When Dave Goes made the leap from Morningstar to Advyzon, it wasn’t just about technology. It was about joining a winning team.
In this episode, Chip Kispert sits down with Dave, President of Enterprise Solutions at Advyzon, to explore what makes winning teams and great platforms in today’s wealth management space.
With nearly three decades of experience, Dave shares why Advyzon’s single-source-code platform and culture of execution stands out to him, and how the firm is redefining enterprise partnerships. It’s not about selling solutions; it’s about solving real enterprise challenges. Dave also opens up about his leadership philosophy, his love for baseball, and why servant leadership and follow-through are at the heart of real client success.
What to expect:
- How to spot and build championship-caliber teams
- Advyzon’s tech edge in a crowded platform market
- The leadership mindset that drives enterprise growth
- Why partnership is more than a buzzword
Resources:
About Our Guest:
Dave Goes is President of Enterprise Sales at Advyzon, and is instrumental in expanding the company’s reach into larger-scale wealth enterprises, including regional broker-dealers, banks, and insurance BDs. Dave’s expertise is pivotal to Advyzon’s mission to provide exceptional technology and unmatched service in the financial advisory sector.
Dave is a seasoned executive with over 28 years of experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Advyzon, Dave held several transformational senior leadership roles at Morningstar, where he significantly contributed to the growth of the firm’s large enterprise client base.
Dave earned a BS in Psychology from St Joseph’s. In his spare time, Dave enjoys spending time with his three teenage children, working out, playing baseball, and traveling.
[00:00:00] RJ Malyk:
Welcome to the 1% Better Podcast with your host, chip Kiper. I’m RJ Malyk, producer of this, uh, podcast Chip. Good to see you, and I see you have a guest today. So let’s jump right into it. Introduce your guest and tell us what you’re gonna be talking about on this podcast. I.
[00:00:16] Chip Kispert:
Thanks rj. Really appreciate it.
Uh, before going any further though, I need to add in a shout out to our work as this podcast is brought to you by Beacon Strategies, LLC, the GoTo resource for Round Tables Consulting and products that support the wealth management industry and their providers. Today I am pleased to have Dave go on the show.
Dave is president of Enterprise Solution at Advyzon. Dave is a new friend that recently joined us at our innovators round table in Savannah, Georgia recently, and he also won our Mary Blackburn partner Challenge where he was the most interesting man in the room for sharing the Advyzon’s story. Dave, welcome.
[00:00:59] DaveGoes:
Thanks so much, chip. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:02] Chip Kispert:
Well, you know, I’m excited to chat with you. Um, your accomplishments are many, uh, but a few of those include 18 years at Morningstar, 17 years enterprise solutioning, and 11 years leading enterprise client facing teams. I’m super excited to talk to you about kind of, um.
When you gave your talk at our recent round table, it was about championship teams. And I really, really look forward to, uh, kind of diving into this and, and digging a little bit deeper. Absolutely. So, uh, you know, I’m gonna get right to it. Um, I’d love for you to do, uh, just a quick introduction to yourself and maybe talk a little bit about, um, why you went to Advyzon and what you see at Advyzon.
[00:01:51] DaveGoes:
Sure.
Thanks Jim. Um, so I’m, like you said, president of Enterprise Solutions at Advyzon, and what we do is we work with the largest, uh, wealth management organizations in the world to help bring solutions to their advisory field, to their end clients. Um, and I’ve been working. In some capacity like this, like you said, uh, for about 28 years.
Um, and I was really happy at Morningstar. Morningstar’s, a phenomenal company. Always have good things to say about them. Um, but when I was approached by Advyzon, and I saw what they had built, um, the singular database structure, the single source code, all in one solution component, if that’s a word. Um. I saw it as infinitely configurable and infinitely scalable.
And plus the other thing is I worked with all these guys previously. I’ve known Lee Lee Adriana, who’s our CEO of Investment Management Solutions since we were 16-year-old kids. I’ve known Hylan for close to 20, 25 years. Um, and, and Hyland being our founder and CEO. And most importantly though, you know, what I, I saw in this platform is that.
It is the best large enterprise platform that I’d ever seen. And historically they were working mostly with small to mid-size RIAs. They definitely had large enterprise clients. But I joined because number one, the team is assembled, so I know these guys are winners. I know it’s a winning team, and then you got a winning product.
