Podcast Episode #9: Values-aligned Investing with Max Mintz
Episode Summary How do you engage with clients who want to combine financial returns with philanthropic impact? That’s just one… Read More
Insights and best practices for successful financial planning engagement
• Sasha Grabenstetter • December 20, 2024
What drives the next generation of financial planners? How can you help them succeed in your firm? Those are some of the topics we’re exploring in this episode of the Heart of Advice podcast with our guest, Hannah Moore, CFP®, CeFT®.
As the founder of Amplified Planning, a financial planning training and education program, and head of The Externship, she brings her perspective on the next generation of financial planners, what they’re looking for, and what firms can do to shorten the learning curve and get new planners up to speed.
Connor: Welcome to the Heart of Advice podcast delivered by eMoney. I’m Connor Sung.
Sasha: And I’m Sasha Grabenstetter. We’re your eMoney experts. Today, we have Hannah Moore. Hannah Moore is a CFP® professional. She’s also a Certified Financial Transitionist®. She’s also the founder and owner of Guiding Wealth near Dallas, Texas. She’s also the founder of Amplified Planning, which is a financial planning education and training program. And she’s also been included in Investopedia’s list of top one hundred financial advisers since 2019 through 2023, but in the top ten in 2020. So, Hannah, welcome.
Hannah: Thank you guys so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Sasha: Of course. Can you walk us through your career journey and how you got here today?
Hannah: Yeah. So I was a college student looking for a major and wanted to do nonprofit management. Ended up transitioning at the last possible moment into financial planning and did an internship in Dallas. After that internship, I got connected with an advisor, really a solo advisor, who was looking for a succession plan. I had no idea what that meant at the moment. And so I just kept saying yes to things. I was 22, she was 68. Four years later, I ended up buying her practice. I had a lot of experience in that world. Clients would come in, we’d review their investments, and then we did a little bit of planning.
But I was like, this isn’t what I went to school for. This isn’t what I really love. I was really drawn to the planning side of things. So I really did a deep dive into what financial planning is, what it looks like. In that process, I started taking clients through a full planning process. It was just a night and day difference between those clients and the investment management clients.
A couple of years later, I ended up leaving where I was and took my financial planning clients and started an RIA where we focus heavily on financial planning. So, like, we’re very planning-first in everything that we do. In that time, I had a lot more time on my hands. We started a podcast and really started focusing on how we can help new planners as they’re starting because it was really hard. It was really hard when I started, and I just want it to be easier for people coming after us. So I know we’ll talk a little bit more about that side of things as well. But that’s a little bit of how I got here and how I got started.
Sasha: Yeah. I mean, the investment management side, I can imagine. And then just transitioning over to the full-blown financial planning probably felt really wonderful.
Hannah: The first client, well, the first client that I pitched it to, so I bought these processes. And so they had scripts out for you, so you could practice the scripts. And so, you know, I’m in my twenties. I’m reading through this, doing all those things. And I remember going and talking about financial planning with this client for the first time, pitching the services. And I remember him sitting there and saying, this is what I’ve been looking for. I didn’t know how to name it. Like, I didn’t know what to call it, but this is what we’ve been looking for.
And it was just this aha moment for me where we’ve truly, he had been a client for 20 plus years at this firm, and what he was really looking for was the planning side. And so then you got to know your clients so much deeper. And so it’s been a really neat journey of really diving into that planning side.
Sasha: And I know you’re really good at that with your clients, but I’ll let Connor ask our next question.
Connor: Can we move into that a little bit? So you talked about how holistic planning gets you to that deeper level of understanding and engagement in relationships, but it does center around finding that person and, you know, that aspect of financial psychology. I know you’ve been very forward-thinking in your application of both FinPsych as well as technology. Can you talk a little bit about both of those areas, both how you apply financial psychology and technology into your practice?
Hannah: Yeah. Well, you know, we think about financial planning. We’ve really kinda changed some of the language that we’re using within my practice to be client-centered financial planning. And so what that means for us is everything revolves around the client. Like, we build our processes around that client experience. I know some firms are very process-heavy, which is great, but it’s really for “how do I make my life easier?” versus “how do I make my client’s life easier?” You can streamline both of those, but I think it’s a different perspective. And so when I think about the technology side of what we’re doing, you know, it really does, you know, the client experience matters. And so we think about just where the world has evolved.
