Insights
Named one of Top 100 People in Finance 2020 by The Top 100 Magazine, Dr. George M. Blount has spent over 20 years in financial services, with experience from sales and project management to research and strategy. In 2018, he shifted careers and founded nBalance Financial, where he works as a financial therapist.
Why people make the decisions they make with money has always fascinated Dr. Blount throughout his years as a financial services professional. As he matured in the wealth management space, he decided to shift his focus to exploring this curiosity more. That’s why he founded nBalance Financial to focus on the intersectionality of mental and financial health.
Here’s what we talked about with Dr. Blount:
- How a curiosity spurred him to change his career focus
- The benefits of financial therapy
- His approach to making the “system” of financial services more open to all
Featured Resources
- nBalance Financial
- nBalance Financial LinkedIn
- nBalance Financial Twitter
- nBalance Financial Facebook
- nBalance Financial YouTube Channel
- nBalance Financial Instagram
- What is Retirement?: The concept, plan administration, and readiness of Retirement
- “How to Stay Calm Under Financial Instability”
To learn more about our On Purpose guest, please visit Dr. Blount’s LinkedIn page.
Full Audio Transcript
Lauren (00:00):
Thank you so much for being with us today. I'm excited to hear more about your firm and what you've built. So let's go ahead and jump in. I was reading a little bit about your background and I think it's a very purposeful title that you have with financial therapist. Let's just start there. How did you decide on that title? Where does that stem from? What is the thinking behind all of that?
George (00:26):
So as a financial therapist, I help people with their emotional relationship with money. That emotional relationship with money is one of the things that I have always been curious about throughout the time I've spent in wealth management, which started in ‘97 and continues up into this day. For most of my career though, I worked in your traditional wealth management functions, doing financial planning, financial advisory, and then also doing trading in terms of online trading stocks, bonds, mutual funds and options, et cetera. As I started to mature, I guess, in the space, I would say right around 2008, it really became apparent after the financial crisis that there was a gap between what we needed to do for people in terms of the information that they have available to them and the decisions that they're making.
George (01:19):
And how do we get that information to the individuals was a big challenge that I just could not figure out. And so right around 2010 or so, I started to look at doctoral programs just to look in the qualitative space to see what we are doing in financial education. I started my program in 2014. I had an interest in psychology. So I immediately started to look at the behavioral sciences space, really just dealing with that as a discipline from 2000, you know, really maturing in 2010. And really, I think explaining a lot of the aspects of human behavior that we saw in 2008. And from there, that's where I found financial therapy. It was a practice by mental health professionals that really dealt with couples that were having troubles with their financial problems. And instead of that mental health counselor trying to fix the problems, the financial problems, they would just outsource to a CFP®, some type of financial planner or financial professional.
George (02:25):
And then once that was satisfied, go about 10 years later, it's actually become more of a hybrid model. We have practitioners as well as those that are academics. And so that's the space that I found is really being an interesting intersectionality between financial health and mental health. And as a result in 2017, I started this firm, nBalance Financial, to specifically focus on financial therapy as a way to help people with their financial decisions, to improve financial decision-making over long-term horizons. And so thinking of wealth as opposed to being the accumulation of assets, simply being the accumulation of prudent financial decisions. And so I've spent the past couple of years developing that model, developing the scale, and then it has really allowed that intersectionality to come out a little bit more. So it's definitely become a better environment, although kind of globally it's a bad environment for the awareness, for the discipline, for the theory in and of itself, it creates a great atmosphere to be able to grow, scale and help people out.
Lauren (03:39):
Is there anything unique in your processes that you do to help folks go through that process? You typically would go to an advisor, you'd pass over paperwork, have an initial discussion, yada yada, but I mean, you see under the hood, right? There's a lot of things that are going on. And how do you approach that given your background?
George (04:01):
Yeah, so financial health is really five components, in that working with an advisor is only one part, the economic part, just can we find the products and services to help me satisfy some of my financial problems? The other four are really just more visceral and more innate in terms of how economies are created. So some people just develop their financial capabilities by their environment, where they're at, relational. It may be from their parents. Some actually just start to develop more of an emotional relationship. So they make financial decisions based on their emotions, how they feel or how they choose not to feel. Some people start to make these decisions based on their own individual psychology, kind of a way of creating meaning in money or meaning of not having money. And then last but not least, we really just have what is an overall ability to look at our environment from the standpoint of, we understand that people have financial limitations, but we don't necessarily make it easier.
George (05:00):
We actually make it more difficult for people to make those decisions. And so the approach really just addresses the other aspects besides the products and services, but can we deal with the external environment, the psychology, the emotional relationship or the behavior, to understand the financial decisions. I think another part of that is really looking at it in three phases. Let's look at your money past, how do we get to the place where we're at? And so let's evaluate where that's at, and that takes a lot of conversation and a lot of listening. That really is origin stories of your financial persona. And that's more of in line with financial therapy, really allowing someone to speak and understand it in their own terms, how they relate to money.
George (05:54):
The second phase is in their money present, which is based on where you are today, where you've come from in the past, how do you feel about where you stand right now and how can we best navigate your situation today? And then the last phase would be your money future, what do we need to do to pretty much create the best outcome for you and what things in terms of resources, information, products, or services do we need to provide to you? So that way you're set up the best way. So I think we have a few different aspects in the traditional financial advisory world and helping out people with their decisions. Then the very last portion of it is products and services.
Lauren (06:34):
I see. So do you do that, do you have those conversations in the discovery? Is that part of the onboarding?
George (06:40):
Yep. And so it happens in discovery. We have two different versions. I have a profile on Psychology Today, so I'm able to get individuals that are keenly interested in taking care of their own financial problems. I also work with the organizations through their employee benefits. And so as people are working with their 401(k)s or trying to understand retirement, we really use that as an opportunity to start to do better at understanding finances and understanding what that retirement could actually look like. So it's a discovery process that originates in a retail form through kind of Psychology Today through direct outreach or an institutional form through benefits.
Lauren (07:19):
Okay. And then if someone were to come and work with you, is there homework they do ahead of time? Or is it more, you just want that organic answer? And that conversation happens through that discovery.
George (07:32):
Yeah, it's more organic and we actually just take our time and build that process overall. It doesn't take long, but I think the most important part is not to do a lot of prerequisites. In this form, it's really important for you to use your own words, not bias the information at all. And so really seeing the facial expressions, having the conversation, being able to build from storytelling what is really important about the financial decisions and what is not, it really is about just listening. A lot of the information that I could provide or give people ahead of time, I'm not quite sure what influence that will have. And I'm more interested in once you have given someone information, what do they do with it? Cuz that's part of the behavior change process. So instead of a lot of prerequisite homework and kind of allowing that to build toward an understanding, start organically, building that understanding and then hold people accountable to the change that should be precipitated when you have new information. Because if you get new information and you're doing the same thing, then we should understand why that's happening as well.
Lauren (08:42):
And then how are you holding folks accountable, if that's the right word, or just keeping that conversation going as they engage with you over potentially a lifetime, right?
George (08:54):
Yeah, I think some of it just really comes to asking a question of why kind of, why are we not changing? Why are we not doing something different now that you said that you didn't have information and now that you have information, why are we doing the same thing? I think the accountability happens when you understand the origin story and you understand where they're at today. And so putting those two things together allows you to use some of the motivational interviewing to say, you said you didn't want to be in this situation, right? You said that with new information you can improve. And so now that you have new information that's allowing you to change your situation, tell me why you're not right. Let's start to work through what's preventing you from changing. And that's really where the accountability comes from. It's not about saying do this, but really responding to, you said this is what you wanted. You said this is what you needed. And you said that if you had this, it would help. And so with those three things, why are we not acting?
George (09:57):
And that may be what we're really trying to solve. It may not be a financial problem, so to speak. It may be anxiety, it may simply be in decision-making situations there's a big freeze moment and you have to overcome it. And I think that's where there's a big differentiator between traditional financial advisory. The moving forward. This approach really says that what we may need to provide you is something that we're not sure of, only you know, and only you know how to get there, but we really have to just expose you to what's keeping you from moving ahead. And I think in the traditional financial advisory space, it's that regardless of where you came from or where you are at today, this product can get you to where you want to be in the future. That's where we are kind of diametrically different. To go forward, we believe in going backwards first, as opposed to taking our first conversation and moving forward.
Lauren (11:00)
And then, you had a very purposeful intention in the way that you started the firm. Even the titles, right, that are being held, the process that you're taking clients through and getting to that point took some time, right, with education and everything. And where do you see the industry going at large? Do you feel that this is a part of a bigger trend in our country? What are your thoughts as we look ahead and what should we have on our radar?
George (11:28):
I think the two things I would say that are really interesting trends is that, as a financial professional, my latter years in corporate were spent trying to develop a think tank, an institute within wealth management. So that way we're able to understand these things at an academic level and really use the academic space, where we have this idea orientation as a way to provide us with product development ideas, where these ideas are there already. We just have to get them into the corporate space. And so one way to do that is through financial therapy. It's a good intersection between mental health and financial health. It's a good combination between the products that are needed and kind of understanding the apprehensions that people have in terms of using those products. And so it creates the right type of connection.
George (12:20):
The trend is really that we start to incorporate more academic rigor into our product development. So that way we're not coming up with new problems and new solutions, but we're actually allowing ourselves to build upon the solutions to the problems that are already being worked on every single year. And I think that is the real difference that we're seeing here. We see the qualitative advantages of using this information to help out people, because it deals with behavior as opposed to more of the quantitative ways of interacting with information, which is just really probability, right? Here's big data and this big data gives me a way to understand big swaths of people without actually talking to them. And so I think that the approach is just very different, where we use behavioral sciences, where actually talking to a very small group of people may give you information into how a larger group of people are behaving and kind of understanding that dynamic, how it's worked, how, over 20 years, we've seen two Nobel prizes in economics being drawn from behavioral sciences.
George (13:33):
That's where business has to arrive—seeing academic research and idea orientation as a place to feed from. That prevents you from sitting in a boardroom, coming up with problems that don't exist or creating bad solutions to problems that have been around for a while, that you don't really don't have a chance to continue upon what people are doing if you don't look there and you don't start. So I see the research being more qualitative, as opposed to quantitative, and really looking at areas that have intersectionality with some academic partnership is where I see the industry heading.
