Brad Johnson: Well, Dana, welcome to Triad Headquarters.
Dana Dunkelberger: Thank you, sir.
Brad Johnson: This is the first official live podcast from our new headquarters, so don’t get scared.
Dana Dunkelberger: Stoked. This place is incredible, by the way. This is one of the coolest offices I’ve ever been in. No joke.
Brad Johnson: Well, I appreciate that. There was a lot of intention that went into the build-out. What’s interesting is it models how we’re trying to serve our members, which is one unified experience where we’ve got kind of one floor plan where it all comes together in the middle.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah. The training room and doing all that yesterday was like seamless and easy, and fun. It went awesome.
Brad Johnson: Well, yeah, and on that note, we did our first-ever training inside headquarters. So, thanks for helping facilitate that.
Dana Dunkelberger: My pleasure.
Brad Johnson: So, let’s get into it, because as I was thinking we’ve been talking about this conversation for a bit, and as I thought about we’re going to have some time with Dana here, where we can kind of dive into your journey the last couple of years. It was right at this time, about two years ago, that you joined Triad.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah. We’re two years in. Two years in, yeah.
Brad Johnson: And I was just trying to think, you’ve had quite the metamorphosis with your business. You had a super successful business before you got to Triad. So, just a quick snapshot for those that aren’t familiar. So, right at two years ago, you joined Triad. So, as we record this, it’s 10/28 of 2025. And you and your brother, Tyler, had brought in about 35 million of total assets with a team of four, which is a bit wild. You were running a little hard there at that point.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yes. We were in burnout mode.
Brad Johnson: High production. Low quality of life.
Dana Dunkelberger: I would put it that way. Yes.
Brad Johnson: Okay. And I’m going to fast forward. We’re getting towards the tail end of 2025. You all are pacing for a hundred million of new assets this year, have grown the team to 17. And so, as I was thinking about how we can serve the audience that’s watching this or listening in, you’ve had quite the before and after. And what’s cool is it’s a lot of what, I mean, quite honestly, why Triad exists in my opinion. I worked with a lot of guys like yourself over the last 15, 20 years, where high production at the sacrifice of a lot. And you’re a married man. You’ve got a family. Probably want to see them every once in a while.
Dana Dunkelberger: I like them a lot, actually.
Brad Johnson: You like your family. So, will you maybe go to the before part and whatever you want to share, whatever you’re comfortable with. What were you dealing with as you arrived at Triad?
Dana Dunkelberger: It was really burnout. Like, I went a hundred miles an hour for a decade. And for the first five years, it was awesome because I’m either at a dead stop or standing on the gas, kind of where I’ve been my whole life. So, yeah, I was struggling. Just as my kids got older, I was struggling with being away from them more and more. And I was doing dinner seminars and then going a hundred miles an hour, seeing clients and reviews and new business, and trying to run a business. And it just got to a point where I wasn’t having fun anymore, and I like to have fun. So, when it’s not fun, it makes it, I think it’s noticeable from your friends, your family, your clients.
Like, when you’re not enjoying what you do, I think for me, my wife tells me often like, “I can tell that you’re not pumped right now.” So, I’m sure it was all over my face for quite some time. But she was telling me, she’s like, “Hey, you need to chill out a little bit.”
Brad Johnson: How long, like if you look back? I think sometimes it’s easier when you look back than when you’re in it, but how long had you kind of been feeling the “I think the RPMs have been running a little too high for too long”?
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah, at least three years. Maybe longer.
Brad Johnson: And I remember you told me a story. You would get overwhelmed at work. You grew up skiing. You skied at SeaWorld, you and your brother both, so you have a really cool background. And you would almost escape to the lake house or to the boat. You’d be like, “I’m tapping out at work. Don’t call me. I’m unplugging.” And it was almost this tug of war that you were playing.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah, definitely. I mean, sometimes that would happen on a Wednesday. And if it was summer, I would just be like, I’d call my wife and I said, “Hey, I’m taking Thursday, Friday off. I’m going to the lake house from the office. Grab the girls and meet me there.” And so, the first couple of days that was great because I’d be on the lake skiing with my kids and my wife, and my lake friends, and having a blast. And then Sunday would hit, and I’d just be like, I’m going back to a bit of a chaos. I will say the chaos was also my fault. I built the chaos. And most of the time, that’s kind of where I thrive. I like going into a live-action situation.
