บทถอดความฉบับเต็มของ How Financial Advisor Ann Garcia, CFP®, Became the College Financial Lady

give to folks? Ann Garcia: I think the big thing to remember is a a book is is a big picture piece of your marketing strategy as opposed Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: to a business on its own. There just isn't Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: a lot of money in in nonfiction book writing. but if you think of it as world's most effective business card. Then there's definitely a place for it. I get to say I wrote my book before AI, so I wrote it myself. Joel: That's true, yeah. Ann Garcia: And I know it's a it's a little bit different now, but I think Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: even if you were using AI to help write a book, you do need to know how to write. And you you do need to be disciplined about being able to write in order to. to do that. I think the other thing that I find holds people back from from doing this is the sense that I'm not enough of an expert on the topic to write a Joel: Yeah. Ann Garcia: book. I don't think you need to be that much of an expert. You just need to be curious enough to become that expert through the process of writing the book. Joel: Yeah. And and the process of writing the book is really just the first step. Like you were saying, it's your biggest business card. you know, there's so much more you can do with it. Once you have it physically in hand, you can send it to people. You can give to people in prospect meetings, if you go to conferences, you can hand it out or you can mail it to people. So, you know, I think it's it's that's kind of step one is get the book written. And you know of course there's lots of other little steps to get the book written, but then how do you then expand that into your overall marketing campaigns and strategies. And it, you know, it's like like you were saying, Ann, n none of us are probably gonna be, New York Times bestsellers with our books. but maybe we get a a a coffee here and there from the royalties that Amazon whoever pays us. Ann Garcia: Ha ha ha. Joel: so, you know, it it does have its little benefits, can you give us a little some examples of how you use that your book that's been published in your marketing to find prospective clients? Or is it more of a a passive generator? People find you when searching for your your name, you show up as an authority, but anything specific you can give as as if you're proactively using as part of your marketing? Ann Garcia: Yeah, I would say it's more of the latter. I would say I didn't know demonstrably more about the topic than when I started writing the book because I'd been writing about this topic for a long time, but suddenly I was the person who wrote the book on this, you know, on Joel: Mm-hmm. Right. Ann Garcia: on this topic. And so that led to a lot of speaking opportunities and Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: Podcasts and media interviews and and and that type of thing, which have been extremely helpful in in bringing prospects in into my business. Joel: Sure. So so how did you get into the business? Ann Garcia: So I started on a very, very different path when I when I was first out of college, I worked in the I grew up in the Bay Area. So I worked in the tech industry because when I Joel: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: graduated college, that was that was where the jobs were. And I did that up until my kids were born. And at that point I realized I didn't want to a tech job and and a mom job at the at the same time. They just weren't Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: didn't didn't go well together. And so I started looking around for what my next step would be. A lot of my time in the tech industry I worked at Intuit, which makes Quicken and TurboTax and Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: QuickBooks. And we always joked at Intuit that every January 15th, all your friends call and ask for a free copy of TurboTax. And every April 15th, they call and ask what to do with their tax refund. And reflecting Joel: Uh-huh. Ann Garcia: back on that time, I realized I've really enjoyed having those conversations and thinking strategically about money and what Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: might you do with a little bit of money to achieve something. something larger in in your life. And several of my colleagues had from from those days had become advisors. So I started doing some networking and informational interviews and and it felt Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: like a really good fit. So I went and did my CFP and and joined the industry. Joel: Mm. And so you just recently joined the Mather Group. I think it was last year, but yeah, Ann Garcia: Past year, yeah. Joel: so kind of walk me backwards. Like what are the other types of firms that you'd work with and maybe why you decided to join a larger firm, which is the Mather Group. And yeah, I'd love to hear that story. Ann Garcia: So I started out working in a small RIA in Portland. Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: And and that was part of what got me into the college planning piece, because one day the owner of the firm came to me and said, one of our clients has questions about college and I'm really not interested in learning about this. Do you want to? And I thought, well, I have two kids, so I need to know this for myself anyway. Joel: Right. Yeah. Ann Garcia: And he's probably not the only advisor who isn't interested in knowing anything about this. Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: And so I thought, sure, I will dig in. I'll find it out for this client and I will find out more for the other clients who will who will come my way. I stayed with that firm for a couple of years, and then I got recruited over to another slightly larger, still independent RIA in the area. And then a couple years into that, I was running our local NAPA study group. And one of our study group members approached me after a meeting one day and said, I'm retiring and I want you to take over my practice. And at my initial reaction was, I'm in a good place. I don't think I'm interested in this. But then I thought, you know, no one has ever come to me with this question before. I should at least do some