Lauren (14:15):
Do you see any of that happening currently? I know you have that experience in corporate; it sounds like it potentially was trending that way before you had parted. And do you see any kind of hubs of knowledge, if you will, or even potentially, opportunities for folks to start to gather this knowledge, if you don't feel that they exist, articles, publications, everyplace.
George (14:38):
Yeah. Everyplace except for corporate America, I would say, right? And so there is a giant strategy, it's called the financial literacy education strategy. It's developed by a federal commission, a financial literacy education commission, composed of the heads of 19 agencies. And it develops a national financial education strategy every other year. So we have that and it allows us to have consistency in our terms and understanding of what research is really prevalent, what's moving things forward and how we can achieve our outcome of limiting financial illiteracy over time. Academics use that information. And I should mention, I teach as well. I teach managerial accounting and behavioral finance. So I understand the way that this information is being taught. So it's imperative that we actually look at it from those perspectives. I think one of the things that really makes it difficult is that nonprofits are using this information because they're aligning to the strategy because they will work to have deep information.
George (15:50):
They work with educational institutions who are using this information. Who works within government agencies, like state treasurers offices, who are responsible for financial education. And so we see this interconnectivity between a global or at least national financial literacy strategy that allows us to move people toward a common direction. We see people following it in terms of nonprofits, educational institutions, as well as our governments and what dilutes that entire messaging is when corporate America does something that's completely against the grain of what is said there. When all of those entities are moving in the right direction and to create a common language. And then we all of a sudden develop a new term because it was catchy and marketable, that is where we have an issue, right? I'll give you an example.
George (16:45):
If we're trying to fix financial literacy and we call people, and we say that there's a financial literacy problem, it doesn't mean that we're calling them illiterate, but we can't really say that we're trying to enhance financial illiteracy up until we are 18. And then, because we don't wanna call adults illiterate, we say financial capability or financial wellness from 21 to 65. And then it turns into something else after age 65, it turns into consumer protections. That's not the way, right. To allow us to create continuity and actually bridge the gap to what we're seeing, we need a whole approach that allows us to see our financial limitations that happen in K through 12 are impacting our adulthood. It is impacting our lives as aging adults. And that's where without corporate America aligning to what we already see with these other hubs makes it incredibly difficult for us to move the needle, because we really just take great strides forward to really deal with noise that makes the messaging a little bit nebulous and really hard for people to grasp onto.
Lauren (18:01):
So in other words, objectively to be able to look at the whole person and not just the financial picture, and how you are, I don't wanna use the word treating, but you're interacting with them. You're helping them to solve their ultimately potentially financial challenge, but connected to other things. You can't disconnect the pieces is a little bit of what I'm hearing.
George (18:25):
So yeah, it's like a system. Financial services is a system. How do we create a good flow of information into that system for people that may not have the means or the resources or the access to it? If the system exists, but it only exists for the people that know where to go, know who to talk to, have the right money, or have the right credit score or live in the right cities. Then that's not a very open and fluid system, right? It's very constrictive. And that means that a lot of people are gonna be ostracized. But if you develop a system that understands that we all come to this place from different times, from different areas, that we all have similar objectives, right? And our beginnings are just very different in that we are all lacking the information that we need to move forward.
George (19:15):
That type of system allows more people into it. It allows more people to learn, grow, expand, and create equity. And so I think it's really, to your point, we have to develop a good conduit to that system that allows for increased stability, increased equity, because without it, we have a lot of people ostracized from it. And what happens is that they don't all of a sudden turn away from these financial products, they just get the same financial products at a higher cost with a lack of customer service, with a lack of consumer protections and a lack of oversight. That's the only thing that happens when that system is closed and we don't allow it to be more open and fruitful.
Lauren (19:57):
So well said. I really appreciate that. And then is there anything else that you'd like to share if someone would be interested in working with you, or just interested to learn more about some of what you've shared and would love to hear a little bit more on that?
George (20:15):
Yeah, one of the things that I like to say is as a financial therapist, it really allows me to do two things, work with individuals and work with the organization. So I think if I looked at it from the individual standpoint, it is financial therapy, helping people understand where their stories come from, what their financial language is, and how to use that language to their best purpose to get what they need in terms of achieving their goals. When we move to institutional, I think the imbalance in what the organization is able to provide shifts more to behavioral sciences, and really looking at how do we understand changing behavior, human emotions, human decision-making, and apply it to our key performance metrics for our organization, or to achieve our outcome. I focus on retirement a lot. And so it's really important if we provide a retirement plan and we know that people don't have the information that they need to appropriately invest and educate, you’re not doing anything constructive for them, right?
George (21:18):
We have this product that can be a portfolio goal that helps people save as well as learn. It can help you buy your first house. It can help you pay for your first wedding and it can help you pay for your retirement. But if you only sell this and position it as a retirement product to a 25-year-old, you're gonna miss the utility. And so organizations that are looking to develop financial wellness programs, create better utility, understand how behavioral sciences are able to influence employee behavior, participant behavior. Like that's where I can help out organizations or that's where imbalance can help organizations as well as what I mentioned on the individual side. Second part is that it's more about the financial therapy discipline than it is about me and my organization.
George (22:13):
If we let more people know that financial therapy exists, that financial psychology and all of its different tentacles exist, and it becomes as commonplace as having your financial advisor or your CPA or your CFP®, your financial planner, that helps people, right? It fills a gap in terms of understanding. And so a lot of the work that I do is around advocacy for the discipline. So that way, even if you don't use me and use our services, you find a financial therapist. We're all over the place, we're all over the world. And there's a lot of people that are doing this work, but we all struggle with this one thing. We want to help so many people. And so many people don't know about us. And so I happen to enjoy speaking out about it. I enjoy doing this type of work.
George (23:06):
And so I would implore everyone to look at financial psychology and financial therapy as ways to help out people overall, people that are looking for that type of help. I would look to this discipline and say, this is a place that we can help. But if you're a compassionate employer that's looking to improve human capital and trying to understand the ways to actually limit financial stress and balance, our approach to employee wellness, as well as financial therapy and what it has the ability to do nationwide is a great place to start. And I would encourage everybody to do so.
Lauren (23:46):
Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time today and sharing your story and a bit back about your background and expertise. So we'll make sure to include some links and more details below, but thank you again and have a great rest of your day.
George (24:02):
No, it is my pleasure. Thank you so much, Lauren.
If you enjoyed this spotlight, learn more about what NAPFA has to offer members on its website.
How Dr. George M. Blount Transitioned From Wealth Management to Financial Therapist
Named CEO in 2013, Geoffrey Brown joined the National Association of Personal Finance Advisors (NAPFA) after years of experience in association management, strategic planning, and organizational development.
NAPFA is seeing an even younger generation entering the association, “Generation 3.0” as CEO Geoffrey Brown calls it. He and his team are adapting to this by focusing on the organization’s clarity of purpose: to provide education content, community, and avenues of advocacy for financial advisors.
Featured Resources
- NAPFA
- NAPFA 2022 Spring Conference
- NAPFA Facebook
- NAPFA Twitter
- NAPFA LinkedIn
- NAPFA YouTube
- NAPFA’s Diversity + Inclusion Toolkit
To learn more about our On Purpose guest, please visit Geoffry Brown’s LinkedIn page.
Full Audio Transcript
Lauren (00:00):
All right. Well, Jeff, thanks so much for joining us today. I'm excited to hear a little bit more about you and NAPFA, what brought you here and just really the future of the industry at large. So why don't we go ahead and start there. How did you get to the position that you're in today? I'd love to hear a little bit more of your background.
Geoffrey (00:20):
Sure. Sure. But first of all, thank you for having me, Lauren. I really appreciate it. You all have been a good partner for NAPFA and NAPFA firms. So it's really good to spend some time with you. I've been with the association for eight years. Looking back on it, I'm a career association guy. I graduated from college on a Tuesday and I started my first association job a week later on Wednesday. So this is really all I've ever done for my adult professional life. And back in 2013, NAPFA’s CEO at the time had announced her retirement and as boards do, they initiated a search and hired a search firm that does a lot of work in the financial planning association space.
Geoffrey (01:04):
Initially I was like, no, I'm not interested. I was working at a consultancy here in Chicago that focused on associations and nonprofit organizations, and it was a good gig. It was a great play. So I was on an equity track. Luckily that search firm was very persistent. They said maybe I should just learn a little bit more about the organization and then it was, maybe I should meet some of the members. And from that point on, it was just really infectious. I know that every American needs a financial advisor in their life to some degree, and some people make bad decisions. Some people make good decisions. Some people make decisions based on what they know, and that's often not enough. And when I started hearing the members I met with in the search process talk about what they do, why they do it, what really motivates them professionally, I was hooked. Part of it was because I was one of those consumers that made a bad decision in terms of the advisor I engaged with and got wrapped up in some products that were totally unsuitable for me at my age and profession, where I was in life. And from then on, it was just, this is the right place for me and it's been a great eight years.
Lauren (02:23):
And then when you came to NAPFA, looking back eight years ago and looking at where you are now, what's kind of been perhaps your philosophy or the tone or value set you've been able to cultivate, to really kind of move the needle from looking back eight years ago to where you are now, as you move forward.
Geoffrey (02:44):
You know, when I came to NAPFA, it was in a really solid place. There were some things volunteers and members in the community were demanding that the board addressed for sure, but that's every professional membership organization. So it wasn't a situation where, wow, we need to blow this up and start from scratch. It was an organization that at the time just celebrated its 30th anniversary. So the opportunity to really look to the future and identify what we wanted to do to create some lasting change was right there on the horizon. And luckily, we had great volunteers that were willing to share their info. They really had an understanding of where they wanted to take the association, and an understanding of what they believed its potential to be.
Geoffrey (03:40):
And so walking into that situation, it was really easy to start by listening. Hey, what are the things that we need to do better? What are the things that we need to do more of and what are the things that we should stop doing? And people were willing and interested in sharing their thoughts and their opinions. And that really allowed me to get a roadmap to discuss with the volunteers that were at the helm at the time to really think about where we are going, to sharpen the saw a little bit around the edges, just really to make this experience a little bit better for the members and the consumers they serve. It's interesting when you think about it. Eight years ago, NAPFA was an association of about 23, 2,400 practitioners and students and right now we're pushing 4,400, which is really, really exciting to think about that trajectory and just where the association could go into the future. We're two years shy of our 40th anniversary. So we've got this little thing out there, what do we wanna be when we grow up? Because that 40-year mark is really grown up, not only the association, but also the profession that just celebrated its 50th anniversary a few years ago.
