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

Hi Sabrina, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I came up with the idea of becoming a financial coach for women after listening to Ramit Sethi’s podcast, ‘I Will Teach You to be Rich’ (now called Money for Couples), and watching his Netflix show. As a stay-at-home mom, podcasts are my lifeline to the broader world. I had been listening to Ramit’s podcast for over a year and was drawn to his message of how psychology informs our money decisions. I could see this reflected in my own life, but it wasn’t a message I had heard before in the personal finance space. After watching Ramit’s Netflix show, the lightbulb went off, and I thought, ‘This is what I want to do. I want to help women with their money by helping them understand their psychology and money history.’

I started looking into financial coaching and whether it was a viable option for me. I came across Kelsa Dickey’s Financial Coach Academy. I loved Kelsa’s values and approach to financial coaching, which were consistent with mine. For example, Kelsa encourages us to reflect our uniqueness in our programs versus offering a cookie-cutter program. I knew I wanted to do this because I’ve observed that even with the number of personal finance books, blogs, and programs, Americans are still in trillions of dollars of credit card debt.

The more I looked into financial coaching, the more I knew it was for me. Financial coaching allows me to combine my interests in personal finance, personal development, psychology, and women’s issues, which I have had since I was a teen. When I look at the books I’m drawn to, they tend to be about personal finance, personal development, and psychology. I live in a neurodiverse family, so I’m intimately familiar with the fact that solutions that work for me might not work for someone else. My interest in women’s issues, as it relates to money, stems from my childhood when my mom recounted how she had to have my dad co-sign for a credit card in her name even though she had a job. I was outraged at how the financial industry treated women. This fueled my desire to become a financially self-sufficient young woman, from paying and budgeting my way through university to investing as soon as I had my first full-time job. This feeling has continued through motherhood, as I want my teen girls to know how to manage and invest their money to give them as many options as possible.

Starting a financial coaching business also worked with my domestic commitments as a stay-at-home and homeschool mom. It has a low barrier to entry and was something I could work around my schedule. I was excited to help women close the gap between their current confidence with money and their desired confidence. I want to help spread the message that money isn’t just about numbers. Your thoughts and feelings about money and what you observed about money growing up primarily drive your financial outcomes. I work with women to change these thoughts, feelings, and behaviors with money so they feel confident about their ability to grow their wealth. This, in turn, will positively impact their lives, their families, and their communities.

Sabrina, 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?

As a financial coach, I’m passionate about helping women become more confident about their money. Women are starting to earn and inherit more, yet they haven’t been taught how to manage and grow their money and uplevel their psychology as their income increases. At the same time, women still earn less than men overall, take more time out of the workforce to care for loved ones and live longer than men on average. These differing financial circumstances create a wealth gap between men and women that is not adequately addressed by personal finance books and the financial services industry. I got into financial coaching to help correct this, one woman at a time.

I offer one-on-one financial coaching to women across the US over Zoom. My focus is to help women build confidence in their financial decisions. I do that by helping women understand their money history, the thoughts and feelings that drive their choices, and their financial numbers. We also identify the skills gaps, which could be unrelated to money, that impact my clients’ financial outcomes (e.g., the inability to say ‘No.”) What this looks like is uncovering how the feeling of nostalgia contributed to my client’s overspending, as shopping was a way she connected with her mom as a child. Once we discovered this, I worked with my client to find a way to retain the feeling of nostalgia without going into debt. These underlying emotions impact our financial well-being, yet aren’t adequately addressed by personal finance books or by following a 7-step program that only looks at your financial numbers and assumes that the same process will work for everyone. This is where I shine as a financial coach, working with my clients and their money psychology to find solutions that work for them.

I’m most proud of working with stay-at-home moms, many of whom have been divorced and have had to rebuild their finances. I know firsthand how easy it is to lose your identity and confidence if you’ve been a stay-at-home mom, especially if you left the family’s finances to your husband. I help these women regain their confidence and belief in managing and growing their money. A lot of women are doing a fantastic job but have lingering anxiety and self-doubt around money due to the negative messaging they received while married. I counteract that with positive messaging and by showing my clients where they are already doing well with their money. I provide a safe space for women to work through their money history and past decisions and a place where they can learn about money without feeling judged.

Before becoming a financial coach, I was an international trade negotiator with the Government of Canada. When our family moved to the US, I had to build my credit history from the ground up, as it didn’t move with us. I’m proud to say I’m now part of the 800+ credit score club! I have a Master’s in Political Economy and a certificate in Project Management. I graduated from the Financial Coach Academy and have completed additional training through their toolkits. I was also a Notary Public and family travel blogger, documenting my family’s 6-month trip across five continents. My life experience of budgeting my way through university with little debt, becoming a financially self-sufficient young woman earning more than my parents, and then becoming an economically dependent stay-at-home mom to two neurodiverse girls informs my work as a financial coach.

You can learn more about my services as a financial coach and how to get started working with me at insightfinancialcoaching.com

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Google has been my best source of new clients. After reading StoryBrand, I realized the importance of using language that resonates with my ideal client on my website. I put myself in my client’s shoes when creating the copy on my website, which has helped me attract clients. I also keep an up-to-date Google Business Profile. I know how frustrating it can be for consumers when a business doesn’t correctly reflect their hours on their Google Business Profile.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Financial coaching doesn’t require much capital to start, so I funded my business through my savings and by prioritizing it over other things I could spend money on. This is part of what attracted me to financial coaching, as I knew I didn’t want a business that sold a physical product and had higher start-up costs.

Once I had a better idea of how much I wanted to invest in my business, I added it to my budget and set the money aside in a High Yield Savings Account. I transferred enough monthly funds to cover my business credit card bills and allowed the rest to earn interest. I also chose a business checking account with a high interest rate and a business credit card with a 0% interest rate for the first year. The card also rewarded me with cash back and offered discounts on services I needed, like Zoom. All of these choices helped me fund my business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.insightfinancialcoaching.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insightfinancialcoaching
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094398240764
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/financial-coach-sabrina/

Image Credits

Headshot: Emily Alton