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Financial Advisor Success
Ep 428: Leveraging (Salesforce) CRM To Really Systematize A Mid-Sized Advisory Firm with Lorie Jones
01:30:00
Optimizing CRM automation to streamline workflows, enhance efficiency, and scale advisory operations without costly developers.
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Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast.
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Where you go behind the scenes with financial planner, speaker and consultant Michael Kitces.
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To hear stories of how leading financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight from leading industry consultants about how.
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To break through to the next level.
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In your advisory business.
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And now, here's your host, Michael Kitces. Welcome everyone. Welcome to the 428th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest on today's podcast is Lori Jones. Lori is a Wealth Manager of Fearless Financial Advisors, a DBA of hybrid advisory firm Fidelis Wealth Advisors based in Castle Rock, Colorado where Lori personally oversees $30 million of assets under management for 88 client households. What's unique about Lori though is how she has leveraged the functionality of Salesforce CRM, which is often used by larger firms due to its more extensive features but higher cost compared to other CRMs. She to systematize processes and workflows not only for her individual practice, but the entire 8 person 230 million advisory firm that she's a part of without needing to hire expensive Salesforce developers. In this episode we talk in depth about how Lori creates what she calls magic buttons placed in strategic locations and client records within Salesforce to allow her staff to conveniently initiate workflows that save time on common firm tasks like onboarding and money movements why Lori currently uses the Accelerate Salesforce overlay rather than Salesforce on a standalone basis for its advisor specific functionality and lower price point than actually buying Salesforce directly and how Lori views Salesforce's clicks not code approach as an opportunity for firms to create custom automations and workflows without needing their own Salesforce developer or really any coding expertise. We also talk about how Lori advanced from what was originally a purely administrative role at her first firm to eventually take on leadership of firm operations as a partner in a new advisory firm, allowing her to nerd out on Salesforce and spreadsheets and then eventually adding advisory responsibility and ultimately becoming a full time advisor. How the toll of working in these dual roles of operations and advisory eventually led Laurie to open her own business as a DBA of her prior firm to focus on the advisory rather than operational work and spend more time with her ideal target client of high net worth women and how Laurie overcame the challenges of loneliness when starting her own advisory practice by seeking out the advice of other women who'd gone through the same journey and be certain to listen to the end where Lori shares how she balanced earning CFP certification and an MBA while working in advisory firm and raising 5tr how Laurie got more comfortable in prospecting for clients after starting her own podcast in which she interviews successful female professionals and how Lori ultimately found that it was seeking out mentors to learn from their experiences that gave her the confidence to be more fearless when it came to making her own career decisions and take the leap to becoming a full time advisor. And so, with that introduction, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast with Lori Jones. Welcome Lori Jones to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast Podcast.
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Thank you so much for having me, Michael. I'm really excited to do this.
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I really appreciate you joining us today and the chance to, I guess, dare I say, get to nerd out a little bit on CRM systems. CRM to me is one of those interesting tech tools. It's basically the hub and core for most advisory firms along with our financial planning and portfolio management software. But usually we run the business from the CRM chassis, which historically was just where all the client like the client contact information and the notes and correspondence was stored. Now increasingly I find it's CRMs aren't just from digital versions of Rolodexes, it's processes, it's workflows to automate or at least to track and manage all the things that are happening in the business. And and we find a lot of advisory firms really struggle with this when we do our tech surveys on the kitces platform like CRM consistently has lower average satisfaction ratings than most other tech categories. A lot of firms struggle to use the features. Vendors say it's because the advisors don't learn and train enough. The advisors say the vendors make it too hard to use, they're not customizable enough. So lots of finger pointing in each direction about who's at fault. But either way the gap remains. And I know your firm has spent a lot of time figuring out how to really leverage CRM more effectively without being a mega firm that just hires a bunch of full time Salesforce developers to just make it all beautiful and work automatically together. So I'm excited to learn more about what you're doing to make the CRM system really work for your advisory firm.
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Yeah, I love that you said that. And I actually I have the joke that you can pray Salesforce for my cold dead hands. So I love the system.
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B
You are not just a CRM fan, you are a Salesforce CRM fan.
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I am. I do like all the different versions of CRMs. But my my saying is if it, if it isn't in Salesforce, it didn't happen. And so the, the team kind of goes off of that and they, they know that I love Salesforce.
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B
Very cool. Very cool. So, so I guess just like diving into that theme. Uh, so I guess just my, my first question is like, why? So why Salesforce? Why? Why? Why can we only price Salesforce from your cold dead hands and not like Red Tail or Wealthbox or anything else in the industry? Like, what's, what's so great about Salesforce for what are still like the overall majority of advisors that don't. Don't use Salesforce.
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Yeah, I think Salesforce has it can do anything. Like, I would run into problems with some of the other CRM systems where I would want to do something and I don't like it when you can't do that. And, and a lot of the other systems, they just weren't so customizable. It comes with, it's called like the Ferrari of CRMs. Right. But it comes with its own set of complexities. But I don't run into any roadblocks. If there's something I can dream up, I can make Salesforce do it. I just have to ask it the right way.
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And so giggle and Proctor, like, what does that mean? Like, I just have to ask it the right way.
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Yeah. So there's a lot of times that I am searching for databases. You're a database nerd too, you know that, like way back in the day I'm going to date myself, but way back in college when we were working on like the Microsoft access sort of databases. Yeah, I know. You had to learn like the building blocks of databases and you need to know what's the right formula or words to use in order to get the result that you want. And I know that my team doesn't want to go in and figure out the right words and code in the exact question that it needs to ask. What they want to do is push a button and make something happen. And so my job is figuring out what's the code, what's the process to make the end user have that really great experience where the robots are doing all the work they need to do for them and, and my end user is just pushing a button. It's easy. So, so they don't feel that that dread of, of CRMs or you know, the Garfield poster where it's like, compute this. Right. And he's bashing his computer.
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So, so help us get a little bit more, I guess, is granular as to how that happens. I, you know, the challenge I find for, I guess really like almost any system or software that's customizable is, you know, the, the more flexible and customizable it is, the more time I have to take to actually figure out how to customize it and what to do with it. Right. The, it's, it's like the double edged sword of very customizable and flexible. Like I can do anything, which means I have to figure out what I'm exactly going to do. So like how do you, how do you figure out what you, what to do and how do you actually start going about building this and expressing it in Salesforce?