Lauren (04:51):
Absolutely. And so it sounds like membership, I would assume, is a goal, or perhaps it just came from the value set of NAPFA seeing that growth. What other changes have you seen in the past eight years, and then what are some of the changes looking ahead that you see for NAPFA?
Geoffrey (05:13):
I think that we're moving on to generation, you know, 3.0 almost. When I started, you were starting to see some of the original firm founders start to exit the profession, the association, and their next gen stepping up. And now we're seeing an even younger generation entering the association. And that's really exciting for me because one of the things that I felt like the volunteers were really concerned about at the time and rightly so was just the general makeup of NAPFA versus the population. At the time it skewed a little bit older, like most financial planning at that time. I feel like they were really cognizant of that. And one of the pieces of the marching orders they gave us was how do we make this experience more frictionless, if you will. How do we make it a place where people want to engage and engage beyond just I have to do it because I'm a financial planner, that sort of thing, but really to tap into the strength and vibrancy of the community, to really associate with other professionals that are interested in elevating their competency so they can serve consumers in a more meaningful way—people that really want to grow and spread the mission and vibrancy of financial planning around the country.
Lauren (06:28):
I hear you on the frictionless piece. I know there's been firms we've worked with where they might be going after a younger generation and part of making things frictionless is the paperless, more technology focus, making sure time is used efficiently, those sorts of things. I'm assuming those are things that you all have been implementing and have been top mind as well.
Geoffrey (06:57):
Yeah. We're trying to go more and more digital, like everyone else. The audience we have currently is demanding it and the audience we hope to engage in the future is going to want it. So it's a place where we're making investments. It's not moving as quickly as we hope, but it's definitely moving. I think that's a signal to people that are involved now and those that will come in the future that this is a place where I need to be. Some other points of friction really do have to evolve to what it takes to be a financial planning professional in 2021. You think about the ease of entering the profession today versus entering the profession in 2001. From your preparation through your educational coursework to working at a firm, starting your own firm, acquiring technology, things like that, it's just a very different ballgame.
Geoffrey (07:46):
And we just need to have that clarity of purpose about where we fit into the mix. We're not gonna be an entity, like one of the networks that exist for advisors; that's not our bread and butter. We're a professional membership association. So we're focused on educational content. We're focused on community and networking, and we're focused on advocacy. And so what we really need to do is make sure we're delivering on those aspects of the experience so our audience really finds the value they need to continue participating.
Lauren (08:15):
That's fair. I know one of the changes you've done over the years, you rolled out a new website that is more tech forward. And I'd love to hear some of the thinking around that, too, and perhaps some of the goals to be able to better serve your audience.
Geoffrey (08:33):
Yeah, I think we're in a really, I don't wanna say a unique position, because we have to serve a professional audience, our members, and then in some regard, we also have to be a place for people that want to engage with them. So really balancing those competing interests, if you will, is what was driving the changes that we were making. We were hearing from consumers, your website is punky. I'm confused. Am I a planner? Am I looking to work with a planner? And so we needed to address that point of contention. And then we also wanted to make it a little bit more easy to use for our audience. And it needed to tell a better story, if you will. I think we took the approach that it's never going to be done. As a marketing professional, you can probably appreciate that.
Geoffrey (09:20):
We're always on the cycle of, well, let's tweak this, let's change that, let's address this. So we really do pay a lot of attention to what our different audiences are doing on the site to really inform the decisions we're making from a development standpoint. And then also from a content standpoint, from a consumer audience, their primary reasons for visiting our website are looking to find a financial planner. So that's why we continue to make investments and monitor our Find an Advisor tool. And then also looking for content about working with a planner, the questions they should ask or other relevant information that might inform the decisions they make when they engage with a professional. And so that's always gonna be a high driver for us.
Geoffrey (10:10):
We need to feed that with content, and it's not just about having the technological capability to do it or place on the web to house it. It's about how we are creating the content. And so, luckily our volunteers are really interested in making investments in that area so we can feed that well, because I feel like that's what's going to drive traffic and interest for the foreseeable future. When you're thinking about it from a practitioner standpoint, what are their primary interests? One is connecting with other practitioners. So making sure we have that online community hub for people to ask questions relevant to the practice of financial planning, being a business owner, different client cases. The providers we work with are usually in awe of the type of traffic and engagement we get within our community.
Geoffrey (11:03):
It’s really, really interesting to watch the questions and the responses that happen between members about the issues that they're posing to one another. Members need to be able to take advantage of our educational programs. And a lot of that happens through the website. And so making sure we provide that capacity and then if you're a prospective student, you're a prospective planner, we need to have a way for them to become a part of this community. That really is going to start at that front door.
Lauren (11:35):
How are you reaching those prospective advisors or growing your base and trying to stay top of mind as a resource for the members that you serve.
Geoffrey (11:51):
A lot of what happens from a member growth standpoint is organic. But then, being intentional also about having good partnerships, so partnerships with the academic community to help tell our story there, because they have a lot of influence over where a prospective financial planner looks for career opportunities and professional communities to engage with. So making sure that we're trying to stay front and center with them through partnerships with organizations like the CFP® board. You know, at this point in time, you can't be a NAPFA registered financial advisor without having your CFP® certification. So we have a vested interest in making sure their audience really understands what NAPFA is, and how we can be a vital part of their professional journey.
Geoffrey (12:39):
One of the decisions we made a few years ago was to offer a complimentary year of membership to every new fee-only CFP® certified advisor that wants to take advantage of it. That was driven by the fact of looking at the data and seeing that people weren't finding this community until year four, year five, year six, maybe even longer in the profession. And so if we reached out, tossed a little bit of an olive branch to them to say, why don't you give it a chance? Why don't you take a look at what it is that we have to offer? Why don't you take a look, what this community can mean to you, even as an early careerist. And we've been very lucky that the conversion rate of those individuals who have taken advantage of that opportunity, they've stuck around when the time came after that one year was up and they actually had to pay some, was because they landed at fee-only firms that saw the value of them being in this community. And for some, it was because, you know what, I personally see the value in this. And so I'm gonna pay for it outta my own pocket.
Lauren (13:41):
Yeah. That makes sense. They're able to kind of try before you buy, if you will, or start to build those relationships in that community and then see how it applies to their short- and long-term professional growth.
Geoffrey (13:55):
Yeah. And when you think about it, there are a lot of fee-only firms for sure. They tend to skew smaller. So just the availability and inventory of professional opportunities in this space is a little bit different than it may be in some other segments of financial advice and financial planning. So anything we can do to open the door and welcome these individuals in, we wanna make sure we're doing it.
Lauren (14:20):
Absolutely. And then you have a unique vantage point, sitting at the helm at NAPFA, being able to see some of these conversations advisors are having. You're able to see the inbound data from what potential clients are asking about, what's of interest to them. You've got these partnership connections. From your vantage point, what do you see, where do you see the industry going? And what do you think would be good? Where are some opportunities for improvement as well as you look ahead, either both from the association level or really more from the industry at large.
Geoffrey (15:03):
I think in the big picture, the people that founded this community were onto something, they were trailblazers, they had a vision and their vision is the reality. Now, when you think about it, the movement in our space is more toward a NAPFA model than it isn't. And that's really, really exciting because that means the opportunities for the association are really fruitful, really bright. That means we need to be able to scale up what we do in a more meaningful way. And we can't look at ourselves as the underdog anymore. I think a lot of what happened in this space was built on us being a challenger. I've heard the term, the mouse that roars, but we're not a small player anymore.
Geoffrey (15:52):
Our voice is definitely outsized given the number of participants we have, but we are an incumbent. We bring a lot of credibility to the table. And I think that credibility in the marketplace has been one of the high drivers of people being interested in what we do and bringing people to the table in terms of participating as members and just watching where this association is going. So I think as the broader profession starts moving more toward a fee for service model, I think it's gonna present good opportunities for us. And another thing I think we need to be thinking about is just how our firms are structured. You work with a lot of wealth management firms.
Geoffrey (16:35):
You probably see the spectrum. When I started, there was this whole thing: all the small firms are gonna go away. There's gonna be a consolidation. You're gonna have super regional RAs. You're gonna have national RAs, and that's gonna be it, small guys won't be able to compete. Here we are, and we still see a vibrant place for small firms, whether they're sole proprietorships or ensembles, they have a vibrant place in this market and that's really exciting for them. And it points to some great signs for the future. The big guys are definitely getting bigger and that's good for them. We need enterprise-level firms, but also need some of the middle market and smaller firms to be able to compete as well.
Geoffrey (17:17):
And the tools and the capacity are there for them to be able to do so in a really meaningful way. So we just need to do what we can do to nurture that. Some of the other things that I think are on the horizon, challenges, opportunities, it's just what we're doing in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space. When you think about the demographics of this country, how they're changing, the demographics of financial planning need to shift as well. And I like to say this is one of the areas where we're not competing. You know, there isn't a NAPFA viewpoint on DEI; there isn't an FPA viewpoint on DEI. There isn't a BD world position on DEI. This is one of those things where we all can win by making sure that financial advice and financial planning is more diverse, more equitable, and more inclusive.
Geoffrey (18:04):
So we need to start thinking about that from an advocacy standpoint. There's still so much that needs to be done from a regulatory and legislative standpoint. We took a few steps forward during the Obama administration. Then we took a few steps back during the Trump administration. And so we just need to keep fighting the good fight to make sure consumers across this country have access to fiduciary-level advice that's delivered in their best interest. So that's something that will be a strategic priority for this organization for forever. So we can say that every American, when they decide to engage with a financial advisor, they're doing so under a fiduciary standard of care.
Lauren (18:46):
That's exciting to hear you share all of that. So like I said, I think you're at a very unique vantage point to be able to see everything that's going on. And is there anything in particular you feel NAPFA as an organization is doing to be able to step up, to meet those challenges beyond what you've already shared?
Geoffrey (19:09):
I just think the investments in the foresight that our volunteer leadership has in terms of wanting to lead on issues of equity inclusion, wanting to lead on an advocacy agenda, that's really member-led, member-driven, but consumer-centric. Meaning when we go to Washington and we start talking about fiduciary, we hear sometimes that's very self-serving. Well, it's self-serving, but it's also the right thing to do. It means our members have committed to this because they know it's the right thing for the public. And so that's why we will doggedly pursue fiduciary-level advice for all Americans. I think some of the other things that are really, really exciting for us are the fact that awareness of financial planning is mainstream.
