Welcome back to the 312th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Emily Rassam. Emily is the Senior Financial Planner for Archer Investment Management, a virtual Independent RIA based in Austin, Texas, that oversees $170 million of assets under management for nearly 170 families.
What’s unique about Emily, though, is how after struggling for years at a position where responsibilities and pressure kept building (and kept deterring her from being present in her family life), she realized that she had built enough expertise that she didn’t need to settle anymore, and made it a priority to find her ideal position that not only appreciated her expertise… but would also help her build a better work/life balance.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how, as Emily progressed in her career from working on 401(k) plans to focusing on financial planning, she faced challenges and eventual burnout while building a successful financial planning offering in a firm that was still primarily focused on 401(k) plans first and foremost and didn’t want to allocate resources away from its core 401(k) business, how, by what Emily describes as a stroke of luck in the midst of her burnout struggles, she took a chance in applying for a financial advisor position that she found at 3 a.m., which led her to her current role that pleasantly surprised her as their work culture and work/life balance priorities perfectly aligned with what she was seeking and desperately needed, and how exactly Emily determined that the firm would have such a positive work/life balance – when it didn’t advertise itself that way – by asking key questions of the firm owner during her interview process to understand their systems and processes and how invested the firm really was in its financial planning offering .
We also talk about how, in the very early stages of her career and immediately after finishing an internship for an insurance agency, Emily realized that even though the agency was already creating flyers and literature promoting her as a “financial advisor”, she was too young and inexperienced to truly take on that role, and decided to find a different more service-oriented job where she could gain more financial planning knowledge and expertise at a pace that was comfortable for her, the way that Emily eventually overcame her career-long struggles with imposter syndrome by getting better perspective on the expertise that she had built for 15 years in managing and educating 401(k) plan participants, and how Emily ultimately was able to shed the perceived notion she gleaned early in her career that advisors needed to be cold and calculated in selling their services, and realized that by focusing on the human aspects of financial planning, she could be successful and fulfill her own passion and purpose.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Emily shares how she admittedly struggled for years with saying “no” to clients and “yes” to too many opportunities and found that by advocating for herself and finding the right position that could support her (and help her set limitations for herself), she could finally create a space where she could not only thrive in her career, but at home as a wife and mother as well, why Emily believes it’s important for newer advisors to understand from the beginning of their careers that bringing value to clients does not have to be predicated on doing an overwhelming amount of work and instead can be focused on building more targeted expertise and knowledge that offers true value to their specific clientele, and how, even though Emily went through many years of struggling to find the right work/life balance, she feels it was important for her to have had those experiences because without them, she could not have the knowledge she gained and the appreciation for where she is today.
So, whether you’re interested in learning about how Emily eventually learned how to say ‘no’ to more work and ‘yes’ to a better work/life balance, how Emily leveraged 401(k) educational seminars and webinars to gain rollover opportunities, or how, by finally advocating for herself, Emily found the ideal position for her, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Emily Rassam.
Leave a Reply