Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner,

speaker and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading financial advisors

navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight from leading

industry consultants about how to break through to the

next level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsas. Welcome. Welcome to

the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. On today's episode, we talked to Eleanor Blaney, one of the

founding partners of Sullivan, Briette Spiros, and Blaney, an early leader in the

world of independent RAs that by 2003 had already grown to nearly a billion dollars of assets

under management and was ultimately sold to Harris Private Bank. I was excited to have Eleanor

join us and share her perspective of growing a successful financial advisory from not only for the success of SBSP

itself, but frankly also the challenges of doing so as a female financial advisor in a very

male-dominated industry. So in this episode, you'll hear everything from how Eleanor cold-called

advisor she found in a magazine to find her first job, how she pushed with an early,

or got pushed by an early mentor to be willing to stand up and speak out and ultimately join

Toastmasters to find confidence as a public speaker, as well as the details of how SBSB grew,

in large part by forming a tax-focused niche around working with tech company employees in the

1990s.

And be certain to listen to the end where Eleanor shares some of her thoughts on what it takes to improve gender diversity and bring more women into financial planning, her advice to survive

as a woman in a male-dominated industry, and in particular, her advice to younger and newer

planners coming into financial planning today.

So with that, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor's Success Podcast with

Eleanor Blaney.

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