Geoffrey (19:59):
People know what financial planners do. They may not know it at a deep level, but I think they have an understanding. I think there's still some work we can do to help that story. But again, that's not something we're competing against anyone else on. The CFP® board has a great awareness campaign that benefits the entire profession. It's really interesting that I'll talk to my peers and they're like, oh, I saw this commercial. It was about getting a financial plan. Is that your organization? I'm like, well, that's not ours, but we've got 4,400 members that can help you pursue that if you wish. So it's really been exciting to watch that take place, just Americans’ awareness of the term fiduciary. It was like overnight this change happened where now I hear from advisors, it's like probably nine outta 10 clients that come in, potential clients that come into the office, they ask the F-word question. So I like to think this organization, currently and in the past, plays a pretty significant role in helping to create those conditions. And that's a responsibility to take very seriously into the future as well.
Lauren (21:14):
Yeah, that's not an easy task. And it becomes less jargony to the public. A lot of jargon is easy to throw around. I think of how sophisticated a particular investor is, or an individual, and those are questions that come up, but to be able to say you’re a fiduciary and what that value set means and for it to be translated on a one-to-one basis is valuable.
Geoffrey (21:44):
And it's also helpful. I remember when I started and was meeting members of the consumer financial press and asking, well, why don't you write more stories about this? Don't you think it would be helpful if Americans read this in whatever their paper choice was. And they're like, because people don't understand it. Because I'd have to spend too many words explaining what everything means for it to be meaningful. Now the fact that they can say it and people understand it, internalize it, and then share it when they're having conversations with the professionals they're seeking to engage with is really exciting.
Lauren (22:20):
Very good. So just a few more questions here. I’d love to just ask over the years that you've been with NAPFA, is there anything you're really proud of that you feel was a really big win, maybe for the industry at large or for the organization, but anything that you're especially proud of, you'd like to share.
Geoffrey (22:42):
You know, there's a few actually. I think just the work we did with our partners in the financial planning coalition around on the DOLs Fiduciary rule, even though it was short-lived, being a part of a group that was one of the loan industry voices advocating for more regulation on behalf of the public. That was pretty exciting, knowing we were at the center of those conversations, that was just really rewarding because as an association professional, I could probably have gone my entire career and not worked on anything that would've been that meaningful to so many people in this country as what we were doing back then. I think the organization's work when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion was small, but we started our initiative well before a lot of others in this and we're chipping away at it and doing some meaningful work and we have a lot of good engagement on a number of dimensions when it comes to DEI.
Geoffrey (23:37):
So that's really exciting. We've recently transitioned leadership from our Gen 1 leadership over to our second generation. It's interesting and exciting to see what their vision is and what their ideas are and how that could transform not only the association, but the profession as well. Just watching the community evolve, grow, and change and age down a little bit. I remember walking into my first NAPFA conference in Philadelphia in 2013 and thinking, wow, this is a very mature audience. And it was because there were a lot of people, and some of them are still around today, that were there essentially at the beginning. That's one of the exciting things about financial planning and this association, the fact that you can have a very long and vibrant career, and still meaningfully serve your clients and meaningfully engage with other professionals.
Geoffrey (24:37):
But that gives us the opportunity to have just a great generational knowledge transfer. And it's coming from a place of caring and a handoff of what my generation did in our time. We created the conditions, we laid the foundation, and you know what, now it's your turn to take it to the next level. We're still pretty young. So that means we have a lot of runway to see that happen, again and again. And so that's just one of the things I'm proud of, doing our part to keep that first generation engaged, but then also to steward the next generation's entry and ownership of where we're going as an organization.
Lauren (25:15):
It's interesting. I didn't make this parallel between sort of a unique lens as well. Being able to talk with a number of firms across the country at various stages of their business and there's parallels between what you're seeing at large and also what we're seeing and having conversations around. There might be an owner who is looking to transition the firm to a younger generation, questions about the future regarding technology, regarding how do you take someone who's a main rainmaker to now being spread across partners, or the DEI initiatives, or really challenging sort of defining value sets within a firm. So what you're saying from a NAPFA perspective, and I think a lot of the work you're doing, is you certainly have your finger on the pulse, because I feel it, too, but in a different way. But for those conversations there's alignment there.
Geoffrey (26:13):
Yes. And I think that's just representative of the fact that the work and the interests of our audience easily becomes the work and the interests of the association. So we're member-led, and that doesn’t mean it's because of the volunteer leadership, it's because of where they see themselves going professionally, where they see themselves going from a business standpoint. And we need to be responsive to that and make sure we're programming to keep pace. And ultimately I hope to be a little bit ahead of them so we can help to drive some of the dialogue they're having internally or very least be responsive to the dialogue they're having and create resources and bring content to bear to help inform the work that they're doing.
Lauren (26:58):
Absolutely. Well, that brings me to the last question here. Are there any particular resources or webpages or things you think would be helpful to point folks to, to learn more?
Geoffrey (27:10):
Yeah. I think definitely our diversity equity and inclusion toolkit. We put that together during the pandemic. So it was just very timely. <laugh> It had been in development before the pandemic, but that gave us the opportunity, the time, and the space to really focus on it. So it's really geared toward firm culture, hiring practices, taking care of your people, all from a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens. That's one resource I would love to point people toward. The website, our online community, has great resources for people that are already participating in the community. If they're not members of NAPFA, we've got a network of study groups all around the country, so we'd love to have them take a test drive.
Geoffrey (27:58):
They're starting to return to some in-person experiences. So it's a good way for someone who's thinking about potentially joining the association to plug in. And then we do have a conference coming up in early May in Atlanta. I know we don't like to give dates for things like this, but I think it's just a good way to engage with this community. We've been consistently rated very high on our content, the networking opportunities, the community- building opportunities. And so I think for anyone who isn't already a part of this community, it's just an easy place to plug in. So I'd love to point toward that.
Lauren (28:41):
Great. Well, thank you for your time today and for sharing some insights. I greatly appreciate it. And thank you for all the work you do and for the NAPFA community and everything that you do for the industry at large.
Geoffrey (28:55):
Thanks for having me and thanks for being such a good partner for NAPFA and all of the firms that are part of our community. Everyone speaks very highly of you and your colleagues and we've witnessed it firsthand. And so I look forward to working with you guys in the future.
Lauren (29:09):
Aw, we appreciate it. Well, thank you again for your time this evening and looking forward to staying in touch.
Geoffrey (29:14):
All right. Thanks a lot.
If you enjoyed this spotlight, learn more about what NAPFA has to offer members on its website.
Driving NAPFA Membership Growth Organically Through Partnerships and New Member Opportunities
When your financial services firm is trying to scale, there’s a lot on your plate, including retaining clients, hiring staff, and restructuring workflows. Marketing is likely not at the top of your list, or in your skill set, although it is an essential part of attracting new leads. This drives firms to question whether it is in their best interest to outsource their marketing or build an internal department. Partnering with a marketing firm that specializes in financial services is a fantastic move that saves time, resources, and energy, leaving you to focus on what you do best.
What a Marketing Agency Can Do For a Financial Services Firm
Financial services firms have talented staff. These employees can help people manage investments, understand insurance policies, and supervise payrolls. However, knowing things like how to optimize blogs for search engine results and conduct A/B testing is part of a specialized skill set. Here are a few reasons why it’s beneficial to outsource your marketing needs:
- Marketing professionals provide knowledge and expertise.
- Agencies have a wide network of experts and contractors.
- Agency staff have years of experience to know what does and doesn’t work.
Marketing professionals provide knowledge and expertise
There are many misconceptions about what encapsulates marketing. Marketing is more than renting billboard space and airing commercials. The job of a marketer is to attract individuals from a targeted audience and walk them through the lead funnel. Retargeting efforts, pay-per-click advertising, and email campaigns are only some of the tools a marketing professional has at their disposal, and partnering with a marketing agency will allow your firm to use them—and others—to their full potential.
Agencies have a wide network of experts and contractors
Just as a financial services firm has experts in each subfield, the same applies to marketing. At an agency, it’s easy to find experts in SEO or copywriting, because there are staff members who exclusively do it every day. If you hire a single person to do your marketing, they will have a little knowledge of several marketing tactics, but a marketing firm has a team of experts. Should a marketing agency not have an expert in a specific area, they will have an experienced subcontractor who can step in and lend their knowledge.
Agency staff have years of experience to know what does and doesn’t work
A final reason to reach out to a marketing firm is that the employees have years of combined experience through many financial services campaigns. They’ve worked with similar firms, so they are familiar with industry trends and have seen success with similar target audiences. Instead of gathering data by yourself, contact someone who has done it before and can use that experience to tailor campaigns for you.
Finding the Right Agency For You
Finding a good marketing agency is easy, but finding the right agency for you can take a few tries.
- Don’t settle for a cookie-cutter strategy. Make sure your plan is tailored to your business and your needs.
- Ensure you agree on what success looks like. Communicate your priorities, whether it is growth on social media, page views, or conversions, and how that links back to your business goals.
- Keep an eye out to make sure you find a passionate group that fits in your company culture. These people should be invested in your success as an extension of your team.
- Find an agency that will push back on your ideas to create the strongest plan possible. You might want to have your name on a blimp, but is that the best move for your company? Honest yet kind marketers will help you avoid shiny object syndrome and deliver effective campaigns.
Have You Considered Out & About Communications?
If you’ve made it this far, you likely are interested in what a marketing agency can do for you. Out & About Communications specializes in creating strategies that are customized to your marketing goals by experts in advertising compliance. Out & About is more than a marketing agency; we aim to become part of the team with all our clients. If you’re interested, check out this blog post about what it’s like to partner with Out & About. If you’re not quite ready to reach out, here are two other articles about what to look for when hiring a marketing agency and what you need before working with a marketing team.
If you’re eager to chat with us, click here to say hello. We’re ready when you are.
Why Your Financial Services Firm Needs to Partner with a Marketing Agency
After 30 years in the financial services industry, Anita Knotts founded the Lotus Women’s Institute in March 2021. Her mission is to help increase and support female representation in finance.
Spotlight Summary
Anita is an accomplished senior financial executive with experience in wealth management ranging from sales and marketing to business development. Her experience in financial services as a female Indian American immigrant propelled her to found the Lotus Women’s Institute. With Lotus, Anita strives to work with women and financial firms to change the industry landscape to be more inclusive and beneficial for all.
