Wall Street, as a global financial center for centuries, stands and continues to grow. But what can we learn from this structured industry, especially in the early stages of our business? In this episode, I am pumped to have on the show Bernardo Weaver, Founder of Weaver Advisory LLC., and also a good friend of mine. Bernardo spent over 20 years as an advisor for the World Bank and financial modeling instructor and trainer for top investment banks. He and his team help organizations find tailored solutions for their PPP projects, valuations, and financial dilemmas.
Bureaucracy and over-regulation plague the financial industry. If we look at entrepreneurship in terms of economics and resource allocation, small and average-sized businesses barely stand a chance. Thankfully, modernization is slowly bypassing the traditional banking institutions to pave the way for small business owners to succeed.
Although having their advantages, there are elites and educated people who are yet to uncover the secret of wealth. In this conversation, Bernardo and I had an incredible exchange about the financial industry and entrepreneurship. Bernardo will take you deep into the realm of world banking and some insider tips and secrets about how this giant institution makes money and how small business owners can take advantage of this structure to uplevel their game and find their niche. He also shares the importance of training and how it can help entrepreneurs break free from the trap of overeducation and demographics. The tables turned as Bernardo takes charge of the questioning (ha ha!) and I get to talk about balancing the service delivery and management aspect of your business and making your business more profitable despite the risks.
“People sometimes don’t have access to the same opportunities… so the training is ever more important to put everybody on the same level, to give another chance to someone who didn’t have the best education to come up to the next level.” –Bernardo Weaver
Episode Highlights:
06:28 Navigating a Bureaucratic Industry
12:35 How Financial Institutions Make Money
18:41 The Entrepreneur’s Sticking Point
25:21 Finance, Culture, and Language
36:10 Pros and Cons of World Banking
41:16 Who’s Really Making Money?
46:04 Avoid This Expensive Cost!
49:42 How to Make Your Business More Profitable
53:30 How to Succeed as Parentpreneurs
Resources:
Gonzo Parenting: Finding Comedy in the Chaos with Jay Rooke
Gonzo Parenting Facebook Group
Carve your entrepreneurial journey and avoid expensive, unnecessary costs. Join @JayRooke and Bernardo Weaver, Founder, and CEO of @weaveradvisory for lessons on finance and entrepreneurship from Wall Street bankers. Click… Click To Tweet
Connect with Bernardo:
Bernardo Weaver, CEO, and founder of Weaver Advisory, has more than 20 years of experience advising the World Bank on infrastructure deals in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. Mr. Weaver is also a financial modeling instructor to top investment banks and hedge funds in Wall Street and London. Mr. Weaver teaches M&A as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business. Mr. Weaver is a Wharton MBA grad and holds an LLM from UConn Law, and a law degree from P.U.C.- Rio, in Brazil. He has been based in Washington DC for the past 20 years.
Inspirational Quotes:
06:47 “Financial services industry is seen as bureaucratic and inflexible, and there’s not a lot of room for innovation. That lack of flexibility allows for small, nimble players to carve in a very healthy and respectable earnings or in terms of finding a niche.” –Bernardo Weaver
19:52 “Roughly demographic is succeeding more than the individual that tries to walk out of corporate life.” -Jay Rooke
20:48 “Subject matter expertise is still valuable but until we learn how to package it and speak to the market where it starts converting into revenue, it’s a sticking point for most earlier stage entrepreneurs.” -Jay Rooke
21:31 “To lose that education that we have is a challenge. At the same time, because people are used to dealing with you, they grow expectations. It’s hard and it’s a trap.” –Bernardo Weaver
38:24 “People sometimes don’t have access to the same opportunities… so the training is ever more important to put everybody on the same level, to give another chance to someone who didn’t have the best education to come up to the next level.” –Bernardo Weaver
43:58 “What works much more effectively on the entrepreneur is full acceptance of where they’re at, vulnerability, and playing at that level versus trying to jump ahead and start to reach for business plays that are premature for that individual at the time.” -Jay Rooke
48:22 “Anybody can pick up anything with enough time and practice, but it’s going to cost you one way or the other because you’re trying to do it yourself inefficiently and oftentimes making yourself utterly miserable in the process.” -Jay Rooke
52:17 “Entrepreneurship is a savior for so many parents and so many families that allows for a customized approach to deliberate style of life that we might want to create and value creation for our families.” -Jay Rooke