And so I jumped at the chance and I haven’t looked back and I’m just super excited about what we’re building in the the enterprise solution space.
[00:03:35] Chip Kispert:
That’s terrific. That’s terrific. So, so Dave talk, you know, you, you’ve highlighted a couple times, um, you know the team, right? What were the, what were a couple of, of the key drivers right?
For you and saying, Hey, you know, and, and you and I have chatted a little bit before about this championship team concept, you know? How do, how do you look at that? Right. And, and I know you’re a big baseball guy and you know, how do you, how do you take that? I know you played semi-pro ball at college ball.
How do you, how do you take in that concept of team and, and really applying it to the business? Because I think everybody is trying to create good teams out there.
[00:04:18] DaveGoes:
Yeah. I. A, it’s, it’s knowing the players, you know, and, and there’s a reason why when you get a new CEO at a firm, they almost inevitably are gonna bring over their winning team.
And it’s not that the other executives aren’t any good, it’s just they don’t know ’em. And as, as an executive, you have about three years to show your worth. And so you need to bring those people that you know who are winners, you’ve won with them before. Or they, uh, display the characteristics of winners.
And how do you tell a winner from a loser? Because they’ve won in the past. The beauty of business, when you’re working with large enterprises, you either win the deal or you lose the deal. Um, and when you lose, what do you, what do you learn in order to not do that, have that, uh, happen again? And so in working with Hylan and in working with Lee and other folks like Brian Huck Step and Alex Rele and folks I’ve known for years, I know these guys are winners.
Um, and then when you hire two. You know, it’s based on their resume. If somebody is interviewing and they can’t give me examples of how they won. And, and specific examples, one of my favorite questions on a, on a interview is, what’s your favorite deal and why? Um, and if it, if they light up about how they want deal and, and the amount of work they put into it, and the sweat and the blood and the tears and the teamwork and the.
That’s my kind of person. So when I meet those gritty hustle focused people who just love to win, um, that, that to me is, is palpable and you can’t really quantify it. It’s almost like a spiritual thing. Um, but their resume tells the results. Even the way a resume is written, it tells you, you know, what those results were and how they, they came up, came about them.
[00:06:08] Chip Kispert:
Got it. Got it. So, um, key, you know, so as you’re looking at the team, obviously the Advyzon management team, you know, was powerful when you, when you came in. If we, so if we take a look at that great stuff now from a tech standpoint. You know, there are a lot of, and you know, don’t take this the wrong way.
There, there are a number of different solutions out there that you’re competing with. How are you different? You know, how’s Advyzon differentiating themselves in a marketplace that, um, you know, they’re, they’re a number of players out there.
[00:06:46] DaveGoes:
Oh yeah, for sure. And, and we never disparage our competition.
Like there are so many great firms out there that have built amazing businesses. I think. For, from our perspective, we, and really Lin took a much different approach about 10, 12 years ago than the market was taking. So if you think about it, most of our co competitors grew and, and added capabilities through acquisition, you know, so they added a CRM, they, they acquired a performance reporting, uh, platform, a billing platform.
They acquired a tamp and they tried to put it all together in a best of breed solution. Our approach has always been different. And what we, what I said at the Outstart is HY really had this vision of building a platform that was a singular database structure, single source code. And every piece of functionality that he built in the team built was designed to be number one in the marketplace.
So if you think about it, fast forward to, to today based on the advisor feedback. For the um, uh, T3 Inside Information survey, the Advyzon platform has been named the best all in one platform for a ridiculous eight years in a row. Um, and it’s not just the best all in one. For any market, you know, firm that had a market share over 5%.
It’s CRM, best performance, uh, uh, reporting and billing and client portal. And all of these different accolades are coming from the advisors. So I. We’re doing something that is resonating with the advisors. In fact, one of the key numbers that we cite all the time, we just got our, uh, client survey back. So we’ve got 2,145 firms right now.
Um. Se over over 70% of ’em said, since they’ve adopted the Advyzon platform, they’re saving 30% or more of their time in a, in a given week. So think about that. That’s literally a day and a half of operational efficiency that’s been gained. And then the other part of the, that’s powerful. I know. It’s ridiculous.