Brad Johnson: You’re the hero of your own movie that you created.
Dana Dunkelberger: Sometimes.
Brad Johnson: You know what’s interesting about that? That’s a lot of entrepreneurs. It’s kind of the adrenaline rush of like you’re in the middle of the arena battling it out until it eats you alive because it just never stops. I’ve been in seasons of that. Just about everybody that’s been successful that I’ve ever dealt with has been in seasons of that.
Dana Dunkelberger: A hundred percent.
Brad Johnson: But at some point, it’s like something’s got to give.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah.
Brad Johnson: So, was there a moment for you? Because the cool thing is there’s the other side of this story that I want to make sure we get into. But was there anything that was that breaking point for you, where you’re like, “I can’t do this anymore”?
Dana Dunkelberger: Yes. I don’t know if I can define or pinpoint an exact moment, but it was probably 2023 January, like preparing for the year, seeing all these dinner seminars and client events and things already on my calendar, and focused on summer. Like, it’s January and I’m already thinking about summer when the kids get out of school. We can go to the lake.
Brad Johnson: You literally skipped like the front half of the year to get to the fun part.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yes.
Brad Johnson: Wow.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah. I’m an Enneagram 7.
Brad Johnson: I can relate.
Dana Dunkelberger: As you are. Yes. So, like, alright, when do I get to the fun part? I’ve never been afraid to work. I grew up in Iowa, worked on farms. I worked in a machine shop. I worked at a grocery store. I mowed lawns with my brother.
Brad Johnson: With Kurt Warner, by the way.
Dana Dunkelberger: With Kurt Warner. Yeah. Shout out.
Brad Johnson: That’s a fun fact.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah. College Square. Ivy. Yep. So, yeah, he was always super cool, actually. So, yeah, I like to work and be in it, but at that point, it was like the rinse and repeat got just old.
Brad Johnson: So, as I was thinking about this conversation this morning, I think sometimes the blessing and the curse of when you’re in the business, you almost get consumed by it. And some of those problems feel like, “Oh, this is just me. It’s only me that’s dealing with this,” when in reality, it’s a lot of businesses out there. And the analogy I’ll make was like you and your brother, Tyler, so back to recapping here, 35 million, four-person team. You and Tyler are the two advisors on the team running really hard. You’ve got Sabrina, who was your first hire ever, way back in the day, over a decade ago, right?
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah, 14 years.
Brad Johnson: Fourteen years ago. She’s all things operation. So, you and Tyler over here, you’re like seeing appointments. Okay. This one came on. You’re like, “Okay, Sabrina, you take care of everything else.” And then you had a receptionist as well, answering the phones. That was your entire operation. It was almost like you were running, let’s call it a Chick-fil-A, except you and your brother were running probably two different cash registers with two different recipes, two different processes. But you were running the cash registers. You were cooking the sandwiches in the back, and then you were trying to go out and service. And we’ll have our team throw this up just for a visual, but one of the things that you guys have embraced is the Triad advisor model.
And that’s actually taking a singular role of advisor and splitting it into three separate roles. Selling, that’s the transformation of belief, right? The transition of belief when they come on board. Service, fulfilling the promises, but then also the planning to where as you expand in the early days, it was a lot of insurance. It was a lot of probably income planning, tax deferral. But you were kind of trying to do all three, and I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I’m guessing you weren’t excelling at any of the three individually because you were overwhelmed with multitasking.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah. And that’s where the burnout came in, I think, but the one thing that Tyler and I have been good at, and Sabrina as well, is we are fast implementers. So, I’m extremely grateful for my past and where I came from, extremely grateful for the people that helped me. I had an incredible experience and great friends in that situation, but it just got to the point where the burnout was real because we had built this behemoth with 1,500 clients, and this service work was immense. And so, me, like, I don’t want to disappoint anybody, especially clients that trusted us. I want to take great care of them because I like them a lot. And they’ve trusted us. And when you feel like you’re failing in that aspect, maybe they don’t feel that way.
