Ep 139: Plugging In For Large Firm Support To Refocus Your Time On Clients Instead with Michele Clark
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.8 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 27 August 2019
⏱️ 115 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Michele Clark is the senior portfolio manager for Acropolis Investment Management with more than 25 years of experience in financial services. From cold knocking to becoming a regional investor educational specialist and now working in investment management, Michele really has done it all within the industry. She even ran her own independent hourly financial planning practice until she recently decided to “plug-in” to a larger firm.
In this episode, Michele discusses her non-traditional journey through the financial advisory industry, as well as how she managed to re-balance both her business and the work she is doing in it. Listen in as she shares her best tips for attracting clients no matter where you are, the importance of developing an expertise, and how to confront the inevitable challenges you will face when starting out on your own.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/139
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with |
| 0:07.1 | financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading |
| 0:12.4 | financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success, |
| 0:17.5 | and get insight from leading 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 Kitsas. Welcome, everyone. |
| 0:29.4 | Welcome to the 139th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest on today's |
| 0:35.3 | podcast is Michelle Clark. Michelle is a senior portfolio manager |
| 0:39.1 | for Acropolis Investment Management, an independent RIA based in the St. Louis area that |
| 0:43.7 | oversees nearly $1.1 billion of assets under management for more than 800 clients. |
| 0:50.0 | What's unique about Michelle, though, is that until very recently, she ran her own independent |
| 0:54.9 | hourly financial planning practice and only recently decided to tuck in, or as she puts it to |
| 1:01.4 | plug in, to a larger firm so that she could worry less about the hassles of being a business |
| 1:06.4 | owner from bookkeeping to IT and simply focus more on what she enjoys the most, which is connecting |
| 1:12.2 | with and servicing her clients. In this episode, we talk in depth about Michelle's somewhat |
| 1:17.5 | non-traditional journey through the advisory industry, from starting out selling mutual funds |
| 1:22.2 | door-to-door with Edward Jones, to switching to Charles Schwab and becoming a regional investor |
| 1:26.9 | education specialist until |
| 1:28.6 | she was so successful, the travel overwhelmed her and she decided to switch and become a branch |
| 1:33.7 | financial consultant instead, and then growing her base of Schwab private clients so large that |
| 1:38.7 | it once again overwhelmed her to the point that she decided to go out on her own to structure |
| 1:43.1 | the practice the way that she wanted, only to once again over the span of 10 years grow to the point that she decided to go out on her own to structure the practice the way that she |
| 1:44.3 | wanted, only to once again over the span of 10 years grow to the point that the business was |
... |
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