Even in the last ten years, if I can’t get it on my phone, I’m not doing it. Like, I’m a busy mom of three, you know, running some businesses. It’s, you know, and I think about a lot of our clients. And so what’s been really interesting is how we’re onboarding clients. It’s just an expectation that we have a portal. It’s just an expectation that we’re aggregating things because that’s lined up with their lives. You know, ten, fifteen years ago when I started, it was a different world. They expected to come in and sign paperwork. They’d be everywhere and having to track it, and that’s just not the case in today’s world. And we want to create as few barriers as possible for our clients.
Connor: Which is great. I mean, it helps build scale. You’re deepening relationships, and you’re setting the correct expectations as to what to expect from the technology, what it’ll do, as well as aligning those things to the holistic plan. As you think about use of the portal, our research shows that the more clients use the portal, the more net promoter score type factors drastically increase. They are one hundred percent correlated, basically. How do you actually talk to the portal, its benefits, and how do you help clients actually use the portal?
Hannah: You know, what we find is that in a lot of our meetings, we’ll actually help them log in. So if they’re savvy, they’re going to have it all already. Like, they’re going to know how to do it. And it’s slick. Right? Like, we were just relooking at all of our processes for client onboarding. And it was just, oh, we send an eMoney link, and then they’re good. You know, so it was an interesting thing because we were expecting that we were going to have to supplement it, but we didn’t have to supplement it, because you guys have that process so slick and guiding them through that. And so, for our tech-savvy clients, that’s what we’re doing, and we’re helping them show them how to link their accounts if they’re having issues. My paraplanner will sometimes even jump on calls with them.
But we’re really making that the center place for them. It really gets sticky for us when they start linking all their accounts and they start aggregating in, like, the transaction side of it. So they’re not going to their bank to do that anymore. They’re doing it on their portal. And for some of our clients, again, you know, as you tier out your clients, so they obviously need to be at a certain level. We are also now actually helping them categorize those transactions. And we’re willing to have to do it, you know, it is a heavy lift at the beginning. But once you do it, eMoney has a feature where for all future transactions.
And so what we’re doing is we’re helping them do that. And so now we’re able to go in there and get an accurate picture of what is their spending, tying that directly into their financial plan. And so that’s been a really we’ve just been using that with a lot of our especially a lot of our newer clients.
Connor: That’s wonderful. Can you talk a little bit about how you use the advisor side of the platform? And I’m thinking about kind of this intersection of relationships, the actual straight math that’s delivered through, like, the Decision Center, and how you actually go through some of the planning conversations.
Hannah: Oh, absolutely. So we are heavy users on the Decision Center. So kind of our workflow as we go through it is, you know, we’ll walk clients through, we use the language of “this is your base plan versus your, you know, options on it.” And we just walk them through the basic facts that are in their plan. And that’s always a good talking point. And what’s so nice is we can just change it. So, you know, oftentimes, they’ll be like, oh, I got a raise or, you know, we can get those updates in that meeting. And then we’re doing that, and then we’re really taking them to the Decision Center. And that’s really where we’re building out a lot of those pieces. So we have kind of the standard ones that we have for all of our clients. So, obviously, retirement dates, spending, the, you know, savings rate, those types of things. But then anything client specific. And so we’re really using that as kind of the foundation for that conversation. And clients love it. They love that interactive nature of it. We constantly get that feedback.
Sasha: That’s awesome to hear. Earlier you talked a little bit about making sure the clients go through the spending plan and I know that maybe this isn’t well seen here, but I do know that you promote these blocks and I remember when we first had Hannah, you handed me a box and I don’t know if you know this with my spouse and I actually went through this.
Hannah: Oh, did you really?
Sasha: And went through and saw what the spending was and all of that. And so like I think that’s just you know using eMoney as a tool is like a step up from the blocks, but both I thought are really good.