due diligence on it. And I'm really glad that I did because it ended up being a great, a great fit. so I took over her practice, ran it by myself initially. I always knew I didn't want to be a solo, so I brought in a partner after about a year. Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: And, you know, we've been just building our business and growing and whatnot. And we kind of we've finally a couple of years ago reached what I would call a growth plateau, where we realized that our future growth was going to be based on hiring people and growing our business. And we spent a bunch of time thinking about is that what we want to do versus being advisors. And ultimately we decided that what we wanted was to be advisors. Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: And so the best way to continue with that was not to build out a big organization that we had to run, but to go join an organization that already had that infrastructure that someone else was running on our behalf so that we could focus on being advisors. Joel: Yeah. I think that's a an inflection point that a lot of advisors get to is do they want to be the CEO of their company or do they wanna, be a hands dirty in the weeds, help a clients. and it's there's certainly a lot of crossover as you are running your own business, but as you're growing and scaling, it does it makes sense that you have to make that decision. it's a tough I mean, it's not just for financial advisors, I think it's for any anybody that starts their own business. I mean I'm experiencing some of that myself as as a fractional CMO. I'm in the weeds helping my clients. and if I but if I want to grow, I have to take myself out of that position and become the CEO. And I don't know, like I I've always been almost like an army of one with a lot of the corporate marketing teams that I've been on or, you know, a a player coach So I've always had my hands dirty and I'm not sure if I want to remove myself from that. So yeah, it's just one of those Ann Garcia: Yeah. Joel: decisions that you have to make. what do you want to be when you grow up? what is what do you want your company to look like when it becomes an actual corporation? And Ann Garcia: Yeah. a lot of people just say, Well, I'm gonna stop growing. I'm gonna limit myself to this many clients. And I thought I could do that. But on the other hand, I c I'm I'm putting myself out in the world, you know, through the book, through Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: promotions, through speaking, through all the other marketing that I do. What's the point of that if I'm not gonna take on any new clients? Because what that does is generate inbound business ultimately. Joel: Mm. Ann Garcia: so if my goal is to actually serve those people, then I probably want to be an advisor. Joel: I mean, this isn't a commercial for the Mather group, but just any firm in general. So you took your small practice and then you kind of bolted on to a firm that has back off operations and other things that can help you manage, the administrative side while you focus on client work. But any other benefits to kind of bolting onto a platform like that? Like do you still feel like you're you've got independence over what you do, or is that still kind of influenced by the larger organization? Ann Garcia: I'd say to me honestly, I feel like it's been best of both worlds, where I have a lot of independence in how I run my practice, but I also have all the support that the organization Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: provides. And so that's been great. But I think another thing that's really nice about being part of a larger organization is just the the broader range of career possibilities that open up. You know, there's just more Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: roles in a bigger organization and and more of an opportunity to do more of the things that you like to do and find other people who like to do the things that you maybe don't want to do. You know, there's Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: there's a different set of leadership roles, for example. There's different opportunities to specialize, to collaborate, all those things that you don't, you don't really get as a as a small firm. Joel: Yeah, it makes complete sense. So, you don't regret the decision at all to move over? Y you Ann Garcia: Yeah. Joel: don't wish you were just running all the paperwork and doing all the things and running compliance and all that stuff. Yeah. Ann Garcia: Right. Yeah, I miss calling Schwab every day. Now, I mean, my my philosophy is, you know, make a decision with the best information that you can and Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: then you put your energy into