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John Jantsch (00:57): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantz. My guest today is Stephanie Simmons. He's been a financial advisor and planner for 25 years, launched her own registered investment advisory firm in 2017. She believes in growth at a reasonable pace and is selective about who she takes on as a client. Good lesson in that one. She's also enjoyed songwriting, singing, guitar playing, and got involved in Nashville performing singer songwriter workshops, and she released her first full length album, time and Evolution of this past May produced by Mary Bragg. She was also selected as a 2024 Kerrville new folk finalist. Kerrville is one of the top ones out there of anybody who makes the circuit. So Stephanie, welcome to the show.

Stephanie Sammons (01:46): Thank you, John. I'm so excited to be here. It's been a long time.

John Jantsch (01:51): Well, it has been a long time. And that's a part of my first question. Long time listeners wonder why am I having a musician on a marketing show? You and I actually met in a marketing context, I don't know, 15 years ago or so. Talk a little bit about your journey to, I just mentioned you recently released a full length album, but talk a little bit about your journey to that point.

Stephanie Sammons (02:15): Yeah, I mean, most of my career I've been a financial, I'm a certified financial planner, worked for big firms, left the big corporate thing, got into marketing, I worked, did some marketing services for financial advisors, built websites, all that good stuff. Took a sabbatical from that career and then got back in it started my own firm, like you said, in 2017. So that's my core career. That's how I make my living. And I've always had this burning passion to do music. And I've dabbled in songwriting for probably, I don't know, 20 years and guitar playing, being a self-taught guitar player. And I started going to these workshops in Nashville starting in 2016. And I got to work with these incredible Grammy nominated artists. One of them is a Grammy winner, and that's Emily sells from the Indigo Girls. But I learned so much about the art and craft of songwriting, and I just fell in love with it. I was like, oh, I've been writing songs, but they are terrible and this is really how you write a good song.

(03:36): So I've been to, I just asked the woman who puts these together, their smaller group workshops, I said, how many have I been to since 2016? And she said 26. So I just studied and studied and started really working hard on it, putting my day work down, my day job down, and then starting on songwriting and getting better and improving. And there was just a culmination of whispers that made me decide to about a year ago to go pro with it. And I had to overcome a lot of my own head noise and excuses and those kinds of things. But that's how I got here.

John Jantsch (04:18): So since I've already mentioned that we've known each other a long time, it probably is not an insult to say that was kind of a midlife change for you. So how alluded to the idea of that was a big change I felt People talk about all the time, imposter syndrome and those kinds of things. How did you summon the courage? Is that the right word to say, I'm going to go do this thing that seems ludicrous?

Stephanie Sammons (04:44): Yeah, I think courage is the right word. My first excuse was, you're too darn old. What are you thinking? I'm too old to do this. I have another business where I serve clients day in and day out. What are my clients going to think that I'm running off to Nashville and leaving them in the dust? So I had that to overcome that, which was more in my head. And then I think the third thing was it's going to be so much hard work because it's like if you want to be a good golfer, you can't just go out and start playing 18 holes. You've got to hit the driving range. You've got to practice your putting. It's an actively, it's an active sport that you have to engage in and practice and work at it. And this songwriting thing and performing is an additional layer.

John Jantsch (05:36): Yeah, I was going to say, I've always really respect songwriters who are also great performers because it's two completely different businesses.

Stephanie Sammons (05:45): It is. And I'm introverted. And so that took a different level of courage to get to. So I don't know. I mean, I think over time it's just been part of my journey to build and build on the skill sets that are required. And when I reached out to the producer that I really wanted to work with and I had enough songs to make an album when she said yes, that pretty much launched me down the road. I'm like, okay, that is a sign I'm doing this.

John Jantsch (06:20): Okay. And you don't have to get into specific numbers, but just in practice, how does, okay, you found a producer who said yes, you had the songs, they needed to be musicians, there needed to be studio time, there needed to be the production. How does all that get funded

Stephanie Sammons (06:37): By yours truly?

John Jantsch (06:39): Yeah.

Stephanie Sammons (06:40): I mean, that's the beauty of, I mean, I'm fortunate that I'm in the position where I can self-fund this passion career. I'm trying not to call it a passion. Songwriters have a problem. The songwriting community has a problem with that if you're not. But now everybody

John Jantsch (07:02): Has different job because anybody can pick up a pen and say, here are the three chords, but is that songwriters?