Resources
- Lotus Women’s Institute
- Lotus Women’s Institute LinkedIn
- Lotus Women’s Institute Twitter
- Lotus Women’s Institute Facebook
- Lotus Women’s Institute Instagram
- Anita’s TedTalk
- “To Serve Its Clients, The Wealth Management Industry Must Recruit And Develop More Women”
- “The Lotus Triangle of Women”
To learn more about our On Purpose guest, please visit Anita's LinkedIn page.
If you’ve enjoyed learning about Anita and her mission, share this spotlight!
On Purpose: Growth Trajectory Strategies from Financial Services Leadership
The goal of the On Purpose series is to elevate leadership insight from the financial service industry's best and brightest. We do this by showcasing changing trends in mentorship, business strategies, marketing, and company culture. Stay up on these trends by signing up here:
Audio Transcription
Lauren Hong (00:03):
All right. Well, Anita, thank you so much for joining us. We have Anita Knotts, who is the founder of Lotus Women's Institute. We were just chatting a bit before this, a little bit about her background and I’m very excited to dive in and hear more about Anita, your experience within financial services. And more importantly around the bigger picture questions about business strategy and thinking not just about the short term of the industry, but the long-term planning and if you will, in a very broad brush strokes level. So I'll pass it over to you just to do a little bit of introduction before we dive into some of these questions here.
Anita Knotts (00:41):
Sure. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. You know, it's amazing where we are in life right now after the past 18, 19 months. And I think like a lot of women, I should say, but probably a lot of people in general, the pandemic gave us time to kind of sit with ourselves and become introspective and figure out what it is that we want from our personal lives, but also our professional lives, because now more than ever, they're both sort of intertwined. And I had the blessing of also turning 50 last year in the midst of the pandemic.
Anita Knotts (01:16):
So I say that because that, too, became a pivotal moment for me. And as we were just discussing, a lot of things happened last year. It wasn't just the pandemic, but it was a lot of the social justice issues that came to the forefront after some unfortunate events and all of these things combined with me saying, okay, I've been in this industry for 30 years. What is it that I want to do between now and when I exit the field? To put it simplistically, there is a lot of improvement to be had in our field. And I think anybody can admit that. And rather than just sit on the sidelines and say, okay, yeah, things do need to get better, I have always been the type of person to just do it, as Nike would say.
Anita Knotts (02:03):
And so this is my version of doing just that. I launched the business earlier this year because I think I have a pretty good handle on quite frankly what needs to be done. I'm an immigrant, I'm a woman, I'm brown skinned, and I'm pretty much the furthest you could find from the typical Wall Street person. So I want to kick off this business and say, listen, if somebody like me looking like this can do this and really create space for women to enter this field at this moment in history, let's do it. So that's really the background and what I bring to the table.
Lauren Hong (02:38):
Yeah. So what inspired you to launch Lotus was that experience in the financial services industry? What was kind of that turning point for you, and why this initiative?
Anita Knotts (02:52):
A lot of times when I think to myself, gee, I could really benefit from using somebody as a sounding board, when I was going through this type of experience, I could never find that person. So it's fine, because you know what, everything that has happened to me brought me to this very point. So absolutely no regrets, nothing like that, but I certainly want to turn around and make sure that the women coming behind me don't have to have it that difficult. If I can be that person for someone coming up through industry now and say, okay, well, here's some of the experiences that I've had, I certainly want to be there. I also saw, let's just put the cards on the table, a lot of unfortunate things that I think don't have to happen.
Anita Knotts (03:41):
And I think when you look at what is happening to women and women coming into wealth, needing help, needing guidance, the industry itself has to evolve to meet their needs. The traditional way that we've done things as wealth management, as financial services, it just has to be a thing of the past. It is clear that the strategies are not resonating with women now. And I'm certainly not the only person to say it. This is pretty commonly known. It's just who is doing what about it? So I just figured who better than me to kind of kick off something like this and find other partners in the industry, whether they be male or female, to change the face of it, change the face of the industry at this point.
Lauren Hong (04:34):
And then just contextually for those listening who may not be familiar with the mission of Lotus and the work. Do you mind just giving the elevator pitch for what all you do?
Anita Knotts (04:44):
Yes. The mission of Lotus is to attract, develop, retain, and advance women in financial services. It sounds kind of a simplistic one-liner, but to get into the weeds and do it, this is going to take work. I always say I'm looking for women, individual women who are not just looking for jobs, they identify as change makers, right? They actually want to make a larger impact in this industry by entering. But on the flip side, I'm also looking to work with firms that identify themselves as change makers. They're not just out there trying to check the DEI box, right? Oh, okay, we hired the woman. Oh, we hired a person of color, done. No, they want to actually make a solid impact by implementing strategies that are going to be long standing. They don't view this as a topic de jour, you know, a trend of the moment to be diverse. They really do want to see and be involved in the change that is so desperately needed. So that's the mission.
Lauren Hong (05:50):
And that comes from such a place of authenticity. Because it's not just the check in the box, but how is that mission intertwined in the fabric of the organization. I'm sure what their values and company culture are and all of that. So that's right. And I’d love to hear more about how you are identifying these companies and individuals, and then helping to kind of do that matchmaking.
Anita Knotts (06:15):
Absolutely. So the individual women, quite frankly, I've just dipped into my network and I'm absolutely astounded at how many women are out there, by the way, at all rungs of the ladder. At first, I thought when I launched this, okay, I'll be helping women coming in, but that's why I expanded the mission to be developing and advancing also, because a lot of these women have been in the field. They just don't know what that next step looks like. Or what does the conversation with their boss look like to even discuss what that next step might be? No one's having that conversation with them, which goes back to my earlier point that a lot of times women are hired and that's where it ends. No one is really focusing on what that next step or what the talent development path might look like. So I'm looking for individual women at all rungs of the ladder.
Anita Knotts (07:06):
A lot of times it's through if I sit on a panel event and I'll tell you, Zoom world has made it much better because my reach is so far. So sitting through panel discussions, somebody heard me and then they'll send my information to somebody. And it's always kind of a network thing, which is something that women aren't normally taught in the classroom. Hey, build a network. Well, this is the importance of it. I started building it a long time ago and it's bearing fruit now, now that I'm launching my own enterprise on the firm side. That's been pretty interesting as well, because over three decades I thought, oh, hey, you know, I know so many of the large firms because of the field that I've been in. Well, the interesting thing is that the firms that are really where I'm gaining traction are not the big firms, but the smaller firms, mid to small size RIAs, which is good, because those are the folks who are really, I'm finding, intent on making an impact strongly and quickly. So that's been happening as well. It's not that I'm not working with larger firms, but a lot of times what I'm finding is that the larger firms sometimes have their preferred recruiting vendors already. They have a lot of internal recruiters. So a lot of times they think, I don't believe it, but they think that they don't need somebody like Anita Knotts or Lotus, whereas I'm like, well, look, I've got the pipeline that you folks are so desperately looking for. So it's all about the network right now. Yup.
Lauren Hong (08:38):
Makes sense. Right. And making those connections, those trusted connections and everything. So and then are you actually helping to coach these individuals as well and work with them on a recurring basis? Or is it more of the matchmaking that you're doing?
Anita Knotts (08:54):
It's a little bit of both, Lauren. When I first meet them, I don't jump right into recruiting because I want to make sure. And I'm trying to say this in a diplomatic manner, but she's gotta have what it takes. Not everybody does, right. Some of them, if all you're doing is trying to find a job that pays the bills, I don't believe Lotus is for that person. As I mentioned earlier, I'm looking for women who truly do identify as change makers. They want to come in, they see the opportunity that lies before them working in financial services, working to empower themselves financially and then ultimately help empower other women financially so that we can really see a tidal shift in this industry for that person. I would love to meet you. And then what I do is talk through the things that I think a lot of women aren't taught in a classroom or in training sessions when they first entered the field, topics like negotiation, like how to take methodical risks in your career, topics like self-advocating. And then there's also a few courses that are specifically designed for women who want to become advisors, topics around asset allocation, investing, you know, career paths in wealth management, just all around the board.
Lauren Hong
Do you do coaching just for firms, kind of consulting at large? How does that interplay, I mean, as you're talking, I'm thinking such great training sessions or that sort of thing.
Anita Knotts (10:32):
Well, and it's interesting, again, I'm learning so much on a daily basis as an entrepreneur, because for 30 years I've been a corporate person. Right. And now as I'm kicking this off, when I first started, I thought, okay, I'll coach women and I'll recruit. I'll help firms recruit, that's what I'm going to do. Well, as I'm talking to these firms, they asked the same question that you just asked me. Hey, yes, we do have needs to hire people and people of color. However, do you also work with firms on talent development for high potential women? Of course I do. I designed those programs myself when I was working for the firms that I was working in. So it's not like I have to start from scratch. It's all up here. It's all in materials that I'm just kind of repurposing. It's the same concept, right? Professional development is professional development, no matter where you go. So these topics, especially the ones that I was just mentioning, are of massive interest to these firms, whether they bring in women who are on the financial advisor path, I can help those women, whether they are bringing in women who are on a leadership path, I can help those women. So it really can be customized.
Lauren Hong (11:45):
Yeah, it’s fascinating. And just looking ahead, you've got so many great stats on your website, too, that address a number of, I don't want to call them trends, but just trends where things are going. And just taking a step back, you know, so many women that are going to college are dabbling between work and motherhood and all kinds of things. And I would anticipate that, especially in the RIA space, that there's not only advisors that are needing that mentorship, but are working with more and more women as heads of the household. And so that's gonna, I would assume, become more of a need as we look into the future. Just where, where things are going.
Anita Knotts (12:33):
Yeah, in fact, I didn't know if you were going to ask me something that, on that very point, which is an excellent point. On my website, I talk about this concept. I call it the Lotus triangle, right? You've got women who are coming into an enormous amount of wealth. And if people don't believe me, you're exactly right. The stats are out there. This is not an Anita Knotts statistic. There’s divorce. And the fact that women tend to outlive their male spouses, the great wealth transfer, all of these factors are contributing to the fact that women are really the client of the future. And I always say the future is now. I always follow up by saying don't wait for the future, as in some other point in the future; that time is happening now. And if you don't staff your firm up to deal with that client of the future, meaning do your frontlines look like that client?
