Each week on “Around Town,” our host talks to members of the First Coast community who are making an impact in their part of town. Today our host Sarah Olson spoke with Cory Shrader.
Cory Shrader
CEO of Black Creek Wealth Management
Website Address: https://www.blackcreekwm.com/
Short company description:
Black Creek Wealth Management is an independent, boutique firm offering concierge-style service and unique, actively managed investment strategies grounded in real market experience. We partner closely with clients to deliver clarity, discipline, and tailored solutions that go beyond traditional, one-size-fits-all portfolios.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give someone new to your side of town?
Enjoy the many resources available to you (pools/community events) and the good restaurants around.
What makes your business the go-to choice for side of town residents?
My firm is focused on personal attention. I am an independent fiduciary that limits my client size to dig deeper with clients to focus on people over profit.
What’s The Biggest Challenge people in your side of town are facing?
The difficulties of trying to look at their situations from a high level and drill down to work towards their goals quickly and safely.
What’s one thing people should know about why your side of town is a great place to live or invest?
It’s surrounded by water, which is a great way to enjoy the rivers, especially if you like fishing. As for economically, home prices continue to do well and appreciate with newer homes being built about 5 miles away.
Transcript:
Sarah:
Welcome back to another episode of Around Town. I am your host, Sarah Olson, and today joining me is Cory Shrader with Black Creek Wealth Management. Welcome to the show. Thanks for being here. All the way from Fleming Island.
Cory:
Away across the Buckman.
Sarah:
Across the ditch. So you are the CEO and CIO, and it’s just you. Tell us, ma’am. Tell us, how did you get into—well, A, what do you do? Sure. And then how you got into this wonderful business.
Cory:
So what I do—so I actually created Black Creek Wealth Management, which is an independent boutique investment advisory firm that has one sole purpose, and that’s building relationships and helping clients achieve their goals as quickly and safely as possible.
Sarah:
Wow.
Cory:
So how I got into this is a very long story. I was a chef. I was a residential appraiser. I worked in the finance and financial industry for about 15, 20 years, almost 20 years now. Worked for the big box houses, worked for small firms, big firms. And over the years have found that I was kind of tired of selling products and really just wanted to help people accomplish their actual vision and create optionality in their lives.
Sarah:
Wow.
Cory:
So if you think about it—not to keep going—but if you think about it, you have people in their 40s and 50s that hate their jobs.
Sarah:
Yes.
Cory:
Happens all the time.
Sarah:
Right? Yes. I hear it all the time.
Cory:
So what I try to encourage people to do is sit down, talk to somebody to say, hey, like, I’ve saved 20% of my income for the last 15, 20 years. I want to retire. Well, a lot of people don’t realize if you handle your situation appropriately, you could do whatever you want to do if you’ve done enough in the front end. Right? So a lot of what I love to do is to retire people early, okay? To scale what they have. And a lot of people don’t even realize that they can break off a little bit of money, create a travel budget for themselves that they didn’t even know they could do. Right. And that’s what I help people.
Sarah:
Or really invest in their own business. Exactly.
Cory:
Exactly right.
Sarah:
So how long has Black Creek been here?
Cory:
So I founded the company in ’21. So again, I’ve been managing money for 20 years, but unfortunately I used to manage for a firm here in town. The owner passed away, and he had told me six months actually prior to him passing that, you know, you could do this. He goes, I appreciate you being here. And I’m like, I’m grateful for being here. But he’s like, you could do this on your own. And unfortunately, Covid hit and he passed away shortly after that.
Sarah:
I’m sorry to hear that. Yeah. But what a mentor.
Cory:
Oh, he was amazing.
Sarah:
Because he knew. He knew you had it.
Cory:
Yeah. I didn’t know I had it.
Sarah:
You just need that. Well, that’s what mentors do, right?
Cory:
Yes.
Sarah:
So tell me about your typical customers. They’ll call you. What’s the first point of contact?
Cory:
Yeah. So believe it or not, I actually don’t advertise, so I don’t do a lot of marketing. That’s something I’m actually starting to do a lot of now. But the vision for my firm and why I created my firm is I wanted to have a small boutique that wasn’t about pushing products or scaling. It was more about how do I help that person who’s struggling or sees a vision to achieve that as quickly as possible? So a lot of my work is by reference, by clients that I’ve worked with over the years, and it’s organically grown to a relatively good size.
Sarah:
I would assume like where we are in Northeast Florida, we get a lot of people moving from out of state to come here, a lot of people who are retiring, but maybe not so much want to retire, start their own business. So they’re definitely someone that should be contacting you.
Cory:
Yeah. And here’s one of the lovely things. So I was working with a CPA, hated his job, and I looked at his resources. I said, have you ever looked at your situation? And the problem that all of us have to be honest is we’re so close that we can’t see high level. So when you’re flying above, you can kind of see everything happening. And I sent him—I was like, how much do you need to make? And he’s like, X. And I’m like, well, if you generated an income stream off of what you already created, you could walk away from your job. And because you’re highly credentialed and you’ve been in an industry for 20, 30 years, you could probably consult. And he goes, no, I don’t think so. Well, he finally listened to me after two years of me pushing him. We ran the plan, got him into an actual good strategy that was around his situation because I build customized actual financial plans as well as customized investment strategies. So there’s nothing that’s cookie cutter about what I do. But he actually started his own consulting business and was making more money than he was at that firm.
Sarah:
Every entrepreneur typically makes more money than they did, and they make their own hours. And I really feel like where we are—you know, because I’m not sure how old you are, don’t put that on camera—but our parents, they got a job out of college and they retired with that same job. That doesn’t happen anymore. And so you’re putting so much faith in someone else to control your future. And at some point in time, when you get to be my age, it becomes, you know, that just doesn’t feel right anymore. I want to do something for myself. But you need that mentorship and you need just that little somebody to say, financially, you got this, or financially, here’s your two year, three year, five year, ten year plan. So you can do this.
Cory:
And I don’t know about you, growing up they didn’t—I didn’t even know the word finance.
Sarah:
Like I did because I was an accounting major.
Cory:
Well, I was in the kitchen. I was a professional chef for a while. But for me, my parents—my mom was a bookkeeper, my dad was a service underwriter for a car dealership—they didn’t have money. They didn’t know how to teach me about money. So my mission for my firm really is about people over profits. And if I can help somebody who’s come up the way I have to have a better life, that’s why I do what I do. It’s really not about scale. It’s about taking care of those people. But to your point, like I tell people, if you have the resources and you’ve done a good job saving and you’re tired of doing that job you hate doing, you should look at it.
Sarah:
Yeah, there’s other options. Life is not always—as we all know, as Covid taught you—life is very, very short. Well thank you for being here.
Cory:
Thank you for letting me be here. This is great.
Sarah:
I appreciate it. This is a great conversation. And thank you for watching another episode. And to learn more about Cory and his business, please go to PropertySolutionsTV.com.
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