Storie Titus: 0:16

Welcome back to Market it with Atmo, where we share the tips, tools and strategies to help your business be successful. I'm your host Story and today we have on the show Chayla Miller with Attained Royalty Finance. Welcome, chayla, how are you.

Chela Miller: 0:31

I'm great Story. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited.

Storie Titus: 0:34

I'm excited to have our listeners hear about everything that you're able to help them with. So you have a great mission and inspirational story behind why you started your own business right. So can you tell us what your inspiration was and how Attain Royalty Finance?

Chela Miller: 0:54

came to be? Yeah, absolutely so. I never was the entrepreneur person looking for something to do for myself. That was my husband, and so lots of different things. But Cody was teaching high school and after my past of being in the university world for 10 years and working for a software company for a while, I got to be at home with my kids and that was amazing, and also didn't ever anticipate being a stay at home mom, but loved it and. But when Cody hit the point where he was like look for my mental health, I need to get out of this profession, I was 110% on board. So the goal was what can I step into so he can step out?

Chela Miller: 1:34

get that time and and start to recoup and we'd figure out what was next. So, um, I started looking around. Um was did not have a degree or background in finance or business, but with a couple different avenues of financial services crossing my path. This is where I landed and I really stepped into it because I loved what we do for people and I knew I could replace Cody's income doing it.

Storie Titus: 1:59

Oh, wow.

Chela Miller: 1:59

But it wasn't the business side until I started seeing other brokers and other VPs who were doing it and I was kind of like you can do this. I think I can do this.

Storie Titus: 2:09

Absolutely, absolutely. So. Your focus is on financial education primarily, and helping families achieve their financial goals Is that.

Chela Miller: 2:20

Yeah, so the heartbeat behind everything is education first. Yeah, so the heartbeat behind everything is education first, because the majority of people out there, the financial decisions that have been made, is either something has been modeled for us at home and that's all we know, and so we just kind of copy it because it's what we saw, or we know it's absolutely the wrong direction to go. So we take steps to do something different, but it's typically not from a position of real financial education, even if you've sat down with professionals a lot of times. It really is. You're just going to do whatever they say.

Chela Miller: 2:51

Yeah, and even when I sit down with families, the tendency is not well. This is exactly why we have what we have, and these are our strategies and goals. It's like I don't really know why we decided on that. That's why going back to the foundation of education first has been our priority.

Storie Titus: 3:07

Yeah, and sometimes financial advisors. You trust that they're going to give you the right advice, and sometimes that's not always the case, would you say.

Chela Miller: 3:15

Oh yeah, I mean, I don't think the majority of people in my industry are looking to be mischievous or anything like that. Sometimes it's just what's available to them. And so I will say sometimes you know, oh, you've worked with a friend or family member in one of these financial capacities and I'll say, most likely they did what they believe to be best for you out of the resources they had and even out of the own education they got from their company?

Storie Titus: 3:47

Yeah, so can you walk us through that, how you identify and solve what may or may not be financial issues for your clients or prospective clients, and how you kind of uncover what their financial gaps are?

Chela Miller: 4:03

Yeah, so, okay. So with my agency we're a full service financial firm. So a lot of people that's like what does that mean, right, and so, um, okay. So story for, like you and Damien, do y'all ever shop on Amazon for anything? Everything, yeah Well I mean what can't you find.

Storie Titus: 4:20

Absolutely, and they will ship it to your door. No need to get up, get out. It's the best route, right yeah?

Chela Miller: 4:28

So, if you think about everything Amazon does in retail, that's what we do, but in personal finance, Okay. So when we sit down with somebody, we're going to do an overarching financial review.

Chela Miller: 4:43

So that could be going over a budget looking over a debt plan. Be going over a budget looking over a debt plan, which is to look for how much faster can we get this debt paid off with the budget we're using and allowing somebody to avoid a lot more interest, and then that frees up the money that much faster to put towards your actual long-term goals. So that's one step that's really simple to. I mean, that's something they're going to fill out. Here's what we still owe on something. Here's our budget. Let's see if, if what we're spending actually matches what we think we're spending. And then we get into the pieces of how to maximize how you're spending your money. So that may be insurances. You know home and auto insurances. We work with the largest broker in North America for home and auto insurance.

Chela Miller: 5:27

Just comparative quotes of only A and A plus rated companies. So it's a simple again a simple thing for people to find out can I save on what I'm already doing? Yeah, and then we start to look at. So life insurance is foundational. There's a lot of education around that. And then, of course, long-term investments Do we even know what we need to save for retirement?

Chela Miller: 5:50

versus well then, how much do I save monthly to reach that goal? So we pick up those pieces and expose that information for families. So now we can start to put together the plan that's holistic, that helps them reach those goals, the protection they want right now, how to save for the long term, how to get out of debt and, ultimately, how to reach financial independence.