And quite honestly, we’ve never had a bad experience where a client’s like, “You failed us.” But I was feeling that. I’m like, we’re not getting to this quick enough because four people. And you’re doing there were three years in a row where I did over 100-nights dinner seminars.
Brad Johnson: This was the lead-up to burnout of 2023.
Dana Dunkelberger: This is the stand on the gas. Yeah. And quite honestly, for those first years I was doing that, it was just me and Sabrina and dinner seminars, and we did all of the things. We sent the mail. We planned the dinner. We did the dinner. We set the appointments. And by we, I mean mostly Sabrina. Shout out, Sabrina.
Brad Johnson: Good work, Sabrina.
Dana Dunkelberger: She’s a unicorn. She’s an absolute champion. And so, we did all of those things, and we just didn’t know any better. And actually, we were having fun at first, but then you do that for three years, and I’m like, “Hey, let’s not do 103 nights this year.” We’ve done over a hundred for three years in a row and just, again, didn’t know any better, trying to build a business and do great things. And, again, super grateful for it. I don’t know if you want to jump now to where we are today.
Brad Johnson: Well, one thing I’ve seen with a lot of successful advisors over the years, the building of the book phase, it’s kind of this fun, exciting that you keep saying stand on the gas. I remember I didn’t go to the office looking forward to a hundred cold calls. But it was kind of a new game that I was figuring out. And I think a lot of advisors fall into that, too. They’re like, “Oh, this is working. Oh, I should do another seminar. And I can repeat that.” But that’s when you have no book of business. So, now you have an open calendar. You’re like, “Cool, let’s just fill it with appointments.” You have no service work because you have no book of business. But three years in, how did that change? I’m guessing you had some service work.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah. And all of a sudden it was like, “Oh, we have 10 appointments this week for annual reviews,” because they built up rather quickly. But yeah, it flipped the switch. It was a very drastically different scenario.
Brad Johnson: Well, and I’ve seen that a lot where kind of the coming up phase of an advisor. It’s like, “Cool, this is working.” And then you’re kind of building this monster, this prison around yourself, accidentally, to where it is all that service work.
Dana Dunkelberger: That is 100% factual. I’ve never thought about it that way, but I mean that’s exactly what it is.
Brad Johnson: How far into the journey were you when you started to feel like, “There’s not enough of me to go around”?
Dana Dunkelberger: So, Tyler came on with me about two and a half years after I started Reliance. And when he came on, that was all of a sudden, it was fun again. Like my brother, my…
Brad Johnson: Because you doubled your bandwidth at that point.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yep. And he’s my best friend. We’ve worked together always.
Brad Johnson: As on the SeaWorld ski team, like all the way up.
Dana Dunkelberger: So, we mowed lawns together, we skied together, and now we’re working together. I mean, we’ve been working together now for, I think, 14 years roughly, something like that. And so, when he came on, it was kind of a relief, and we were having fun. And so, then he started doing his own dinners. I was doing mine, so now it’s me, Tyler, Sabrina, and one other person. And we were just, again, going a hundred miles an hour.
Brad Johnson: You know what I see a lot? So, tell me, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but what I see a lot of advisors do accidentally, they reach capacity, and then all of a sudden it’s like, “Let’s add another advisor to the team.” But they don’t fix the core issue. It’s not like selling service planning. It’s literally you just clone and replicate same problem. So, I’m assuming Tyler comes in, no book of business, but then a handful of years later, he finds himself in the same place you found yourself in.
Dana Dunkelberger: Right. That’s exactly what happened. And we were building something, having fun, like the dinner seminars, like for me, I kind of equate it to skiing in front of a crowd. So, it was an easy transition there, and we were again having fun. When Tyler came on, I’m like, “Hey.” Coached him. I had a group we were working with that did a great job teaching us a seminar, and off to the races again. But then you get a year and a half, two years down the road, and you’re like, “Oh, well, we have to service all these people we made promises to.”
