Season 2 Episode 011
Kari Ellis
In this episode of Women’s Million Dollar Conversations, host Alice Tang sits down with Kari Ellis to discuss leaving corporate stability, overcoming skepticism, and building a high-impact, legacy-driven practice.
Key Highlights
Fact vs. Feeling: Defeat imposter syndrome and fear by actively separating emotional reactions from objective facts.
Strategic Networking: Accelerate business growth early on by developing robust centers of influence and embracing a “go-giver” mindset.
Buying Back Time: Scale efficiently by outsourcing non-core tasks—like marketing content—to focus on high-level execution.
Uncompromising Boundaries: Protect family time and business sustainability through clear personal limits.
Creating a Legacy: Elevate the next generation of women in financial services through dedicated mentorship and bold risk-taking.
"It's my turn to give back and pour that attention and that time into somebody that's up and coming in this industry."
Alice Tang: This is Alice Tang with Women’s Million Dollar Conversations. I’m in Portland, Oregon. Today, I am interviewing one of my friends from Women in Insurance and Financial Services, and her name is Kari Ellis, and she is the CEO and founder of Waypoint Consulting Group. Kari, welcome.
Kari Ellis: Thank you, Alice. I’m excited to be here
Alice Tang: Thank you, Kerry. Kerry, before we begin, would you say a few things about who you are and what’s your company do?
Kari Ellis: Yes, of course. again, my name is Kari Ellis and, I was born and raised here in Fresno, California. I am a graduate of Fresno State University, and I’m also the founder and CEO of Waypoint Consulting Partners. And our firm specializes in working with experienced financial advisors in helping them to navigate a change.
Alice Tang: One question. what do you mean by helping them to navigate the change?
Alice Tang: Well, oftentimes, financial advisors will reach a point in their careers where there’s a thread of discontent in their current situation. It could be, there’s some triggering event that has occurred in their existing firm or organization that they just feel like they can no longer live with or work around anymore. What I have found is there are many seasoned financial advisors out there that have only worked in one space, or one distribution channel for much of their career. So when they finally realize they’re ready to make a change or transition to a new platform, they don’t know where to go or who to talk to, and that’s where me and my team can come in and really be that expert and offer, professional guidance in helping them navigate that, change and, get them integrated into my vast industry network as well as successfully transition that book of business and avoid any legal pitfalls along the way
Alice Tang: Amazing. Amazing. We need more of you there. And this conversation is about the how-to and the insights from the great Kari Alice Wow. So, you’ve been talking to a lot of experienced financial advisors and try to matchmake, I’m going to use the word and tell me if this word is not right, for the best opportunity for them if they ever are thinking about moving.
Kari Ellis: Yes, you are absolutely correct. That is exactly what we do.
.Alice Tang: So, I’m just curious, you started, in the insurance and financial industry for a good period of time, What was the pivotal point that led you to start your own practice?
Kari Ellis: That’s a great question, Alice. I had actually reached a pivotal point in my own career where I looked back over the course of my own journey and the myriads of roles that I had served, and realized the excellent exposure that I had to the various distribution channels in the industry, as well as the stellar training and development that had brought me to that point.
I was truly inspired to take that pivot and that leap of faith into starting my own company, which would actually be the inspiration in the name of my company, Waypoint Consulting Partners. Which, my definition of a waypoint is, a reference point that lets us know where we are and where we’re going, or two coordinates on a map leading to a destination, and waypoints help us find our way
Alice Tang: Oh, you just touch me. Thank you for sharing that. Now, when we start a business, you know, some of the people are more supportive, and then others are more skeptical.
So, would you share a story and, the challenge that you were facing, and how did you overcome that?
Kari Ellis: Oh, yes. you’re right. once I made that pivotal choice to step away from corporate America and embark on a fresh new path, in starting my own recruiting company, and again, my firm specializes in helping seasoned financial advisors navigate a change. and to get more specific in answering your question, despite the skepticism from those who viewed, leaving the perceived security of a salaried, position with comprehensive benefits as a challenge, I held steadfast in my capabilities and decided to take a leap of faith.
