Journal of Financial Planning: May 2021
WHO: Reshell Smith, CFP®
WHAT: Transition Money Coach, AMES
Financial Solutions LLC
WHAT'S ON HER MIND: “When you’re
comfortable being yourself it makes you better at your job.”
VIDEO: Click here to see more of the conversation with Reshell.
You have deemed yourself the “Transition Money Coach.” Tell our readers what that means.
I deemed myself that when I first started my company and there was no real name out there for someone who wanted to serve clients in the way that I do.
At the last company I worked for—which was a great company—I found that I was speaking to and working with a lot of men. I kept seeing the same problem over and over again: at some point, I would work with women who had lost their husbands or were divorced and were going through the transition from being married to being single, and it felt as if the women didn’t know what was going on.
I kept thinking of the word transition—and how do women transition successfully from the workplace to being an entrepreneur? And how do they make successful transitions to this new (single)life when they really weren’t participating in the financial planning process before?
There is a certain way to handle clients in transition. There is a certain level of compassion and there are certain conversations you need to have about things they may not have even had to think about before. For example, women who were only paying the bills and were not involved in investing in the IRA and 401(k)—those are all new concepts to a lot of women who were not participating before. Helping these people transition successfully is what I do, so I just found that the term fit the work that I wanted to do and that I do.
What are the unique challenges that clients in transition face that planners should be prepared for?
One of the things is being prepared for the unprepared. Going back to the clients that I worked with at the firm, they had at least a million dollars or more. Those clients were not participating in the investing or understanding who their beneficiaries were and how their trust was set up because maybe they were there, but they really didn’t pay attention to everything. Clients being unprepared is actually one of the first challenges that planners are going to see with those types of clients.
The other thing is not working with professionals. They may not have worked with professionals before and they may have even tried to go through a transition alone, so they don’t have those professional contacts to work with. This is something planners need to be prepared for.
Tell our readers about your Seven-Step Transition Program.
It’s similar to doing any financial plan where you are gathering data, defining the goals, and creating plans for your clients; however, it’s how I go through the steps with them.
If we’re talking about women or men who are in transition, you have to have a level of compassion there. You may have to educate them along the way because they may be introduced to new terms and new concepts and new things that they haven’t been involved in before. Having that compassion and being able to educate through the normal financial planning process is why I say it’s a seven-step transition process. It is financial planning, but you have to add a little more to it because you’re dealing with delicate situations.
I am someone who is spiritual. I consider myself to be a Christian, and so a lot of what I bring to the table is what I’ve learned through my own personal experience and my faith. In our industry, we have firm, strong men and they’re very straightforward and sometimes it’s hard to tone that down and be a little softer. I don’t believe they mean any harm—it’s just who they are. When you’re dealing with women who are in transition—especially after [a partner’s] death—I believe we have to have a little more compassion. If you can send some flowers before you start the process to say, ‘I’m here. I know you’re going through this, but we’re going to be working on this planning together,’ it would help with the planner-client relationship.
Normally, you would work with someone to create a financial plan and complete it in 21 days, but because you have someone who’s grieving, you may have to take some extra steps and maybe you extend that time. Really have that compassion—even if you have to work with someone who works with voice inflection to teach you how to tone it down and speak to people in a relatable way.
What do you think the future of the financial planning profession looks like?
Physically, I hope more planners look like me. I definitely hope the industry is more diverse. We’re more focused on moving women forward in finance, and I hope that we’re doing that and that our profession starts to look like a place where women and people of color can be successful.
Physically, I want people to look more like us, but I also want us to make sure that we keep our standards high as far as the knowledge and the expertise we provide. There are so many people out there who claim to provide advice that sometimes it feels like we’re competing with people who do not have the expertise and experience that we have. Many may not have done the book work that we’ve done. And you know what? Many of them are great—I just believe that if we stay on the top of our game, we are positioned to provide the best advice.
I want us to be relatable. I think that is one of the biggest hurdles for us—just being relatable. That’s one of the things that I actually like about myself when I am attracting new clients: I can relate to a lot of their situations, whether they’re married, divorced, or have recently become widows—I’m able to be relatable and authentic. That’s really going to help us be successful in our industry.
Your resume is very impressive. You hold an MBA and several licenses and you’re also a CFP® professional. How have these helped your career and what would you say to young professionals considering pursuing more education?
Be as smart as you can be. If there are courses out there that you can take that will increase your knowledge in the field that you’re in—great, take them. Even if they’re not in the field that you’re in and you don’t think that you’ll use the information in the future, take them anyway. For example, I just talked about behavior and being relatable—there are courses out there around behavior that may not be a requirement in our industry but can sharpen our skills and improve how we interact with people.
I believe that every course I’ve taken, every degree I’ve obtained, has helped me in some way. The stability, the time management, the focus—all of the things that you get from obtaining degrees and designations—help you be a better planner.
I would say what I said earlier, even to planners who have been in the industry for a while and are looking for ways to improve themselves: be authentic and be relatable. I don’t think we’ve put enough emphasis on that.
According to the research, there are less than 2 percent or so of CFP® [professionals] who are African American and female. We cannot and should not go out and mimic our Caucasian male cohorts. I don’t always like to wear a blue business suit—I actually feel good putting on a cute, colorful dress. The clients that I attract like my style; I speak their language and they appreciate my sense of humor. I would tell young planners to look like the client they want to attract.
There are planners who like to run marathons and can be who they are and connect with new clients in those spaces. I like a good glass of wine, so a girls’ night out or going to some sort of wine event is good for me because it’s comfortable and I can be myself, and that’s attractive to many clients.
Also, keep in mind that a lot of the terminology and concepts that we present are hard to understand. It’s especially hard for people who have never worked with a planner before. I like to break those terms and concepts down to make them understandable for the average person. Make sure you’re not speaking over your client’s or potential client’s head. Sometimes, they get intimidated and shy away from beginning the planning process.
Being authentic and being relatable will attract the type of client that you want to have around you. When you’re comfortable being authentic, it makes you better at your job in general because you’re not putting on a façade.
Tell me what you think we can do to diversify our client base and the next generation of professionals in financial planning.
Many times, we talk about bringing people of color in as clients and how we do that. I think to do that we have to go where our target clients are. We need to be intentional. Different cultures have things that they love to do.
I’ll tell you, in the African American culture, a lot of people who want to invest and work on their financial plans are in the church. Black churches are packed—maybe not now because of the time that we’re in—but [when they’re back], going there and participating in church events or doing workshops would be great.
Also, we love our HBCUs (historically Black colleges and universities), so when they have events, if firms or RIAs can be sponsors or vendors, it’s an ideal place to connect with people.
Go where they are. It may not always be the golf course that you normally go to—and that doesn’t mean they don’t have money. As we’ve witnessed, our first Black female vice-president went to an HBCU, so there are great people out there that you can connect with by going to the places where they mix and mingle.
Companies can go to those same HBCUs to recruit top talent for their companies. I suggest offering scholarships and internships that transition to full-time jobs after completion of undergrad. There are also opportunities to take those efforts a step further by offering a financial planning curriculum through local colleges and universities, and hiring graduate students.
I would love to see graduate students from HBCUs get hired for C-suite-level positions. You need a strong understanding of business fundamentals in those positions and I believe they get a lot of that in grad school.