Stephanie Sammons (07:08): And so it really is another profession altogether. But I saved for it, and I knew it was going to be expensive, and it is expensive, and you don't get a return on your investment, very little return financially. It's more the experience that matters to me. And it's okay if I'm in the red forever, but that's what it takes. And everybody does it differently. Some of these songwriters out there where this is their core career, they will start a Kickstarter and get funding that way. So anyway,

John Jantsch (07:50): But the money's really in the t-shirts, right?

Stephanie Sammons (07:53): Yeah. The money is in the merchandise.

John Jantsch (07:56): I

Stephanie Sammons (07:56): Never thought that would be, but

John Jantsch (07:58): It's interesting you think of how that model has changed the music industry. You would tour to sell albums, and now the tour is where the money is, right? I mean, it's really, I'm sure there definitely Taylor Swift making a lot of money on Spotify, but a lot of folks, it's really changed the whole, it's almost become more entrepreneurial, that ability to reach your fans directly to hustle and get gigs and do things. I mean, it's really become a lot more entrepreneurial, hasn't it?

Stephanie Sammons (08:28): You are correct, and you wear all the hats. You've got to be active. Instagram is a pretty strong community of singer songwriters, and we all support each other. But if you're not active there, that's really helped the most is just engaging with my community of peers and everybody. We all have different fans, and that's kind of how you do it, but you wear every one of the hats. And at my age also and with my lifestyle, I'm not going to go get a van and tour the country, but I get to kind of build my own adventure. I'm doing selective festivals and just things that I want to do. I'm putting my name in the hat to try and get on some of those bills to be able to play different festivals and things.

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John Jantsch (10:36): Well, Curville is probably one you attended a time or two, right? I would think given where it's located, I have an idea. Why don't we listen to a bit of a song?

Stephanie Sammons (10:45): Great.

John Jantsch (10:46): That was from Time and Evolution, and it's called Incense and Lost, and I have to call you out on this. Sold my Soul for a diamond ring. Now, there's a lot of hope in that lyric, isn't there?

Stephanie Sammons (10:58): Yes.

John Jantsch (10:59): So maybe talk us through, sorry, I stole your thunder there, but talk us through what that song's about, what the influence of that song.

Stephanie Sammons (11:07): Yeah, that song came about because I shot a bird when I was 10 years old. My granddaddy gave me a BB gun, and me and my sister were just walking around their land going, what do we do with this? What could we do? And I shot a bird and I ran over to that bird and I literally watched it die in front of me. And I went from being ecstatic that I hid it to completely heartbroken that I killed the bird. And so that song is about, that experience was losing your innocence of time when I lost my innocence. And so that song has several vignettes describe stories of losing your innocence over time. And that was one of them that you mentioned. Yeah, you've run off and with the person you think is going to be the person the rest of your life. And you leave home and you don't listen to your mom and dad, and it ends up being a disaster and you come back home hanging your head and traded your soul for diamond ring. It wasn't the right person.

John Jantsch (12:14): So I sometimes wonder people laugh about that. I mean, you can't write the blues unless you've just had a really hard life. And so how much of that really comes in, plays the part in songwriting? I mean, I sometimes laugh because I play around with writing songs too. But I mean, I feel sometimes the hardest choice I've had to make when I was growing up was like if I wanted chunky peanut butter or smoothie peanut butter, I just have nothing to write about sometimes.

Stephanie Sammons (12:43): I bet you

John Jantsch (12:44): Do. I'm sure it's not, I'm sure it's not true. But I wonder how much, not necessarily pain, but just life experience and how you experience life is a key part of songwriting.

Stephanie Sammons (12:54): Yeah, I mean, I would say that I am an empath and I'm always thinking about other people's suffering, other people's experiences. Why does some people have such a tough lot in life and others don't? And things like this just plague me and people who struggle in my family. And so instead of addressing these things or sometimes I get confronted by various folks in my family, for example, and it ends up coming out in a song. I mean, they're just things that are in my mind that I store up that I really think a lot about. And those are the things that come out through songwriting. It's really interesting. That's how I have the conversation.

John Jantsch (13:44): Yeah. Do you find yourself, I often, maybe this is romanticizing the whole process a bit, but you're sitting in a coffee shop and you hear two people talking over there. That's like an idea for a song, what they're talking about.