Alice Tang: So the leap of faith, when I first started, you know, to do business and you were in the same business, an advisor said that, “Alice, you’ll never make it. You’re going up the hill, and the battle is too big.” And what kept me going was like to prove myself
So, do you have something similar to that?
Kari Ellis: I do. In fact, when I first started my recruiting firm eight years ago, I really did not have much to go by other than, an outdated laptop and a list of names to call. And what started in the beginning as making200 or 300 phone calls a day, being a very transactional recruiter, eventually evolved and grew into building a strong network.
And I did have those around me that were very skeptical and said, Why are you working for free? Why don’t you just go get a job?” Like, “You just go get a job with a salary and comprehensive benefits.” But it was something that I was so passionate about, and I just truly love helping [00:06:00] people, and I just knew I had found my passion and my niche in this industry, and I wasn’t willing to give up. And I’m not one to back down from a challenge
Alice Tang: Yeah, we have very similar, stories and I just love, you know, we both believe that we can.
Alice Tang: Very good. so want to know a little bit about the money story, but before that, all the guests who came to the interview,they either saved or made or, sold a million dollars. So here comes a money story, question here. when you were growing up, What’s your first memory of money?
Kari Ellis: That’s a great question. growing up in my house, I had parents that had very traditional values, especially surrounding money. And the importance of saving money and paying our bills on time was often very much a spoken topic. First, it was a save your money mindset and live within your means.
However, the unspoken aspect about money in our household was one of the most, and often overlooked areas, of planning was for planning life uncertainties in the event of a loss of a loved one or long-term care planning. And two things were something that truly caught my entire family completely off guard.
We were just not prepared for those two areas, and when it hit hard, and we were devastated. But I will say this, it was because of those life experiences in those areas, those were the two areas, that were actually the driving force that brought me to the financial services industry because I was so passionate about helping to put people in a much better position than we were. I didn’t wanna see other families be financially insolvent in the same way we were.
Alice Tang: Wow. That gave me a lot of the goosebumps. subsequently that is a lesson learned, that drive and burn your passion for helping people in that area, and that’s why you jump into the financial industry. How has these money stories or mindset impact your decision to leave your traditional corporate job and say, “I’m doing this on my own”?
Kari Ellis: That’s a great question. Sometimes tragic events and learning lessons can be the, those pivotal moments to propel us into our future self, right? And my parents spent their entire lives working as W-2 employees, and I believed that without taking some kind of risk, I would never fulfill my own passion of owning my own business.
Alice Tang: Now that you are very successful, which we see you all over the place helping thousands of, talented advisors, How do you leverage your income and resource to buy time so that you can maximize the experience, rather than saying yes to every single deal?
Kari Ellis: Yeah. more comfortable, being a business owner and have gotten to a point where I don’t need to say yes to everything anymore, I just leverage my time very wisely and prioritize the things that are important to me in my life.
The beautiful thing about the financial services industry is you can truly, design what your career path is gonna look and, and navigate that path quite nicely and earn a very nice living doing so. It is challenging, andit’s not easy in the early years, but it does get to a point where it does get easier. And the more money that you start bringing in and start earning for yourself, it does open up areas of opportunity that you can find more time for yourself.
Alice Tang: We really are very interested in knowing you know, about you and how you run your business and becoming so successful. So, we want to know what you mean by servant leadership and how it works inside your business model
Kari Ellis: So gosh, helping others and servant leadership is in my nature, so I naturally gravitated to a field where I could be of service to those in my network. so I chose this industry, or an industry where, the benefit of being able to work or as long or as short as I wanted to, plus the possibilities of setting and achieving financial goals that would have no limits. And I… When I really sat back and I thought about coming into the financial services industry, it truly was one of the only industries that I realized, wow, it offers the flexibility of work-life balance. It’s an exciting field, even after all these years later. And the industry itself offers the opportunity for me to demonstrate my value to others while fostering endless options for my own career development.
Alice Tang: I love that. Yay. All right. so we just finished talking about, the servant leadership. I’m going to say is, give before you take. Always think about how to serve, because when you help enough people to be successful, what goes around comes around.
