Spencer Financial Planning Turns 4!
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Spencer Financial Planning is 4 years old!
Now in human years, at age 4 children are exploring more, conveying emotions, learning to follow more complicated directions, becoming more social, understanding the concept of time, and communicating via tantrums and meltdowns.
Let's see how SFP matches up in business years, although I can tell you right now I'm not overly enthused about the "becoming more social" part (#introvertatheart).
By the way, if you’d like to see previous installments, check out these links:
A few facts
Spencer Financial Planning was “born” on June 26, 2020, with its registration being finalized then.
Our client relationships thus far:
During the past 12 months, we served 22 Comprehensive Financial Planning clients (our service covering all areas of personal financial planning).
1 client signed up for a Financial Check-Up during the past 12 months.
5 clients signed up for a Jump Start Call during the past 12 months.
In total, we’ve served 49 clients/families during the past four years.
Spencer Financial Planning is currently a company of four! Staff includes:
The head honcho Keith the Supreme Leader.
Hannah Klein as a Financial Planning Operations Associate working about 8-12 hours a week helping with day-to-day client-related details.
Nina Klein as a Financial Planning Operations Associate working about 5-8 hours a week helping with business development.
Our first intern Joslyn Spencer (my 16-year-old daughter!) working as a Financial Planning Operations Assistant doing research and data analysis.
A few NON-facts
Spencer Financial Planning has been named the most fashionable financial advisor by 98.6% of Olympic athletes.
Spencer Financial Planning has announced its very own exclusive line of custom your-face-here neckties.
Spencer Financial Planning is training for the Xtreme Cornhole Golf world championship, heavyweight division.
What's been happening this year?
Spencer Financial Planning has officially declared a focus on serving employees and retirees of financial services companies.
I've been honored to have been quoted in the media several times over the past year. I’m still astounded that a cotton-headed-ninny-muggins like me is fairly regularly quoted by major outlets. Here are the places I have been featured over the past 12 months:
Yahoo Finance, Nasdaq, CNET Money, US News & World Report, ConsumerAffairs, GOBankingRates, ETF.com, ThinkAdvisor, ComparisonAdvisor, AOL, and MSN.
Is it a party of one?
Spencer Financial Planning is not just me myself and I! While I am the only financial advisor in the firm, I also have quite a bit of support:
As previously mentioned, I have two incredible part-time employees and one intern, who help with preparation for meetings, general operations, efficiency improvements, and business analysis.
I’m a member of the Alliance of Comprehensive Planners (“ACP”), which is a national community of tax-focused, fee-only financial advisors committed to working in their clients' best interests. I’m able to lean on that community when I have questions or would like some input on tricky financial situations my clients are facing.
I’m a member of three mastermind groups with other financial planners, who meet both locally and virtually. This gives us a place to run ideas by one another, get input on client situations, and generally talk shop.
Most importantly, my wife Melissa continues to support me and the business in ways too numerous to count. It’s not in any sort of official business capacity, but she does occasionally write blog posts, brainstorms business ideas with me, and generally provides incredible backup as a business owner. Not to mention, her selfless management of our household of four kids and a dog.
So how's it going?
It's going awesome. I am so thankful for the opportunity to run my own business and the past four years have been such an incredible journey.
Just like a child entering their fifth year, I feel like I am entering a phase of further development that has been in process for a while. I am continually learning how to communicate better with my clients and identifying what services are and aren't helpful. We have conducted two years of a client survey now that has directly helped us hear how we can adjust our practices to better meet the needs of our clients.
Furthermore, like a small child coming to understand the impact of time, a major theme at Spencer Financial Planning this year has been efficiency. As we have been growing over the last couple years, I have been recognizing areas that are draining on my time and energy or certain practices that simply need to be improved. So we dissect those activities or processes, asking hard questions and implementing improvements where we can.
Now of course it hasn't been all ponies and unicorns ... childhood never is. There have been growing pains, frustrations, inefficiencies, roadblocks, and setbacks. Does that affect my desire to push on and try to be the best financial planner I can be to my clients? Absolutely not.
In terms of childhood tantrums and meltdowns, well, only my desktop mic and office plant know the frequency of those.
What's next?
What do I want to be when I grow up?
Well, spoiler alert, I kinda like finances. So perhaps a financial planner would be an appropriate profession. Maybe not your typical four-year-old answer.
But in all seriousness, I love this job. I love my clients. I love being able to speak to you in this limited way.
I suspect the near future of Spencer Financial Planning will look similar to the past 4 years. We want to serve our clients in the best way we can to help them pursue their financial goals and overall financial health. We want to keep growing, both in our own business operations and in the effectiveness of the service we provide our clients. And of course we would like to keep growing in terms of how many clients we serve.
How will it actually turn out? Don't know.
But let's find out together.