Anita Knotts (13:28):
Because if not, there's no way you can serve that person. And there's no way you can be competitive. So it's really important to make sure that those things are in place. So I always say the Lotus triangle, one group is this woman investor, right. But she's looking for that woman advisor who simply doesn't exist. Only 18% of all advisors are women. So then you've got the third group, which is women leaders. That kind of cycles back to what you were asking me on the front end, which is what brought this about. Well, I'm a woman leader in the industry. What can I do, right? What is it that I can do to help women coming into wealth that are going to need money? Because I'll tell you what the ultimate thing and why this matters to both men and women is that when women hold wealth, they don't just kind of hoard it and keep it under their mattress. They turn around and they reinvest into the broader society. So we all benefit from it. So this is all interconnected, right? And that's why it makes so much sense whether you're male or female to really subscribe to this philosophy.
Lauren Hong (14:38):
Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like especially the RIA space has changed. I mean, it's a new concept, right? And in general, if you kind of look at the large picture, it's changed and it's evolving. And I think it's also evolving as we're evolving as a society. And so it's interesting to hear the angle that you're coming at it from. And then I'd love to hear, if you were to coach younger women that are entering the workplace and wanting to get into financial services, what would be your message to them? How would you help encourage them to succeed?
Anita Knotts (15:15):
First thing I would say is take a bet on your stuff, risk yourself, put yourself on the table, you know, have that faith, because honestly the one thing I've learned in my career is that unless you take that risk, unless you've put yourself in a place where you're uncomfortable, you're never going to grow. You're never going to evolve the way to build that self-confidence muscle. So many people feel that women lack the way to build that self-confidence muscle—to take that risk. But when you come out on the other end and look back and you say, wow, I did that. That's the way you're going to develop it. Not by just thinking and hoping and praying, but you gotta do it. You’ve got to get muddy, you’ve got to get dirty, get scuffed up a bit and come out on the other end. Risk is the first thing I always tell the young women I'm mentoring and it comes in several different forms. And I customize that message depending on who I'm talking to, but oh my gosh, it's so necessary.
Lauren Hong (16:19):
So true. And then on the flip side, for those that perhaps are in their advancement piece of their career. Where they're looking to help to bring up and mentor younger individuals, what advice would you give to them to help to bring up that new leadership?
Anita Knotts (16:36):
It's interesting you asked me that, because in recent weeks, I've noticed that even though I've been in the business for 30 years, I'm certainly not the oldest person in the industry. As a female, there's many women who were growing up in this industry, let's say, even in the ‘80s, early ‘90s, and what I have found, and this might be a huge generalization, a lot of them feel that they went through a hard time getting scuffed up, so to speak. They really built up a tough exterior, so I feel some of them might think, what are these young women complaining about? We made it easy for them. You know, you can do it. I did it. You can do it. My advice would be, don't be so hard on the people coming up now.
Anita Knotts (17:27):
Wouldn't you have wanted a hand to be led to you as you were growing up in this industry? Put yourself in that young woman's shoes. If you can do anything to make it just a tad bit easier for that person, do it for the love of God, do it just because you had to pay a price doesn't mean that everybody else does. I would hope that somebody like Lorius Dine, who grew up in the 1960s, in the ‘70s, doesn't want each of us right now to be going through the hell that she and her counterparts did. Every generation should have the ability to carry the baton just a little bit further. So what I would say, and hopefully it doesn't come across as a harsh message, but help, do what you can to help them, whether it's a shortcut or mentorship or being a sponsor for them. Speak well of them when they're not in the room. So that would be my message.
Lauren Hong (18:25):
I love that. And I also love the specific example of speaking well of someone else when they're not in their room; it's the small changes and it's the appreciation and recognizing others. So more of a tangible takeaway.
Anita Knotts (18:39):
That's the one thing I always say, there's plenty of room at the top. This is not a zero sum game. If you make space for others, there will be space for all; the pie just keeps getting bigger. It's not like the slivers of the pie get smaller and smaller. The pie is getting bigger. So we have to reframe the way that we think about this so that we're helping everybody.
Lauren Hong (19:00):
Yeah. That makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. I love that advice. It's fun to hear it from you. Cause you're talking specifically with firms and individuals. So it's interesting to hear those conversations that may come up or how do you help to bring people up and encourage people to lean in?
Anita Knotts (19:18):
And the one thing I would also say to women, because I keep telling you that I'm getting some surprises, right. Throughout these months of launching the business, one of the biggest surprises is the number of men who have been absolutely amazing advocates. So there are a lot of men out there who actually completely subscribe to what we're talking about, but they don't know where to start. And you know, it ties back to who the firms are that I'm working with closely. It's men who are running these firms that are like, yeah, you're right. Look at our website. And you know, all you see is a bunch of white guys. Hell. You know, and those are the people that I'm drawn to. So there's a lot of folks out there in both genders that really do see a need for this change.
Lauren Hong (20:01):
And I think that’s authentic change here. I mean, sometimes I talk with leaders within our space that say, well, we want to hire a woman or someone with this background or what have you, but they're not finding the talent. And so I think that's a potential challenge. But then how does that hiring and process and all of that feel authentic, like you were saying earlier, it's not just a check in the box, but how so it's intrinsic to the longevity of the firm and even getting down, I would assume, to just brass tacks, its day-to-day operations. Well, that's all impacted, too. So very good. And I feel like we could keep going on, but I want to be mindful of time here, too. I know there's a lot on your website, there's a number of stats mentioned earlier and other resources as well that you've called out. What other publications or podcasts or things do you listen to, or conferences you attend just to stay relevant and to ensure that you're making those connections, you're building that network, right. You're pointing out that in the latest data. So I'd love to hear more about that, too.
Anita Knotts (21:14):
You know, I'm still a bit old school. I like to read a lot. I'm a book junkie, I'm a newsletter junkie. You know, I'm that person that gets up early in the morning with a cup of tea and starts reading a lot. But I don't just narrow it down to financial publications. But since we're talking about that, there's a newsletter, I think it's called Feed Spot. It sort of aggregates financial blogs particularly aimed at women. And it gives you the quick and dirty, right? Here's the important stuff you need to know for today: various articles by various blogs. And I like that because all I can do is read the headline. If the headline looks interesting, I click on it, if it doesn't, I blow past it, it's very simple. I'm also a big political junkie. So I read things like the New York Times and Fortune, of course. Fortune is fantastic because I'll tell you what, if you dig in, they have specific newsletters depending on what your interests are. One that I would recommend for women especially is the broad sheet for anybody and everybody, that their CEO, Alan Murray, sends out daily.
Lauren Hong (22:26):
Oh, dang. I think I get that, actually.
Anita Knotts (22:29):
I love it because it ties in everything. It ties in business. It ties in politics because you know what, none of these are mutually exclusive topics. They're all connected. So and then I am a podcast maniac for women in finance podcasts. There's a recent one that Dax Shepard's wife, Kristen Bell, does with an Indian woman. So of course I was very drawn to it, because she is talking to women leaders from all different industries. So everybody from Abby Wamback to Reese Witherspoon, to Sheryl Sandberg—just phenomenal. So then if you want the quick and dirty Ted daily, Ted talks daily, quick, 10- to 12-, 15-minute snippets, random talks, neuroscience, women in leadership, you know, something that's happening in the Pacific islands. It's just all sorts of different things. So if you're one of these curious people I would strongly recommend that.
Lauren Hong (23:34):
I love that there's so many good resources. I also like how you opened with the fact that they don't always read financial services or financial publications. When we talk internally with the team, you don't just look at what your competition is doing, but you look outside of the industry, not just within financial services, but within, you know, e-commerce or product based. And you can learn so much about application of a theory or the way that things are done can also apply in different ways, even though it may not be a one-to-one. And I think you can be smarter if you're understanding more of what's going on at large. So I think it's important to your point, too, to just not be so siloed within an area of expertise, but to try to scope outside of the lines to stay sharp in other ways.
Anita Knotts (24:23):
Well, and to connect it to what you asked about what to say to young women coming into the industry, when I'm trying to convince them to come into the industry. One of the things they say is, oh my God, I already sit around reading the Wall Street Journal or watching CNBC. This industry has nothing to do with that. Or my success. And I was an advisor for the first half of my career, and I was a leader managing teams for the second half of my career. I never enjoyed reading that stuff. I never enjoyed watching Jim Cramer on CNBC. God bless the man, but that doesn't draw me into the field. What I describe it as more about having that intellectual curiosity, as well as curiosity about the person sitting across the table from you, that's what makes you successful. This is a relationship business, right? At least from where I sit. And once I start talking to women about the career in that manner, it appeals to them. It resonates with a lot of them.
Lauren Hong (25:26):
True. Yep. Here, here. So you're right. And we all have those conversations, too, right? About how different people can have the same office service offerings, but part of the differentiator is the person. And the company values and how that comes out and everything. So I better stop myself or I'll get excited and start talking and I go on forever. But well, thank you so much for taking some time out of your busy schedule to share a bit more about not only your background, but the mission behind Lotus and the great work that you're doing. We'll make sure to include some of those links to resources. So thank you. Thank you for the great work you're doing. And if there's questions, I'm sure we'll be able to link to places where folks can reach out.
Anita Knotts (26:13):
Absolutely. Well, thank you for the opportunity. Wonderful to meet you.
Lauren Hong (26:16):
Absolutely wonderful to meet you as well.
Anita Knotts (26:19):
Take care.
Meet Anita Knotts, Founder and CEO of the Lotus Women’s Institute
Stephanie has always had a passion for helping others invest in quality nonprofits and social ventures. As the founder of Impact Finance Center, she is able to direct fundraising efforts from organizations to interested philanthropists.
Spotlight Summary
With a background in real estate investments and private equity, Stephanie has a unique perspective on the dollar. In this interview, Stephanie speaks on the concept of full spectrum capital and the gap in financial literacy within nonprofits. Her company, Impact Finance Center, partners with community foundations and associations to educate investors on ways to make their dollars more effective and beneficial to their causes.
Resources
To learn more about our On Purpose guest, please visit Stephanie’s website.
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Audio Transcription
Lauren Hong (00:03):
All right. Well, Stephanie, it's so great to have you. Thank you for taking the time to be here. I'm looking forward to hearing more about you and your business. I was just reading a little bit more about your bio and actually really had fun looking at your LinkedIn headlines. So I want to hear a little bit more about all that, especially the systems entrepreneur piece, the dancer. Before I try to attempt a proper introduction, I'll let you share a little bit more about your background, who you are, and I’m looking forward to hearing more about impact finance.