making it have been the right decision. And so this was this was the right decision and we've continued to do what we need to do to make it the right decision. Joel: and you mentioned NAFA. how are how much of a of a part do you play in that organization with your mentorship? Do you go to conferences? Like how has that been helpful with your practice? Ann Garcia: NAFA was really instrumental in me getting started in my practice. And I was introduced to it, when I was doing that informational interview process before becoming an advisor. one of my one of my former colleagues recommended that I connect with my local NAFTA study group. And I Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: did, and I started doing a bunch of informational interviews with the advisors in in that group. And one of them, you know, my first job was somebody from that group hired me into their firm. I chose to get involved because, you know, when you work really independently, it's nice to have a community. And, Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: you know, pre-COVID when people would like actually meet up and do things together, it was Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: we had a just a really nice group that would get together monthly or quarterly. And and I ended up volunteering to lead the to lead the local group, which I have to say For advisors getting started, that is probably the best career development step I ever

took because I was constantly networking with my local COI community. Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: you know, it's hard to get CPAs, attorneys, and so on to just meet with you to learn about your business, you know, the same way that we hate people reaching out asking to learn about our business. Joel: Exactly. Yeah. Ann Garcia: But when you reach out to them saying, hey, I have a group of 20 local advisors that gets together for continuing education sessions and we're looking for a speaker on your specialty of X, would you be interested Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: in coming and talking to us? That made the conversations really, really easy. And not only did it introduce me to them, but then when they would come to the meeting and see me in a leadership role in that meeting, as did my peers in the group. And so, you know, that was how I built out a huge network of local COIs and also how I found my first job and how I ended up acquiring my firm. and I've continued my involvement with them. I just finished a term on the on the national board. Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: and I go to the conferences. I'll be speaking at the NatFa conference this fall in Atlanta. And yeah, it's just a great community of people. Joel: Are you ever involved with FPA? I know the the NorCal chapter is really big and you mentioned growing up in the Bay Area. I know you're in Portland now, but do you do anything with the FPA chapters near nearby? Ann Garcia: sometimes go to their meetings. I like the Joel: Okay. Ann Garcia: I I always prefer the NAPFA ones just because in our area, the NAPFA meeting is a small, really collaborative group of advisors. We all know each other. and our FPA meetings, they have excellent meetings, excellent content, but it's a very, very large group and a very big tent. And it's not not my thing. I go I you know I go for the CE Joel: Sure. Yeah. any other industry conferences that you'd recommend, other advisors check out, you know, if they are kind of new to the industry. I'm I'm going to future proof here in a couple of weeks down in California. that's just a kind of a big party on the beach, but any other ones that you have found a lot of value going to? Ann Garcia: Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of really good ones. I've been to Future Proof a couple times. I it's it's a it's great from a networking perspective. I've done some more consumer oriented ones, like the Bogleheads conference. I thought was was a lot of fun and really interesting. Joel: Hmm. Okay. Yeah. Ann Garcia: I'm speaking at XYPN next month. So haven't Joel: Okay. Ann Garcia: haven't been to that one yet, ask me. Ask me a month from now. How it was. Morningstar puts on a great conference every year. it's in Chicago, yeah. Joel: Mm-hmm. And is is Chicago usually? Yeah. Ann Garcia: And and then there are lots of lots of great regional events. Like you mentioned, FPA NorCal. Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: one of the things we always we always do in our in our local NAFA study group is

talk about what what conferences and events we go to. So it's always good to hear, you know, what people are what people are attending, what all is out there, because there's so many. Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: So it's always good to hear what else is out there and and and what draws people to 'cause, we all have our different styles of of what we're interested in and Joel: Yeah, I went to the Wealth Management Edge conference down in Florida earlier in the year and I got a lot of value out of that. a lot of good speakers, a lot of good networking opportunities. But like you said, there's Kitsis has that map of or list of all the different conferences and you could spend your entire marketing Ann Garcia: Yeah. Joel: budget just to travel to all those things. and in the end, you're just hanging out with a bunch of other advisors. So from a business development prospecting standpoint, you're probably not gonna get a lot of business out that. So are you just going there to party and get some CE credits or do you want to actually do something with your business? So I think your your mention of going to the you know industry conferences outside of financial services, I think is a is a good point. because you you people get so siloed into their own little bubble. And I think expanding out your reach is what I do from a marketing perspective. certainly is to increase people's brand awareness about you and your firm. so just touching on marketing. Yeah. Ann Garcia: Too, there's I think too, there's the whole element of, we get so into the weeds of what we do, we're experts, Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: we're, you know, we're very, very knowledgeable that we forget what consumers know and what consumers value. And Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: it's it can be really helpful to just get out in front of consumers and hear what their actual questions are because oftentimes they're different from the answers that we think we're we're gonna be asked to provide. Joel: And so tying into marketing, so how do you get new clients? Like what are your main channels that you're bringing people in? We obviously talked about the the book and the website for you know college planning, but any other channels that you're seeing a lot of traction in recently? Ann Garcia: I would say right now the majority of my clients are coming from referrals from my existing clients. Joel: Sure. Yeah. Ann Garcia: and it just takes takes time to build up that base of of of loyal clients who really value your services and wanna share you with their friends. Joel: So do you have some advice on how you can be more proactive about getting those referrals? Is that part of your onboarding process, your client servicing process to then actually ask people for referrals? Or is it just you provide such fantastic client service that naturally they want to refer you to people? Are you being are you proactive about it or is it just more of a natural? Ann Garcia: I I've never asked for a referral. so I'm just

lucky that way. Joel: Okay. Nice. Yeah. That's means you're good at your job. yeah, that's cool. any any do you get support from the Mather Group from you know, their marketing team? I mean, are they out there promoting you in particular? Do you know if any of that's happening or are they just more so promoting just the Mather Group in general? Ann Garcia: Yeah, we have we have a great marketing team here. I've been really, really impressed with with them. And they do they do promote me. We have a PR agency. And so one of the things that's nice for me is is in the busy back to school season when Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: college planning and all that is top of mind, but so is getting back with your advisor for all your clients. Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: I no longer have to be promoting myself out to the media because they're you know they're they're doing that for me. Joel: Yeah, but Ann Garcia: And we have a whole business development team that does client acquisition and and and and whatnot. Joel: so we were talking about NorCal. I'd mention wine and so we're gonna go way off topic. Ann Garcia: Yeah. Joel: is that still part of your life? Is that kind of a sidekick? do you have a winery business? I know I thought we had talked about this. Am I making this up? Okay. Yeah. Ann Garcia: No, you're not making it up. So my my husband is from Argentina. He's from the or Joel: Okay. Ann Garcia: his family's from the Mendoza region of Argentina. And Joel: Nice, yeah. Ann Garcia: family owns they've all they've owned vineyards down there for a really long time. Joel: Okay. Ann Garcia: vineyards were planted in 1914, so really old. Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: old wine and Years ago, probably 20 years ago, my father-in-law and my husband's uncle one night were chatting and they'd had a few too many glasses of wine. Joel: Mm. Ann Garcia: And they were in the grape growing business. So they would grow grapes Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: and then sell them to other winemakers. And and they said, you know, we've always dreamed of making wine and we're 65. If we don't do it soon, it's not gonna happen. And yeah, and so they Joel: Mm-hmm. It takes a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ann Garcia: so they started down that path without I think thinking through fully. the differences between the grape business and and the wine business. And so they started making wine and the wine started piling up in in the winery warehouse down in Argentina. And a big part of the reason why my father-in-law was really excited about this was he wanted to so so he and my mother-in-law immigrated to the US right before my husband was born. So his older brother was born in Argentina and then he and his younger brothers were born in the US and they went back and forth a bit while they were growing up. moved back there at one point and whatnot. But he really wanted to do something that would that would connect them with Argentina and with the family and with the family there. And so so based on

