I have been in the industry for a long time. After graduating from college in 1985, I went to Wall Street in 1986. I traded stocks for a hedge fund. After I left, I became a pastry chef for some fantastic restaurants. When I got divorced, I went back to finance. I ended up starting out as a broker/dealer.
Almost eight years ago, I left a larger RIA to start WealthChoice. I was paid far less than my peers and told I was too ambitious. I wanted to serve the women in my world as I knew they were best served. It wasn't about getting as many people as possible into a firm for revenue, but about spending time with them on financial planning. I started my practice from scratch.
I got into financial planning to help women like me who had too much on their plates and no time to plan. We have a special place to serve women breadwinners. For the families we serve, women primarily drive the bus financially. We do a lot of work around the challenges, or de-railers, that professional women have. We help them prepare for the life they want to lead. Many of our clients are women tech workers, lawyers, founders and business owners.
The way I built my business was that I did everything for a while. I can do everything, as most solos can, but you can't do everything if you want to scale. This is the place where Enter Equita Financial Network. My partner at Equita, Katie Burke, also runs her own firm, Method Financial. We knew each other through business. We were friends. We'd say, “Hey, how are you solving this problem?” We were our tribe. Because when you run your own business, you're out there alone. We realized that it would be cheaper if we joined forces and shared the cost of all resources. We have decided to formalize a platform for our firms. We created Equita in May 2018 as the all-inclusive umbrella that housed everything you needed to do for a financial planning firm, in addition to client service. It allowed you to grow.
CRM, Reporting and Portfolio Management: Advyzon
i used Engine advisorthat was before Junxure Cloud for CRMbut then I got rid of it because it was too much.
We had used It advises for a time for reporting and portfolio management. It wasn't until Advyzon started focusing on being a CRM resource that I switched to CRM as well. It's a great platform and always evolving.
We were early adopters of Advyzon because we had previously used Envestnet | Tamarac Black Diamond Wealth Platform and SS&C. We knew what we didn't like. We wanted partners who were open to making changes and growing with us. Advyzon has gotten so big, but it's stayed focused on how to help firms like ours that aren't big. There are many other great resources that would work better with large firms. We are not like that. This is not who we want to be. I want to know if I have people I can call. I have the support that is there. They are invested in our future and success.
Trade & Rebalancing: Logistics Advisor
Logistics Advisor (one contracted by the chief investment officer or OCIO) is our trading partner. They are amazing. They create patterns for us. They will coordinate with our commercial team if we need to make any model changes or equivalent because every customer has a different portfolio. We wanted to make it clear that we needed a merchandising team that could accommodate those models but also be able to customize them. When you have a new client, there are nuances to how they invest. It is super user friendly. Everything is custom for us, but it helps us scale.
Financial Planning: eMoney / Holistiplan / Income Lab
I had been using MoneyGuidePro for a long time. Then, I was using both MoneyGuidePro and eMoney. I found that MoneyGuidePro was great for people who are more retired, but that's not my demographic. I wanted a cash flow based tool. So I moved to electronic money about six or seven years ago.
I want Holistiplan. My clients told me that tax planning was essential to them.
We were early adopters Revenue Lab. We were next to them at a conference where we met. It's great for things like Roth IRA conversions.
Document management: eMoney
eMoney has a safe that is great and easy for customers to use. I use eMoney as my client interface. Each customer has a portal. I have them load everything into their vault and keep all the documents there.
As told by reporter Rob Burgess and edited for length and clarity. The views and opinions are not representative of the views of WealthManagement.com.
Want to tell us what's in your possession? Contact Rob Burgess at (email protected).