Jeff Titak is an 8 year veteran of the financial services industry in various capacities. He currently uses his unique collection of experience, intelligence, and creativity to help independent financial advisors navigate the intricacies of social media to assist with their business growth.
- CEO Hack: Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Mindset is everything
- CEO Nugget: Find what you do best and outsource everything else
- CEO Defined: Freedom, flexibility, and impacting people directly
Website: http://www.funkyfinanceconsulting.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jefftitak/
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Transcription:
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Intro 0:02
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?
If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.
This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
Gresham Harkless 0:27
Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today, Jeff Titak of Funky Finance Consulting. Jeff, it is awesome to have you on the show.
Jeff Titak 0:37
Well, thank you, Gresham. It's an honor to have me. Thanks for having me on.
Gresham Harkless 0:40
No problem. What I want to do is just read a little bit more about Jeff so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing.
Jeff is an eight-year veteran of the financial services industry in various capacities. He currently uses his unique collection of experience, intelligence, and creativity to help independent financial advisors navigate the intricacies of social media to assist with their business growth.
Jeff, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
Jeff Titak 1:08
Yeah, let's do it. We're looking forward to it.
Gresham Harkless 1:10
Awesome. So the first question I have is if you could explain a little bit more about your bio, tell us a little bit more about your CEO story, and what led you to get started in your business.
[restrict paid=”true”]
Jeff Titak 1:19
Yeah, sure. So great question. My story, I guess I'll start from the beginning. So right out of college, I worked for a financial firm for roughly four and a half years. I was a junior financial advisor with practice and after doing that, during that period, I kind of realized I wanted to go elsewhere with my career. So then I transitioned over to the corporate side, I was there for about two years.
I launched a startup right after that for about a year, and then after doing that, I essentially realized the best way that I could bring value to people would be to essentially offer this hybrid type of consulting, and digital marketing services that I'm currently offering. So that's a little bit about how I got to where I am today.
Gresham Harkless 2:02
Awesome, man and it's great to kind of hear how you navigated through and especially, I know you have held, like different capacities in different positions within the financial industry. So I'm sure it gives you kind of a good perspective for those people that you work with. So what I wanted to do was kind of drill a little bit deeper and hear a little bit more about your business and how exactly you help serve the clients that you work with.
Jeff Titak 2:23
Sure, yeah so my business is unique in the sense that I ultimately look at it from the results-driven type of business. So one of the things I learned from my previous startup was when we're promoting through social media really gave me the opportunity to step back and look at the channels that were most effective. What we essentially do for our firm is that we essentially help people within our platform prioritize those social media channels that they're most likely to gain the most traction.
So I typically specialize in LinkedIn, Facebook ads, and Instagram. Pinterest is also a valuable network as well. It's like a fourth one we offer. But normally, those top three are the typical ones that we provide and ultimately, we're just trying to drive user growth, interest, and ultimately action towards businesses and business interests.
Gresham Harkless 3:14
Okay, so are you actually drilling down and actually managing the campaigns for them and posting for the clients that you're working with?
Jeff Titak 3:20
We don't typically post it's more of like a digital strategist type of approach, because especially in the financial services industry, it's a highly regulated industry and in order for someone to really provide some valuable content that's personalized, it's probably best for them to just create it. However, we can just give them some guiding points on valuable content that they can provide. But um, that's a big reason why we ultimately did that was just kind of make sure that it's going to be compliant and will make everyone we work with happy.
Gresham Harkless 3:51
Yeah, that makes sense and getting an opportunity to kind of get the perspective and expert advice that you have to be able to provide insight on the best things to post information like that, but also be able to post as yourself kind of creates a good win-win environment.
Jeff Titak 4:07
Right, exactly.
Gresham Harkless 4:08
Awesome. Now, I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. This could be something that you feel kind of differentiates you or separates you from the people that might be in your industry.
Jeff Titak 4:18
Yeah, my secret sauce here. You asked me to give away the barn here. But I would say that because I was talking with someone about this earlier today and essentially, my secret sauce is my work ethic and this conversation I had earlier she told me she only hires people who have played sports competitively in the past and that was me and she was kind of saying that you really can't teach that type of work ethic that you need to get far in an athletics career, and it was just kind of a great point.
