with, said clients can see it. You know, the market might be going down. You might be struggling with this, that or the other. You know, you might not know the answer. And you just say, hey, I don't know, but I'm going to go find out. Clients can see that you're trying as hard as you can. And I think they respect it and they understand it. And it comes through in meetings and referrals and all those things. So I think all that I learned in golf was, you know, just that work ethic and the ability to fail and try harder. It really, really helps in the business world, too.
Ryan Neal: That's great. Well, so Greg, one thing we like to do here on the show to wrap things up is we're all about helping advisors grow their business. So we like to give our listeners some imparting knowledge on what they can do to go out and grow. What's some advice you'd give them? What can they learn from your story that they can take to their firm and help grow?
Greg Wells: Yeah, let's see. From my story, I mean, I think the work ethic is one thing. I think we hear it all the time. You got to work hard. You gotta try hard. But it really is kind of that simple. And I tell people that when they start here is like, you just got to do more than the other person. You gotta go the extra mile, right? When you say you're going to do something, follow through and make sure it gets done. You know, show up, like be at the office every day and call the clients back. You know, these things all just sound so basic. But again, that's what you learn as an athlete is just like, I've got to be at the gym. I've got to be at the work. I got to be at the course in the tournament. And I think the job is the same thing. I think we all want to think we have something really special about our product or our offering. But at the end of the day it's just a client service business. And the better you can service those clients, the further you'll go.
Ryan Neal: Great. Well, I got one last quick question for both of you guys, actually. Is it true that the golf game is where like the deals get done? Do I need to learn how to play and get back into it so that I can be a part of the business world?
Bill Coppel: I'll take a stab at that one. It's a good place to go if you want to lose money.
Ryan Neal: Oh okay, right. I do well enough at that on my own.
Bill Coppel: I think you raise an interesting point and then I want to hear from Greg. but you know Certainly, there is a competitive camaraderie is the way I would put it on a golf course often. You know when you're there with people that enjoy playing, that want to be out, enjoy each other's company, It's a great environment. It also is, you know, you just kind of swing from one mindset, which is, “Oh, I'm having a great time” to, “Oh, now I got to hit a shot.” And that can, you know, kind of throw you off your game. But a lot of relationships, I would say, are built and cemented. Greg, you know, obviously you mentioned Tiger, you know, a friend of Tiger Woods and Mr. Parker. Talk about your experience in building relationships on a golf course.
Greg Wells: Yeah, I mean, where else do you go spend four or five hours with somebody, right, Ryan? Like you're just you're sitting in a car, you know, six inches apart and you're spending the entire day together sometimes. And you learn a lot about these people, you know, their family, their job, their goal, their careers. You know, you just get to know these people where else do you ever spend time with someone like that? And then obviously there's, there's good things that happen and you watch how people react. And then there's bad things that happen and you watch how people react, you know, as especially in tournaments, you know, we, for those of us that still take it pretty seriously, the tournaments are high pressure and high stress.
Ryan Neal: That's a good point, yeah.
Greg Wells: And there's, there's very few times in life, I think, where people get under that amount of stress than like a club championship coming in the last hole. There's four of us that can win and, You see how people react to that and how they react when they fail or they succeed. And you just really get to know these people in those spaces. So to me, it's an amazing place to meet people, to make friends, to do business, all those things. So I'd recommend it, although it does drive up your blood pressure, that's for sure.
Ryan Neal: Right on. Well, I'm more of a bowling kind of guy. My Monday night, we got to log off because Monday night is my bowling league night. But Greg, this was an awesome conversation. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. We really appreciate having you.
Greg Wells: Thank you guys. I've enjoyed it. Appreciate your time.
Bill Coppel: It was fun, Greg. Thank you for taking the time to have this conversation.
Ryan Neal: And thank you to everyone who's listening wherever you get this podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Apple. If you can like and subscribe and and share with your networks, all that good stuff. We really appreciate it. And we'll catch you on the next episode.
Bill Coppel: Yeah, and make sure you tune into that next episode and where we'll bring you even more insights and actionable ideas to help you grow your business. And remember, the challenge is yours to capitalize on what the future offers.
OUTRO: If you want to join the conversation or connect with us, please visit us at synergizepodcast.com. This content is provided for general information purposes only. The views expressed by non-affiliated guest speakers are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TradePMR or its affiliates. TradePMR and its affiliates do not endorse any guest speakers or their companies and therefore give no assurances as to the quality of their products and services. This channel is not monitored by TradePMR. TradePMR does not provide investment advice, tax advice or legal advice. TradePMR is a member of FINRA and SIPC. TradePMR, Inc. is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB). TradePMR provides brokerage and account services to registered investment advisors. Custodial services provided by First Clearing. First Clearing is a trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC, Member SIPC, a registered broker dealer and non-bank affiliate of Wells Fargo & Company. Copyright 2025. TradePMR, Inc. Trade-PMR, Inc. is a subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc.
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