Hannah: Yeah. Do you want me to talk about that for a second?
Sasha: Oh, sure. Why not?
Hannah: Yeah. Well, so it’s really interesting. So, again, that’s client centered. Right? How’s the client engaging with their money? We found a lot of people there’s a disconnect where they can’t see their spreadsheet. So they can’t, they don’t relate. I’m a numbers person. I love a good spreadsheet, but a lot of clients weren’t able to see it.
And so what we’ll do sometimes is we’ll actually use the budgeting blocks where you basically take the blocks and put them on the table and move them around the table to, like, see how your spending is. And, uh, and so it’s really like a behavioral aspect of it. So it’s them being able it’s an awareness tool. Right?
So it’s an awareness of where is your money going based upon your values. And so we have them do a values exercise, and you get to see where everything plays out, and then you get to move it around. And so it’s very easy if you’re spending more than you’re making. Every month, you can see that just very visually, and then you can rearrange it. And so, really, that’s almost like a pre-eMoney phase. And so we use this with about half of our clients now, where people who if they don’t have an awareness of where their money is going, we’ll use that tool so that they can see it, physically move it, and then we’ll take the inputs from that and then enter that into eMoney. And that’s how we kinda track things going forward.
Sasha: That’s really awesome. And I think, like you said, it’s a really nice visual for them to see where if they’re out of control of spending or if they need to save more or whatever it may be
Hannah: And it helps to validate that the spending that they have. So, like, you see this many, like, oh, I’m spending a lot there, but we frame it all within the values. And, like, oh, well, it makes sense you’re spending a lot there because this is important to you. And so you’re able to tie those together in just a really seamless conversation with the client, which is really powerful.
Connor: I’m sure it’s enlightening in both directions.
Sasha: Hannah, I wanna just, like, switch a little bit, but you’ve really kinda been the captain at the helm of the Amplified Planning Externship for the last five years and could you just share? I know we just finished year five. Obviously together we partner with you all for that technology partner piece, But can you just give me some key insights over the last five years or even just from this year’s experience. That way we can help the next generation of financial planners.
Hannah: Yeah. Well, this is something I’m so passionate about. So I think from five years, we’ve had over four thousand people go through the Externship program. So these are new and aspiring financial planners. And at Externship, we’re really focused on what does this look like? Helping people get a perspective of, you know, it’s really hard to know what financial planning looks like if you haven’t been in this role. And so we’re really trying to we often use language. We wanna be a welcome mat to people coming into this space. And so we really have our pulse on what the next generation of financial planners is wanting and looking for.
And so there’s a couple of things that really stand out. The motivation of helping people continues to be the top reason people are coming into this field. We’re hearing from career changers who want a meaningful career. They’re like, I’ve done the thing. I’ve made the money. I’m, like, I’ve worked in the corporate world. I’m tired. I wanna get something that I can feel like I’m having an impact on people’s lives. And so we’re seeing that that’s a big motivation.
And so we’re seeing for firms, so if you’re a firm listening to this, center your language around that of how like, when you’re talking to new planners coming in, make sure that they realize that they’re going to be able to help people. Like, that’s really important for them. So we’re finding we’re finding that as a big driver for people.
We’re also finding drivers are people want the planning focused. You know, the world is changing. These commission-based jobs, that’s not what’s drawing people into this field. Yeah. And so we have a lot of people who are coming in because of their own personal experience.
So, our number two we ask people, how did you find this? How did you find this as a field? One of the top answers is they had a personal interest in this. So they’re coming from, I needed this. I’ve been looking for this. This has helped me, or I wish I would have had this. And, like, that’s why they’re coming into this field. So being able to connect back to that person and why financial planning is important to them is where you’re really gonna be making the connections. If this is just about selling a product or something like that, that’s usually not what’s gonna resonate with your people. But the planning focus is a big one.
Sasha: Yeah. Just to, like, kind of jive off that. The positive empathy pieces of those, like making sure that the aspiring and, you know, student planners, they understand how important it is. Yeah. And that motivates them. So that’s a really great piece.
