Welcome back to the 315th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Lisa Brown. Lisa is a Partner and Wealth Advisor for CI Brightworth, an RIA under the CI Financial umbrella with offices in Atlanta, Georgia, and Charlotte, North Carolina, that oversees nearly $5 billion in assets under management* for over 1,500 client households.
What’s unique about Lisa, though, is how, by digging deeper into an existing firm niche focus of Coca-Cola employees and talking extensively with employees there about their common needs and issues that affected their financial goals, she began to write white papers for them, which was so successful in building her reputation and expertise – and client base – within the company that she gave up her own office space because she was spending so much time meeting with clients in their offices at Coca-Cola headquarters… which just led to even more referrals and growth by being so visible on-site at the company.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Lisa realized that by visiting Coca-Cola’s headquarters consistently and engaging employees in-person about their financial issues, she could become known as a familiar and trusted financial expert in the Coca-Cola community, how Lisa leveraged writing white papers about preparing for retirement and what to look for in severance packages in the event of a layoff specifically for the Coca-Cola employee niche as marketing tools to gain even more referrals within the company, and how, as a practice area leader for corporate professionals and executives as one of CI Brightworth’s four key practice areas (the others being business owners, dentists, and retiring clients), Lisa has begun to train and guide the next generation of advisors in the firm about how to become effective business developers by identifying and getting known in their area of specialization, too.
We also talk about how, in the early stages of Lisa’s career, she doubted her future in the financial services industry and decided to obtain an MBA as a fallback, but coincidentally during her first semester, the program began offering a Master’s in financial planning that provided the same coursework required to take the CFP exam which ultimately led Lisa to obtain her CFP designation and find a successful career path in the industry, how Lisa credits preparing tax returns for clients during her formative years at Goldman Sachs Ayco as one of the ways she grew her confidence and expertise to feel more comfortable as an expert advisor, and how Lisa leveraged 4 pillars of professional networking, joining organizations and attending their networking events, public speaking, and creating content in the local media to build her personal brand and gain referrals.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Lisa shares how she hit a point where she realized working nights and weekends was taking away from the time she could have been spending with her husband and children, and had to force herself to get comfortable with prioritizing what was urgent versus really truly important to regain more of that family time, why Lisa feels it’s important for newer, younger advisors to surround themselves with experienced advisors and take every opportunity to absorb the knowledge and practices that they put forward to develop as a better advisor and create a successful career path for themselves early on, and why Lisa believes the key to success for her at this point in her career is how she can impart the wisdom she has gained and sponsor younger advisors to help them build the skills and confidence they need to become better advisors and find their own paths to success.
So, whether you’re interested in learning about why Lisa decided to work with corporate professionals and executives, how Lisa and her firm are working to replicate their success at Coca-Cola with other larger corporations and white papers, or how Lisa thinks about and develops processes to increase and improve business development, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Lisa Brown.
Leave a Reply