We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ann Garcia a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Ann, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career.
Our education system needs to be more integrated with our society. That would mean not just additional support so that young people aren’t taking all the financial risk of building an educated society and workforce, but that the educational system would collaborate with other parts of the economy to ensure that it’s supporting economic needs. For example, we should not have a nursing shortage when getting into a nursing program is about as competitive as getting into Harvard. We should not need H1B visa workers because we’re not producing enough engineers domestically. And similarly, we should not require masters degrees– or we should have a much better pathway to masters degrees– for jobs that essentially pay minimum wage, like social work.
Ann, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’m a fee-only Certified Financial Planner and author of How to Pay for College. I made a career transition from technology to financial services about 15 years ago when I realized a career in tech didn’t support my non-career-related goals. Early in my career as a financial advisor, a client came in asking about college and I realized that no one in the advisor community was talking about it. This felt like an opportunity– as well as something I needed to know for my own family.
One thing I’m proud of is my commitment to pro bono work. I realized early on that the people who most needed good advice about paying for college were people who were not going to be my firm’s clients. So I started writing a blog which puts me in contact with thousands of families and I volunteer with several college access organizations. Through my work I’ve helped thousands of families save millions of dollars on college.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
I’ve built a very effective referral network with other professionals. The biggest part of building that network was running a local study group for financial advisors. I’m a shy person so it’s hard for me to cold call or reach out, but in my study group leader role, I was constantly networking in the local community to find speakers for our group’s meetings. Those professionals would come to our meeting and see me in a leadership role there, interacting with and managing our group and event, which helped them to be more confident in referring clients to me.
Can you talk to us about your experience with buying businesses?
I bought my current firm in 2017. At the time I was working for another firm that was fine; I wasn’t really looking to go out on my own. However, another local advisor approached me somewhat out of the blue. She was retiring and wanted me to take over her practice. She knew me from our study group and thought I would be a good fit for her clients. At first I said “no thanks” but then I realized that this probably wasn’t an opportunity that was going to come up again any time soon so I decided to do some due diligence. Ultimately I decided it was the right thing to do; in hindsight I couldn’t be happier that I did it.
One of the things that helped the transition go smoothly (100% of clients were retained) was that we agreed why we were doing this transaction. It wasn’t about money; it was about doing right by her clients, letting her retire feeling confident about her professional legacy, and about me having the lifestyle I wanted in this career.
Contact Info:
- Website: howtopayforcollege.com, ipawealthmanagement.com
- Facebook: collegefinanciallady
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-garcia-cfp/
- Youtube: @howtopayforcollege