Stephanie Gripne (00:35):
Fantastic. So great to be with you, Lauren. My name is Dr. Stephanie Gripne. A lot of people call me Dr. Steph. I have been working in the financial markets since I started my real estate investing career back in 2000 to 2005 when I was a graduate student. My dad came to live with me and we developed an affordable housing program, helping families going through medical bankruptcy, and I just loved doing transactions. So I stepped away from a career in natural resources. My master's degree is in mathematical ecology and my PhD is in forest economics, but I decided I wanted to do transactions and deals. And so hundreds of deals later, I've lost track, I’ve probably done 300 to 500 transactions. I first did deals and a lot of it started with conservation real estate and funds.
Stephanie Gripne (01:29):
And then I joined a $100 million private equity fund. And so I went from what most of us do, doing individual transactions. I was like, wait, that's not enough. I want to do more. And that's funds. And then I was like, wait, funds, aren't moving enough money. And I want to fix the system. So I was recruited to be a professor at the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business in 2012. I was the director for the initiative for sustainable real estate and a finance professor. I also had a position within the University of Colorado real estate validation. And that's where my journey started in the last chapter. And I just asked myself, why isn't somebody moving? All of these amazing human beings who have access to resources are intelligent. They're mission aligned, and the money's stuck and what's why is it stuck? And I came up with a couple of hypotheses of why it was stuck and a big part was what we call non- conflicted and investor education, people who would provide individuals and organizations with investment education from an organization that wasn't trying to raise the funds to become your investment advisor. And so that was my bet back in 2010 to 2012. And I've been doing that ever since.
Lauren Hong (02:54):
And then with that bet, is that what spun off Impact Finance Center or more about how that got running?
Stephanie Gripne (03:04):
Yeah. When I was a professor from 2010 to 2012, I realized quickly it wasn't the real estate. That was interesting. It was the innovative financial thinking we were doing. And now it's only recently in the last year, I've realized I'm actually just the restoration of college, just in the financial markets, which is really combining my natural resource background with my financial day-to-day job. And I realized a couple of things. We don't think about a grant dollar or if you're in a Fortune 100 company, a marketing dollar, a corporate social responsibility dollar, and an HR dollar or a research and development dollar as having a financial return. We think of it as an expense. And when in fact the financial return is negative 100% loss, which means when we coached the Walton Family Foundation to do a negative 50% return investment for $500,000, I can make a case that that's an above market rate investment at 50% versus giving your money away at negative 100% loss.
Stephanie Gripne (04:11):
And so this concept is what we refer to as full spectrum capital, that we actually have enough money to do what we would do if we would instead of me personally taking a dollar and donating it over here, a dollar of investing it with a friend and lending money at 2%, a dollar that I would invest in the stock market instead if I didn't break those dollars up into three different organizations, but kept them for one organization, I would take a dollar at negative 100%, a dollar at two and a dollar at 6%. That would be $3 at a negative 31% return. And that's the return we need to do the deep impact work to solve our wealth gap and help build community wealth, then grow wages in this country while kind of healing our environment at the same time. And so I think of myself as basically, if money is like the river is flowing, as my ecology background would say, I'm helping that flow from getting stuck and keep flowing.
Stephanie Gripne (05:15):
So I learned that there was full spectrum capital learning, there needed to be nonprofit entities teaching this work that we're trying to get something from somebody, then that these people with money and organizations are really smart. But they're in T-ball. And right now, when we ask them to write a $250,000 check to invest in affordable housing in Kansas City, they've never written a check like that before. That's like asking you and me to go and start swinging as a Kansas City Royal in the batter’s box at a 95-mile-an-hour fastball without ever having gone through T-ball. So we realized there was a deeper T-ball that's learning by doing this full spectrum capital and that the teaching should be non-conflicted. When I had those three ahas, I remember the sinking feeling and I thought, wait a minute, every entrepreneurship center in the United States, every university needs one of these, this curriculum, otherwise you're just building one side of the marketplace and then you'd take a step back.
Stephanie Gripne (06:17):
And you're like, wait, every university needs these classes and curriculum, and this mindset shift to save themselves. And then you take a step back and you realize individual money is organized and YPO loans and community foundations, and there's all these associations of money. And you realize everybody needs this curriculum, but at the time there were only 15 centers in financial innovation and impact investing. And that's when I realized, okay, let's create a nonprofit, which really starts off as a multi-university academic center. So we'll create a community asset of classes, online, in-person, one-on-one small group learning, and partner with universities and other associations of money. So we could bring that education to them.
Lauren Hong (07:02):
Very good. Is that related at all? So I noticed you have a number of clubs as a part of Impact Financial Center. Is there a little bit of a direct relation to that work or is that separate?
Stephanie Gripne (07:13):
Yeah, absolutely. So in Colorado, we built what we call our first marketplace impact from 2016 to 2018. And this was, I'll be honest, a midlife crisis project. A big foundation and university had come into Colorado because we had two billionaires locally who wanted to invest and they told us we didn't have shovel-ready projects. We didn't have impact investments, projects, non-profits, small businesses, startups, and funds that were investor ready, and they call that a capital absorption problem. And I had done a couple hundred deals at this point and I thought they wouldn't know a deal if it's right next to them and then pulled a chair and sat next to them. And so I convinced my team and 34 people to form a steering committee. And we came up with a three-year goal to catalyze $100 million locally and good things happened. There were projects. We ended up with non-profits, small businesses, startups, funds, and co-ops; it got a little out of control as a community project. We did 200 education events in person.
Lauren Hong (08:23):
Holy smokes. Wow.
Stephanie Gripne (08:24):
After 70 of them, we would rent out a big hotel. I literally almost went personally bankrupt cause I'd put all this stuff on my credit card. And then we would do a three-day education event, which we called Colorado Impact Days. And we would literally set up 60 to 100 investment opportunities like a farmer's market. And we activated about 85 investors over three years. We brought existing investors to the table and we would just introduce amazing people raising capital and having money to invest to one another. And after three years, we lost count. It's probably $300 to $500 million of capital. We proved that more money flows if you focus on activating investors and creating the farmer's market. And after that, several of our amazing non-profit lenders and CDFIs, which are community financial development institutions in Colorado, they were like, wait, you're done with the pilot after three years?
Stephanie Gripne (09:30):
I was like, yes, we're done with the pilot after three years. And then I'd still have to raise this money. And we're like, we're not an investment bank. That's not what we do. But we realized we could take a bodega out of the marketplace and have the CDFI advise and non-profit lenders, which we call our main street lenders, create investor clubs that were supposed to be in- person. And then the pandemic hit. So we kind of went from an in-person farmer's market at a hotel to a Sears Roebuck catalog online. And so the investor clubs are essentially bodegas of a larger subset and we ended up having the federal government call us supplementation membership organizations. When the pandemic hit, we got calls asking if you can help us raise capital.
Stephanie Gripne (10:15):
And so if a governor calls me and says, what's the one thing I can do to get money flowing, most people think the answer is to start a fund. And we're like, nope, first thing create a marketplace, but a small one, a bodega or a big one, impact days. If you can only do two things, Kansas and Colorado have 100,000 to 200,000 millionaires, you need to go identify them, educate them and activate them to invest in Kansas and Colorado. Because 1% of wealth in Colorado is $5 billion. If we could teach people in Kansas and teach people in Colorado to invest in Kansas and Colorado, we have plenty of money. And then the third thing is only when those investors are so happy with the abundant joy of seeing the marketplace, they're like, wait, there's so many good things to invest in. Then you build a fund and a rapport out of investor demand, not out of a hope and wish that we had that investment capital.
Lauren Hong (11:16):
Do you mind just speaking a little bit more about investing specifically back in states? You know, Colorado or Kansas, what's the thinking behind that?
Stephanie Gripne (11:28):
Great question. I am still a geeky academic at heart. And so in sociology, we break the world into a community of places. And so there’s a geography, a community of interest and a community of identity and interests could be regenerative agriculture, sustainable forestry identity could be women, people of color indigenous as example. I think what's also interesting in what we learned and I'm a recovering economist also in my earlier days, is that if you would have given me a list and right now a list of a thousand people who could be the first impact investors in the state of Kansas or in Colorado, I would have gotten an F minus on that test, because the first 155 people who've stepped up to invest in Colorado in different communities of interest were not the people I would've thought would stood up and raise their hand.
Stephanie Gripne (12:32):
So I learned I couldn't predict who the early adopters were. And then when somebody calls me with 10 million, a hundred million, a billion dollars and says, Stephanie, can you educate us on impact investing? I also have a difficult time predicting where they want to start because we have over close to a hundred tools across your governance, your philanthropy, your direct investing, or your public investments. And so I have to ask them back. What are you thinking when you say impact investing? Are you talking about evaluating your investment advisor and upgrading your governance and doing investment beliefs and evidence-based decision, education evaluation? Are you talking about your public markets and impact with ESG? Are you talking about direct investing in Kansas or actually trying to make your philanthropy more efficient? And so what we realized when we were in Colorado is we didn't have a bench, a deep bench in any community of interest, place or identity.
Stephanie Gripne (13:34):
And so a lot of people suggested Stephanie, just pick the environment or just pick early childhood to start the marketplace; don't be so big. And I said, the problem is, let's say Lauren, you had this awesome tech startup to help out women and children. The thing is in Colorado, two or three of your investors might invest in you because you're a woman-led startup. Because you're a technology startup, two or three of my investors might be interested. You could say you're supporting children. We didn't have 20 deep in any one of those. And so we needed to kind of build the big tent to find what people said they were at before they showed up at the hotel and said, oh yeah, I want to do women in social justice. And then they get excited about those opportunities when they're there.
Stephanie Gripne (14:21):
And so, it's interesting that I oftentimes get asked questions from social ventures about what the investors are looking for, as if it's dark chocolate or milk chocolate. And I have to remind them that you yourself are this incredible unique piece of chocolate and a box of chocolates. You're the caramel nugget, dark chocolate salted one, and your friend doing something similar as the cherry chocolate, but guess what, the investors are the same way. And so the best thing for all of us in Colorado, Kansas, around the country to do is really get clear on what type of chocolate we are in that box of chocolates and communicate that out to the world. So the social venture chocolates can find the investor chocolates and vice versa.
