Member of the Month - A Friend in the Business

John LaSota isn’t just a financial advisor to his clients. He’s their friend. That means he does a lot of things that aren’t in his “job description.”  For example, he talks to them when they’re in the hospital, he takes them golfing (even when they don’t see well enough to play), and he takes out their trash after making “house calls.”
 
“All my clients want is a friend,” LaSota says. “And that’s what I become to them.” During his seminars, he tells them, “I’m looking to grow old with you.”
 

A Huge Comfort

In today’s financial environment, seniors are confused about their financial options and worried they’ll run out of money. Having a friend like LaSota is a huge comfort. As President and CEO of LaSota Investments in Lemont, Illinois, LaSota has leveraged his ability to build caring relationships into a successful investment and estate-planning firm.
 
LaSota’s mission as a financial advisor is three-fold: to help his clients protect their principal, to avoid unnecessary fees and taxation, and to increase the value of the estate they pass to their loved ones. To these ends, LaSota provides seminars and client reviews in the area of retirement and estate planning, stretch IRAs, and 401(k) rollovers. He also shows his clients how to avoid probate costs, investment scams, and Medicaid bankruptcy.
 
Because he’s so close to his clients, he takes it personally when they tell him stories about losing money in the market. Case in point: “I had a seminar attendee come to the office,” LaSota says. “We talked about moving his money into a fixed annuity. But he only made a small purchase that day. After losing $20,000 in one month, he decided to move the rest of his money. Hearing about his loss broke my heart. ”
 
LaSota grew up in a rural area southwest of Chicago. His parents were lower middle class, and many of the neighbors lacked indoor plumbing. But LaSota’s humble beginnings didn’t stop him from graduating from Southern Illinois University in 1967, becoming the only kid (of five) to graduate from college.
 
After earning his sheepskin, he went to work for State Farm as a purchasing agent. He hated it. Then he decided to try his hand at printing sales. After a later stint as a life insurance agent, he returned to the Chicago area, finding a job in the printing business. But a paper shortage put the company out of business, so LaSota needed to find new work.
 
When a friend offered him a roofing job, he grabbed it. In typical LaSota fashion, he parlayed the opportunity into a successful 20-year run in construction. At one point, as owner of a large restoration company, he had 21 crews out doing projects. He also became a prominent expert witness in the area of construction malpractice.
 
His construction company made him wealthy, but it also disappointed him. That’s because he discovered that the workers he kept on during the winter—out of the goodness of his heart—were stealing from him. Result: He decided to shut the business down.
 

Serving the Client’s Best Interests

Fast forward to his new career . . . selling stocks for a major securities firm. The company trained him in what LaSota felt was an overly harsh and old fashioned sales approach. “They wanted us to get in people’s faces,” LaSota recalls. “We’d walk down the block and knock on doors.”
 
Not only was LaSota uncomfortable with high-pressure sales, he also questioned the philosophy of the company. “If I sold more proprietary products than others in the company, I would get a free vacation. The focus was on getting vacations, not serving the client’s best interests.”
 
“Integrity is everything,” LaSota adds. “Everybody says they have it, but they don’t. The key is to put the client’s interests first and yours second.”
 
Not surprisingly, LaSota left the firm in 1995 to start his own investment firm. Initially, things were tough. But thanks to his relationship with his FMO, Dressander and Associates, who showed him how fixed index annuities can meet the needs of risk-averse clients, his business turned the corner. Last year, LaSota Investments was the top firm in the Dressander network.
 
Another success factor was his membership in the National Ethics Bureau. “I tell all my seminar attendees to plug the name of their broker into the NEB web site,” LaSota says. “If he or she is not an NEB member, I suggest they ask ‘why not?’”
 
I also tell them, “You don’t have to wait a year to find out if you can trust me. Using NEB, you can do it in five minutes on the phone or over the Internet.”
 
The bottom line for LaSota:  Friends don’t let friends lose their money.

Is your commitment to ethics and excellence noteworthy? And are you maximizing your NEB membership to grow your business? If you would like to be featured in our newsletter, click here. The National Ethics Bureau welcomes your input. Send your comments to: hlew@ethicscheck.com