Q: Can you tell me a little bit about your background before you started with Thrivent?
A: I worked for Vanguard in the Philadelphia area for 19 years before I came to Thrivent. I held a variety of positions, but the last one was a financial advisor.
Q: What was it that attracted you to the business in the first place?
A: Long story short, I was actually teaching music at a college as a part time instructor and they didn’t have any classes for me to teach during the summer. My husband suggested that I get a temporary job until classes start up again in the fall.
I started with a company but my typing skills were so bad they told me I should do something else. The company that they placed me with was Vanguard and at the time I was not familiar with them so I worked in the back office. It was towards the end of summer that my supervisor informed me of a part time position starting up in the fall where I would be talking to clients about investing. Of course I didn’t know anything about investing; they trained me and got me licensed. I so enjoyed and loved the investment industry that I ultimately quit teaching and went full time with Vanguard.
Q: How long have you been with Thrivent now?
A: I am coming up on 4 years.
Q: Could you tell me a little bit about where you live, your family or anything along that line?
A: I live in Missoula, Montana. I actually moved back when I quote “retired” from Vanguard. I grew up in Montana, so my husband and I took a little bit of an adventure and we ended up in Missoula. We have two grown children. We just welcomed a grandchild, our first grandchild to the family. In fact that family lives with us because my son-in-law, who grew up in the Philadelphia area, and my daughter moved out here to work for Thrivent. My son-in-law is actually a financial rep and my daughter works in our office for us until she diverts.
Q: Through the years, how have you managed your time between family and business?
A: With Vanguard it was pretty easy because we had set hours. With Thrivent, because were are empty nesters, I really did have to put my head down and work long hours for the first two years, getting out there and visiting with my book of business. I also have a territory of about 60,000 square miles which meant being on the road quite a bit. That has been a little bit of a challenge, my husband actually got so lonely he went out and bought a dog! But now that business is humming along, I am now able to take a half day off or a day off to do something with my husband or go somewhere.
Q: Do you rely on any staff to help run your practice?
A: Yes, as I mentioned, my daughter works for us part time and we have another office assistance who works for us part time and when I say “us”, my son-in-law and I office together.
Q: So, do you share any clients or do any joint work?
A: No, it has come up a few times but we just haven’t done it yet.
Q: Can you tell me a little bit about the kind of business you do now?
A: I would say that the bulk of my business, about 70% of it is with pre-retirees, getting them ready for retirement, talking about the life changes or life decisions that perhaps have to be made over the next few years and making sure they have sufficient income in retirement. Then I do have a smaller book of business with young people, a group of 20 year olds that all have life insurance and they all have Roth IRA’s that they are funding. Some are students, some are pizza delivery guys, one guy is in a rock and roll band.
Q: Overall, do you work off an ideal client profile? And if you did, what might it look like?
A: I guess if I did, it would be someone in their mid to late 50’s with retirement assets inside an employer plan and some outside of an employer plan. Overall, I just love working with people across the board, I especially love to work with young people or young families because it takes so little to change the direction they’re going financially to make a huge difference down the road. Where as if I have folks in their 50’s who haven’t done a very good job planning financially its almost heroic efforts to get them to where they need to be. I really delight in working with the younger person because we can see such great differences over time.
Q: When you think about your productivity levels, how do you fell about it?
A: I would always like for it to be higher than it is now and I keep working at engaging with various people to see if there are ways that I can help them. It’s always my goal that rest assured my calendar is filled from week to week with good appointments, some prospects mixed in and working with those that have assets.
Q: Have you managed to earn recognition in any production clubs at all?
A: I have made with Thrivent their Peak Performance Conference every year and actually in 2012 I was able to achieve the next level up, which is called Summit, which felt great.
Another wonderful thing about Thrivent is you can turn bad events into service projects. So, I went to South Africa with my husband and son-in-law to build a home and serve the people down there for ten days.
Q: Very cool, so is that a Mission in which you worked with or did you travel to different places?
A: It’s actually an organization there to work alongside the local people to move one family at a time out of what they call an Anacoco and Ashanti, the need is huge for adequate housing as-well-as there are two million orphans. In order to get a home that we helped build, the family has to be working and they have to take in at least two orphans and raise them as their own. So, it’s really a marvelous organization that doesn’t just give hand outs, it’s really a hand up.
Q: Moving onto discussing the CAPS™ Workshop, my first question has to deal with how you felt about getting invited to it in the first place.
A: I got an email from our Partner, saying this training is available, please sign up. It wasn’t a mandate, but it was pretty much a command performance. (laughing)
Q: Refreshing my memory, when was it that you went through?
A: Just last summer in Missoula.
Q: So, once the workshop started, what was your impression of the course work itself?
A: It was pretty robust training. You covered a lot in the day and a half and for myself I would have wished we could have broken them down into smaller segments, to be able to spend more time marinating in what we were learning.
Q: After the workshop was over, did you have any concerns about implementing what you had learned?
A: Yes, there are always concerns about implementing. One being how do I discipline myself to keep the training in front of me so that my approach and behavior changes.
I think that I have been through 200 training classes through my previous work with Vanguard and with Thrivent. After awhile you kind of go, “Wow, have I seen anything new under the sun?” There is usually something that challenges my approach, a skill that could be tightened up here, or this is interesting, I need to try this out there.
The challenge with working for Thrivent, I don’t have anybody accountable to, which is observing me in areas that I want to work on.
Q: When you think of some of the tools that were available to you, the CD with the recording of the skills that you could listen to, the online lessons reviews you could go through, the conversation checklist, and the laminated card. Do you recall if you used any of those after going through the workshop?
A: I did listen to the CD because I do have a lot of windshield time and that was soon after the training to keep it fresh. I really did appreciate getting a refresher on the CD, I am a much better listener than a reader in terms of how I take in information.
Q: If someone asked you about the CAPS™ workshop, what would you tell them?
A: Be prepared for lots of information, lots of opportunity to change your behavior and change your approach, but the key to the training is not what happens in the classroom, that is only the launching pad, the first stage of the rocket.
What you have to do is the second and third stage of the rocket which is listen to the CD, be intentional about picking out one of the aspects or perspective that is shared and really work on that because there is no way that you can integrate all of it at once. Behavior is changed one step at a time. Pick an area that you have an “Aha moment!” and then begin looking for ways to integrate that.
Q: If someone was considering a career as a financial representative at Thrivent Financial, what would you say to them? And how have you personally benefited from this career?
A: Because we are a faith based company, you can look at this career as a ministry and an opportunity to help Christians be wise with money and inspiring them to live generously.
I have been able to make a living for myself and it has been a great way help people in all different areas of my territory, some that live in real small towns or others that live in rural areas. I get to work with people from all different walks of life, all different types of occupations and encountering people in various levels of need and resources that they have available.
Certainly, I have been learning a whole lot. We have a much broader spectrum of financial advising then I did with my previous company. That is because Thrivent is not just an investment shop we offer a variety of insurance products. Even though I have my CFP© with my previous employer I didn’t get involved with other financial aspects with my clients it was basically investment related. So, this has pushed my learning which has been great.
