The desire to work virtually, the need for flexible working hours and the freedom to travel are just a few of the reasons three advisors at this week’s Invest In Women conference cited for creating their lifestyle practices.
And to be clear, their businesses are as much about them as they are about their clients.
“It was really about owning my time. It’s how do you build a life that doesn’t necessarily focus on work,” said Carey Morgan, who four years ago co-founded Livelihood Planning, an advice-only practice in Philadelphia. Morgan noted that she previously had a career in nonprofits, where she worked 13-hour days, seven days a week. “I am a recovering workaholic."
For Chloé Moore, a 40-hour week schedule was out of the question. The founder of Financial Staples in Atlanta wanted to be able to focus on things she is passionate about, such as traveling and volunteering in her community. Moore also wanted to spend time on BLatinx Internship (BLX), a nonprofit she cofounded that provides paid internship opportunities for aspiring Black and Latinx financial planners.
And it was paramount for Lauryn Williams, founder of the Dallas-based Worth Winning, to have a virtual practice. “I could not fathom the idea of being in a place and meeting with people in a particular state or city. It just wasn’t me,” she said. “Just kind of based on the background I had … I don’t want to stop traveling." The four-time Olympian competed in track and field and bobsled.
Williams, Morgan, Moore spoke Tuesday on a panel titled, "Creating a Lifestyle Business," at the Invest In Women conference in Atlanta, sponsored by Financial Advisor. While they enjoy working with and helping people manage their financial lives, the advisors shun the traditional approach to financial planning. They see themselves as “kind of rogues in the industry, trying to bridge the gap between financial planning and financial coaching,” Williams said.
Williams became a professional athlete at the age of 20, with an annual contract for more than $200,000. But she was not financially literate and the experiences she had with financial advisors did not go well, she said. “So, part of me joining this industry was doing damage control on my own finances,” she said. She launched her firm seven years ago.
In creating her firm, Williams said she thought about how large she wanted it to be, how much income she needed and how many people she wanted to manage. She soon found out that she did not want the responsibility of managing people. She noted that she had in the past hired a paraplanner a few times and a full-time worker, but that did not work out.
“It was a huge responsibility … making sure the person had a 401(k) and that they were compensated, and they had to have a raise. And I’m like, ‘Oh my goodness, where am I going to get the revenue to support this … this is just not for me,” Williams said, adding that she also does not always want to be checking in.
Moore wanted to limit the number of clients she advised when she began her solo journey more than six years ago. She had no interest in working a 40-hour week and she, too, did not want to manage people. “So, even when I started my career 20 years ago, I always had this idea of working kind of part-time as a financial planner and then doing other things where money wasn’t the goal,” she said.
It also was important for Moore, who works with young professionals, many of whom are tech employees, to work virtually. “It’s so much easier for everyone to open up their laptops and have a meeting anywhere,” she said, recalling previous jobs where retiree clients were driving two hours in “awful” Atlanta traffic to meet with them in the office. “I didn’t want that for my clients,” she said.
Morgan also said she and her business partner, Megan Kiesel, have no interest in supporting somebody else’s salary and managing people. Morgan said she is not sure if she would have been in business had Kiesel not been her business partner. But she also said she would not suggest choosing a business partner just to have one. “It has to be the right fit and she definitely is the right fit,” she said.
The pair had worked in nonprofits together and had both gotten “burned out.” Morgan, at the time, was also taking care of two sick parents and Kiesel has young children. She will take off July and August to be with the kids, Morgan said, noting that one of their guiding principles is to nurture your relationships. “So, it’s not just nurturing the relationships with your clients but nurturing our relationship as partner and seeing how we can support one another,” she said.
The firm provides advice on financial planning and investments to mostly people who are underserved by the traditional financial planning sector, Morgan said. It offers a six-month holistic plan that costs between $1,650 and $3,450 depending on the complexity and a 12-month hourly ($150) engagement. Morgan said coming up with the right way to serve clients the way that they want to be served has been important for the firm. “We’re a values-driven company. We spend a lot of time working with our client up front on what’s important to them,” she said.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had a client come to us and say my end goal is to be wealthy and to leave a high amount of my money behind," she said. "For our client base that’s just not that important like making a meaningful impact on their communities.”
In terms of fee structure, Moore carefully thought about what she would need to comfortably meet her financial goals. She wanted to make sure she had a certain number of clients but clients who could support her fee. She charges an annual fee starting at $6,000 for individuals and $9,000 for couples.
“There is this concept of enough that a lot of people don’t think about. Everybody wants more, more and more, but there really is enough. Like, there is a point where you have more money than you need,” she said, noting that she worked at a trust company and saw just that—clients who had more money than they needed in their lifetime and multiple generations.
She said growing her company and getting more income will come naturally as her clients mature and her fees tier up (she also has an AUM component). Moore also writes, does speaking engagements and consulting work, which supplements her income. But she said once she gets to a certain point financially, “which is basically where I am now, everything above that is just gravy and I don’t necessarily need the money,” she said.
Williams said for the first three or four years of opening, she had no revenues coming into the business, but she was able to withstand the losses and was able to try other things. She gets referrals from other advisors and has a robust stream that supplements her income. She does project-based planning, student loan consulting, webinars and she has a podcast. She also has speaking engagements and she sponsors financial planning retreats. In June, she plans to take a group to Medellin, Colombia, and one in August in Bali, Indonesia.
“So, the lifestyle practice is what you want to create for yourself … see what’s specific to your purpose in life,” Williams said. In the same way that we do this for our clients, we need to be thinking about how we organize our finances for ourselves and what is enough,” she said.
The idea of what’s enough is important, Carey agreed. “Having worked in poverty for so long and seeing people in deep poverty, I do think it skews your views of what is enough,” she said. She said her clients run the gamut in age and finances. Her lowest earning client earns $16,000 and she has clients that make more than $1M. “I have to say that I noticed that the lower earners are actually happier people, and I think it really makes you think.”