Hannah: Yeah. And they get to see it. Right? They get to experience it. They get to see that full experience. They get to see the clients. They see client meetings. They get to see the technology. They’re building the plan with eMoney. Our externs this last year, I was giving them all these homework assignments with eMoney. And, you know, usually, you’re like, oh, they’re new. We’re gonna keep it. But we did not. I mean, it was, like, intermediate to a little bit of advanced. And I was like, oh, if you guys can do that, but they did it. And that’s what’s so cool. But they get to see all those. They get to see different plan or different business models, and so they really have that perspective of how it can be a really impactful career.
Connor: So as somebody that’s experienced years of The Externship and helped the next generation of financial planners, as you think about the one and two advisor shops where capacity is their primary constraint, what sort of skills and traits or experiences should they be seeking out as they look to gain capacity through hiring?
Hannah: Yeah. Such a good question. And I think what you’re going to find is a couple of different things. So one, there’s a huge demand. We were talking about this beforehand, before the interview, of how college students, like, there’s such a demand for them, and that’s amazing.
I also think there’s a huge opportunity within career changers as well, where they’re bringing in extra skills to the job from their previous jobs, and just some general professional skills. So that’s one way if you’re saying, “Hey, I need this today, and we don’t have three years to develop,” perhaps consider a career changer.
We’re also seeing that basically, what we need to do is we need to shorten that learning curve for these folks coming in so they can be really impactful right away with your firm. So, a couple of things on that. One is bring them into all the things. So bring them into your meeting prep. Bring them into the actual client meetings. Bring them into the follow-ups. Like, really have them shadow, invest time in that training piece, because that’s going to help give them context. I was talking to some new planners who are working at a firm, and they were very frustrated. And one of their frustrations was they didn’t know what they were doing, where it fit in the context of it. So I think that conceptualizing it as, “Here’s the process and how do we fit in with that and where are we at?” is going to help a lot.
Also, just send them to get good training. Like, I mean, eMoney has great resources. I mean, like, my gosh, you can just have them go caller support. Like, it’s amazing. But you can also do other training resources. Like, send them through The Externship. They will be able to hit the ground running. We’re going to be having an outsourced training solution coming out very soon in the next few months.
So there’s getting to be more and more solutions for how we can help these folks get up to speed very quickly. Because as soon as they can do that, that’s when you start increasing your capacity, but it takes that investment on the front end. But it’s worth it. Right? All the studies say that. It’s really worth it, of giving up that control, letting them make those mistakes because that’s what they need to do, and investing in them because these folks want to be invested in. That’s one of the things we found in The Externship, they don’t want to do it alone. That’s what we’re finding. They don’t want to do it alone, and they really value that mentoring piece and that training piece.
Connor: Yeah. Especially by somebody that has seen and done a lot of things. You mentioned three years. What do you think the timeline actually is for, say, somebody that has gone through The Externship and has joined a firm? As a small business owner yourself, what do you think from a learning curve perspective?
Hannah: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting. I absolutely believe The Externship fast-tracks it. I mean, we’re hearing from firms that they hire somebody from The Externship versus not. That there just is a difference in the training piece.
I think one of the things that’s really unique about our space is all of the extra things that go on around it, you know, just the client service side of things. Like, yes, we’re doing the planning. We’re doing the work in eMoney, but we’re also having to fill out forms and paperwork and custodial paperwork, and like, the moving money, and all of that.
It’s fascinating that there are so many, like, layers that you have to know, at least at a basic level of competency, to really be able to navigate the space. And so I think what’s happening is a lot of people are coming in expecting to be meeting with clients from day one, which is great. But then they’re like, “Oh, have you heard about Schwab paperwork? Have you heard about a NIGO?” And they’re like, “Oh my god. What do I have to do? And why did this get NIGO? I don’t understand. And what’s the anti-money laundering? Like, why what?”
And so I think that’s where a lot of people like, some of the expectations, I think, are a little not misaligned, but there’s people who get hit with more things than they’re expecting, especially on the smaller side of things, because you’re doing everything in your firm. Right? Like, that’s the beauty and the hard part about all of it. But yeah, we’re seeing that three-year mark is really when people kind of just be like, okay, I get it. I get the context. I’m able to move on from this.