Kari Ellis: I agree, and I very much embrace the go-giver mindset where, give first and whatever is meant to come back to me will come back in its own time.
Alice Tang: So based on your experience, what distinguished the top financial advisor from the average one?
Kari Ellis: You know, I have found that what sets apart some of the top earners and the more successful financial advisors are the ones that started building their network early in their career. They surrounded themselves with like-minded industry professionals and also a layering of support and resources that were value, not only to their practice, but also to their clients.
So they started just focusing very heavily on building that industry network. For example, if their clients need a CPA or an estate planning attorney, those two professions complement the financial services industry quite nicely. And that, in my experience, is what I have found, distinguishes or what sets apart some of the higher earning, advisors
Alice Tang: Very good. not sure if you heard this because one of my, speaking topics is your network is your prosperity. So what we talk about is having the center of influence, always, in our pocket and be able to help, whether they are clients or people we first met.
Kari Ellis: This is a relationship building industry.
Alice Tang: That’s exactly right. you know, it’s really, it’s a relationship business. we’re not in the financial business, and many business are like us, especially those service related.
Kari Ellis: Mm-hmm. Yes
Alice Tang: Now, What strategy do you recommend for women to overcome imposter syndrome and self-limiting belief?
Kari Ellis: I’m so glad you brought that up because this, imposter syndrome and self-limiting beliefs, it’s a real thing, especially in this industry. And I too, I’ve experienced it at times, and still at times I catch myself having those feelings. And what I have learned to do is when I start feeling like I have those self-limiting beliefs, the first thing I do is, if I’m telling myself, “Oh, I’m not good enough to be in this room,” I have to take a step back and ask myself, “Okay, is this a feeling?
Is this fact or is this feeling?” And when I give myself that answer, okay, this is a feeling. Okay, that’s not true. I am good enough because I was invited to the table, I am good enough, and I am experienced enough to be at this table serving with my industry colleagues and my trusted peers.
And once I set aside or remove the feeling and only focus on the fact, then I take it a step further and I think, “Okay, what helps build self-confidence for me?” And for me, it’s breaking things down into small, actionable steps. So, I really try to do at least one thing every day that pushes me out of my comfort zone. I may not feel entirely ready, but I will at least try.
Alice Tang: It’s just wonderful. I’m gonna take you back 20 years ago, not 18. There is that book that came out by Barbara Stanley. she wrote a book, Overcoming Underearnings. So this book, to me, is a must read for anybody who is starting a business, especially a woman. So one of the exercise in the book, said that, just like what you said, “Do something that you’re afraid of doing every day, no matter how small it is.” So this one day come up and I ran out of things to do, and I know I hate being tickled. I do this, and I told my husband, “Tickle me. I’m not gonna run away. I’m not gonna yell. And he did. He said, “You want it, go.” And after that, I felt can conquer the world when we look fear in the eyes, actually it’s not that big a deal.
Kari Ellis: No, It’s not, and I caught myself. I’ll share my per- my story with you. it wasn’t very long ago, I was invited to do a public speaking event, and I had the same initial reaction as so many people in the world today. “Oh, my gosh, public speaking. Oh, I’ll just die.” And when I heard myself say that, I caught myself and I said, “Really, Kari? Really? You would rather die, than to stand up in front of a group of people and talk about the things that you talk about every single day? Really?” And then when I had to separate the feeling and focus on the facts, again, my answer was, “Oh, no. I don’t wanna go that far. Okay, maybe the public speaking isn’t so bad after all.”
Alice Tang: You have made a very good point because statistics has said that, the number one fear, in the world is speaking in the public, and then the just number three, fearful about a snake. So death is really way down there we know we’re not going to die.
