We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kerri Voelker a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kerri, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Mission – We are committed to making a positive difference in the lives of our clients by providing straight forward financial advice and education that is in their best interest.

It is our belief that everyone’s economic and life environments are unique. Personalized service is essential when matching clients with the appropriate financial products and services. In order to do this some of our best qualities is our ability to connect with our clients in a way that develops beneficial relationships built on trust and our passion for making positive change in people’s lives. In order to create this personalized service we love listening to people’s stories. What events have transpired in their lives? How have these events affected them and made them the person that they are today? How did they come to be where they are in life? This helps develop an understanding of their goals and where they see themselves in the future. The outcome of these conversations become the basis by which they, along with our guidance, start building their personalized financial plan. Unlike many in our industry, we do not require a minimum dollar amount to invest with us in order to serve. We are happy to help people at the start where their focus may be on improving their monthly budget, paying off debt, saving for a home, creating estate documents, and/or ensuring their liabilities are covered. Once those issues have been addressed and goals have been completed, only at that point will be be comfortable prioritizing their assets towards their investment goals. We are also happy to work with people that already have wealth and are looking to help secure their future retirement, review/improve estate planning for their family/children, and assisting with maximizing their potential tax returns and minimizing their tax liability for both personal and business assets. We partner with attorneys, qualified tax specialists, health insurance professionals, and CPAs to help create and/or expand your family’s professional team. It is important that that team all have the same understanding of the client’s goal and the plan to get there.

We have a desire to provide honest and transparent financial advice that will help our clients achieve their financial goals. We focus on providing education at the level that the client will find helpful. Sometimes the financial industry makes things sound to complicated so we like to get back to the basics to ensure understanding and by in with our clients. Without these they are likely to loose focus and their goals will not be reached. All of the advice that we provide is in the clients’ best interest and we aim to create long-lasting relationships that benefit both the client, the client’s family and extended family and Windsor Wealth Management. We prioritizes making a positive impact on our clients and our communities.

Kerri, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Peter received his MBA from the University of Notre Dame in 1976. He moved to Colorado in 1977 with his wife, Deborah, and received his Certified Financial Planner (CFP) in 1993. He worked for Lockheed Martin for 16 years and was the CFO before starting his financial planning practice in 1992. He has been helping his clients navigate a variety of financial issues ever since. Peter and Deborah have two children, Kerri being the oldest, and two grandchildren. He enjoys traveling, painting, fly fishing, and spending time with family and friends.

Kerri is a Colorado native. She grew up in Highlands Ranch with her parents and younger brother. In 2004 she graduated from Colorado State University with a bachelor’s degree in social work. Despite being in the financial industry now, Kerri definitely uses her social work skills like communication, empathy, and a desire to help at Windsor Wealth Management. Prior to joining Windsor Wealth Management (FKA Jochems Financial Services) in 2018, Kerri spent 11 years developing her career at OppenheimerFunds. During her time there she gained knowledge of the financial industry as well as having the opportunity to work in technology and project management. In 2019 Kerri, her husband and two young children moved to Windsor in order to be able to work side by side with her father, Peter Jochems. Kerri enjoys reading, doing crafts with her kids, traveling, going on dates with her husband, and spending time with friends. She also spend a lot of time as a Board Member, Event Committee Member, and Ambassador of the Windsor Area Chamber of Commerce as well as an Ambassador of the Severance Chamber of Commerce.

Services we offer…
Once the client’s goals have been identified, we will customize the appropriate strategies to suit their vision and objectives. We can help them execute a sound financial program utilizing the following products and services. We help them walk through a step-by-step process that will help make them feel confident in their decisions.

Budgeting – This is perhaps the cornerstone of financial planning. We can make sure you are spending the right amount given your income and can also make sure that you aren’t going into debt. If you are in debt, we can help get you out.

Retirement Planning – You presumably want to stop working in the future. Retirement planning services help you prepare for that day. Making the most of your employer-sponsored retirement plans and IRAs. Determining how much you need to retire comfortably. When to initiate Social Security benefits. Managing assets before and during retirement.