Brad Johnson: Okay. So, I’m going to jump here. So, about two years ago this time, we’ve kind of hit that burnout phase you were in. The other thing was you were selling a very commoditized product. And the best analogy I can make in this business is if you sell other people’s products, you are the commodity. If you create your own product, you can become a one-of-one in your marketplace. And I see this all the time in our industry. It doesn’t matter if you came up on the insurance side of the world or the wealth management side. It’s like here is the company I worked for, what they told me to sell, and it’s what’s on their shelf. So, oftentimes, you get really good at selling that as you did. But now, if that’s my value prop, some other company’s product, guess who else has that?
Dana Dunkelberger: Everybody.
Brad Johnson: All of your competition.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yes.
Brad Johnson: And so, you guys did a ton of work. As sheer luck would have it, I have this from a training you helped with. And so, if the camera can see this, this was some of the work that you did in conjunction with Triad, but you put a really cool concept together. You call it Plan On Purpose. And really, this is a CFP standard plan, so it covers income, investments, taxes, healthcare, legacy, and then you even kind of walk through the client journey. What does that look like? We’re going to help you think bigger, live better on purpose. And so, the analogy I’ll make, McDonald’s doesn’t sell hamburgers. They sell Big Macs. Chick-fil-A, the spicy chicken sandwich. We all know that’s the best one. I hope you agree.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah. We are on the same page.
Brad Johnson: Okay, cool. So, you’ve got these other businesses that grew up in very commoditized industries. Think about how many hamburger stands are in the United States of America. Most of them blend into the rest. Same as everything. They’re barely scraping by. Sorry, I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but you and your brother, when you got here, were kind of two guys running a hamburger stand that was selling a very kind of generic hamburger. And what I’m really proud of that you’ve got, I’m going to give you guys all the credit, is you did the deep work to truly build a brand with true brand messaging that says, “Here’s what we actually want to deliver for you if you are a retiree out there or pre-retiree that needs help.” And the after is wild. So, two years later…
Dana Dunkelberger: I’m a little shocked myself.
Brad Johnson: I want to get into this because there are a lot of advisors out there saying, “How’d you do that?” You’ve tripled from 35 to 100. Now granted, the team grew, but as we broke this out before we hit record here, you’ve got three full-time sales advisors. So, in that analogy, three cash registers going. You’ve got one full-time planner, which would be the equivalent of the person building the financial plans, or in the Chick-fil-A analogy, the person building the product in the back, right? That is proprietary to your firm.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yep. Shout out, Lexi.
Brad Johnson: Good job, Lexi. And then you’ve got one full-time service, and then you’ve got two hybrid advisors that have one foot in service, one foot in sales. So, what has that done for you as a guy that was a great advisor that’s trying to become a great business owner and CEO?
Dana Dunkelberger: So, you had a hat made for me.
Brad Johnson: Please share. What were the letters on it?
Dana Dunkelberger: MSFA.
Brad Johnson: I think we can say it. Let’s just say it. Making shit fun again.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yes. So, I greatly appreciate that hat.
Brad Johnson: My dad was wearing that hat last night. I gave him an extra one.
Dana Dunkelberger: He looked great in it.
Brad Johnson: That fit right in for his style. Yeah.
Dana Dunkelberger: So, that’s like it’s been extremely rewarding to see my team excel like it used to be, “Hey, client came in, said yes,” and that was the adrenaline rush. Got a new client, we did a good thing, and it was me, me, me. And I was like, I just want to do that always. And so, now I’ve realized like Grace, Anthony, Tyler, Kevin, like they have a great appointment, and they bring a new client on with our message, and they’ve shared the message, they share what we’re good at. And a client comes on, and I get a lot more out of seeing them excel than me slinging annuities. So, it’s really odd for me because I thought maybe there’d be a jealousy thing there, like I need to be the guy. But I don’t have that at all. It’s really great to see them excel. It’s a lot more fun, honestly.