Storie Titus: 6:15

Absolutely, and I know for me personally, you sometimes for me and my husband, I think it was okay. Where did we fall and do we want those things highlighted and brought to light? But honestly, you need them brought to light if you're going to save for your future or your children or even if something catastrophic happens. You really helped me understand probably the most skeptical person in the world trusting financial advisors, because I had a financial background. But you were able to really give me the facts and let me decide and I know that that really helped us uncover some things that we would have never realized without you kind of walking us through that.

Chela Miller: 6:56

I love hearing that it was very valuable and what I tell. Even people who are looking at getting licensed and stepping into the agency with us, I say look, we teach basic financial principles that we just weren't taught growing up. Absolutely, if we had been taught this stuff, we would have implemented it from the very beginning. Our first job opening a Roth IRA, or just the tweaks you can make, is thousands to millions of dollars worth of difference for your financial future and your kids future, especially because we want to pass this information down.

Storie Titus: 7:30

Yeah, absolutely.

Chela Miller: 7:31

So, and I think what's been so cool is, I'll talk with people and they feel so overwhelmed by the idea of learning finance, and especially if they're like I just want to make extra income, but I know nothing about money, I don't want to do math. I'm like great. I mean I can probably teach you in about five minutes each one of these different concepts and if you've seen it a few times now you can teach it. That's how basic it is, but that's how impactful those concepts are.

Storie Titus: 7:58

So you're currently also looking for new people to bring on to help you kind of expand your outreach and efforts to help others right, yes, absolutely.

Chela Miller: 8:10

I mean this next year. So we have about 35 licensed agents currently, and in 2025, we want to get to at least 100 licensed agents and in that open at least one more agency, if not two, wow. So out of those agents we want to develop our next agency owners.

Storie Titus: 8:26

Oh, that's wonderful. So what sets your training and licensing process apart from others?

Chela Miller: 8:34

Mentorship. The way we train is through shadow training. Okay, so I mean, you typically wouldn't go, even in restaurants. If you're going to be a bartender, you're going to be a server. You're going to shadow somebody for a few days, then you're going to do it yourself, you're going to get feedback and then you're going to be independent. It's the same thing, and you're never going to see every scenario before you step out on your own. So when people are choosing to work with us, there's a lot of things that it's like it looks too good to be true. I'm like well, let me tell you the, the heart and soul of it. It's still hard work. Yeah, like you still have to choose to put yourself out there, even when you may not be, you don't feel fully prepared, but you have a whole team of people who have been here who have done this and all the resources you could need, so you're not having to do it by yourself but, you.

Chela Miller: 9:29

We teach you how to build a client base and even your own agency.

Storie Titus: 9:32

Wow. So since you and your husband kind of made the jump to completely transition careers, how has it affected you guys as a whole and your family work-life balance?

Chela Miller: 9:45

So that's a really interesting word, the whole balance thing, because I've probably changed my perspective on that since becoming a business owner. It's funny. I don't think our lives were ever meant to be what we feel is balanced. I think everything needs its season of more attention. I mean your kids. When they're tiny, they need all your attention, but as they get older and older, you re-adjust the time they need from you and the time changes, the quality of what they need from you is different. You know, it's very physical at the beginning and now it's more emotional support and mentorship, you know.

Chela Miller: 10:23

And business and family Well, with us, business and family is mixed. We work, we work from home. My four-year-old is in and out of my appointments all the time, and I've learned that even giving him the 30 to 60 seconds of my attention while I'm in the middle of an appointment is all he needs to go back to what was most important to him at the moment. You know, and for that moment it was my attention. And so, and for my clients, or even my agents that I'm working with on that appointment, they just see, I'm a little person, I'm a mom, yes, and so there's that's an integration. There's probably more integration in our life than I would say like compartmentalized balance.

Storie Titus: 11:03

Yeah, I know. For me, anyway, working with you via Zoom and having your son kind of pop in and out, it gave financial planning a humanality. You are a human and you're doing the same things that I'm doing juggling life and you're doing it for all the right reasons, so it gets you a sense of comfort that you're kind of in the same boat.

Chela Miller: 11:25

Yes, and I can appreciate that, and I didn't start off with all this financial expertise either, but showing how simple it is to take in the concepts and and then apply them Absolutely.

Storie Titus: 11:38

So how do you currently create? You mentioned consistency, right. Is that a key to your success? And how has being consistent with talking with people and educating people kind of help grow your business and your leadership qualities for the new people coming on?