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Yeah, so that's a, it's, that's a really good question. And I think that we all have, as advisors, we all kind of have processes that we do over and over and over again, right? Like onboarding, move monies, review processes. Like I can just think of five or ten that you do over and over and over again. And so when I come into those processes where I've like, I've done the same thing four times. There has got to be a better way. There has got to be a system that I can set up that will do these things for me so that I don't have to constantly, you know, take 10, 15 minutes out of my day. It doesn't feel like a lot, but, but when you're sending the same email or doing the same five steps, you know, that's, that's time out of your day that I don't necessarily really like doing the same five steps all that time anyway. So, so I, that's how I come up with the processes is that I look at what things that we're repeating. And the other thing is it's like, yeah, you're right, you do have to put some time in to develop the processes. And I'll talk about that in just a minute. But, but once they're developed, you save yourself 10 or 15 minutes every single time you do it. So yeah, you do have to figure out how to use it. But if you can, if you can, if you can take that time on the front end, then the robots do half the work and you don't. You can get along with your day and do things that you like to do, which is talk to clients and you know, come up with financial plans. And as far as Salesforce has actually made it really a lot easier. They have gone to clicksnot code in the last several years and so they've made it easier for the average person to go in and develop some of this behind the scenes magic. I Call it the magic button. And my team always asks me, lori, can you put a magic button on that does this? And so building out that magic button has gotten a lot easier on our side. And I would say that, you know, like, maybe find yourself a 25 year old that just graduated from school, very eager, very tech savvy, and they can figure the system out for you quickly.
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So just for those who aren't familiar at all with Salesforce environment and world, what does clicks, not code, mean?
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So back in the day, if you wanted your CRM to go grab a piece of information from one record and update it or put it to another record, you had to basically code that out. You have to, you know, put words and describe what you want it to do and. And put some very specific places to go, find the information and take it back to where you want it. But now they've built out in the back end, in the developer piece of Salesforce, they've built out code, they put the code in underneath, and all you need to do is click the right piece, which you're pretty familiar with. If you've used, you know, Tamarack or any other CRM there, it's pretty. It's easier. It's an easier interface. And so you kind of like drag and drop some of these pieces onto your canvas and it looks. It's kind of fun. In the flow area, which is what I use quite a lot in Salesforce, if you go into the flow area, you can kind of drag these little icons onto your screen that do specific things, and once you figure out what they do, they go get the record, they update it, and all you do is you click a button that says, move money flow, and it'll pull in the record that you're on, it'll pull in all the information that you gave it, it'll update. It'll send tasks to the different people that need to do that flow, and then it'll update and put information on as you add just. It saves so much time. And this is the thing that I love about it. Now you've got me talking, but the thing that I love about it is that it doesn't. You don't have to keep all that information in your brain anymore. You can download it, and you've got four or five people helping watch your back, making sure that things get done the way they're supposed to every single time.
- [12:57]
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So I guess. Can you give me a little bit more of a specific example? What was the last magic button that you actually built? Just literally, what did it do what's the workflow or the process or the steps? I'm just trying to really visualize an actual flow that you would build and what it does that everybody else is doing manually.
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Yeah, yeah. So I've got several. Couple that I use quite frequently is a Move Money Flow, and that is you. You have clients every day, all day long calling you in, you know, calling you up and asking, hey, can I get, you know, can I put this money into my account or can I get this money out of my account? And we have to verbally verify and we need to make sure and get the money to the accounts that it needs to go. So I set up a really quick, cool button. So whenever we have a client call in, you literally go to their record in Salesforce and you click a button called Move Money Flow. And then it asks some questions. It automatically brings in the information for the client household. It brings in all the different account information. And it takes me through a couple a series of screen prompts where it says, okay, notes regarding. So if I've gotten an email, I just copy and paste the email in there. Or if I've talked to the person, I maybe put a few notes about what they want. And then it goes through a series of questions, like, is this a distribution or a contribution? Is it a regular distribution or a regular contribution? Like, what sort of money movement is this? And then once you tell it that, then it gives you a list of all of the different accounts that these clients have, and you get to choose which account you're moving money into or out of. And then you put in the amount. And then you say there's like a series of, do you have a bank account set up? Do you have a wire? Do you want to send a check? So you click which one you want to do, and then it takes you through the next prompt, which is, did anyone get a verbal on it? Because I found that a lot of times you were forgetting that stage. And that is not a stage you want to forget.
- [15:16]
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No, not in today's very terrifying client faking environment.
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A
Exactly. So it says, did you get a verbal on it? Did somebody else get a verbal on it and told you about it? Or did nobody get a verbal on it? You need to reach out. And so you click that, and then it sends out the tasks. It sends it out. We've got it automatically programmed in the system. So it knows who the paraplanner is, who the advisor is, who the trader is, and the tasks are sent out. So the trader knows they need to go ahead and trade for that money. The advisor knows that they're sending that money out, and the pair planner knows they either need to get a verbal or they need to coordinate with the trader. And then, you know, it works. It just you, you get your steps done, you close them down and, and then if you have questions about what happened, you just go in and look because everybody, all the information in Salesforce, all of your client information and your account information, everything that was asked is, is filled out on that task and you clicked a few buttons.
- [16:20]
B
Interesting. So from a building end, you basically created your own little call like a wizard prompt wizard that goes through the series of. Okay, a person who's following the money flow, enter the notes code, whether it's a contribution or distribution, select which account it's coming from, put the amount in so that they, they just get a series of standardized structured prompts. So they just have to queue through the steps and then it fires off to the people that need to get the information to enact the transaction.
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A
Yeah, and then you're not calling, you know, so and so advisor Joe saying hey, did you get the verbal on that? Or you know, calling the paraplanner and say, hey, you took those instructions like which account are we taking it from? You know, it gets it. All of that information is visible to everybody and it gets sent out to the people that need to know it so that you don't waste time tracking down all that ticky that crap.
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B
And so within Salesforce, then they've got. It sounds like they've got a drag and drop style interface to let you build this series of. Now I need a prompt with this information. Now I need a prompt with this information. Now I need to ask them lists of the accounts. So pull the account list from here based on their client name and then show it so that they can pick one. That's all that you're building in Salesforce in a flow. But I guess ideally without needing to write code like be a Salesforce developer.
- [18:09]
A
Yeah, yeah. So the interface is really great on the back end. So I will pull say a long text field kind of in to my screen for my screen flow and I'll say, okay, notes regarding your contribution distribution. Make sure you, if there's an email, copy it here. And it tells my, my people, no matter if they started last week or if they've been there for four years, every single prompt I try and make really concrete so that they know what information I'm going to need to save as steps going back on the in trying to figure out what, what was, what needs to happen.
- [18:52]
B
And so then I'm presuming as well, you, you also have to figure out how to integrate this to other systems. Because if, you know, if you've got a list of accounts, I'm assuming that means there's, there's an integration to a portfolio management system or a custodial or broker dealer platform like to generate said list of accounts.
- [19:14]
A
Yeah, that's another nice thing is that is it does have a lot of. Which is pretty standard across the board with CRMs, but it does have a lot of integrations. So we bring ours in through Tamarack. But I know Orion integrates with it because I use that system a while ago. And the really nice thing is once it's in Salesforce, you can use those pieces of information from other systems to get done what you need to get done. I have an onboarding process that I wrote and my main goal when I was writing the onboarding process, you have to go to E Money and you've got to go risk a lot. And I wanted it to be so self contained and structured that they could stay on that one Salesforce page and get all the information they needed to either put into these other systems or, and this is a higher level function, send out information to the other systems using Salesforce so that they didn't have to do it. They just clicked the button, the information was sent and they populated inside of nitrogen or inside of, you know, E Money or something like that.