that and based on the wine piling up, my husband and I decided that we would get licensed as a wine importer and we would start importing that wine and actually actually selling it here. And so Joel: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: we did that for a number of years. it was a lot of fun, although a winery is like the business version of a boat. Joel: Okay, yeah. I have I have one of those, yeah. Yeah. Uhhuh. Ann Garcia: you you sink a lot of money into it. Or as I say, how do you make a little money in wine? You start with a lot of money. Joel: Yeah. Ann Garcia: it's you know, it's it's very much like that. But we did it for a few years. It was a ton of fun. you know, I was I was the local rep for our wine for a while. So Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: I probably from about 2009 to 2015, I probably have been in every single restaurant in Portland. Joel: so let's put a bow on the spottle, this podcast episode. So we're trying to Bring in all the different aspects of you and your college and financial planning into this conversation. Just one or two pieces of financial financial advice that you can give for free. Ann Garcia: Right. So the first one would be to parents of high school age students who are who are Joel: All right, that's me. I've got a senior and a sophomore. Okay. Yeah. Ann Garcia: looking at colleges right now. Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: The most important name on your students' diploma is their own. So find a college that's a good fit for them, that fits them academically and socially, that fits your family financially. That is far more important than whatever name is at the top. Because the most important thing is that they get out in four years and they have a great experience during those four years where they learn a lot, not just in the classroom, but about how to manage as an adult, Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: how to get things done. a college friend of mine and I were talking the other day, the learning to navigate bureaucracy. All you know, Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: all those life skills that you learn, in college. For families of younger kids who often hear Don't save because you'll get more financial aid if you don't save. I would say this. Savings creates choices. So the more you can save, the more choices your child is gonna have. Joel: And one follow up question to this. Is college still necessary in the age of AI and the way the world is going? I think there's just a lot of people in that younger generation who are just like, Why do I even go to college? Ann Garcia: I it's it's a great question. And I think there's a couple of things that we need to separate in all of this. is a is a college degree worth it versus is a college degree worth it at any price? Because Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: we have let so much of the college narrative be driven by the Stanfords and Harvards of the world that treat you like you would be fortunate to be able to come here. And by the way, it's gonna cost you a hundred thousand dollars a year to to do Joel: Right. Ann Garcia: that. And you can say thank you and and come if we let you. Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: the vast majority of people don't pay $100,000 a year to pay for to go to college. They go to much more reasonably priced colleges. Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: a college degree is a great investment for a lot of reasons. It's not a great investment at any price. but if you think about the tasks that AI is taking over more rapidly, are the lower level tasks. The important thing that we as humans bring to the picture is the critical thinking skills that allow us to. train our AI models and train our train our AI assistants and and Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: whatnot. Our CEO was was talking about an event she went to recently was a C CEO forum and one of I I want to say it was the CEO of BlackRock was talking about the coming inversion of the labor pyramid, you know, where now Joel: Mm-hmm. Ann Garcia: you've got a lot of lower level employees, you know, gradually scaling down to smaller and smaller numbers at the top. And one of the outcomes of AI is is likely an inversion of that pyramid where more of the lower level tasks are taken over by by AI and you need more qualified people in the upper levels. And I think the best way that you qualify for that is with a college degree. That's not to say with a half million dollar college degree. Joel: Right. Ann Garcia: but again, college is available at every price point. and and Part of part of making a good investment in your education is figuring out the price point where the return makes sense. Joel: Yeah, ROI is big no matter where you're at in life. So you ought to make sure that you're not Ann Garcia: Yeah. Joel: investing five hundred thousand and never gonna see that return. Yeah. Yeah, gotcha. Well, and thank you so much for being on. yeah, I think people can find your book, how to pay for college on Amazon, which is where I got it. They can go to your website, which is the College Financial Lady dot com. Is that correct? Ann Garcia: I moved it to Substack, so it's how to pay for college dot substack dot com. Joel: Gotcha. All right. Well, I'll put all the links in the show notes. Any other place that people can find you other than going to the conference? NATFA in Atlanta, XYPN. How else can people connect with you? Ann Garcia: yeah, those are the best ways there, Substack or get a copy of my book. Joel: Great. Well thank you so much, Ann, for coming on. We need to get together for Ann Garcia: Thanks for know. Joel: a glass of wine and try to figure out how our families are intertwined somehow. It's there's gotta be some connection. Yeah, absolutely. Ann Garcia: Find that missing ancestor. Joel: Well thank you so much and we'll talk to you again.