I look at a lot of the things I do for my business and the people I work with, and it really does go above and beyond. So I think my secret sauce is my work ethic, which is ultimately driven to deliver results for the people I work with.
Gresham Harkless 5:10
It makes perfect sense and I love the idea of my treatment says this all the time how the sports business is the best sport that there is. And sometimes when you have and develop those skills and understand how to put in that work and the time to be good at a certain sport, you have to do the same thing in business. So that obviously transitions over so I can understand why that person said that.
Jeff Titak 5:30
Well, it's definitely.
Gresham Harkless 5:31
So awesome. Well, I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. A CEO hack could be a book or an app, or it could be a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.
Jeff Titak 5:42
So I had a great conversation with a gentleman who I mentioned by name because I hold him in high regard. His name's Jim roar back or I'm connected with him on LinkedIn and he ultimately gave me the suggestion to read the book called Shoes by Napoleon Hill. I was reading that book and it just taught me so much I kid you not. Like my life just almost changed right after that because it really made me realize the power of mentality in terms of if you believe that, you're going to provide a lot of value and you believe you can achieve ultimately, you will.
So in terms of my life, one little nugget that I could give people of advice for, I would definitely suggest mindset is everything. And go ahead and read that book, because I think it'll change your life too.
Gresham Harkless 6:32
Yeah, absolutely. I love that book, it provides a great foundation and I feel like a lot of the motivational self-help books have little nuggets that come from Napoleon Hill's book. So it's definitely a great read. I think that's definitely a great CEO hack to add to your bookshelf.
Now I want to ask you, you might have already touched on this, but I call it a CEO nugget. This is a word of wisdom or piece of advice and it could be around the business in general, or even around maybe social media or what you do for your clients.
Jeff Titak 6:59
Sure. So a golden nugget that I would give people to work with is, to find what you do best, spend almost all your time on it, and then outsource what you can't do really well to others who do that phenomenally. And that's going to be the single best way you can grow your business. You know, there's a saying, teamwork makes the dream work. And that is 100% true in business. So if there's one little piece of advice that I could give, that's probably what it would be.
Gresham Harkless 7:29
Yeah, I love that. The idea that you have your zone of genius and whatever you do best, you do that best and you try to bring on people, as you said, to make the dream work so that you're able to kind of be a complete team and everybody can kind of read we help reach your goals.
Jeff Titak 7:44
It's so important. Yep.
Gresham Harkless 7:46
Absolutely. Now I want to ask you, which is what my favorite question is kind of like a definition for what being a CEO means. We're hoping to have different CEOs on this podcast from solopreneurs to people that have you know, 1000s of employees and startup founders. So I wanted to ask you, Jeff, what does being a CEO means to you?
Jeff Titak 8:04
So yeah, being a CEO to me means a lot of things really, it means freedom, being able to choose how you live your life, also, impacting people in a lot more direct way than just working with an organization, I think that's huge. To be able to just kind of get your hands in the business directly, and then just work with people to help them provide value and other people's lives as well.
I just think that's just so amazing. I've always kind of sensed that I've been an entrepreneur, it's because I guess my brain has always worked a little bit differently. But being a CEO, ultimately, long story short, freedom, flexibility, and directly working with people to provide value. Those are probably three great attitudes I would say to describe it.
Gresham Harkless 8:51
Absolutely. I love that definition and the idea that you have so much impact and everything that you do from the very bottom to the very top kind of high arching tasks that you do, you're having a big impact on not just yourself, but also the people that you're working with and you're providing value, just like you said.
So Jeff, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I wanted to do was kind of pass you the mic to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and how best people can get ahold of you.
Jeff Titak 9:20
Sure. Well, thank you, Gresham. So anyone who would be interested in having a further conversation about what I do, definitely feel free to reach out to me my email is jeff@funkyfinance.consulting.com. My website is funkyfinanceconsulting.com.
I've actually had people help people reach out to me outside of the financial services industry. Essentially anything I do will essentially provide value for anyone with a client-facing business. So if that fits you feel free to get in touch. And I like I said, I just love to contact people and just talk to them about ways we could possibly mutually benefit each other because that's what business is about mutually benefiting and relationships
Gresham Harkless 9:59
Absolutely create as many win-win situations as you can. So Jeff, thank you so much again for all the awesome things that you're doing is taking some time out of your schedule. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
Jeff Titak 10:10
Thank you, Gresham. You too.