Brad Johnson: I’ve had a piece of that same journey for me. I was the same guy as you. I was just doing it in the FMO world, building a book of business, and it was a lot of I and me. And what’s been really incredible at Triad is taking some of those hard-earned lessons where we did a lot of stuff the wrong way, the burnout or, “Oh, I made that mistake. Don’t do that one.” And being able to grow fruit on other people’s trees. It’s a really rewarding journey in life.
Dana Dunkelberger: It really is.
Brad Johnson: And if you can set your own ego aside, I mean, and all of us need to be able to do that.
Brad Johnson: Yeah, for sure.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah, I mean, definitely, especially when I was skiing, I definitely had the ego, and then you get humbled getting into a new business. And then that ego can come back, but like now it’s I see where we’re going, like the vision is real. At first, it’s just something like, “Could this really happen? It doesn’t seem like it could.” I never in a million years thought we’d be where we are today, but seeing the team excel, being in an office that I truly enjoy being around everyone in my office. We just have a fun place to work. They take great care of our clients, and everybody does it as a team. And honestly, I give all the credit to Sabrina. She’s like just embraced it. She knows when she needs to put her foot down. She knows when, “Hey, we need to give credit where credit is due.” She’s really a great leader and just a student of the game, too.
Brad Johnson: Yeah, she has been. It’s wild. Everything we’re talking about on the advisor side also applies to the operations side.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yes.
Brad Johnson: And the firms I’ve seen scale at the highest level in this industry takes great visionary, which is typically the founder, the guy leading sales in the early days or a girl, but that has to be partnered up with somebody that is excellent with the team and fulfilling all of those promises you make. And those two partnered together, the sky’s the limit.
Dana Dunkelberger: For a couple of years, it was me throwing stuff over my shoulder and her catching it and making it very organized and neat, basically, making me look good. But yeah, she’s all the credit in the world. She’s be lost without her. She’s like the sister Tyler and I never had. It’s fun to watch her and Tyler bicker.
Brad Johnson: You’re the other sibling just egging them on from the outside. Is that how it works?
Dana Dunkelberger: It’s wonderful.
Brad Johnson: Well, I want to hit another thing here because you said, hey, back in the day when we were kind of slinging annuities was your term and back to just selling products that everybody can offer. Watching you guys truly embrace planning has been awesome for me, and I know a lot of the things we focus on at Triad is how can we help great sales guys, great founders become great business owners and build plans to the level that attract, not the $100,000, $200,000 cases, the million, the $3 million, the $5 million. And what I’ve seen back to truly specializing where you have a planner, and I know in the early days, you didn’t even have that role in your company. So, how are you going to be a planner when you don’t even have the time? And quite honestly, to geek out inside of eMoney or some other financial planning software, that takes a true, specialized person to deal with all those moving parts.
Dana Dunkelberger: I didn’t know that job actually existed. That’s a little embarrassing to say out loud being in the financial industry for 17 years, but I just thought, the advisor did all of those things. That was their job, which it’s extremely inefficient and egotistical, I think, to see, to think that you’re going to be everything for every client. So, the team aspect is way more rewarding. And having great people on the team that can go build that, I’m not good at it. Quite frankly, I don’t want to do it either.
Brad Johnson: You see this in every business. I know you and your wife have built a lot of homes. Like, that’s a whole ‘nother podcast if you want to get into that today. But if you think about it, okay, so think about a great architect or engineer, they’re great at building. Are they great salespeople? Typically not.
Dana Dunkelberger: No.
Brad Johnson: But imagine if you were a home builder and you had to go out and sell everybody to build homes with you, but on the other side, you had to go build the homes too, and you already have that tug of war and that’s the dance that happens in a lot of financial services firms.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah, very true.
Brad Johnson: You’re there trying to be the lead marketer doing the seminars. Okay, they come in, now you’re the head sales guy. Now they actually say yes. Oh, shoot, I guess I’m taking a stack of papers home tonight and building plans on the weekends. I mean, it’s an impossible feat to be all things to everyone to your point. And if you’re doing it off the side of your desk, you’re not that good at it.