It’s ridiculous. And, and if you know like. That’s why we’re winning. You know, getting back to the whole concept of the, of the winning team, you know, the star of our company is the platform and that’s over half of our employees are, are engineers and coders and technical and, and it’s just a fun place to be, especially where when you’re in a client facing role, when you say we’re gonna deliver for you and we do it, and we do it, and we do it, we do it, and, and it’s just so fun to be a part of that kind of team.
[00:09:33] Chip Kispert:
It certainly, as I’m listening to, to what you’re saying here, and I’ve observed y’all for the last couple years, um, you are building what you guys consider to be the number one delivery, and that may be, and you know. With CRM capabilities, it may be, you know, having com, some compliance oversight. It may be you’re trading going forward.
Um, I think that’s fascinating versus we do see a lot of firms that will a, uh, bolt on new functionality, but through acquisition, which creates its own integration and that those types of things that, that are, can be a challenge. So I’m gonna change gears a little bit. Right. So you talked about joining a team, right?
And, and, and joining this, this really good management team that you’ve worked with for many years or known for many years. Now, when you’re, as you’re building out your team, ’cause I know you’re doing that.
Mm-hmm.
You know, how are you kind of taking, Hey, we got this great management team and now flipping it to build your own team to, to support enterprise sales at Advyzon.
[00:10:44] DaveGoes:
Yeah, I mean, I think it gets back to what I was saying earlier, which is is, you know, do they have a track record of of winning? Um, you know, and for me it’s also like tapping into my own network of folks that who would I wanna work with again? Who do I know, knows how to get deals done, knows how to be client.
Uh, centric really puts the client at the heart of everything that they’re doing, uh, because the important thing here to remember too. Your client is part of your winning team, your job as an enterprise solution. I say enterprise solutions instead of sales because we are literally consulting with our clients and saying, if we were you, this is what we would do and why.
And so we’re in the business of creating a solution that’s going to increase efficiency and drive monetization of their investment management or their wealth management platform. That is our role. So I’m looking for guys and gals that know how to do that, have done it before, and especially if I’ve done it with them before.
Like for instance, I recently, uh, brought on board, uh, Brad Andreatta. Um, so he’s part of the enterprise solution being focused on the, the bank and broker dealer channel. Mm-hmm. I’ve worked with Brad before. I know he is a winner, and so I knew what to expect when he came in and he’s just crushing it like I knew he would.
Um, so to me, if you’re gonna build that winning team. You have to have the right players on the field. Um, do we get it right every time? No. You know, nobody does, but the reality is, I, I would say most of the clients, if not all of the clients, when I’m talking to them at industry events, at cocktail parties or whatever, they’ll say things like.
You know, Mark’s just so easy to work with. He’s a great guy. You know, Brad’s so amazing. You know, like, you get that kind of feedback consistently. It’s kind of like being a dad when somebody comes up to you, you know, and your, your kid, and they’re like, your kid is such, you know, he’s such a, he’s such a gentleman, you know?
He’s so respectful. He works hard, he plays hard. You know, that to me is, is, you know, the proof’s in the pudding with
[00:12:52] Chip Kispert:
that. That’s powerful stuff. That’s powerful stuff. So. You can hire a team. You don’t hire winners, but how do you culturally, once you hire them, how do you build? Yeah. Right. So I’m curious your thoughts on that.
[00:13:09] DaveGoes:
So, this role’s interesting to me ’cause this is the smallest team that I’ve, I’ve led in my, my leadership career. Um, you know, my, my last leadership role was, you know, close to a thousand people and. And, you know, we’ve got a team of about five people now. Um, and it’s growing quickly. Um, so what’s, and the reason I bring that up is the first time in a while where I’ve been a player coach.
Um, so I’m leading a lot of the deals that we’re working on right now. And, and so the reason I’m doing that is really to be more of that servant leader upfront in the weeds blocking and tackling with my teammates. Um. And, and leading by example, basically. And for some of these folks who have been at Advyzon for a while, who’ve come onto the team, um, they haven’t been working with large enterprises, so there’s a lot for them to learn.
Mm-hmm. And the only way you do that is if you’re in the meetings, you know, you’re on the field and you’re getting the at bats and, and you’re watching other people play. And then, you know, that to me is how you start to grow that team. And when you get those wins together. They have also gotta trust me, you know, who is this guy?