Outro 10:12
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.
Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless.
Thank you for listening
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Intro 0:02
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
Gresham Harkless 0:27
Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today, Jeff Titak of Funky Finance Consulting. Jeff, it is awesome to have you on the show.
Jeff Titak 0:37
Well, thank you, Gresham. It's an honor to have me thanks for having me on.
Gresham Harkless 0:40
No problem, no problem and what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Jeff so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing and Jeff, is an eight year veteran of the financial services industry in various capacities. He currently uses his unique collection of experience, intelligence and creativity to help independent financial advisors navigate the intricacies of social media to assist with their business growth. Jeff, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
Jeff Titak 1:08
Yeah, let's do it. And we're looking forward to it.
Gresham Harkless 1:10
Awesome, awesome. So the first question I have is, if you could explain a little bit more upon your bio, tell us a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to get started in your business?
Jeff Titak 1:19
Yeah, sure. So great question. My story, I guess I'll start from the beginning. So right out of college, you know, I worked for a financial firm, for roughly four and a half years, I was a junior financial advisor with a practice and after doing that, for during that period, I kind of realized I wanted to go elsewhere with my career, so then I transitioned over to the corporate side, I was there for about two years, I launched a startup right after that for about a year. And then after doing that, I essentially realized the best way that I could bring value to people would be to essentially offer, you know, this hybrid type of consulting, digital marketing services that I'm currently offering. So that's a little bit about how I got to where I am today.
Gresham Harkless 2:02
Awesome, awesome, man and it's great to kind of hear how you navigated through and especially, I know you have held, like different capacities in different positions within the financial industry. So I'm sure it gives you kind of a good perspective for those people that you work with. So what I wanted to do was kind of drill a little bit deeper and hear a little bit more about your business and how exactly you help serve the clients that you work with.
Jeff Titak 2:23
Sure, yeah. So my business is unique in the sense that I ultimately look at it from results driven type of business. So one of the things I learned from my previous startup was, when we're promoting through social media really gave me the opportunity to step back and look at the channels that were most effective. And what we essentially do for our firm is that we essentially help people within our platform prioritize on those social media channels that they're most likely to gain the most traction from. So I'm typically I we specialize in LinkedIn, and Facebook ads, and Instagram. Pinterest is also a valuable network as well. It's like a fourth one we offer. But normally, those top three are this typical ones that we provide and ultimately, we're just trying to drive user growth, interest, and ultimately action towards businesses and business interests.
Gresham Harkless 3:14
Okay, so are you actually drilling down and actually managing the campaigns for them and posting for the clients that you're working with?
Jeff Titak 3:20
We don't typically post it's more of like a digital strategist type of approach, because especially in the financial services industry, it's a highly regulated industry and in order for someone to really provide some valuable content that's personalized, it's probably best for them to just create it. However, we can just give them some guiding like points on valuable content that they can provide. But um, that's a big reason why we ultimately did that was just kind of make sure that it's going to be compliant and will make everyone we work with happy.
Gresham Harkless 3:51
Yeah, that makes sense and get an opportunity to kind of get the perspective and in the expert advice that you have to be able to provide insight on the best things to post information like that, but also be able to post as yourself kind of creates a good win win environment.
Jeff Titak 4:07
Right, exactly.
Gresham Harkless 4:08
Awesome awesome. Now, I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this could be something that you feel like kind of differentiates you or separates you from the people that might be in your industry.
Jeff Titak 4:18
Yeah, my secret sauce here. You asked me to give away the barn here. But I would say if because I was talking with someone about this earlier today and essentially, my secret sauce is my work ethic and this conversation I had earlier was she told me she only hires people who have played sports competitively in the past and that was me and she was kind of saying that you really can't teach that type of work ethic that you need to get far in an athletics career, and it was just kind of a great point. You know, because I look at a lot of the things I do for my business and the people I to work with, and it really does go above and beyond. So I think my secret sauce is my work ethic, which is ultimately driven to deliver results for the people I work with.