Alice Tang: Thank you for sharing that wonderful story. having spent 15 years in the financial industry, before scaling your own practice, what is the most valuable piece of advice you receive and still use today? We’re asking for one. I know you have plenty
Kari Ellis: I do. my very first year in the industry, I was fortunate enough to be partnered with a mentor who was a seasoned certified financial planner with 10-plus years of industry experience. It was so important for him to always do right and what’s in the best interest for the client, no matter what. And I still carry his words of wisdom with me to this very day, which are lead with integrity, do what is right, not what is easy, and always speak your truth in the process
Alice Tang: You are amazing. you are definitely the woman that your mentor has trained you to be. Thank you mentor, and thank you to Kari.
Alice Tang: So I’m gonna say that, you’re sitting in front of a client who can really become a main revenue resource for you. guess what? It’s very maintenance, is very difficult to work with. Now, early stage, most entrepreneurs that whoever who can smoke a mirror is a customer or a client. But now that built to your level of success, like you said, you have freedom to choose. Have you ever turned down such a client, and how did you do that, with the integrity, with doing the right thing, and even if it’s difficult? So tell us a little bit about that.
Kari Ellis: I’m so glad you asked that question because you’re right. When we’re early in our careers and we’re working so diligently to help to build our own business, we will take on any client, we will say yes to any piece of business in the hopes that it’s going to be fruitful for everybody. I did have a, one situation, it only happened one time, and I will never let it happen again.
I had somebody reach out to me and they wanted my team and I to do some recruiting for their firm. And so in the beginning we agreed, and then when we started doing a little bit of deeper dive to discover what their needs are and what it is that they were wanting, it very quickly turned into a situation where our business models just did not align.
It turned into a situation where they were calling every day, every other day, “How many phone calls are you making on our behalf a day, each day? How many candidates are you gonna send us this week? How many appointments are you gonna schedule for our team this week?” And it got to a point where I had to say, “This is exactly why we never work on a stipend, because we work as independent recruiters.
We have agreements secured at the corporate level with many different companies throughout the industry, a handful of different broker dealers, and even opportunities in the RIA space. And when we take our candidates through our discovery call and, peel back those layers and determine what’s gonna truly align with their core values and where it is that they see themselves in their next opportunity, if it doesn’t align with that particular firm, we’re not gonna make that introduction because it would be wasting everybody’s time.”
And that old school mindset of, “Oh, just throw them all against the wall and see how many stick,” that’s not our approach. We’re not very, we’re not transactional in that fashion. and so I had to just quickly say, “This is just not gonna work. Good luck. This is not how, this is not our firm’s business model.”
We wanna know that when, that we’re doing our due diligence, that it’s gonna be a win-win on both sides. And we’re hoping that the firm that our candidate chooses to go with, we’re hoping that’s gonna be their forever home, no one wants to see anybody jumping all around, “Oh, this was…a horrible match.” We don’t want that. And so I had to sever that relationship and the agreement very quickly It was a lesson.
Alice Tang: Yeah, you’re protecting your integrity and also protecting your mental health and your team’s, positive momentum because, most of the time the team gets it first, if they are so demanding and it’s outside of the box of a business model, enough business out there. But there is group of people who choose to run with us, and we need to protect them, too.
Alice Tang: Now, since you started only by yourself, Kari, when you to own your business and take that risk and follow your fire of passion, what was the first thing you outsourced to buy back the time so you can work on and not in your business?
Kari Ellis: Yeah. Oh, gosh. in the beginning, I attempted to create all of my marketing content for social media platforms, and I realized very quickly, oh, my gosh, I just do not have the expertise, the time, or the bandwidth to take on this project myself. So the first thing that I outsourced was to hire someone that would create all of my marketing content for social media. This person is just amazing.We, communicate quite regularly in the type of content that’s important for my target audience, and, I really owe it to her firm in her due diligence in creating the marketing content, the posts,content for my LinkedIn and social media platforms, as well as the library of blogs that I have been building over the last couple of years on my, on the homepage of my website
Alice Tang: Very good. So, you did, use the money to buy expertise so that you can continue to, use, the time effectively.
Kari Ellis: I was just gonna touch on the return on investment for hiring a marketing specialist, has created so much visibility for my company all across the country, and it has been fabulous.