Dana Dunkelberger: No. And it’s extremely inefficient. I mean, I know, you have like the lifestyle advisor that can do that because they have just a limited number of clients that they’re servicing and that’s all well and good. I think that business model is great for some people. There’s one thing I learned from y’all is a business of significance. So, I think, being successful is a very individually focused thing. Being significant is helping your whole team be successful in their given areas and being incredibly grateful and pumped for them to be, come up in the business and see where the vision is taking them and everybody doing it. It’s not perfect.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Never is.
Dana Dunkelberger: No, I mean, as much as I want it to be, but it’s been a lot of fun. I mean, two years ago when I joined Triad, biggest shock to my system in my adult life, in my career, but a year down the road, seeing everything kind of start to come true, and now, two years down the road, seeing our team grasp it and take the vision and doing it together, it’s been very rewarding. We’re not even close to being done yet.
Brad Johnson: Oh, to me, you’ve just built the foundation now to where now all the pieces are in place where you’ve unlocked scale. And the thing that’s tough because to your point of how we started this conversation, when you got here, you were burned out. You were at least three years into burned out. So, you’re tapping uncle and you’re like, I’ve got to change, and everybody wants it instantaneously, but if you’ve built one model for 5, 10, 15 years, you don’t just snap your fingers and everything changes. And so, that’s the frustrating part when you go from a great selling advisor, kind of one-man show, one-woman show to building a business that requires additional team members. Unfortunately, you can’t just snap your fingers and they just show up trained. So, there is a little bit of that growing into it phase.
Dana Dunkelberger: There’s the saying, enjoy the journey. I’ve really enjoyed it. Like, obviously, you want it to come quick, but I knew it was never going to happen quickly. Like, we’re still not in a place where I want to be and probably never going to get there because the bar just keeps getting higher. But I’ve really enjoyed watching all my team grab their positions and own them. It’s been a lot of fun, like stepping back some days and just kind of watching the office work. Like, I’d never had that opportunity in the past.
But some days I’ll come into the office and I’m like, oh, well, I don’t have any client appointments today. So, Sabrina, obviously, has stuff on my docket. But I’ll watch like, oh, Kevin has this appointment, Tyler has that, Grace has this going on, and they’re excelling. And the client service team is taking care of clients and doing withdrawals and ads and changing beneficiaries and whatever all those things are on a daily basis. There’s a lot going on back there. So, that team is incredible and they’ve really started to own their positions. So, watching all that work after we’ve built it for the last two years, it’s pretty awesome. It’s pretty fun to see.
Brad Johnson: Well, and I don’t want to leave this out because this has been really rewarding for me, is when I see great people like you and your brother and your whole team, Sabrina, everybody that I’ve interacted with from your firm, when I see you unlock a new level of business. And if I mess this up, I know, I think the biggest case this year was 6.1 mil of investible assets. I think there’s maybe a couple others that might even be bigger you’re currently working on.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yes. There’s one.
Brad Johnson: So, if you rattle off like just 2025, I think a mil, a 3 mil, a 6.1, I mean a handful of well over a million dollar cases you guys have worked on this year.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah, I mean, we’ve brought on $12, $15, $2 million plus cases. The norm is, is that number is getting bigger. We’re attracting because of the way we built the business with obviously Triad helping us would’ve never happened. But having the track to run on has been super important. And like I said earlier, I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but when I see something and have a tractor run on, I can be a fast implementer. And the old saying, don’t reinvent the wheel, well, give me a process, I can build a team around it and make it great. And you guys have helped us immensely, so we’re very grateful for that, but that’s been a lot of fun as well. Make it fun again.