- [20:25]
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Because Salesforce is pretty good about not just pulling information in, but actually being able to push it out. Assuming the people on the other end have an API to accept it.
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A
Yeah, they are. That is a. That is a. That is not something I can do with clicks, not code. That is a higher level function that you have to like actually program out and find someone that can, can help set up those API integrations. But they're available, they're there.
- [20:50]
B
So I guess that's part of what I'm trying to understand as well. So your background is not software developer writing code?
- [20:58]
A
No, I am. I started out as a secretary and I just liked the database and so I would go home at nighttime and on weekends and watch Salesforce videos about how to make, you know, how to make a flow happen or how to set up a new object that captures some piece of information that I wanted. So I am not. And I'm kind of old generation too, Michael. So I actually am not one of these young people who kind of just eat and breathe technology for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So I, but I taught myself, I taught myself how to do it.
- [21:38]
B
Okay, very cool. So then what else? On this point, I guess processes. Like I'm just trying to visualize like what else have you built? Like if I, if I go to a client record, it's just like a, a giant, a giant sea of buttons because they're like Lori's build a whole page of, of one page buttons to do everything. Like how, how many things have you built? Or just do you even have to build on top of what you already get from Salesforce out of the box?
- [22:11]
A
Yeah, I like it to be as simple and easy as possible for my end user. And so I will do. I've got one tab in Salesforce under each client record. One tab is called flows and there's about nine or 10 different flows that you can do and they're separated into areas for. Hey, these flows are for processes. These flows are sometimes one off tasks like changing a client address or transfer of assets task or something like that. And then these flows are. The third category is that I'll bring in some information and set up. You have to do those risk profile questionnaires all the time and I got really tired of filling them out and so I would just set up a PDF that you call from a button. And so it populates the PDF and the information in the PDF and there are lots of programs and integrations that can do that much easier. I knew how to code it, so I coded it out. But there is that one page where there's like five or ten different things that you can do. So I do have some places where you're in a client record and you need to add an account or add a contact or something like that. So I will hide those buttons to your point sometimes in client records that make sense, but I try and make it as easy and intuitive as possible so that it's not complicated. Because most of the end users that I'm working with, most of my team, they don't even want to know how it works. They just want it to magically work.
- [23:57]
B
Right. And when you build something like the money in the move money flow that you mentioned earlier, how long does it take to create a flow like that and turn it into a button?
- [24:13]
A
It takes me probably about an hour, maybe an hour and 15 minutes, an hour and a half, somewhere around that. For one of those less complex flows. That's not a very complicated flow. It sometimes can take up to two or three hours to build a more complicated flow. And I'm losing time on the front side, but the fact that, that they can just repeat that process and I've repeated that process over and over and over again, it saves so much time in the end. And I've started with some of these processes, like the onboarding process. I've got a list of how to's like instructions, so they follow the process. So if I've got a new person, I found myself doing so much training and having to come back and answer questions over and over again. And I could embed videos for how to do this piece and I can make that follow the process. So as they're inputting this client into E Money, they've got six steps underneath with the instructions of how to do that and a few videos that they can watch if they forget pieces. And it's taken my training time down from months to like weeks. It really is truly transformational.
- [25:30]
B
So as you implemented this in the firm, did you just buy standard Salesforce off the shelf and just start adapting and customizing for your firm, or do you have one of the overlays or other templates built on top of Salesforce as well?
- [25:54]
A
So I've done both. We actually did the accelerate overlay early on, but I wanted to delve in a little bit deeper in some of those pieces. And so we got it direct from Salesforce. But I will tell you that I actually like the plain vanilla Salesforce. I liked the Accelerate version of Salesforce and just get in there and start making it your own. Because if someone else has put their vision of what your firm looks like and your firm is so unique and you are going to have different processes than I do and you're going to want them done differently than I want them done. And so the idea of like the financial services cloud, which is kind of expensive, and the, you know, those sorts of things, just get the plain vanilla Salesforce and start building those things on top of it.
- [26:51]
B
So for those who aren't familiar, like what is accelerated, I guess, and financial.
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A
Services cloud, so they are kind of overlays for a basic Salesforce subscription. So basic Salesforce has things like, you know, accounts and contacts and so on and so forth. And financial services cloud and accelerate, they build like things that make sense to financial advisors. I think science is another overlay that works with Salesforce. But they, they build these things that make it just a little bit easier to be a financial advisor in Salesforce. They put the investment accounts on there, they put RMDs. So they build out some of these pieces that might be easy for you to use. I. Some of them work really well, and I. And I can find ways to work with what these overlays have put on, especially like the rmd if we want to get specific, like the RMD section. Like, I'm fine with them doing the RMD setup rather than me coding it out. So it may save a little bit of time, but you can. You can code out the RMD section and object, you can add everything to it, and it doesn't take very long. It takes like 15 minutes to add an RMD section into your Salesforce view and set up so that you can track those RMDs and they're coordinated with the accounts. So either way works, I guess, is the main point.
- [28:32]
B
So then help me understand how you did this in practice. For the current firm, you built on Accelerate or you did and then you scrapped it and bought Salesforce Direct. Like how. What. What was the actual sequence or deployment?
- [28:49]
A
So it's kind of actually several different firms. The first firm I was with, I built on Accelerate, and the second firm we went direct with Salesforce, and I'm actually back to Accelerate again. So. So there's it. I found that it doesn't really. The platform that you're using as long as you've got the Salesforce chassis. It doesn't really matter if you're using financial services, Cloud or Salesforce Direct or Accelerate or any of the others, as long as they let you into the backside to build those flows. And I have built them three or four times because I've worked for different firms.
- [29:28]
B
So now that you've been through iterations, I guess I'm just sheerly curious, like, how helpful or useful is it to build on top of a template like Accelerate versus Building building on Salesforce Direct?
- [29:47]
A
I went to Salesforce Direct because I thought that they had more robust features. And once I got there, I found that they were not as responsive to my questions. And there wasn't a whole lot that I was missing on the Accelerate version. And I went back to Accelerate. They're cheaper, they're better customer service, and I can do all the things I want to do on them as well. So that's.
- [30:14]
B
Accelerate is actually cheaper than Salesforce Direct.
- [30:17]
A
Yeah, they don't have the leads section. Accelerate doesn't have a leads option. And I went to regular Salesforce and they do have the leads option, but it's. It's clunky. It doesn't feel good to me. And Accelerate has a prospect option that works just as well. For me as the lead section does. It works for my advisor as well too. So.
- [30:42]
B
Yeah, interesting. So you, I guess just do you know offhand at least approximately what the cost is? Just for folks who are completely unfamiliar with like Salesforce and Overlays World, like how much does it cost to buy a platform like Accelerate?
- [31:00]
A
Yeah, Accelerate is pretty cheap. I think it's 70 or $75 a user per month. So it's not bad in the Salesforce world. Regular version of Salesforce is upwards of like 150 and I think the financial services cloud is upwards of like 200.