Gresham Harkless 5:10
It makes perfect sense and and I love the idea of my treatment says this all the time how sports business is the best sport that there is. And sometimes when you have and develop those skills and understand how to put in that work and the time to be good at a certain sport, you have to do the same thing in business. So that obviously transitions over so I can understand why that person said that?
Jeff Titak 5:30
Well, it's definitely.
Gresham Harkless 5:31
So awesome, awesome. Well, I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And the CEO hack could be a book or an app, or it could be a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.
Jeff Titak 5:42
So I had a great conversation with a gentleman who I mentioned by name because I hold him in high regard. His name's Jim roar back or I'm connected with him on LinkedIn and he ultimately gave me the suggestion to read the book called Shoes by Napoleon Hill. I was reading that book. And it just taught me so much I kid you not like my life just almost changed right after that. Because it really made me realize the power of mentality in terms of if you believe that, you're going to provide a lot of value and you believe you can achieve ultimately, you will. So in terms of my like, one little nugget that I could give people of advice for, I would definitely suggest mindset is everything. And go ahead and read that book, because I think it'll change your life too.
Gresham Harkless 6:32
Yeah, absolutely and I love that book, that book provides a great foundation and I feel like a lot of the motivational self help books have little nuggets that come from Napoleon Hill's book. So it's definitely a great read. And I think that's a definitely a great CEO hack to add to your bookshelf. And now I want to ask you, you might have already touched on this, but I call it a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice and it could be around business in general, or even around maybe social media or what you do for your clients.
Jeff Titak 6:59
Sure. So a golden nugget that I would give people to work with is, find what you do best, spend almost all your time on it, and then outsource what you can't do really well to others who do that phenomenally. And that's going to be the single best way you can grow your business. You know, there's a saying, teamwork makes the dream work. And that is 100% true in business. So if there's one little piece of advice that I could give, that's probably what it would be.
Gresham Harkless 7:29
Yeah, I love that. And the idea that you have your zone of genius and whatever you do best, you do that best and you try to bring on people, like you said, to make the dream work so that you're able to kind of be a complete team and everybody can kind of read we help reach your goals.
Jeff Titak 7:44
It's so important. Yep.
Gresham Harkless 7:46
Absolutely, absolutely. And now I want to ask you, which is what my favorite question is kind of like a definition for what being a CEO means and we're hoping to have different CEOs on this podcast from solopreneurs, to people that have you know, 1000s of employees and startup founders. So I wanted to ask you, Jeff, what does being a CEO means to you?
Jeff Titak 8:04
So yeah, being a CEO, to me, means a lot of things really, it means freedom, being able to choose how you live your life, also, impacting people in a lot more direct way than just working with an organization, I think that's huge. To be able to just kind of get your hands in the business directly, and then just work with people to help them provide value and other people's lives as well. I just think that's just so amazing and just I've always kind of sensed that I've been an entrepreneur, it's because I guess my brain has always worked a little bit differently. But being a CEO, ultimately, long story short, freedom, flexibility, directly working with people to provide value. Those are probably some three great attitudes I would say to describe it.
Gresham Harkless 8:51
Absolutely, absolutely and I'll yeah, I love that definition and the idea that you have so much impact and everything that you do from the very bottom to the very top kind of high arching tasks that you do, you're having a big impact on not just yourself, but also the people that you're working with and you're providing value, just like you said, So Jeff, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I wanted to do was kind of pass you the mic to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and how best people can get ahold of you.
Jeff Titak 9:20
Sure. Well, thank you Gresham. So anyone who would be interested in having a further conversation for what I do, definitely feel free to reach out to me my email is jeff@funkyfinance.consulting.com. My website is funkyfinanceconsulting.com. I've actually had people help people reach out to me outside of the financial services industry. Essentially anything I do will essentially provide value for anyone with a client facing business. So if that fits you feel free to get in touch. And I like I said, I just love to contact people and just talk to them about ways we could possibly mutually benefit each other because that's what business is about mutually benefiting and relationships
Gresham Harkless 9:59
Absolutely create as many win win situations as you can. So Jeff, thank you so much again for all the awesome things that you're doing is taking some time out of your schedule. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
Jeff Titak 10:10
Thank you, Gresham. You too.
Outro 10:12
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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