Does, does he win? Is he a winner? You know, does, does he bring the deals in and does he have good client relationships? So to, to me, it’s really about leading by example right now. Um, and I can do that. I’m, I have that luxury ’cause the team’s smaller so I can be involved in all these different, uh, deals with them.
And I’m just having a blast because I always enjoyed, uh, working on these large global deals and, and so. Doing that in the trenches with my team has been a hell of a lot of fun.
[00:14:54] Chip Kispert:
That’s terrific. That’s terrific. So, uh, I’m gonna change gears here a little bit, right? So, you know, we’ve been talking about kind of that championship team.
Obviously there’s some foundation there. What are you passionate about outside of business?
[00:15:10] DaveGoes:
Well, I think part
of it’s the, the, the charitable aspect of why we’re here today. Um, you know, I live in Naples, Florida and my, my partner, um. Works with the, the Naples, uh, women’s shelter, uh, that focuses on eliminating domestic abuse and, uh, you know, human trafficking in our local community.
Um. So for me, that’s always been a passioned project. Even when I was a little boy and a little kid. Um, you know, I always would stand up for the, the little guys who got picked on by the bullies. I hate bullies. Um, and, and people who take advantage of others. Thankfully, the good Lord bless me with the genetics to be very big and p.
Um, so I, I’ve had good success with bullies in my lifetime, but mm-hmm. You know, like that to me is. Something that’s hugely important and the fact that my partner’s working there all the time and she’s, you know, advocating for these kids and these women. And in fact, she’s there right now, uh, uh, doing her thing at the, the, the op shop is what they call it, but it’s like where you donate clothes.
I’m passionate about that. And of course I’m still passionate about baseball. Baseball was my life for many years. Um, I still play, believe it or not, in a men’s league, uh, here in Naples and Fort Myers area. So I love to do that. I’d love to win on the field still. As long as my body will let me, I’ll, I’ll be taking swings.
[00:16:38] Chip Kispert:
There you go. And that the body letting you keeps getting, uh, a little bit, a little bit harder every year. I, every year, you know. So, um, let me, uh, so, you know, I love this conversation. It’s been going on, on on. Great. Um, you know, one of the things I’m always curious ’cause I, I look at my routine. I look at how much I travel, you know, what gets you out of bed in the morning, really excited to tackle the day.
How do you, how do you think about that and getting going?
[00:17:11] DaveGoes:
Yeah. After a double header baseball game, not much gets me out of the bed, uh, on a Monday morning, but I eventually roll out and, uh, you know, make it happen. But, um, I mean, for me it’s the excitement of building and building the, you know, I know it becomes like a broken record, but building winning teams, um, and building winning solutions.
Competition for me has always been the most, where I have the most fun. Um. And not political competition, like on the field. A hundred percent transparency competition. And, and that’s what I love and Advyzon, just is a rocket ship that embodies that culture. Um, and, and I mean, you know, my kids say it, my, my partner says it all the time.
It’s just like, you are just so excited, you know, and, and happy all the time, you know. That competition though, that’s always been where I’ve had the most fun. Uh, I say it all the time when I’m, when I’m on the baseball field or I’m, I’m in a business meeting. I don’t think about anything else. Nothing like, you know, it’s just, this is my, my church, if you will.
Like, I love doing what we do. Um, and so it’s really easy to get out of bed every morning. I mean, emotionally.
[00:18:34] Chip Kispert:
That’s terrific. That’s trick and, and you’re right, emotionally. Um, all right. So, uh, you know, before we wrap up and give you your, uh, 1% better blast time, um, I got one more question and that’s looking at the well space, um, that we both dedicate our life to, right?
Mm-hmm. What wakes you up in the middle of the night? What are the, what are the pitfalls that you and advisor on wanna see wealth firms avoid?
[00:19:05] DaveGoes:
I mean, the thing that wakes me up is, is reputation. And what I mean by that is the old saying goes, you spend 30 years building a great reputation and, and one minute ruining it.
Um, and so it’s just that relentless pursuit of delivering for our clients and making sure that what we said we were going to do, we’re doing. And if. Even overdoing. And, and so, and that’s hard to do. I mean, you know, you’ve been around the business for a long time. It doesn’t matter what business you’re in, when you build these large strategic relationships that are multifaceted, um, you know, you’re working with say like a new partner, you’re figuring each other out.