- [31:21]
B
Interesting, interesting. So, and ultimately, I guess either way you can still do all the like the customization that you personally like doing. It's just a question of whether you're doing it with the out of the box version or with the initial layer of customizations that Accelerate already did and made for you. And then you make yours on top of theirs, basically. Like, am I thinking about that right?
- [31:46]
A
Yeah, yeah. In some cases, Michael, I'll use their customization because it works just as well, but most of the time I will build on top of that or augment it with those magic buttons that make it just a little bit more user friendly.
- [32:02]
B
And so it sounds like that's the big theme for you, is turning these work, like turning business processes into flows that are triggered by a button in the appropriate place that you would want to hit that button in the client record. So you can turn a lot of what the team does into just click the button for the thing and then follow the prompts.
- [32:23]
A
Yeah, and there's also like record based workflows so I can set up in the back end, say, hey, every time we change a prospect to a client, I want these pieces of information to go into that record. And then my end user doesn't even have to take the time to push the button. It just automatically updates.
- [32:47]
B
So because like you add there's fields that you need for a client that you don't need for a prospect. So you're like adding blank fields, that kind of information.
- [32:56]
A
Yeah, exactly. So there would be put like maybe they aren't as a lead, they aren't assigned a paraplanner, but once they become an actual client, I need to assign a paraplanner. Well, I can do that automatically if, you know, if I know who the advisor is, I can just automatically assign the paraplanner to that, that client and do it behind the scenes so nobody has to worry about it. And that way my information is all good in my Database, because I'm making sure, like, they need to be added to the newsletter when they become a client, they need to be added to the birthday list. All of those pieces you can automatically put in. And nobody has to do it. The robots do their fair share.
- [33:41]
B
So what else? Now I'm just kind of fascinated. What other tidbits have you automated through Salesforce? I mean, I like, just. I always love the little things. Like when they convert from a lead to a client, it automatically puts them on the client birthdays list. Yeah, that's the quintessential stuff. We all feel like, oh, I forgot to add list.
- [34:04]
A
Well, and that's. And the same thing in reverse happens when you close an account. Like when you close an account, you need to do a lot of times, like a fee calculation and a, you know, take them off the newsletter list and take them off the birthday list and take them, you know, pull them out of the system or the other system. Anything that I can make Salesforce pull them out of because it's got an integration with, say, constant contact. I can pull them out of that newsletter list and take them off. I can automatically rename the account to be a closed account rather than an open account. I can change it to inactive automatically. And that's all I do is, you know, I, I push the button for the closed account process and it, it does all of those things in the background for me so I don't have to remember them.
- [34:54]
B
You just got to think of it once when you're building the process.
- [34:57]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I do have to do that.
- [34:59]
B
So how do you get the rest of the team, like, buying in and adopting this? I mean, just, is it, is it easy to get everyone to use the buttons they're supposed to use or.
- [35:11]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [35:12]
B
Is it, Is it still a struggle to get adoption?
- [35:14]
A
No, it's easy because my main goal is making it easy for the end user. Like, is it easier to push one button and fill out a couple of questions, or is it easier to go in and open up a task and remember all the pieces that you have to put in and you know, and remember all the steps you have to do. And remember that you got to tell Lucy that she needs to remove that client from this system because you've closed the account? Like, they want it. They actually are begging about half the time. They're like, can you make a process for this so I don't have to do it?
- [35:49]
B
Interesting, interesting. And does it mean you have to have like a process request process worth.
- [35:57]
A
Little enough that I don't yet. But yes, if you were big, you would need a process request process.
- [36:04]
B
So help us now have more context for the firm. I guess. Just tell us about the advisory firm as it exists today.
- [36:13]
A
Yeah, so my advisory firm is Fearless Financial Advisors and I'm doing DBA under my ria. I worked for the RIA for seven, seven and a half years. We kind of started it, me and my partner at 30 million and just grew it up to about 100. I, it's 230 I think at this point. And so yeah, so it was. I needed all those processes in Salesforce to keep me out of, you know, 15, 16 hour work days every day.
- [36:53]
B
So how many clients is that? How many team members is that supporting? 230 million.
- [36:59]
A
We have, we have a total of eight team members. We have six advisors. Six of those are advisors, but two of the advisors, three actually are junior advisors where they're kind of navigating that change from admin or systems and operations to advisory. So they're more admin at this point than advisory.
- [37:32]
B
So, so you were, so you were. All the Salesforce work you were doing building was in the context of the, the overall RIA and serving this, you know, up to, up to team. Eight team members now.
- [37:48]
A
Yeah, as I broke off and did Fearless Financial Advisors, it just, the, the operations piece. Taking care of that big of an operation was taking too much time and I could not spend the time that I wanted to with my clients. And so I came to a crossroads where I sort of had to make a decision and I left my operations piece but I left the Salesforce database and all that sort of stuff for them as well. So I'm building it out under my own brand now. And, and I'm remembering how come we need some of those processes because I'll go in and go into my CRM and be like, oh dang, there's one more button to push.
- [38:41]
B
So I'm just trying to understand. So you were, so you were building jointly with another advisor to build the firm together. We're, I presume, like they had clients. You had clients. But also all these, the, the operation systems that you were building as the firm expanded. And so now you made a shift to say I, I'm going to kind of carve myself off to work with my own client base, not do the operation side anymore because I want to be full time on the client side and I'm going to do it under a, a DBA just so I can have my own like personal advisor brand. To do this.
- [39:22]
A
Yeah, that's exactly right. I, I have a. I have a podcast and I have a love of building female advisors in this space, which if you talk to me for more than five minutes, you'll know. So I, I wanted to kind of brand those things together and, and make that a. A really robust kind of place for female advisors.
- [39:49]
B
So then help us understand your overall career track and progression in the industry. Like, I'm just trying to understand how you got this balance of. I'm building a client base and also, like, really like nerding out on Salesforce. It's a decombination. So, like, what were your roots? What's your journey been through the industry?
- [40:14]
A
Yeah. So it's interesting, and we were mentioning before that a lot of times your path goes, you know, a winding route rather than straight. And that's been my path. So I went back to work. I had five kids and I had them.
- [40:36]
B
We tapped out after three.
- [40:39]
A
Yeah. There are days that I, I maybe was not prepared for full five children. So I stayed at home while they were young and nobody can afford. I don't care who you are, you can't afford daycare for five kids that just be working to pay daycare, it feels like. So I went back to work when my youngest was in the first grade and I got hired as a admin at a financial services firm. And I loved financial services. I had found my tribe, my people, my calling in life. And I didn't. I didn't even know it. I went to school for history. So I.
- [41:20]
B
So what was it about financial services?
- [41:23]
A
I know, it's. I can't even believe you asked me that. Because you're such a financial services attorney too.
- [41:32]
B
What hooked you? What pulled you in?
