Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 396th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Michelle Klisanich. Michelle is a Wealth Advisor for Financially Wise Divorce, a hybrid advisory firm based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that oversees $87 million in assets under management for 91 client households.
What’s unique about Michelle, though, is how she has leveraged her learnings from several different business coaches over the course of her career, which gave her the clarity to figure out how best to market to the clientele she really wanted to serve… women going through a divorce, who, after the divorce is finalized, typically transition to become ongoing long-term advisory clients with whom Michelle can build a deep relationship.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Michelle has created a structured process to help her clients successfully navigate the divorce process, from connecting them to divorce specialists that Michelle has pre-vetted, including attorneys, mortgage brokers, and therapists, as well as providing her divorcee clients with a roadmap for their way forward once the divorce is finalized, how Michelle has built around divorce planning as a way to open the door to prospective new client but still confirms up front that they are interested not only in her flat-fee divorce planning process, but also an ongoing advice relationship afterwards, and how Michelle executes on a strategy of networking online via Zoom meetings to cultivate relationships with centers of influence in the divorce space and generate a steady flow of referrals that fit her ideal client avatar.
We also talk about how Michelle’s early-career struggles working in commission-based insurance sales, where she started out earning only $20,000 in her first year, and how her struggles led her to seek out a business coach that led her to work with Deirdre Van Nest to develop both her presentation skills and figure out how to identify and then hone in on her divorce niche, how Michelle realized she had become a true expert in her divorce specialization after working with another advisor coach, Libby Greiwe, who helped her execute with her ideal client more efficiently, and how after taking part in the Strategic Coach program in the next stage of her business coaching journey, Michelle eventually decided to make the leap from the insurance world to the independent advisory space, which allowed her a graceful way to exit from client relationships that weren’t profitable or sustainable by simply choosing to leave them behind, resulting in a purposeful reduction in her client base from 350 down to only 90 good-fit clients she really wanted to work with (and losing only 2 clients that she actually wanted to keep in the transition).
And be certain to listen to the end, where Michelle shares how her experience going through her own divorce inspired her to work with women in a similar position, how the small wins early in her career helped Michelle overcome feelings of “impostor syndrome” derived from her perceived lack of experience and build her confidence to navigate the challenges of starting her advisory career as a 20-something who looked like a teenager, and why Michelle recommends that newer advisors shadow more senior advisors to learn how they overcame the early challenges in their own careers… and discover some best practices the newer advisors might want to emulate or at least adapt for themselves.
So, whether you’re interested in learning about how to build a successful client niche by creating a structured system to serve them, leverage coaches to gain confidence and grow the business that you really want, or develop relationships with COIs to gain more ideal-fit client referrals, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Michelle Klisanich.