But the key is, I had a, I had a good friend of mine from Morningstar, Scott Burns, um, he always said. Your job is to make sure that your client gets their next promotion. And you are, you are a part of the reason that they did. Um, and that’s how I, I think about it, is we wanted to deliver so badly that we make you guys look phenomenal because at the end of the day, they’re our teammates.
Like that’s, it’s not us and them, it’s we building this together. Um, and so I think the. The fear I have or the concerns are always related to that. Are we not delivering what happened? Um, you know, we have a little, and you’re gonna have snafus with clients and, and it just happens. I don’t care how good of a, a firm you are, that’s just reality.
Um, I just got off a call with a, a client where we had a. Issue porting over, you know, it doesn’t really matter what the issue was, but we had this issue. Um, and I called him, I talked to our CEO today, he assured me it’s gonna be, uh, fixed and it’s gonna be fixed in the next couple of days. And I’m, I’m on this for you.
And he is like, I didn’t even know you knew about this. It’s not that big of a deal. And I’m like, no, it is because your success is ours. And so, right. You are a strategic partner for us, and we’re gonna get this right for you. You know, and he is like, Hey, you gotta come out to Miami. Let’s go have some beers and stuff like that.
And it’s like, that’s the kind of, that’s the team that’s building that teamwork.
[00:21:26] Chip Kispert:
I couldn’t agree with you more. Alright, so super, that was super fun talking about questions. As we wrap up, we always like to give you, uh, the ability to have 60 seconds to share really a thought leadership topic that you believe is insightful.
Uh, so I would love to hear your 62nd blast here, Dave. Have at it.
[00:21:49] DaveGoes:
Yeah, and I don’t even know if I’ll have 60 seconds worth, but I, I think one of the things that gets thrown around in, in corporate America or corporate globally is, you know, our partner, we’re gonna partner with you, we’re gonna partner, we’re gonna partner.
But in inside the halls, you don’t hear a lot of partnership type of conversations. Um, it’s us and them and, and they dropped the ball on this and they did that. And they did this. And, and part of that’s just human nature. It’s tribal, you know, it’s been shown through sociological experiments over time that your tribe is the best and every other tribe sucks.
Um, and so it’s very instinctual for humans to do that. So when, when we are working with our enterprise firms, um, we want them to be saying. Advyzon’s a great partner. They truly, it’s a spirit of partnership. You know, we feel like they’re in our offices working for us, making us grow, reducing inefficiencies.
Um, and again, I think it just gets thrown around so much. The word partner. But if you actually deliver on it, firms know and they will bring you in for more. They will refer you to other firms. They’ll move to another firm and say, I want to talk to Advyzon because they delivered for me at X, Y, Z firm. I know they’re gonna deliver for me here.
Um, so that partner word, I would just caution people when you say it, mean it.
[00:23:19] Chip Kispert:
Dave, thanks for joining me. Uh, thank you for joining me on the Beacon, 1% better podcast. Thanks for bringing your digital knowhow to the show. Really enjoyed having you.
[00:23:29] DaveGoes:
I loved it, chip. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:23:31] RJ Malyk:
Yeah. And before you go, Dave, how about some contact information?
[00:23:34] DaveGoes:
Sure, Dave.Golze@Advyzon.com. That’s A-D-V-Y-Z, not SON. Um, and um, that’s the best way to get ahold of me and I would love to talk to, uh, any enterprises out there that are looking to, uh, take the, the stack out of their tech stack and really drive efficiencies and monetize their, uh, their platforms.
[00:23:59] RJ Malyk:
Excellent. All chip your contact info.
[00:24:02] Chip Kispert:
Uh, best way to reach me is to go to beacon strategies llc.com or reach out to Chip Kispert on LinkedIn.
[00:24:11] RJ Malyk:
Alright, sounds good. Most importantly, thank you for listening to the 1% Better Podcast. We ask you to share this podcast rated and leave a review because this actually helps others find the show.
Again, thank you for listening and for Chip Kiper and everyone at Beacon Strategies, I’m RJ Malyk and we look forward to you joining us for the next podcast.