Stephanie Sammons (13:58): Everything is fo for a new song. It really and truly is. And so are things and things that you see. I've seen a lone coyote roaming around out here. It's not so much anymore because it's warmer, and I live in Dallas, but I'm like, I'm going to write a song about that lone coyote. But I have to figure out what is the metaphor, what's the coyote of metaphor for what's it going to be about? And I keep ideas on my phone, just a running list, and then I marry those two things like, ah, I've got it. I'm working on a song called Marathon, and it's about somebody who's just had a really hard life and they keep getting up and keep getting up. So I try to find a metaphor that works for the song in general. An image.

John Jantsch (14:47): You mentioned you went to a lot of these workshops, and I'm sure you met folks that you would call mentors. Are there any mentors, musical influences that are important to you?

Stephanie Sammons (14:57): Oh yeah. I grew up listening to the Eagles and a lot of Boston Classic journey, classic rock stuff. And then later in life, I love cold play. I love The Indigo Girls. They were a big influence. Just the gals playing acoustic guitars. I was like, I want to do that.

John Jantsch (15:22): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I'm trying to think of the seventies. You had Joni, you had, I dunno. Did Stevie Thanks Guitar sound. Thanks Taylor. I was thinking women though. So last question. How is balancing music and your advisory firm going

Stephanie Sammons (15:38): Man, to some extent, it's definitely two different sides of the brain, but there's a lot of overlap. Financial planning is kind of formulaic, making the numbers work to meet the goals. And writing a song, you only have so much time. Every word counts. You've got to have a rhyming scheme, you've got to have a melody and a rhythm. And so I find similarities there. And then my financial firm is really, it's a relationship business like anything else, like any other business. And I'm mostly helping people make good decisions. That's what the job is. And so the way I balance them is I can't do them both in one day. I've got my work days for my financial firm, then I'm going to rehearse all day music days, or I'm going to work on songwriting all day. One day. I have to just get in the space for each role that I'm practicing.

John Jantsch (16:46): Are you familiar with Rick Rubin's recent

Stephanie Sammons (16:49): Work? Oh, I

John Jantsch (16:50): Love it. So one of the things that he talks about repeatedly in there is that you don't switch the writing on, it hits you when it hits you. Do you find that a challenge? A little bit because it's like, I have their song today. It's like,

Stephanie Sammons (17:05): Yeah, if I don't create space for that, it doesn't happen. And so that can be, especially trying to juggle both of these careers. So I do things like journaling and I try to walk a couple of miles every day, and that's the way that I can create space or being in the car is always a good place to capture something on my phone. So I've always got my phone nearby to record a melody. I always have melodies in my head, so I'll record a melody and just sing it into my phone or put words in there and phrases for ideas. So it is kind of always on in the back of my mind, that motor is running.

John Jantsch (17:46): You have one of these little notebooks with all these little snippets in it that you someday will tie into something or go

Stephanie Sammons (17:52): Back to. Right. I have a bunch of those.

John Jantsch (17:53): Do you find sometimes that, I wonder if your client base and your financial firm is a little bit influenced by the empath artist sort of makeup that is you. Are you attracting folks that are opposite of that? Or are you attracting folks that your music is actually, to them is a real side benefit?

Stephanie Sammons (18:12): They're all very supportive of my music, which has been refreshing. In fact, some of them have come out to a show that I did here in Dallas, which was shocking. I didn't expect that. I have different types of clients, though. Some are real stoic and not emotional at all. And then others are just, they need nurturing and handholding and they're just different. They're different people. And I don't know what the common thread is. That's a really great question. I'm going to think about that.

John Jantsch (18:44): Yeah, it's just an observation. Well, Stephanie, it was awesome catching up with you, spending a few moments on the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. Where can people find out, I guess if they need a financial advisor, would be one avenue of connecting you, but also find out more about your music and pick up time and evolution?

Stephanie Sammons (19:02): My website is, the best website is stephaniesammons.com is just my name. And I do have a website for my, it's my wealth management firm. It's called sammonswealth.com, but my music is everywhere you listen, apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, if anybody still listens there, I know a lot of people do our age, but I also have vinyl and CDs and all that good stuff.

John Jantsch (19:29): That's all at stephaniesammons.com? Yes. Yeah. Awesome. Well, again, it was great catching up with you and hopefully we'll run into you someday soon. Come to Colorado and play, and I can see you on the road.