Ep 081: Expanding Access To Financial Planning Advice By Offering Financial Doing Instead with Louis Barajas

Financial Advisor Success

Michael Kitces

News, Business, Entrepreneurship, Business News

4.8 • 696 Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2018

⏱️ 109 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My guest today has found an impressive balance between creating a successful advisory firm and giving back to his community. Louis Barajas is the founder of Wealth Management LAB, a multi-family, office-style advisory firm that specializes in providing financial advice and business manager services to entertainers and other celebrities in the Latino community. The first Latino minority to join the National Board of the Financial Planning Association over a decade ago, Louis built his advisory firm over time, from trying to serve Latino small business owners in the barrio where he grew up to writing books and teaching financial literacy to the Latino and broader communities.

In this episode, Louis shares the stages of his unique path into financial planning that culminated in him starting his own solo practice, as well as how he stayed positive and overcame the setbacks he faced along the way. Listen in to learn how Louis built his success by focusing not on financial planning but on what he calls financial doing, the immutable laws that everyone in his firm follows, and what he says is the key to expanding financial advice to a broader range of underserved consumers.

For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/81

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner,
0:08.4	speaker and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading financial advisors
0:13.6	navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight from leading
0:19.2	industry consultants about how to break through to the
0:22.0	next level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone.
0:29.7	Welcome to the 81st episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast. My guest on today's podcast is
0:35.4	Lewis Barajas. Lewis is the founder of Wealth Management Lab, a multifamily office-style advisory firm in Los Angeles, that specialized in providing financial advice and business manager services to entertainers and other celebrities in the Latino community.
0:49.2	What's unique about Lewis, though, is the way that he built his advisory firm over time, from trying to serve
0:54.5	Latino small business owners in the barrio where he grew up, to writing books and teaching
0:58.6	financial literacy to the Latino and broader communities, and now focusing on a business that
1:03.2	is not just about financial planning, but what Lewis calls financial doing instead.
1:08.2	In this episode, we talk about Lewis's path into financial planning, from
1:11.6	helping his father prepare tax returns and keep the business books as a teenager, to starting
1:16.2	out with the broker dealer in the 1980s, but quickly getting tired of the pressure to sell products
1:20.4	at the end of every financial plan, getting his CPA license and shifting to an accounting
1:24.6	firm that worked with high net worth individuals, and then leaving
1:27.5	the accounting firm to start his own solo practice after a chance meeting with Pastor Rick Warren
1:32.5	in a coffee shop shortly before the pastor published his purpose-driven life book, and how that
1:37.3	30-minute conversation in the coffee shop changed the trajectory of Lewis's career forever.
1:42.5	We also talk about how Lewis built his advisory firm over time.
1:45.8	The setbacks he had that forced him nearly start over from scratch twice after he had to
1:50.0	split away from former business partners and associated advisors, because as Lewis has learned,
	...

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