- [41:35]
A
It was everything. I really love everything about it. I love the complexity, Complexity of it. And yet the simplicity. You know, how, how there's so many different ways that you can be valuable and you can help clients get to their end goal. I love that there's so much depth. And you can go in the investment piece, or you can go in the operations piece, or you can go in the compliance piece. There's just so much. There's something there for everybody. I loved helping clients. I loved talking with them and making their chaos into just organization. It just. And I love the spreadsheets and the databases. So I spent some time in the back office. I started, like I said, as a secretary, but I got my insurance licenses and I started getting my trading licenses and I started working towards my cfp and I Got my mba and then I started on the cfa. I just, I wanted to know everything there was to know about it. And in that time I also built my book and I didn't realize at the time that's what I was doing, but I just would, as I, as these clients came in, the advisor would just pass them off to me and I would take care of them. And once I had my cfp, I would do meetings with them and I would do, I would craft their financial plan and I would. So I, I woke up one day and realized I'm like, you're, you're an advisor. You're like, you're not the admin anymore, you're an advisor. So. But at the same point I had that love of like processes and, and organization and I team building and I was really good at that piece too. So I didn't, I wanted to do both and I could for several years, but it just got to the point where I was working so many hours that I had to make a choice.
- [43:45]
B
So I want to understand, I guess the like the timing of this progression. So you, I guess first is tell me about the firm where you got this initial job in an admin capacity. Is this a big firm? Is this a small firm? What was the context of the role?
- [44:04]
A
Yeah, no, it was a small RA in South Denver. There was about, I think they actually had, they were an osj. I was only there for about three years, but they had like an osj. And so they had a collective under their umbrella. I think 500 million in assets under management. But the firm itself, I don't remember May, 150 or 200, I'm not sure. So it was, the team was about, I think it's similar size as about seven or eight people. And I didn't, I walked into that, Michael, and I'm embarrassed to tell you now, I didn't even know what an IRA was. I didn't know the difference between a Roth and an IRA or that there even was such a difference. So it was, it was. I spent those three years really learning all the pieces of that industry and how complex it was.
- [45:02]
B
So when did it start with insurance, license and trading licenses and then pursuing cfp? Was that in this three year period or did that come later?
- [45:12]
A
No, that was in the three year period I was licensed. By the time I left that firm, I was licensed. I had all my insurance licenses and I had my Series 7 as well. I just studied nights and weekends. Oh, and I had started on my CFP and my MBA Because I took those concurrently and then I finished those up. Over the next couple of years, I went to.
- [45:38]
B
Was the firm supporting this? I guess either by time or financially. I don't necessarily hear a lot of folks who come in in a administrative capacity who get, like, quick opportunity for a CFP and MBA in the first few years. I'm just trying to stand, like, was this a firm that was very supportive for you going down this path, or was this Lori just saying, this is what I want to do, so I'm going to go do it and writing your own checks and figuring this out in nights and weekends?
- [46:09]
A
Yeah, it was the second one. They didn't really have a process. It's something that I actually advocate in for this industry because I think that, you know, I am a big fan of more women in finance, and I think that if you made that transition from more of a support role to an advisory role and you supported that change, I think you'd get more people taking that path and more women specifically. But no, I just. I was like, I want my licenses. And they're like, okay, well, go get Unlimited. We'll sign off on that. And so at least they're willing to.
- [46:48]
B
Like, sponsor your license from a. You can actually hang your Series seven here. Yeah, okay. Yeah, but you're. And when you got to CFP and mba, like, you're paving your own path here.
- [46:58]
A
Yeah, I did. I. I took a year after that original RA and went to Empower in the 401k space for about a year, year and a half, and then started the second RIA at 30 million with the founding owner of that. And by that point, I had finished my MBA and had my cfp. So Empower, they do have a program where they'll reimburse tuition up to a certain point. So they were helping out a little bit with that.
- [47:31]
B
Is that what drew you to Empower? Like, why did you make the switch from the first firm to Empower?
- [47:37]
A
The first firm was they were rolling up a hedge fund. And it wasn't where I wanted to. It wasn't the direction I wanted to take. And I liked the idea of Empower. As far as I love working with 401ks, and I enjoy working with the participants inside of 401ks, and so that was kind of the next direction. I also wanted to work at a bigger company. You know, Empowers, one of the largest record keepers. And I wanted to go. I wanted to get some experience in a larger space.
- [48:12]
B
And. And so how long did you stay.
- [48:14]
A
At Empower I was only there for about a year and then.
- [48:20]
B
That was that for big, big company environment for Lori.
- [48:23]
A
Yeah, it was, I, it wasn't, it wasn't my favorite. I didn't like being. I did get to use Salesforce though and I, I think this is kind of funny. Like the year that I spent there myself into a job that was kind of a liaison between the Salesforce people and the, the client services group that they, Salesforce was like coding out or the, the programmers were coding out something that the, the management or the client services group needed. And, and they didn't talk to each other very well because, because they didn't understand the language. So I, I volunteered myself and I worked kind of as a liaison to get that project finished. So I didn't completely give up my love of Salesforce even during that period.
- [49:14]
B
And then while you were there, you were finishing up your CFP MBA program?
- [49:22]
A
Yeah, I did it concurrently. I got my MBA through Colorado State University and then I was taking CFP courses on the side and my five kids were all high school age or younger so it was busy.
- [49:36]
B
Well, I was going to ask, so like where are the five children while you're doing a CFP MBA program on the side after full time work? How does this work?
- [49:50]
A
It was busy. That's all I will have to say is it was busy. But I think that my kids, actually, my kids prayed that I would sign up for another test or another course or another, you know, whatever because I've always been pretty high energy. So whenever I got, whenever I didn't have enough to do, we would start home improvement projects. And so every time I came, I came downstairs with a home improvement project. They're like, mom, don't you have a test you can sign up for? Isn't there something else you can do?
- [50:21]
B
Oh, because they get it. Because they get drafted into the home improvement projects.
- [50:26]
A
Yeah, they'd much rather have me studying than they would have me coming up with projects they can do.
- [50:31]
B
So is there, I'm just trying to think practically. Is there a structure to how you manage your time to do this? I know. Our small version of chaos with three children multiply by another two more. How does this work to actually carve out the time and mental state to do this? Like to get through an MBA CFP that you're self studying on top of work?
- [51:05]
A
Well, I think that my kids luckily blessed me with the fact that they didn't want to do 12 different sports. I had nerd children and they liked video games and Software and stuff like that. So I didn't have to. I don't know how those parents do it that have, you know, three or four different sports. And so that was, that was helpful. And then I think that just, you know, my whole life is kind of geared around the idea of being really process oriented. Like if there's a way that I can do it faster, easier, better with less effort, then that's what I'll do both in my work and my home life. And so as you know, I did some of that. It was before ChatGPT though and I think I really could have done a better job. ChatGPT to help me out.
- [51:58]
B
What would ChatGPT have done?
- [52:01]
A
It can do great stuff. You can tell it to like figure out your schedule. You're like I've got these five classes and these five kids activities. Figure it out for me. Or just like composing emails that are, you're writing back and forth to your different classmates that take me 15 minutes to figure out. And chatgpt like three minutes.
- [52:22]
B
Very cool. So the household runs on system and process as well to just keep the gears moving. With five children to coordinate so you could find the space to study.
