Jereme Sherrel is the co-founder of Elevate Leaders, a financial services company that is focused on bringing a breath of fresh air to the financial industry.
Born in Palmdale, California, located roughly an hour outside of Los Angeles, Jereme later developed into a multifaceted talent.
In high school, he was an athlete, student body president, and one of the valedictorians in his graduating class.
“I was the guy who valued leadership and building a strong community,” Jereme says, and after earning his high school diploma, Jereme left Palmdale and enrolled at UC-Santa Barbara.
“I felt like I died and went to heaven,” Jereme recalls of that transition, citing the luxurious beaches and vibrant atmosphere as key reasons why.
“Simply put, Santa Barbara is awesome,” he adds.
After exploring a degree in economics, Jereme eventually changed majors and earned a bachelor’s in global studies.
Like life for many college grads, the future for Jereme seemed bright, but in 2014, an abrupt phone call forever altered the trajectory of his life.
“My mom told me that she had been diagnosed with stage-4 breast cancer and given less than a year to live,” Jereme recalls of that fateful conversation.
“To make things worse, I quickly found out that she didn’t have any financial safety nets in place to sustain herself through that hardship.”
Having wrongfully assumed that his mother had prepared financially for the future, Jereme set out to not see the same thing happen to him or other people.
Soon he became a financial advisor for Northwestern Mutual.
“From then on, financial services was something that I became even more passionate about,” Jereme says.
“But I’ll never forget that after my mom was diagnosed with cancer and I started to get my license to become a financial services provider, my mom suddenly became interested in signing up for these benefits. Unfortunately, there were no companies who were going to insure her because of her present condition, and when I saw the look on her face after telling her that, I knew this was going to be my calling, because I wanted to make sure that no one else had to go through something like this.”
For the next three years, Jereme continued to build a book of business while working for Northwestern Mutual.
During that time, he also met his future wife, and today the couple has three amazing children together.
In many ways, things were coming together for Jereme, but eventually the Palmdale native tired of seeing Northwestern Mutual earn healthy kickbacks off his hard work, so he bet on himself and leapt into the unknown by co-founding a financial services firm, the aforementioned Elevate Leaders.
“This was in 2018, and I was able to find an independent platform that had access to more products and more carriers, and that allowed me and my business partner to build our own agency,” Jereme says about the shift from an in-house agent at Northwestern Mutual to a full-fledged entrepreneur.
Right away, Jereme didn’t immediately capture a large market share, but over time he continued to slowly improve and generate more business, to the point where his agency now has over 300 licensed financial professionals who help assist clients.
Everything from rolling over 401ks, to debt management, to showing people how to pay less taxes and accrue more wealth; it all falls under the umbrella of the services that Jereme’s agency offers.
Yet, unlike some independent agencies whose primary concern is maximizing profits, Jereme and his team take a different approach by teaching financial literacy during consultations, as opposed to keying in on making sales.
It’s a more comprehensive and time-consuming way to earn business, but this strategy ultimately leaves the consumer with more knowledge, and from there they are better suited to choose financial services that are right for them.
“Our focus is on educating clients so that they can grow and protect their money,” Jereme says, simultaneously noting how if he can help other people avoid the financial pitfall his mother found herself in, then he is adequately making the lives of other people better.
“My team and I are of the belief that if we can be good stewards of information and take the time to empower our clients with vital and relevant information, then by the end of a consultation, we’re not selling to them. Instead, they’re buying from us because we have given them so much leverage that they feel confident selecting a package or service that is perfect for their needs and desires.”
Moreover, it’s this type of integrity and transparency that separates the agents at Elevate Leaders from everyone else in the marketplace.
“Some firms in the financial services industry have tarnished their reputations because they’re selling people things they don’t need, or they are misdirecting clients away from their long-term goals by offering products that don’t fit their vision,” Jereme explains.
“But at my company, it’s always about helping the client, so even if that means losing a deal because a client determines we might not be the ideal fit for their specific situation, I’m okay with that, because I want to make sure that our clients are being properly served, and that’s something that I preach to every one of the agents who work for me.”
In that sense, Jereme is cultivating a sustainable culture versus constructing a business whose central motivation is revenue and growth.
In turn, the UC-Santa Barbara alum has attracted top talent to his organization that not only can close deals, but also fits within the customer-service based paradigm that he has spent years curating.
“I only want genuine and authentic people to be a part of our team. That means agents who want to see their clients win and succeed,” mentions Jereme, who then punctuates his business model ever so articulately.
“I don’t want to oversimplify things, but a lot of our success can be attributed to the fact that we do what we say we’re going to do. You might think that is the baseline that all companies strive for, but we have found that in the current market, too many companies aren’t adopting that approach, and that’s why so many of our clients are coming to us instead of one of our competitors.”
As a man who has been stricken by tragedy and experienced firsthand the temperamental nature of money (and life in general), Jereme now possesses the requisite fortitude to continue to ascend as an entrepreneur.
Perhaps that’s why, despite having established a business some could only dream of building, Jereme is not done.
Looking ahead, the innovative business owner plans to invest copious amounts of time and resources into growing his team, the goal being to soon have over 1,000 licensed agents working alongside him, for which the company could seemingly then hit $20 million in revenue.
“It’s an ambitious goal, but what I’ve learned is that whenever I set big goals and then work tirelessly to achieve them, things seem to fall into place,” Jereme says.
“And I believe that’s because with financial services, it’s not about getting what I want. Rather, since my team and I are all about doing what’s best for our clients, we help them get their desired outcome, and consequently, we also have success, but that’s only because we get the client what they want first.” QS
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