Chela Miller: 11:58

Oh, it is a hundred percent the reason there's been growth. Um, I mean, you know, we we met because of a networking group, right, and so that has been huge in me learning how to talk with business owners. And so the consistency of me making sure I'm engaging with other professionals and the consistency of, like you said, talking with people, because my, my business is a people business, whether that is, I'm talking with people about the potential to come and get licensed with me part-time or they want to become full-time brokers at some point, or it's talking with people about potentially becoming a client and let's do a complimentary financial review. It's got to be a regular thing, just like anything you're working towards your health, fitness, If you want to be intentional with your relationship. It's the consistency.

Chela Miller: 12:52

We can't just do it all at once and think that's going to be enough, but in the personal development, that consistency that's contributed to anything of that leadership, growth and what people are going to be stepping into.

Storie Titus: 13:07

So would you say kind of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone consistently has kind of helped you grow in business and personally?

Chela Miller: 13:17

Yes, yes, it takes that I mean like if you stay in your comfort zone, you'll continue to have what you have, like you can't have something out there if you're not willing to step out of your comfort zone where you are now.

Storie Titus: 13:29

Yeah, it's kind of like a fish won't grow bigger than its tank right. You're always going to stay little if you don't try, like a fish won't grow bigger than its tank, right, you're always going to stay little if you don't try. Yeah, you're. You're an inspiration in that sense to go from a stay at home mom to somebody that's really able to educate people like me who are completely oblivious, um, and be successful at it, you've got a few things on your plate and that's what we all do, right?

Chela Miller: 13:52

Yeah, exactly, and I don't expect everybody to know the information yet.

Chela Miller: 13:56

That's why we do what we do. That's why I mean, like with my business we have. So I work with a larger company called Primerica. Okay, we have 2% of the market share out there. So, like, primerica handles all the vendor relationships that I have access to to work with my clients. All of our agencies are personally owned and operated. So, like, someone who's sat down with a Primerica broker or Primerica agent elsewhere may get a completely different experience than potentially what they get from me, but what's available is the same. But as a whole, we only have 2% of the market share out there.

Chela Miller: 14:33

That's why there's such a need for what we do, because there's so many people without the education that are afraid to make a decision. Because it's scary. The unknown is scary Absolutely. Once it's revealed, it's no longer. It doesn't have the mystery around it, like, oh, that's how a Roth IRA works. And so now you're like okay, no, I understand the benefits. Now I can make a decision Absolutely. And, and so I mean, within the next 10 years, we'll we'll stretch into at least 10% of the market share and be a household name.

Chela Miller: 15:04

And we'll be part of that growth.

Storie Titus: 15:06

Absolutely. I feel like you're already growing so much I kind of I hear and see it everywhere and maybe it's just you know, because I've worked with you but I truly feel like I've already seen growth since I've met you in the company, which is amazing. So what advice would you give to somebody that wants to improve their financial situation but doesn't know where to start?

Chela Miller: 15:28

I think, first, it's what you said like we we have to look at things that maybe we don't want to stop and look at. But if we and I'm taking this from a you know, a colleague in the industry that's always used like if your head's in the sand, like it doesn't get us anywhere, like do we actually have a plan? So even just going through the budget and being honest, where does everything go? Now we have awareness. It may not be time to make changes, but once you know where it all is, we can start to make those adjustments. And then you want to be looking at how to save and I go through the whole. Three buckets of savings is the philosophy we work with, and so certainly things we can sit down and break down with anybody, and I mean we have an entire website of just education that's available to families.

Storie Titus: 16:17

So you do, you direct a lot of your clients to that digital presence on your website to for them to just learn as they go.

Chela Miller: 16:25

I think I do it as an addition because I think typically most of us would have already done it. Yeah, you know. And so it's like, even though it's available, I'll send that to people, especially if they're not ready to just sit down with me and look at it. I'll say, at least look at what's out there and then, when you're ready to see how it can impact your family's finances, then we can do that. But a lot of times I'm sitting down and doing a lot of education personally it's kind of a show me, not tell me situation yeah, which I appreciate a lot, so can you tell us one of your success stories that you had.

Chela Miller: 16:58

Yeah, I think I mean everybody struggles with. Well, there's so many of us out there that struggle with debt and, ironically, this is an area that there's literally no compensation related to us helping people pay off debt, but it's one of my favorite things that we do is help with a debt plan. So recently I was working with a family you know early 30s, four kids and their debt was projected to last 50-plus years. That's not even their house.

Storie Titus: 17:26

Oh my.

Chela Miller: 17:27

And so I ran their debt plan and they can have that paid off in six and a half years with the budget they're currently using. Wow, and freeing that up after six and a half years gives them enough time still to save up and grow up to about two and a half million dollars towards their retirement goals.

Storie Titus: 17:47

Wow, yeah, that is incredible with children and everything it brings. That, oh my gosh, it's never going to end.