Connor: All the fun stuff.
Hannah: All the fun things.
Sasha: All the fun stuff. Well, I know in previous conversations that you and I have had, Hannah, you’ve always said to me, and I don’t think this is non-public knowledge, but you know, like the externs really know the material, the financial planning material, but those soft skills, which are near and dear to my heart, are the things that they’re kind of struggling with. So could you talk a little bit about that?
Hannah: Yeah. So it’s fascinating. We see this in other fields too. I spend a lot of time studying this. We have knowledge-based competencies, and that’s what the CFP Board and what the CPA Board topics are. Like, if you go to their website, it literally is knowledge-based topics. Right? So you think about medical school. It’s knowledge-based topics in this medical school. You’d see it in every field, in law everywhere.
But to be a good professional requires more than just knowledge-based skills, and it requires these behavioral-based competencies as well, or behavioral-based skills. This is how you engage with a client. It’s how you work with your boss. It’s the critical thinking skills. It’s the leadership that you can develop. It’s all of those pieces, and that’s really where the blending happens.
And so what we’re finding is a lot of people are coming in with the knowledge. Like, they’ve aced the tests. They’ve got it. They’ve taken the CPA courses. They’ve passed the exam. They have the knowledge, but they don’t have those client skills yet. And they don’t have that, oh, what do I say when a client says this? We find in a lot of our training that there’s a lot of fear with these new planners coming into the space where they have all the answers until they meet with the client. And then until they actually get put in those situations.
And so that’s where a lot of our training has been focused. It’s not on, like, the technical pieces of, like, how do you technically do a Roth conversion. Right? It’s on how do you communicate that to a client? How do you help a client take action on that? Because that’s the blending, and I think that’s really the magic of what financial planning is. And we see that in other fields too. Right? In the medical field, you get the knowledge in medical school, and then you go to a residency program.
And so what firms are having to do is they’re having to train on this behavioral side of, how do you have empathy? What do you do with a client who just lost a spouse? How do you engage with them? How do you engage with the kids of your client? How do you engage with somebody who has a different background than you? Who grew up with different assumptions about life and money than you? How do you not project that onto them?
There are so many aspects that go into what makes a great financial planner. And so much of our training, so many of our designations, are focused on just “Do you know the technical knowledge?” versus training on that behavioral piece. And that’s really what The Externship is trying to blend together. A lot of the training programs that we’re about to roll out with are going to be much more on that behavioral side because we just see such a gap in this space. And a lot of firms are doing a great job of this. That shadowing, those are rubbing off. Right? They’re giving them practice. They’re giving them reps. They’re giving them the confidence in that. But we think there are better ways to be training on that behavioral side.
Sasha: I can definitely agree with that. Especially a lot of the thought leadership that I do is really focused on the softer skills.
Hannah: Yeah.
Sasha: I appreciate you’re giving us a little more detail on that.
Hannah: Yeah. It’s such a gap, and you can just tell a difference when you’re working with a planner. When you’re working with a doctor. Right? You know, it’s we call it bedside manner. We call it those things. And one of the things, even just a couple of years ago, I was like, well, you got it or you don’t. Right? Like, you either have it or you don’t. And then talking with people on our team and just different educators and folks who do this, they’re like, no, Hannah. If we can name it, we can test it. We can train it. We can develop it. And that’s really changed my perspective because all of these soft skill pieces, we can absolutely train and develop in people. And I think the more that firms invest in that, the better it’s going to be. It’s going to help with acquiring clients, client retention. It’s going to help with your firm. How do you build a better team? It’s just going to be a benefit. It’s a win all around.
Sasha: Yeah. The emotional intelligence piece is really, really important. And hopefully, firms can walk away thinking a little bit differently about how they’re gonna be training interns or aspiring planners.
Hannah: Absolutely.
Connor: Rubber meets the road.
Hannah: Yes, exactly right. That’s what it is. It has been fascinating. We’ve been training more in-depth with people. And it’s lots of confidence, and then you meet with that first client, and you’re like, whoa, where does that confidence go? It’s been really interesting to see that play out.