Alice Tang: Very good. you know, what is in my mind, ’cause I was going to ask about boundaries. So often boundaries are the things that help us focus on what’s important. What boundaries have you put in place that help you and your business to be sustainable as you grow?
Kari: Yeah. So as my company has grown and evolved, one hard set boundary, for me, is, I will not negotiate, spending downtime with my family. Spending time with my family is always the priority.
Alice Tang: So making sure that you spend time with them, you know, showing up to all those summer camps. The ball games or whatever project they’re doing or whatever they need you for. Well, a thriving firm and a book published, what does the next chapter look like for Kari?
Kari Ellis: Oh, gosh. I’m truly passionate about helping and serving others, not only for my own successful business, but also lifting others up and inspiring them as well, and being a power partner or an, some sort of influencer to lift their business up, as well as focusing on giving back to the next generation, especially women that are coming into this industry that need that mentorship
Alice Tang: So your legacy, at least on the career and professional side, is really helping the next generation women to be successful.
Kari Ellis: Yes, of course. I have served on national boards for industry-affiliated organizations. I myself have, gone through their mentor-mentee programs, of giving back to, women in the industry to help attract, develop, and advance women in the industry, and I’m very passionate about the nurturing that was, and the professional development that was given and poured into me, and it’s my turn to give back and pour that attention and that time into somebody that’s up and coming in this industry.
Alice Tang: This is a good place where, we, blow a little horns about women in insurance and financial services. this is a almost 90-year-old organization, and the national conference once a year, this year coming up in September, in Portland, Oregon, which is my hometown. So Kari, has served on the board of directors for two years. Although she’s off the board, she has not, shrank her donation of her effort to the next generation and the organization. Kari, on behalf of all the women in the industry, we want to thank you
Kari Ellis: Oh, thank you. It’s been my pleasure, and I continue paying it forward. I owe a lot to the women- not only the women, but male allies in this industry that have been really good in partnering with me, at various places in my own career, and I just truly wanna leave that legacy. The one thing that I would hope to see in the next generation is I want them to be even more bold and take even greater risks than I have.
And I also want the next generation to know that they don’t have to forge their own path alone. They ha- they just start building their network now and surround themselves with a layering of support, of resources all around them that can help, that will help support their own vision and their own goals for their own career development.
Alice Tang: Circling back to who’s in your network, when our values and our running pace are the same, we’re running together strong. But God forbid, let’s say, I have a family health issue just like what I described, I would choose to run slower because of that. It’s no fault of me, but I’m no longer as great a partner to this example, to Kari, she’s running way faster than me. I have to find another group to support me. So that’s where the, beauty of Women in Insurance and Financial Services, ’cause you have, you know, sisters in all levels,
We are so happy to have you spending time with us sharing your insight, your experience, and what to do and what not to do [00:28:00] in being an entrepreneur, specifically in the financial industry. So thank you so much. We’re so grateful for you, Kari
Kari: I am grateful to be here, Alice. Thank you. Thank you for your time today
Kari Ellis is the Founder and CEO of WayPoint Consulting Partners. As a seasoned Recruiter and Transition Specialist, she specializes in working with experienced Financial Advisors confidently navigate a change, covering traditional brokerage, boutique, and regional firms and the possibilities within the independent broker-dealer, and RIA space. With 15+ years of experience, Kari has grown WayPoint Consulting Partners through a demonstrated history of matching accomplished candidates together with qualified career opportunities. She and her team recognize the challenges today’s career seekers experience and stand ready to provide unwavering support at every turn. Kari and her team work closely with advisors to create a personal road map of options clients might never have considered as she and her team integrate them into a vast industry network. Kari has cultivated partnerships with exceptional organizations nationwide, eager to match with talented individuals. She’s here to facilitate and lead the transition for those seeking change. WayPoint Consulting Partners values a consultative approach, blending exceptional service and seasoned expertise in the career consulting space, actions that positively make a difference. “I am truly passionate about helping qualified financial advisors navigate the complex industry landscape and learn all about the various ways they can collaborate with myself (and my team) to ensure success. I enjoy being a conduit between amazing opportunities and talented professionals”.