"I was always intimidated by the financial planning field," she says. "I felt it was all about numbers, and I'm just intimidated by numbers."
It's a fear that might have scared her away from the profession, if not for the fact that her father made a conscious effort not to overwhelm her. For example, she took a couple of years to get her paraplanner certification, and she got her CFP certification in December. Her duties at first were limited to data entry, client correspondence, filing and other basic administrative tasks. Soon she was doing analytical work and sitting in on client meetings. "I got more confidence as I went along," she says. Somewhat to her surprise, she discovered she possessed "an affinity for cash flow and budgeting."
Once it was clear his daughter was interested in more than just a brief stay the firm, Dick says, he encouraged her to attend as many professional conferences as possible. Like her father, Melissa is an active member of the fee-only National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA). Melissa says her role at the company started to grow significantly when she started her CFP certification studies in 1999. The following year she became a full partner at the firm, which has about 108 clients and $60 million under management.
Melissa and her father typically meet with clients together during the first few exploratory meetings and then split the clientele between them. They are starting to work on a full succession plan, with the help of their spouses. Once a quarter, Melissa says, she, her father, her husband and her mother have a meeting at which they discuss the business and its future. Melissa's husband, while not a planner, is a project manager for a local construction company.
"He and mom both have an objective viewpoint about the company," she says, citing a recent meeting in which her husband and mother both suggested Melissa and Dick cut down on their long work hours. "We were just trying to do too much and weren't delegating."
While the father-daughter team is focused on their business, they say they don't take things too far. At work, Melissa calls her father "dad" and Dick calls his daughter "Missie." Clients like it that way, Melissa says. "The type of clients who come to us like that type of family atmosphere," she says.
Unexpected Ventures
It started out as just lunch. Yet it turned out to be one of those life-changing moments that come out of nowhere.
As Marc Freedman remembers it, it was 1990 and he was a year out of college. He was working as a Chinese food container salesman and having lunch with his fiancée. The subject then turned to their future-more precisely, his career.
"She just asked me if I was sure I wanted to make a living out of selling Chinese food takeout containers," he says. While he was trying to figure out the answer, she followed up with another question: "Have you ever talked to your father about going to work for him?"