Connor Sheer panic.
Sasha: Yeah, probably.
Connor: I want to pivot a little bit.
Hannah: Yeah.
Connor: You have been a champion for women in our entire industry. Can you just speak a little bit about what leaders should do, steps that they can take in order to help women in advisory positions?
Hannah: Oh, I love that question. I was just at the Women’s Summit Investment News, and so this was a big topic there. And, you know, one of the things that was said was, one of the women, she was like, we shouldn’t be trying to change women. Right? Like, women operate, they think differently. Right? We should be focusing on the ecosystem that lets them thrive. And I thought that was such a good way of thinking about this, especially around so many of these topics around women.
So some of the things that are really important is, you know, women tend to be very relational, planning focused. So planning roles, that’s where women, again, I’m making lots of broad generalizations. But we see in the research that that’s where women thrive. Right? That’s where they’re thriving in those relational aspects of this. And so how can we put them in those positions?
And so, you know, I know people talk about this all the time. Compensation methods are a really big deal. If you’re asking them to go find all of the clients to then service the clients, most women are gonna back out of that. Most women are gonna say, “No, that’s not for me. That’s not gonna be the situation I want.”
We’re finding planning is a big draw for women. There was a survey that was recently done. That was one of the top things, was they want to be in a planning-centered firm because that feeds that relationship because it’s not always just about the money. It’s not about who can bring in the most clients. That’s not the main motivator. Right? The motivations are different.
So we’re seeing that mentoring is a really big deal. How are you getting them in there? Continuous learning places. Right? So how are you developing? Like, am I gonna be continued to be challenged? Am I gonna continue to be able to evolve? Which is good for any firm to have, but women especially are craving that. They’re craving the, like, they want to do the best work for their clients. That’s a huge driver for them.
Sasha: Yeah.
Hannah: And if they think that the work that they’re doing isn’t gonna be impactful or not the best thing, you’re not gonna retain women. And so it’s really about, how do we create the ecosystem? How do we create the environment that really lets women be who they are and thrive in that?
Sasha: I just wanna piggyback on that because a lot of schools now are, you know, adding not only the CFP, but also the accredited financial counselor piece and so was just recently at a large university and like a huge enrollment in just more the counseling side, the more, you know, people side really. And I think that really shows when we’re looking at women in personal finance.
Hannah: Yeah. And that’s what they’re gonna be expecting. Right? Like, that’s what they’re gonna be expecting. What’s so interesting to me is I have a lot of firms who are not exasperated, but they’re just frustrated. They’re like, how do I do this with NextGen, with women? Like, I’m just expecting all of these things. And it’s like, little steps can make really big differences.
So even on that, I mean, I’m talking about continuing to develop folks. I mean, we have a paraplanner. We’re encouraging her to take the AFC because she loves doing the budgeting work with clients. So she’s doing this one on one. And you talk about this learning environment, it’s as simple as encouraging her to go get the AFC. Yeah. Like that’s a motivator for her because then she’s helping her. It’s lining up, it’s ticking up all these boxes by one simple thing.
Encouraging your people to do pro bono work. I mean, I know it’s so simple, right? But like, you know, so there’s a disconnect for people when they get into this field, and then they walk into a firm where the minimum is two million dollars or five million dollars. They’re like, I came into financial planning because I saw the need for financial planning in my life, or I see it where it could help my uncle or my brother or my sister. And there’s this disconnect between their day job and the motivation that brought them into financial planning. Yeah. And that’s a hard bridge to cross. Right? And we can talk about business models. And, like, that’s a whole other conference we could build on.
But a simple thing you can do is invite them into pro bono. We encourage you to do this on work time, two hours a month. And there are so many great foundations. Like, you can really drill down into what they care about and help them do that. It’s such a simple thing that firms can do where it’s not about changing your whole structure of anything. Just encourage them to do pro bono work. Encourage them to get that designation. It can be really, really simple, but it means so much to folks. And when I talk with them, I hear those things about firms and that’s what they’re telling me about firms.
Connor: You’re aligning goals.
Hannah: Yeah.