Brad Johnson: Making fun again. Well, that’s one of the cool things, like when you look at how to scale, when you run a, what I’d say a bit of a commoditized business, I’m not there just like beating up people doing that. So sorry if it comes across that way. But when you’re selling other people’s products, what I’ve seen historically, smaller ticket, transactional, 100k, 200k, maybe 500k cases, when you start to specialize in planning, that’s where you unlock the ability to work with the higher net worth. The plans are more complex, there’s more moving parts. So, as you’ve added that aspect to your business, number one, you’re serving your clients at a higher level back to what you want to do in the first place. But number two, the revenue and assets are following that build out.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yes. And I will say like, it’s a different type of client too, that we see people that understand the vision. Like, they come into the office from a dinner. We do a movie. We do educational seminars at libraries and community centers. And so, they come in understanding like, hey, we know what we want. We just need to figure out if we’re the right fit for each other to make it happen. And so, really, people come in from the seminar almost knowing like, hey, I want to work with Reliance because of these things. These five reasons are what we need help with. We know we need help. So, the sales process is completely different. It doesn’t resemble anything that we’ve done in the past. The previous sales process was incredible for selling a product. The product now is us. The product now is our plan on purpose.
Brad Johnson: Well, I don’t want to turn this into a commercial for you because you haven’t paid me to, but no, I’m just kidding. But I mean, if you look at just like this is even the workbook that you all have created for your live workshops, I just look at, just even flipping through this, think bigger, live better on purpose. That’s inspiring. That’s not, let me sell you an annuity. And then you look at the team, I will say, many purchasing decisions are made, the human psychology of do these people work with people that have money like me? And I will say, that takes a team.
Dana Dunkelberger: For sure.
Brad Johnson: And one of the things I’ve seen a massive transition, just even in your verbiage, it’s, hey, when you come in and meet with our team, not me, Dana, right? You’re selling the team now because it is taking a team. You’re doing a lot more of the work.
Dana Dunkelberger: I definitely.
Brad Johnson: You just didn’t even have the team to do it.
Dana Dunkelberger: No, I definitely couldn’t do it myself.
Brad Johnson: I mean, that was the team back in the day right there.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yep. They’re the Ogs right there.
Brad Johnson: So, well, I know you’ve– oh, by the way, thank you for helping. You’re helping lead a training here with some other Triad members. So, I really appreciate that. It’s been cool to see everybody get in. And what’s cool is like real life role plays, like I sat in on a couple and we had a husband/wife. This one was getting good. I mean, there was like an acting class going on in there. But the cool thing is, it does take work to kind of embrace a higher level of planning. And it’s been really cool to see how you’ve embraced it. You’ve now helped facilitate it for some of our other members.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah. And being a skier and then in my old life, as an advisor, understanding reps are hugely important. That aspect, I think, can help a lot of people. It’s very uncomfortable for most to do it, but if you embrace it and you get those extra reps, you just do a better job for the people in front of you in the future. So, it’s important to understand, like most people that come in and they’re at the very end of their working years or retired, a lot of times, they’re grasping at straws. I’ve built– I’ve saved this money. I think I’ve done what I’m supposed to do, but I don’t know how to take what I’ve saved and turn it into a retirement. And that’s the vast majority of people we meet with.
There are people that come in and say, this is what I want to do, and they just want to get affirmation that what they’re doing is right and that’s great. We’re happy to help them too. But most Americans have been so focused on saving, paying off homes, putting kids through college, getting them married off, and then, oh, I’ve got three years of work left. After I’ve done all these things, I should probably get focused on where my income is going to come from when I leave this job. So, occasionally, it’s– I won’t say it’s panic, but it’s like, hey, I need help with this. And so, when we do our seminar, do our dinner events and all the marketing we do to meet new people, it’s fun to see folks that come in and say, I want that. And you see a little bit of relief. Like, I didn’t know all these things existed in one place.
So, thankfully, Triad helped us build that, and all the people that came before us, like SHP, going to their office and learning from them has been incredible. Michelle Short is an incredible human that has helped Sabrina a lot. Those guys are awesome and they built a really great business. Anthony Pellegrino’s shop as well. They’ve helped us immensely. It’s been fun to like kind of share ideas with Matt Dixon, talk to him quite often via text. There’s usually seven hours between replies between the two of us, but that’s okay.