Asset Management – We help with your investment portfolio by mapping out how much you should be investing and in which types of investments. This can include stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Determining your proper asset allocation. Helping you understand your risk tolerance. Recommending the appropriate investment vehicles to help you reach and exceed your goals.

Estate Planning – Estate planning seeks to make things a bit easier for your loved ones after you pass. We can review your wills and trusts, help with beneficiary designations, and reduce exposure to estate taxes and probate costs. We will also coordinate with your tax and legal advisors or assist in finding them for you.

Insurance Planning – We can help you evaluate your insurance needs and review your existing insurance policies. Recommending policy changes when appropriate. Finding the best policy for your situation. This includes Term Life Insurance and Long-Term Care Insurance.

Education Funding – If you have children or other dependents who wish to pursue an education, you may want to help them pay for it. We can help make sure you are able to do so by recommending investment and accumulation strategies.

Tax Planning – We can help address certain tax issues and figure out how to maximize your potential tax returns and minimize tax liability. We can also refer you to qualified tax specialists.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I joined my father at Windsor Wealth Management in 2018, it became very clear that the current book of clients was very solid, and the focus was not on growth. Peter had spent 20+ years building this book and the clients were happy with the service and communications. When I came on board, I had a focus on assisting with the current clients as well as building my our clients. To do this, I needed to change the direction of the business.

I started by joining the local chamber of commerce and began networking. I learned what other business owners had done to get their brand out there and build their business. My first task was to create an online presence by building a website, creating social media pages, and SEO work. The cost of these items is big so convincing Peter about the importance of this was a difficult task. We both gained a lot of knowledge on the subjects and asked the professionals a lot of questions. The other challenge was keeping Peter on board when the payoff didn’t show right away. We learned that it takes time and money to create this side of a business, but it will pay off if you keep at it. We have had quite a bit of success in 2022 and 2023 based on our online presence.

Another challenge was how to become visible in our community. Join the Windsor Area Chamber of Commerce and participating in their networking group that meets every 2 weeks and volunteering in the different committees meeting once a month helped me build relationships and make connections. I also joined another national networking group and met with the local group once a week. Along with these meetings I began attending different coffee connections, business after hours, and lunch and learns from these groups. Again, there is a cost to these groups along with a large time commitment. Peter really helped me navigate the pros and cons of each item so that I could determine what is working and make sure to prioritize those and discontinuing others to have time to service our clients.

I discovered that I could only have so many rolls assigned to me and that I needed to hire others to help where needed. I found a marketing team that is helping us with our website, activity and posts on our social media pages, and developing communication pieces for our current clients to engage in as well as informational pieces for our networking partners and prospect contacts. It is amazing having a team that creates all these pieces based on getting to know us and our business and simply asks for our review and approval each month. To assist in making our time at work most effective I determined that a Client Relationship Management (CRM) system, scheduling program, and calendar share with Peter were all needed. There is a lot that goes into changing a business from one employee to two and always keeping both employees up to date on all things. Once more, each of these items have a cost and getting buy in from Peter was a challenge. We spent a lot of time talking, learning, and researching different options so that we choose the best ones and that we both understood the technology and would both be able to use it based on our different ages and comfort with technology.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Growing up I assumed that everyone discussed the family’s finances like our family did. When I met my husband and we started talking about combining our finances, I discovered that that was not the case. His family did not discuss finances at all. He did not know what his parents made at their jobs, what their retirement plans were, what the family spent each month, etc. Now don’t get me wrong but I didn’t know the specific numbers until I was in high school but even in elementary school, I was taught about earning money and the benefit of saving a portion. I eventually learned the cost of a home, house bills, cell phones, cars, etc and realized how much things actually cost. Now when I meet with clients, I have to remind myself that not everyone has the financial foundation in place and that I may need to help them develop that before moving on to investments.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.windsorwealthmgt.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WindsorWealthMgt
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerri-voelker/

Image Credits
John Robson