Chela Miller: 17:55

Much, much closer it's reality, there's light at the end of the tunnel. All you need sometimes is just that awareness, like if we feel we're drowning in something, but we know where the end is. We can go a little further.

Storie Titus: 18:08

Yes.

Chela Miller: 18:10

I mean, I have another client that they really don't have a lot of debt but it's literally only going to take them like three years to get out from under it. But if they didn't, when they didn't know that before we talked, I mean they're. There's just that emotional state. There's negativity, of course, around money and the whole. I'm living paycheck to paycheck. Well, when we looked at the budget, it turned out they're really not paycheck to paycheck but they're spending everything that's in their account each month.

Chela Miller: 18:36

They're finding ways for it to just go out the door. But when you, when you choose and you tell your money where to go, it works for you, not not against you. And now you can just have the financial peace of mind that, like automatically, I have money going to my financial plan, to my savings, to my retirement, to my kids savings, to life insurance. It's covered before you see what's left over and then, if you still have the habit of spending whatever's there, you just have that peace of mind that things are taken care of. I'm on track. My plan is in place.

Storie Titus: 19:07

Yeah, the greatest gift you can give to a relative right Is to have those things in in order. I know it is for me anyway. So what is to come in 2025? What are your goals right now for 2025 and growing your business?

Chela Miller: 19:23

yeah, the, the growth, um, like I said, the, the hundred licensed agents, is probably that that's the biggest goal for the for 2025.

Chela Miller: 19:32

And um, that's going to take bringing in a lot of agents who may or may not get licensed with us. But I will tell you, more often than not, we'll have people who want to step into this because they love what they would get to do for families, but decide I don't really want to do the licensing or I'm not, I'm not really ready to do something that I have to put the energy into, and um, but they end up stepping away as a client because they still saw the value in the first place. It was the only reason why they wanted to start Right, and so, um, I think every time I interact with with people, the goal is that we're still providing value, but the 100 licensed agents, for sure, and I mean, like this, last year, we increased over 100% on the investment side, on the insurance was, you know, about 40% growth, and so, as we continue to grow as a whole agency, those things will just come.

Storie Titus: 20:38

Right. So what would you attribute to those increases in those specific areas? What do you think really had made you have success in those areas?

Chela Miller: 20:42

I think it's the consistency with the personal development and pushing myself as a business owner, growing in confidence as a business owner, taking myself more seriously, so I speak differently to other business owners and realizing they're an expert in their field and I'm an expert in mine, so there's value to provide. And now, of course, with our agency growth through people, then it's really being able to teach my agents how to do that same thing.

Storie Titus: 21:15

The way you do it, that empathy you have is rare, it seems like, in your industry. I didn't feel like just another number and to our audience out there. If you truly want somebody that cares, taylor's definitely our person for you. So what is a way that listeners can get in touch with you, whether or not they want to help with their financial or if they want to, you know, learn more about becoming a part of your team.

Chela Miller: 21:40

So they can reach out to me, even just by my email. So it's my first and last name, shayla Miller at gmailcom. They can always reach out personally and I'm happy to give my number out, so it's 972-639-6320. That's my personal number. All of my agents, all of my clients have my number and I have over 200 clients. So like I am available and as we grow, the goal is that they feel like there's always an open door.

Storie Titus: 22:11

I was just going to ask you are there any final words of advice you would give our listeners in relation to their financial peace of mind?

Chela Miller: 22:21

I think one is be willing, even if you feel you have a set plan. I've just seen too many times that if you know more, you can make different decisions than maybe you did before. So be willing to let let someone review what you have in place. Worst case scenario, which actually isn't bad, you find out you're in the best place already, yeah. And best case scenario you're not stuck there and you get into the best place to maximize what you're doing. Um, it's, it's just like like with with doctors. It's common knowledge to get a second opinion, and there's nothing wrong with getting a second opinion. And it doesn't hurt when it doesn't cost you anything, absolutely, literally cost you nothing to have someone review it, and that's. That's probably a big difference of. You know, we do complimentary financial reviews from top to bottom, whether it's the budgeting, the debt, the reviewing what you have. How well are your investments doing, could you save on fees, could you take less risk, could you get better returns? Those are the things we look for.

Storie Titus: 23:23

And then the numbers do the talking and anyone in Texas or the US can reach out to you. Right, You're virtual. Yes, yeah absolutely.

Chela Miller: 23:30

I'm currently licensed in about 15 states, but can add any state that it makes good business sense to add Wow.

Storie Titus: 23:38

Well, thank you for all that you do, taylor, and for all the insight as to what you do. Thank you for having me To our audience out there. Come back and see us on Market it with Atma.