Brad Johnson: But you get it done.
Dana Dunkelberger. Yeah. So, doing it with other people that are building great businesses and seeing them succeed as well, it’s been a blast.
Brad Johnson: It’s a lot more fun to do this business when you’ve got a pack to run with. And you mentioned Anthony Pellegrino, and one of the fun things has been at Triad, we run as a pack and that was coined by Anthony when we had another member that needed some help. And I heard this, this was a couple years ago. We had a brand-new potential member at Triad. And we only have 80. I mean, it’s a pretty selective process we go through because a lot of advisors say they want to build a business, but then when they get into it, it gets tough.
Dana Dunkelberger: Very.
Brad Johnson: I’ve got to hire some people, I’ve got to train some people, I have to be patient. And they’re like, oh, never mind, I don’t want to. A lot of people throw in the towel prematurely.
Dana Dunkelberger: I’ve watched it happen.
Brad Johnson: And what’s been really cool, this Billy actually, so Billy, if you’re listening out there, he’s a member now. But he said, this is the first time I’ve ever been somewhere where everybody’s here for the same reason. And that was everybody’s different version of what do business, do life means to them, which is just build a business bigger than themselves. And it’s really cool when you have that alignment, because that’s what I want. Selfishly, I want to build a business that blesses my life, right?
Dana Dunkelberger: Definitely.
Brad Johnson: And I’ve just found that speaks to the right people that make since Triad.
Dana Dunkelberger: Well, it’s also a blast to do it with your friends. Like, that’s the most fun for me is getting together with the group here and just enjoying what we do. It makes it so much easier to learn. You learn faster as well. Together, you learn faster. And that’s like doing this with, there’s five core offices and I’ve worked with these guys and we’ve all helped build each other’s business for a decade. We all came to Triad together and I’d be lost without them. But also watching them build great businesses with the help of Triad has also been very rewarding. Like, I love these guys. They’re my brothers. We spent it at unreasonable amount of time together, maybe our wives would say that.
Brad Johnson: Yeah, they probably would. But you’ve all benefited from it. I know your families have benefited from it. And what’s cool, like I’ve seen that, I’ve been in this business long enough, you’ve got kind of crews from different areas that kind of grew up in the business together. And what’s been really fun, I mean, part of my journey was I had that crew that I left behind. I was in a business for 13 years that, very similar to you, it was an incredible run. Super grateful for it. Learned a lot there. And it was sad to leave a lot of friends behind.
Dana Dunkelberger: Very difficult, yes.
Brad Johnson: But it’s been so cool. I mean, we’re almost November 1st, 2025, Triad’s five years old.
Dana Dunkelberger: Oh, wow.
Brad Johnson: And it went in the blink of an eye. And now, I look at just the incredible members here. And without that leap of faith, I mean, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. And so, I think in life sometimes, it is those scary moments because I promise you it was scary leaving the familiar to venture into the unknown, but if you don’t, you’re going to be in the same place you’ve always been.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yeah. It was extremely emotionally taxing to do that. Yeah, it was like a gut punch. And again, extremely grateful, had incredible friends. And still love and care about all those people, but at some point, you have to just grab your own business and take it the direction that you see fit and always forward, as Nico would say.
Brad Johnson: I had a friend on that note as we wrap, he said, “Nobody’s going to believe in you more than you, so bet on yourself.” And I think it’s good advice in life because sometimes your heart knows the right choice, but your head gets in the way. You overthink it. Trust me, I had a couple years of that myself. So, anyway, my man, thank you for carving out some time.
Dana Dunkelberger: It’s been a blast.
Brad Johnson: I know you’ve added a ton of value to the community and you’re fun to hang with, do life with, so…
Dana Dunkelberger: We’ve had some fun, for sure.
Brad Johnson: Looking forward to the future.
Dana Dunkelberger: It’s blast. Extremely grateful for this crew. Love coming here and learning together. So, thank you for having me.
Brad Johnson: All right, till next time.
Dana Dunkelberger: Yes, sir.
Brad Johnson: All right.
