Joshua Bliss, a seasoned financial advisor with nearly two decades of experience, is the founder of Gateway Capital Management, where he oversees $105 million in client assets. Respected for his expertise in alternative investments and insurance planning, Bliss is dedicated to providing holistic financial solutions tailored to his clients’ unique needs.
Outside the office, his sense of adventure takes him to the world’s most challenging peaks where, as an accomplished mountain climber, he has seen and summited some of the world’s most daunting peaks. Through his travels, he shares his passion for exploration on his YouTube travel vlog, Bucket List Bliss, inspiring viewers to embrace challenges and strive for their own personal and professional summits.
Where did the idea for Gateway Capital Management come from, and what was the motivation behind starting your own firm?
After spending 15 years in large investment firms, I grew tired of fighting against the business model promoted by the wirehouses. Their model pushes advisors to simply be asset gatherers. Day in and day out, advisors work to get as many clients as possible, invest the money in "cookie cutter", high fee, one-size-fits-all investment portfolios that are managed by the firm and always underperform the markets.
With Gateway Capital Management, I wanted to form a small boutique investment firm, with a limited number of clients, which offered a white glove concierge service model to my clients.
What is something unique about Gateway Capital Management that sets you apart from your competition in the financial advisory space?
There is not one of my clients’ portfolios that looks like another client's portfolio. Each client's portfolio is as unique to them as their fingerprint and is customized for that client's risk tolerance, investment product preference, and asset allocation style.
The only common theme among all portfolios is the use of low-fee investment solutions that strive to reduce or entirely eliminate hidden investment fees that produce a significant drag on the portfolio over time.
How do you approach portfolio management and financial planning—what makes your process effective for your clients?
As far as the investment management process, the biggest problem that I see in our industry today is the lack of tactical and strategic portfolio management. There is a "Set It and Forget It" mentality by a vast number of Financial Advisors where they invest all of a client’s money, all at once, into a portfolio and then only make changes on a semi-annual or annual basis.
Today's market is ever-changing and evolving, sometimes on a weekly or even daily basis. Our core-satellite portfolio management style ensures that we are implementing relevant and timely investment themes into our client portfolios. These satellite investments may only be held for 30-90 days and help provide "alpha" to the portfolios which are returns above and beyond what the S&P 500 can return. Our investment management process is the antithesis of the cookie-cutter, one size fits all, money management style that is so prevalent with the mega broker dealers and banks.
What is a common problem you've identified in the financial planning industry, and how are you addressing it at Gateway Capital Management?
From a financial planning perspective, by far the biggest problem in our industry is the failure of most advisors to implement a holistic financial plan for their clients. Often advisors will be in a hurry to invest the client’s assets and then do a cursory financial plan later down the line to "check the compliance box".
At GCM, we begin the relationship with our clients by implementing a comprehensive financial plan in the first 90 days of onboarding the client. This not only provides the client with a roadmap to reaching their investment and retirement goals but serves as our marching orders for how to invest the client’s assets and the formation of our investment policy statement. Without knowing how much risk the client needs to take to reach their goals, there is no way to properly and ethically invest their assets.
Looking back on the last five years of your career, what has been the highlight?
By and large, the highlights of the past five years (and for my career as a whole), have been the myriad of retirement celebrations and college graduations that I have attended where the financial planning and asset management we implemented for the client over the years allowed them to reach these goals, often in an expedited manner.
The tears of joy and gratitude expressed by these clients are what make me feel that I am truly blessed to have the best career in the world. The ability to give my clients peace of mind and financial independence is my way of leaving this world someday a little bit better off than it was before I arrived.
What are the top two or three lessons you’ve learned from your experience as a Senior Financial Advisor managing $105M in client assets?
You can't effectively manage money with more than 40 clients. Contrary to the business model constantly imposed upon me during my time on the broker-dealer side of the business, more is not always better. If you have any more than 40 to 50 clients, you cannot honestly say that you are tactically and strategically managing each client’s portfolio in a manner that is tailor-made for that client. At GCM, we cap out at 40 clients as that enables us to give each of our clients a concierge, white-glove service that they deserve as valued clients.
Put the same care and attitude into managing every client’s portfolio as if it were your own assets or your mother’s portfolio. Adherence to this approach to money management ensures that fiduciary standard is maintained and that you are always putting your client’s interest above your own.
Behavioral finance is a crucial part of managing clients’ expectations and preventing them from making harmful financial decisions based off emotions. With over twenty years in the business, I have seen everything from the irrational exuberance of clients during the “dot bomb era” to the sheer panic of investors during the global financial crisis. One of the most important lessons I have learned and communicate to my clients often is that “When others get greedy, we get fearful and when others get fearful, we get greedy” This Warren Buffet mentality of money management keeps us from making the “herd mentality” mistakes that so many investors fall victim to.
What is a unique component of Gateway Capital Management that sets you apart from other financial advisory firms?
The single most important value that serves as the guiding principle for managing money for my clients is the fiduciary standard. When it comes to the financial industry, financial advisors who work for a Registered Investment Advisor firm must always act as fiduciary for their clients. By law, a fiduciary advisor must be completely transparent and always act in their clients’ best interest.
They are also obligated to avoid and disclose any potential conflicts of interest. Unbeknownst to most of the public, the majority of Financial Advisors are on the Broker-Dealer side of the business. Broker-Dealers are subject only to a suitability standard, which requires them to recommend products that are suitable for clients based on their needs and circumstances, but not necessarily the best possible option. Pressure testing this idea in action means they are free (and incentivized) to recommend investment strategies that result in their firm or them as the advisor being paid a higher fee or commission. RIAs are independent of any investment product, they are only selling their advice, which gives them the ability to remain genuinely impartial.