- [52:39]
A
Yeah. Each of the kids had a day that they'd make a meal and we ate toast and eggs sometimes twice a week. And I did a lot of studying in cars between, you know, drop off and pick up from school, stuff like that. I tried to really hard to make myself physically present for my kids even during that time where they knew that my door was open. You know, just the way actually I, I run in my company. My door is open, come in, sit down and you've got my full attention for whatever drama or catastrophe is going on in your life right now. And then I go back to work.
- [53:27]
B
So what. So how did the, the current firm get founded and, and, and launch? I guess you were. You were leaving in power because did big corporate. Not for me looking to get back in a smaller firm. But how did the actual opportunity come about?
- [53:51]
A
The founder of the firm was also one of the advisors at the first firm that I was working at and he came to me and said I'm starting my own firm. What do you think? And I thought that it would be really a lot of fun and I get to build the systems from the ground up and if it didn't work out I could just go find another job. So I said why not? And we started. It was originally just the two of us and we were bringing on clients and building the back office and, and Just kind of spinning up a firm which through my operations background I've done a couple of different times. You know, moving from broker dealer to RIA and then spinning up an RIA and then becoming your own ria. Like I'd been through the process a couple of times so I kind of knew how it went.
- [54:59]
B
Interesting. So I guess I'm just trying to put this in context. So you've just, you finished your CFP and MBA at Empower, ready for another opportunity? Advisor from the prior firm calls and says, I think I'm going out on my own. Let's launch this together. So when you went in, like were, were you going in as a, as a partner? Were you going in as operation staff? Were you going in as a second advisor that just happens to have some of the operations tasks? Because that's your side strength as an advisor. Like what was the context as this was coming together?
- [55:41]
A
Yeah, I went in as operations Michael. I was hired to like, just to bring the operations online and to, you know, do paperwork and get the clients put in everything like that. I had my CFP and I had the mba, but I didn't have enough confidence in myself and so I didn't see myself as an advisor. I was great at admin and I knew that, but I didn't know that I could be an advisor.
- [56:19]
B
So when or how did that change?
- [56:24]
A
Well, we got bigger and we kept getting more assets under management and I, I kept taking on kind of a larger role in the, you know, in the back office and the operations where I now had a team underneath me and my former partner went through a difficult personal situation and had to concentrate on that and, and I was sort of the one there to handle questions. So clients would come and I would have to, I was kind of thrown in the deep end. I just, I sort of had to come up with the answers and I got to use my training. I, I don't know that this is the way that I would have chosen for it to go.
- [57:22]
B
Uh huh.
- [57:23]
A
But you know what I learned really quick? You know, I started taking over those meetings and just doing what needed to be done to, you know, to get through to the other side. And I learned that I loved it. Like, just like, you know, when I came into financial services, I learned that, oh my goodness, this was what I was waiting for. I didn't realize that, that I could, that I could be a really good advisor. I always saw myself as an operations person.
- [57:58]
B
So you had, you had gotten the, I guess like the CFP training because it was intellectually curious, but not because you necessarily saw yourself as an advisor at the time because you were still operations focused when you pursued it.
- [58:12]
A
Yeah, I mean, like, I didn't ever think that I was really going to use. I just knew that it made me a better support for my advisors to know what they needed and what they were looking for. And I like learning.
- [58:31]
B
And so as your partner had a difficult personal situation, you ended up being the person to jump in because you did have your cfp.
- [58:43]
A
Yeah.
- [58:43]
B
And your license. Like, well, Lori wasn't with the firm for this, but hey, someone's got to do it and she's got the marks and the license. So here you go.
- [58:52]
A
Yeah, that's kind of the way it happens. I just, I, you know, I, I have a strong sense of responsibility and I, I knew that, you know, that we had clients that still needed their questions answered and to get things done and stuff like that and, and, and somebody needed to do it. And so I stepped up and did it and I enjoyed it. I loved doing it. I had been sitting in on meetings for years, for two, three, four years, taking notes and listening to the way things were done. So it was just a mindset change between seeing yourself as I'm the support staff to seeing yourself as I'm the advisor. I've got all the credentials, all the learning. I can do this, but I just, I just never saw myself as the advisor until I was one. And then it took me a year or two to kind of look back and say, oh wait, I've been doing this for quite a while. Maybe I am an advisor.
- [60:08]
B
So I was going to ask, so how, how quickly did, I guess like how quickly did shift come out about or even how, how long were you in this role? I mean, did, did, did former partner return and take the client base back after situation passed or did you just suddenly like inherit a whole client base and, and now you're an advisor from now on?
- [60:30]
A
Um, well, he did come back and he did take a portion of the client base back, but I was still handling a large portion of the client base's needs and doing all the operations. Like I said, I had a team that would do the day to day paperwork and you know, call the client and send an email, but all of the investing and trading and coordinating with the clients and stuff like that, that was sort of on my plate. And I did get about, probably a year, year and a half ago, I got to where I just couldn't take the amount of clients that I have was too much and so I passed some more back to my, my partner until this last year when it was just I either had to get rid of this client facing role entirely or I needed to get rid of the operations role entirely.
- [61:47]
B
At this point, like a year or two ago, were you out trying to get your own clients and expanding the client base or this is managing to the client count that came from your former partner that you're just trying to manage to on top of the fact that you've got operations for the firm and the firm is growing, so there's more operations things to deal with.
- [62:11]
A
So that is a really good question. I actually, so for this time period, about a year, year and a half ago, I still didn't see myself as an advisor. I, I, I was, I'll admit, I was scared to sell. I was terrified of it. I, I don't know why.
- [62:30]
B
Sell the firm or to like, sell your, sell yourself to your clients.
- [62:32]
A
Sell to clients. Yeah, yeah, I was, I was scared that, that I wasn't good enough, that I didn't know enough, that, you know, that maybe they wouldn't like me. I just, I was worried about it and, and so I was adamant pretty much even up until this point that I wasn't a salesperson. I didn't want client acquisition. I would take care of them and they could pass them off, but I was worried about putting myself out there. This came about actually in a really interesting way. I was, I had team that I was developing and I was thinking kind of one day about my career projections and my trajectory. And I was, I was saying to myself, well, I've had a really good, I'm really happy with where I've at, where I'm at, and I've had a really good career. But I wonder what it would have been like if someone had like mentored me. I wonder what it would have been like if I had been like, like shown how to do and mentored in this space. And I said, well, I've got three young ladies on my team and I could do that for them. But I wonder if other women would be willing to mentor them too, would be willing to share their experiences and what they would have done differently. And so I got on my courage and I went out and asked several women. I figured I could do it every other month. I could have a woman come in and kind of give a presentation to my little team and we put it on Zoom or something like that, and they could share their passion and their insights and kind of be an example to my little team. And I got such overwhelmingly good response from these women as they came in and shared their experiences. And it just, it lit me up inside. It made me feel like, like they were sharing these, these great experiences about their career and their professional success. And I'm, I'm like, well, if they could do it, what if I could do it? What if I could be an advisor? What if I could sell? And so at the end of that year, I was gonna shut down the program. I called it welcoming women to the room, but I was gonna kind of shut down the program. And I just, I loved it so much that it turned into a podcast for me. So it's called Fearless Females. And I'll, I talked to professional, successful professional women who share their stories for those that are kind of coming up. And the, the, the effect that I didn't really expect is that they inspired me to take a chance. I was, I was an advisor. I was already doing the things. If people came to me, you know, I would sell. I just wasn't prospecting and listening to these brave and just inspirational stories. It made me think, think, well, I could maybe do it too. And so I did. I started selling and growing my own client base and I loved it.