Connor: Maybe not on the personal financial side, but for somebody’s employment success.
Hannah: Yeah.
Connor: And that total amount of psychic income that you get from being able to contribute in that way, aside from being part of their full-time employment, which is cool.
Hannah: And they’re building competencies too. We also assume, like, you know, you’re like, “Oh, pro bono. That doesn’t really connect to the work we do.” Absolutely, it does. If we start quantifying what those behavior-based skill sets are, absolutely. So especially if you have a new hire, especially if you’re wanting to train somebody, those are the skills they can develop that will translate directly to their client relationships.
Sasha: Yeah. I’ve definitely seen that from research and all of that piece. So, in the same vein, earlier in February of 2024, you and I did a fireside chat really talking about life transitions. I want to ask you: why did you decide to add in the Certified Financial Transition designation?
Hannah: If I rewind, I was 26 and I bought this practice. So I’m sitting across the table from all these folks who have so much more experience than me. And I was wanting the knowledge. I was wanting to know how I could engage with people because I’d watched the lady I worked for, and she was really good at that. But I was like, “I need more skills. I need more training. I need more tools to help engage with the clients across the table from me.”
And so I went there because I was by myself now, right? I just bought this practice. What am I supposed to do? And so that was really the big driver. And the other thing was that I think I intuitively knew. Like, there was a lot of intuition around this, of being like, there’s so much transition that happens with clients. So many aspects matter a lot for our clients, and they’re coming up in the conversations. And how do you handle it? And so I was really looking for the tools to handle that.
And I’m so incredibly grateful. Like, okay. So we’re all numbers people, right? We know the impact of starting to invest at twenty versus thirty versus sixty, right? But I think, you know, when I think about my skill sets as a planner, I was investing in those behavior-based skill sets at an early age. And so when you think about training, that’s going to compound over my career or anybody’s career. And I’m just so grateful that I did that because I still use the tools. I still use those things within my client relationships today.
Sasha: Awesome.
Hannah: And I’m still part of it.
Sasha: Plus, it was a fun webinar just to learn a little bit more about the designation, talk about how you apply it with clients, and then we talked a little bit about research too. So it was a fun one.
Hannah: Good one to go listen to. Yeah.
Connor: So many things. I know I’ve told you this before, but you were one of the people that I just don’t understand how we have the same amount of hours in a day.
Hannah: Well, thank you. I do get a lot of help. You don’t see the team behind me often, but I have a really amazing team that helps with everything.
Connor: Well, I guess just to close this out and ask you the same question we ask everybody. How would you define the heart of advice?
Hannah: I love that. You know what? I was thinking about this. I was thinking about this idea of client-centered financial planning, where everything we do centers around our clients. So we talked with the technology earlier. It talks about the advice, right? What is it that my clients care about, and how can I serve them in that? I think a lot of the work we do with clients’ kids is because our clients care about this.
And so when I think about the heart of advice, I think about my clients’ faces. Like, that’s what pops into my head when I do that. The heart of advice is really about caring for our clients and caring for them well. And so, that’s really that client-centered financial plan is what I think about when I think of the heart of advice.
Sasha: I think that makes a big differentiator too, especially now, training the next generation or aspiring planners. I think you’re doing some really wonderful work.
Hannah: Well, thank you. Yeah, everything we do, all of our training, it centers on that client. That client meeting, that’s where everything comes from, that client engagement, versus training on technology or investments because, at the end of the day, that’s what’s driving all our business. That’s what drives financial planning.
Connor: Oh, well, thank you so much. Thank you for hosting us here.
Hannah: Yes, thank you for coming to our office. This is so much fun.
Sasha: It is fun. We’ve enjoyed it.
Hannah: Yes. Well, thank you for having me. We really appreciate it.
Connor: Thank you all for listening.
DISCLAIMER: The eMoney Advisor Blog is meant as an educational and informative resource for financial professionals and individuals alike. It is not meant to be, and should not be taken as financial, legal, tax or other professional advice. Those seeking professional advice may do so by consulting with a professional advisor. eMoney Advisor will not be liable for any actions you may take based on the content of this blog.
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