Lauren Hong (15:04):
Yep. That makes a lot of sense, aligning purpose and all of that. So I'd love to hear a little bit more, because you're doing so much in this space. And you've been able to really move the needle in different ways. What do you feel like is something that you're doing, that you've already done and you're in the process of doing, that you feel is perhaps disrupting the industry or is kind of challenging, maybe the status quo, how things have been done in the past.
Stephanie Gripne (15:32):
That's a great question. There's a new service tool. We're rolling it out right now. We referred to it as a philanthropic opportunity scan and we piloted this three or four times, but we just did the first one with the Gilson Family Foundation. And I'm excited about this because one of the more difficult conversions we have to get people excited about investing is donors. And people get confused about us a little bit. If you're an investor, you're thinking, oh, they're helping donors become impact investors, but we didn't do just as much work with investors to make them impactful. You know, it's having you look at both sides of the equation, but the cool part about the philanthropic opportunity scan is that the math and the money can sometimes get overwhelming to people and confusing. And so in this case, we're really talking about making your philanthropy more efficient from a source and use analysis.
Stephanie Gripne (16:29):
So you can say, Hey, program officer, Hey donor. Just tell us what you love and what you give to. And they might say something like partial scholarships, school facilities, economic development, and hospices, then you say, okay, you're giving that young, amazing person an $8,000 scholarship, which is awesome out of your negative 100% money. When they have a $70,000 student loan at 10% interest, you know, you've had a tax incentive since 1969 to give that student a $78,000 student loan at 1% out of your donor advised fund or foundation, you'll get 101% return plus a tax deduction. And you'll save that student more than the $8,000 you're giving them. And I think 50 to 100 percent of our philanthropy could be restructured to make the nonprofit better off. And the foundation learning about leaving the donor better off is a really rich learning opportunity to onboard a whole cohort of people that might say, oh, I don't do that. I'm a donor, they're investors. And so we're super excited about that new tool that's coming out.
Lauren Hong (17:38):
And what's the timeline on that, that project?
Stephanie Gripne (17:41):
It's live and going well. We just did our first one yesterday. And so it's a simple process and we're a nonprofit, so we make all of our tools and structures available to everyone.
Lauren Hong (17:56):
Congratulations. That's very exciting. It's exciting to hear about, too. And then, what makes you the proudest to be able to work in this space and to do the work that you do?
Stephanie Gripne (18:07):
Oh, that's a great question. We do our work. We spend 85% of our time teaching those with resources how to invest in the product, people leading projects, non-profits, small businesses, startups, and funds to save the world. And so the most heartbreaking thing I do is we hear from 50 to 100 of those people a month and saying, can you help us raise money? And we say, oh, we, we have a pro bono two hours a month and we'll help you as much as we can, but how we help you is by training and activating the money to do this. And so that's a long-term play. And there are a select group of amazing leaders all over the country, such as Anasa Troutman in Memphis, or Ricardo Rocha in Denver, Colorado, or Christina Hollenback with the Justice Capital Initiative.
Stephanie Gripne (19:03):
And these are just extraordinary human beings. Anasa, for example, she wrote a musical for Martin Luther King's 50th anniversary, and then local community members asked her if she would stay and actually find a way through some miracle to purchase the store at Clayborn temple and continue Martin Luther King's vision and dream of doing community wealth building. So when you get to support somebody like Anasa and kind of continue the arc of history in that way and her story in that way, it's pretty extraordinary. You can, when you're in Memphis, among civil rights leaders, and leaders in the religious community and the creative community, and you just, I'm getting chills right now. And I think about it, it's just you're doing your part to help weave together a new path for history.
Lauren Hong (20:04):
Yeah, that is so powerful. And I love to be able to hear it from you firsthand as well. So, you can tell you're passionate about it and, just hearing the narrative, not only of the work that you've done, but how all your background, you know, all blends together as well. So, with that, teaching and being a part of so many projects, what do you do to just stay sharp, to be able to stay relevant with everything going on?
Stephanie Gripne (20:30):
This is interesting. The pandemic was really good for me. I used to live on a plane and the pandemic forced us to be still. And for me, I'm starting to write three books, I'm teaching myself to play piano. I'm doing a lot of road biking and cycling and doing a race this weekend. I love partner dancing. That was the heartbreak for me during the pandemic, not being able to partner dance, but I've been able to go a couple of times as the pandemic got better. I think getting out of my mind and getting in nature and moving my body are key to staying sharp. And I should also give incredible kudos to the others in our space that are system entrepreneurs, that could be raising a billion dollar fund and making a lot of money. And we're choosing to fix the system. And whether that's Todd James of Full Spectrum Capital Partners or Lindy Limbus that realize impact and pledge and investor flow. And I count myself as extremely fortunate to be able to work with some of the best minds of our time that are working to fix the system.
Lauren Hong (21:47):
That's wonderful. And you didn’t answer my question about the dance piece. Where did that fit in?
Stephanie Gripne (21:57):
It's funny because it wasn't until I took a CEO test, the Birkman, and I actually went to school for science for 12 years for my undergrad and graduate degree. And in the Birkman, science was one of the lowest scoring aptitudes I had, tied for first was persuasion and tied for second was music and service. And I didn't really identify as being musical. I was the scholar athlete jock, and in high school and college, I kept at three sports and I joke that I didn't even know where the trials were for drama or theater or anything else like that. And, after taking that test, I was like, I do love these. And I started writing songs and I'm a white girl with no rhythm and it didn't matter. I just love partner dancing so much that I started doing it, three to four nights a week and getting good at it. And it remains my great passion. And I do love giving talks on stage, which is a lot like acting and drama. So I've been very fortunate in my 40s to discover something that was, I think, always in me, but I didn't realize.
Lauren Hong (23:13):
I agree it's so important, as you mentioned earlier, to be able to free your mind and move your body, to be able to have that white space, to think creatively and do your best work. So I'm glad you've been able to slip it in a little bit more now that things are, hopefully, continuing on the upward swing. So, is there anything else you'd like to share?
Stephanie Gripne (23:37):
What I will share is this. We teach a lot of couples and brothers and sisters and families, with a lot of resources right now. And I love this analogy. I have a couple that loves backcountry skiing. And, the fact is, if you have resources and you care about making the world a better place, it is now possible to align your money. It's painful. I won't lie. It's like going on a backcountry ski slope, but it is now possible to do it. And so if your investment advisor says, you can't do it, or somebody says, oh, it's this, or this, or this, you need to find somebody else. And if you're open to going on that adventure, as I told this couple I work with, I'm your backend, your speed guide.
Stephanie Gripne (24:27):
And, I'm not sure how we're going to get to the bottom of the mountain, but we've been to the bottom of a mountain a few times, and we're pretty sure we can get there. And so those people who are willing to be bold and take those steps and do it, I know it's difficult. I just suggested out of a large bank this year and have my money in alignment myself. And it's a lot of work. It took me a year and it's completely worth it. It's what will change and heal our communities and our environment and the way that we all want to live.
Lauren Hong (25:02):
Thank you so much for sharing and also appreciate you sharing your narrative and how you got to where you are today. It's very inspirational and I'm rolling back to the website and if there's any other resources, I’m happy to print those out as well,
Stephanie Gripne (25:16):
I'll share a couple with you and thank you so much, Lauren, for doing what you do and taking the time to interview people.
Lauren Hong (25:22):
Absolutely. And best of luck with the book projects. I look forward to hearing more about those. I know that will feel good, I'm sure. Once you're able to get those out and check that box off.
Stephanie Gripne (25:34):
Yeah. I don't think I've ever said that publicly on a recording. So it is really nice to have the accountability of doing it. And so for those of you who've written those books, you know it's a journey.
Lauren Hong (25:46):
Absolutely. Now it takes a village. Right. So, well again, thank you. I appreciate your time. And we'll link those resources below.
Stephanie Gripne (25:56):
Thank you, Lauren. Have a wonderful day.
Spotlight: Meet Stephanie Gripne, Founder and Executive Director of Impact Finance Center
When was the last time you took a hard look at your brand? The tone of voice. The colors. The layout of your website. Does it represent the future of your financial services firm?
Your company is different from when your brand was first established, but has the brand evolved alongside? Consumers must be able to look at any part of your online presence—social media, logo, website—and understand who your company is right now. According to Action Card, it only takes 10 seconds for a consumer to gather their first impression of your brand. This is why it’s so important that everything comes together to create the perfect representation of your company and why you are the best firm for their needs.
Stay up-to-date with the latest trends
The biggest branding faux pas is to stay stagnant. While you don’t need an overhaul every month, it’s good to analyze your brand frequently to see where change is needed. Your company has changed in the last four years, so your brand should, too! Financial services should not equal a dull design.
- Try using a serif typeface in your website header and a sans serif typeface in your body text for a dynamic feel.
- Use a combination of warm and cool colors for a vibrant and attractive color palette.
- Minimalism is in! Play with the negative space in your layout to see what looks the best.
- Find out what type of websites your target audience visits to gain inspiration and design ideas.
Add flair and personality to your brand
While it is important to stay modern and trendy, it’s also necessary to use individuality to set yourself apart from the competition. Take a look at your firm. Are you classy and sophisticated? Maybe vibrant and energetic? Use patterns, shapes, and the tone of your copy to show what kind of firm you are, and why clients need to hire you.
Helpful tips for a new rebrand
Branding is a complex and detailed process, which is why it is common to hire out the process. If you are wanting to rebrand your financial services firm by yourself, here are some things to look out for.
- Leave behind any preconceived notions. Financial services used to be very conservatively designed, but it is modernizing quickly. Don’t be afraid to explore!
- Pay attention to who your target market is. Make sure the language and images you use are well-suited for the clients you want.
- Use images, but use them wisely. Make sure the images you use show a diverse audience, and especially include your target market. If potential clients don’t see themselves in your pictures, they won’t think they are a good fit. Also, use internal photos when possible to humanize your firm.
- Demonstrate who you want to become. “Dress for the job you want” does not only apply to clothes. Your brand can lead you down the path to the future you desire instead of keeping you stagnant. Make sure your brand can scale with you.
- Be ready for change. Rebranding is an exciting experience, but it can seem intimidating. Don’t hold yourself back by being unwilling to revitalize.
Ready for a facelift?
Whether you’re wanting to change a font or two, or ready for a complete redesign, Out & About Communications can be a branding resource. For more encouragement, check out this video about the power of branding or this blog post with five ideas of small changes you can make to tighten up your brand.
Does Your Brand Successfully Represent Your Financial Services Firm?