- [66:11]
B
So how did the, how did the conversation and transition go when you. Well, I guess like when you decided to make the split, but I guess even one, one step before, like, how did you reconcile or come to the decision when you're at this crossroads of, okay, I think I either have to be all in on the advisor thing or all in on the operations thing. I can't do both anymore.
- [66:44]
A
That was a really hard time for me because I, you know, I got an MBA and a CFP while raising five kids. Like, there's nothing in my life that I couldn't do. There was nothing that I, I felt like I wasn't, I wasn't up for a challenge. But I was working, I was working probably 12 to 16 hour days every day. And I had been doing it for, for over a year. And I just, you know, and I kept telling myself that this is going to get better. You just have to like, make another magic button or put something else together and you can, you can make it through this. And I finally sometime just sit down and looked at it and it was like, I distinctly remember it was like the 5th or 6th 12 hour day in a row. And I am like, this is not going to change. You cannot do both things and do the job that you want, show up in the way that you want for Both of them. And I think this is, this is a problem that a lot of professional women have, not just in financial services, but this idea of like, I could see burnout coming. I could see it happening in my life and I wasn't even willing to admit that burnout was a real thing. And I could see it coming down the pike for me, you know. So I think that it was really hard for me to admit that I couldn't do it all. It was really hard for me to admit that it wasn't going to get better. And it was hard for me to give up that piece that had sort of always identified and defined me. The operations, the person that made things happen, that got things done. That was hard.
- [68:32]
B
And it was the sheer work hours and the prospect of burnout that forced some decision.
- [68:40]
A
Yeah, I knew I could not continue. I couldn't continue to do it. I couldn't do both things. You know, both growing the team. I was doing the coaching and the mentoring and the training and the trading and the. I was taking care of a bunch of clients and client meetings and I was doing all the compliance on our side and I was doing all the, you know, just, I had lots and lots of big jobs and nothing was getting my best. I wasn't showing up at a 10 in all the places because I couldn't.
- [69:27]
B
And so how does that conversation go when you have to go back to the firm and say, I know we started this where I'm the operations person, but I need to not be the operations person anymore.
- [69:41]
A
That did not go as well as I had hoped. I, I did that. That's kind of what I did. I went to the firm and I said, you know, I'm, I can't, I'm worried that I'm not giving my best in all of these areas. And I would like to transition to advisory only. And I want to give up this operations piece. I said, I'm working 12 hour days now. I'll just keep working 12 hour days for another six months or so and we can move this piece off of me. I loved my clients. I loved my job. I loved my team. I didn't want to do this abrupt break and I wanted it to go smoothly, but it just, you know, in the way things happen in the human world, I guess it just didn't work out that way. And it ended up being kind of an abrupt break and a rather discombobulated, I guess is a good word process through the whole thing. But I do know that I still feel, even though the transition didn't go as well as I had hoped. I do feel that it was the right decision. I couldn't continue to do two big jobs. I needed to prioritize.
- [71:14]
B
So what happened in the transition? Because I'm just trying to visualize are a portion of the clients still the former partner's clients? Do you have some of your own clients in the mix as well? Who stayed? Who could go with you? How did this work?
- [71:31]
A
Yeah, that was really difficult. And I did have clients that I kind of took that, you know, you always have clients in the firm that are like the clients that you take when you take anyone and then you get bigger and you're like, I don't have time to handle all the clients that I have. Something needs to happen. Well, well, I took a portion of those clients that I had been working with for several years, and then I had my own clients that I had been growing for a couple of years that, you know, I sold and brought on, and those were mine. And then I did have some equity in the firm as well, and I traded that for a small number of clients that. That went with me. So. So, you know, my, my client list actually went down just a little bit. I think at one point I was taking care of a, gosh, 130 to 150 households, and it went down to about 88 households. And so I do have the time now I did have to do, you know, I have to do to like business development and stuff like that. So you have to add in a few more. More jobs to do. But I have a lot more time to spend with my clients, and I'm taking care of them in a way that makes me feel happy and good, like I'm showing up at a 10.
- [73:03]
B
And so now you've got your own client base that you get to serve on your own and just your revenue, your expenses, your net income.
- [73:15]
A
Yeah, Yep. I work under Fearless Financial Advisors and I get to, you know, work with. With just my client set. And I don't, I don't do any of the back officer operations. And, and yeah, they're. They're all either bought or the smaller client base that, you know, came that they were. You know, you're pretty happy if someone else wants to take care of a $20,000 household.
- [73:54]
B
Right. Folks at the end of the day that like the. The firm founder handed off because it doesn't make sense for them to be serving directly any anyways at that size and stage.
- [74:03]
A
Yeah, exactly right. And I kind of like those, that group of clients I Like working with young people who, you know, just need a little understanding of financial advising. And I've got the time to do a little bit of that now along with my others.
- [74:21]
B
So now help us understand just where Fearless Financial sits at this point, I guess, like clients or assets or revenue, however you measure it. Like, what's the state of Fearless Financial now?
- [74:34]
A
Yeah, so Fearless Financial has around 30 million in assets under management. And it's just, I'm the only advisor on that book, but I, you know, we've got the team, the umbrella of my raa, so I still have that kind of team atmosphere, but I have my own admin and all my own tech and I'm just kind of growing that, growing that business. So.
- [75:12]
B
And it's, and it's the 88 clients that came with or that, that you're able to support now?
- [75:16]
A
Yeah, about, I think it's about 88 households. Yeah. And.
- [75:20]
B
And I gotta ask, is it, is it built on Salesforce?
- [75:24]
A
Yeah, it is. Okay. Okay, it is. And I'm, I, I worked and got all my lovely magic buttons. The assistant that I took with me, she's like, I'm not doing this unless you build me some magic buttons. So I built her some magic buttons.
- [75:40]
B
And so, and so what's the vision for Fearless Financial now? Like what, what comes next from here?
- [75:47]
A
So I've got some room to grow. You know, I work, I work best with high net worth women, I call it. I work with women who want to take control of their financial future. And then I'll go back and qualify that and say, well, some of them don't actually want to take control of their financial future. Sometimes they have to take control of their financial future because they're divorced or they're widowed or they, you know, they're an entrepreneur. Their husband doesn't want anything to do with finances. He'd prefer to do just about, you know, go to the dentist and get a root canal rather than talk to a finance person. And, and so they are, they, some of them. I have a lot of women that, that just have been talked around for years and they want someone to kind of help and educate them where they don't feel, they feel like they belong in that space. And so I think that's going to grow. And then I would really like to help more women enter the industry as advisors. I think that piece that I did, the change from operations to advising, I think you could make that a seamless, easy transition. And this is a really good industry for women. You know, we, we have that relationship aspect that we really like talking and being with clients, and it's flexible. So, you know, you can. You can work it around a family and not have to give up time with your kids.
