Today we’d like to introduce you to Anthony Lombardi.
Anthony, before we jump into specific questions about the company, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My story is not that unique. It’s the common thread that many professionals have. I started out in this business over 20 years ago, making a lot of money but working a lot of hours…6am to 9pm every day except Sunday. Not surprisingly, the results were not good… too many clients and not enough time to take care of them, not enough time for my wife and our relationship, etc. Then my daughter was born and my time became even more precious!! I thought that there HAD to be a better way! While I had the ‘stuff’ that society judges you by…the cars, the homes, the vacations, etc., it was work just to find the time to enjoy any of it. It wasn’t a great life, despite the appearance. I figured the only way to make this work was to create the time for what mattered most, and that definitely wasn’t my business. So, I needed to shift the paradigm. To make the money I wanted and have the time I needed, I needed leverage. As a financial advisor, that leverage wasn’t going to be achieved by finding more and more wealthy clients…that just took more time! I had to find ‘the people that knew the people’ to open doors. That was and is the CPA. So I took a year off from making any money and just started meeting with CPAs, finding out what made them tick, what their world looked like, what they liked and didn’t like about financial advisors, etc. What was interesting was that I found that there most accomplished clients and families were the most underserved and the CPA’s biggest risk and challenge was keeping those clients. So that’s where I needed to work. I had to find a way to help CPAS, who have the same problems that I had, do more for their best clients given their time constraints. That is what started my quest into forming the Lombardi Family Office. It all boiled down to relationships, which require time. So I got rid of over 800 clients of mine, and started working with just a handful of CPAs, developing very intimate relationships with them and their firms and bringing them the leverage they needed, as their one point of contact to a team of specialists required to do the higher level work. This made the CPA very different, valuable and attractive.
Has it been a smooth road?
I guess when you are the first to blaze a trail, smooth doesn’t factor into it. Challenging…sure. Rewarding…absolutely. The funny thing was, it was the byproduct of the things we did that had the most impact on the lives of those people that we were working with…having more time themselves for their loved ones, the way they now saw the world, looking for significance in their lives rather than chasing success. So no, it wasn’t easy or smooth, but it was and continues to be very rewarding. The funny thing is, the more people told us ‘you can’t do that,’ the more people saw us achieving milestones and having more significance and success, the more people started jumping on the bandwagon.
Tell us about your company. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of as a company? What sets you apart from others?
We are the first Professional Family Office. Our company helps design, develop, manage and maintain what we call the Modern Family Office, for CPA firms that want to offer family office services to their most important clients. We provide leverage…we give them everything they need to be everything to their most important clients. We give them the solutions, but also the relationship and leadership coaching and mentoring and communication skills that they need to become that one ‘most important point of contact’ in their most accomplished families’ lives. We provide all of that. What we are known for is the relationships that we build with our clients, something that most people either don’t have the time for or aren’t willing to invest the time needed to develop. We are known for caring, for getting involved, going above and beyond and making sure that our client’s clients see them the same way. We have built our company on a Biblical foundation and it’s our culture that sets us apart. We do everything out of love and humility and put others and their significance above our own. What am I most proud of? It has to be the family that we have created in our office and the families that we have taken care of. We are doing business in a way that others said we couldn’t. We are changing lives and still paying the bills! The impact that we have on our own families and the families of our clients and their clients, helping all of them have the most significant version of the life they were created to have and leaving a significant footprint behind is what gets me out of bed every day.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I love the fact that our city lets us live outdoors! I live on the beach in Carlsbad and I love to surf, hike, bike, ski, flying planes, playing adult baseball tournaments and bouldering with my daughter. One of the best things about this city is that it’s a great place to raise a family. Whether it’s the desert, the mountains, the ocean..it’s all within reach in great weather!! I couldn’t ask for more. And Maui is only a 5 hour plane ride away!! The ONLY drawback is the traffic. It’s getting worse all the time. But just stay on the 101 and you’re fine!
Contact Info:
- Address: 2177 Salk Ave, Suite 190, Carlsbad, CA 92008
- Phone: 760-602-0832
- Email: sjohnson@teamlombardi.com
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