- [77:26]
B
So as you look back on this journey, what surprised you the most about this path to ultimately launching and building your own advisory business?
- [77:37]
A
It surprised me how easy it is, and I know that I've talked about some hard things, but finance is fun. It's easy. It's supposed to be this big, complicated, scary beast that some people make a really yucky face when you're talking about finances. Like you said, IRS audit or something like that. But. But finance is fun. It's like making dreams come true. It's like making a plan to get you to where you want to go. And it comes with spreadsheets and databases, which are like, the best in the whole wide world. So I love that. I know that finance can be complicated and hard, but it doesn't have to be like, I love that I can make it easy and bulfer my. My staff and my clients that I can make it be a place where they want to be.
- [78:32]
B
So what was the low point on this journey?
- [78:37]
A
So transitioning from operations to my own business as advisor has been the hardest time. I was really good at operations. I had a lot of confidence in myself, and I knew that I was. I was good at that. And I was scared to death to go out on my own and be my, you know, be an advisor. And I sort of thought that most of my career was spent building, you know, other people's businesses and building their books and helping. And so. So I had the impression that when it was my turn, that there would be someone there to help me kind of build my business as well. And it was a lot lonelier than that, and it was a lot harder, and that was a real low point. But I will say that. And even along that journey that I found other women who had been through this process, maybe not as a financial advisor, but in their own professional journeys. I had found other women that, like, I had one who I didn't really know very well, but she tracked me down and insisted that I come to lunch with her. And then she shared all of her transitional experience and what she'd gone through and things like that. She'd learned and gave some, like, really relevant advice. But I think more importantly, she made me feel like other people had been through what I was going through now and that it was hard and it would get better. And I had some hope there and my team is so supportive and just encouraging and helpful. And I have found those wonderful, really good people, people throughout the industry who are just willing to lift and help.
- [80:50]
B
So was it for you? Was it the like, was it the, the tasks and things it takes to transition from operations to an advisor or. Or was it more the like the sheer loneliness when you like effectively go out and hang your own shingle and. And now it's just you doing your thing?
- [81:15]
A
Yeah, it's that I'm scared. I try and be fearless. I say fearless is like being scared of something and doing it anyway. And so that's what I'm doing. I'm being fearless. But it is. I sort of expected to have that team and that environment and that support and, you know, just having the confidence in yourself. I don't know if this is just me or if it's women in general or if it's anyone who's trying to do this as an advisor, but I'm just scared. I was just, can I do it? Can I do a good job? This is a, this is a big field. Can I. I know I have all the credentials. I've, you know, I've got all the letters behind my name. But. But what if I don't do a good job? What if people don't like me? What if they don't come to me and I do Michael too. I'm pretty authentic in the way that I show up. I learned to. I've got a little bit of pink in my logo, so you can tell I'm a girl. Right? And you have. I have like a talk about my kids and the things that I learned from being a mom. And so that is not your traditional financial advisor. I don't sit across from a big conference table and talk about roi. I want to know how your kids are doing and you know, where your relationship is and how I can help you make your dreams to come true. And I know a lot of advisors do that, but I just, I come at it with a really less of a three piece suit attitude. And I don't even know how to play golf, to tell you the truth.
- [83:05]
B
So what else do you know? Now you wish he could go back and tell you from ten plus years ago when you were starting down this path.
- [83:13]
A
If I could go back and talk to myself, I would tell me, be fearless. You can do this. People will help. Learn all you can, but take the chance it isn't too hard or too complicated. It isn't just for somebody else. You belong here. People need to Hear your voice and your ideas. Your approach is a little bit different, and that's okay. I would let myself know that sooner because I spent a lot of time looking at advisors and thinking, well, that's. They can do it. They're smarter than I am. They know how to do this and I don't. So I can't do it. And I would tell myself, if I could go back and do it again, I would tell myself to be fearless. Try it. You can do it.
- [84:17]
B
Any other advice you would give for younger, newer women approaching the industry and trying to get started? They're in. Trying to figure out how to get going.
- [84:31]
A
Yeah. I have a lot of opportunities to do mentorship and to have conversations with young women who are looking at coming into this industry. And that's what I would tell them. I would say, find yourself a couple of mentors. Go talk. There are so many of us that are so willing to sit down and give you the benefit of our experience so that you don't. You don't have to make as many mistakes as I made. I think that just ask people will help, and they want to help and find a mentor that is willing to put some time and energy into you because this industry is for you. You belong here. There's a place for you.
- [85:28]
B
So as we wrap up, this is a podcast about success. And just one of the themes that comes up is literally that word success means very different things to different people. And so you're on this wonderful path of success for the business as you've broken off and fearless financials launched and underway. And so the business is in a good place. How do you define success for yourself at this point?
- [85:57]
A
So I'm going to. I'm going to tell you a story that is kind of personal. When my son. When one of my sons, my second son, was in high school, we were in Colorado, and he went to STEM school, Highlands Ranch. And he was. It was May of 2019, and he was in, like, the last couple of weeks of his senior year. And I got a call on the phone at work that changed my life. And it changed the way that I looked at my career and my. My contribution to this world and the idea of success itself. My son. I picked up the phone and my son said, mom, he said, I've been involved in a school shooting. He said, I'm okay. He said, I was shot. I shot a little bit. He told me, I shot a little bit, but I'm okay. And my world kind of narrowed to this one time, this one sentence, and what was happening with my, my son. And we talked and, and I told them I was, you know, I was coming up to the hospital, the ambulance had been called, and come to find out that my son and two other young men had stood up and tackled the shooter in the room and taken the gun away from the shooter and saved an entire classroom worth of kids, an entire school worth of kids. And one of those three brave young men, Kendrick, was killed during that conflict. And I think that what success means to me is just there is one person makes a difference in people's lives. One action, one decision to move towards danger rather than away made a difference, made my son be able to come home that day, made 30 other kids in that classroom be able to come home that day. And those kids have gone on to have lives and families and they've done amazing, incredible things. And all because one person stood up and made a difference. And so I think, Michael, that is my definition of success. If I can stand up and make a difference in somebody's life, if I can help bring more women in finance, help more clients feel like they belong here, this is, this is their place. Help more young people understand that finance is a great career for them, help more women to show up. If I can make a difference, just one little difference, it has ripples.
- [89:09]
B
Thank you, Lori, for sharing and joining us on the Financial Advisor Success podcast.
- [89:14]
A
Thank you, Michael. Thanks for having me.
- [89:18]
B
Want even more idea tools and resources.
- [89:21]
A
On how to break through to the next level of success as a financial advisor?
- [89:26]
B
Check out the leading financial planning industry blog, Nerd's eye view at www.kitsis.com, where Michael covers the latest practice management trends and financial planning strategies. And by joining the members section, you can earn IMCA and CFP continuing education credits along with exclusive member content. Get it all now at www.kitsis.com.