753 Sarah Carlson:

Many entrepreneurs put all their financial eggs in one basket, and I’ll confess, I’ve made that choice more times than I can count. It’s risky business for sure – and that’s why my guest today, the wealth management expert Sarah Carlson, advises that we all think carefully about getting clarity about our financial end-goals, and managing our finances and diversification accordingly. Today we tackle wealth building for women entrepreneurs and how to make finances feminine.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur who has lived and breathed the ups and downs of starting and growing businesses, currently the game changing social podcast app Podopolo. Wherever you are listening to this, take a moment and download Podopolo. Follow Wings of Inspired Business there and join the Wings community so we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who is a wealth management specialist and financial planner. Sarah Carlson is the CEO and founder of Fulcrum Financial Group, helping people navigate the complexities that money can bring into our lives – whether we have lots of it or not enough of it.

If you have a business, or if you are thinking of starting one, how clear are your financial goals? How much money do you need to live the lifestyle you want, and is your business designed to support that outcome? Perhaps you’ll have a big exit that unlocks generational wealth, and more likely you have a cash flow business that must sustain the life you want over time. Either way, it’s more likely than not that you’re investing in the growth of the business – a good thing, so long as you are also not shortchanging yourself. Maybe you’re not paying yourself enough or at all. Maybe every penny goes into your business rather than socking some away in savings or other investments.

So today we dig into what the best strategies are to make sure that you grow and protect your personal wealth as you grow your business.

Sarah Carlson is a financial planner and wealth management expert who helps business owners live their best lives and navigate the complexities that money brings to life. Founder and CEO of the Fulcrum Financial Group, Sarah says many of her clients come to her in periods of transition – divorce, widowhood, retirement – and she helps them navigate investment strategies with a holistic approach that assures you can also enjoy your money now.

So much to talk about including how to face your financial fears and overcome them, so let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Sarah Carlson, and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Sarah, welcome to Wings.

Sarah Carlson:

Thank you, Melinda. I’m so excited to be here.

Melinda Wittstock:

Congratulations on your book Facing Financial Fear: 8 Steps to Financial Freedom for Women. Now, you focus this book a lot on female entrepreneurs, and I am one, five time. And, oh my goodness, all the things that I wished I’d known about money when-

Sarah Carlson:

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

… I set out on that journey. So what inspired you to write the book?

Sarah Carlson:

Well, I’ve been in wealth management. I have a wealth management business. I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole career. My business is Fulcrum Financial Group. I’ve seen through the years trends with the entrepreneurs, the women I’ve been working with, and I wanted to have an avenue to more positively affect more women. I have a goal of affecting a million people, one person at a time, and I think through content and words is the best way to do it.

Melinda Wittstock:

So over the years, both with your own experience as an entrepreneur and your own kind of money journey, but also through the eyes of your clients, what are the biggest things that female founders struggle with when it comes to money?

Sarah Carlson:

Well, I think women as a whole and certainly entrepreneurs, we tend to prioritize… It’s everyone else but ourselves. And so we get caught up in this very busy cycle of taking care of our clients, taking care of our partners, taking care of our children. We always think we’re going to have more time, more energy at the end to set aside and do some things for ourselves, and so many times we run out of time.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s really true. Do you think that most women have a clear idea of what they want for themselves in terms of the money they actually want for themselves as a result of the businesses they create?

Sarah Carlson:

No. So many times women that I’ve worked with have a better understanding of what their clients want than really what they want for their future. I think there’s too many times people put more effort into planning for a vacation than they do planning for their own retirement. Part of that I think is society, and part of it is as women, we get busy and we want to power through it and we don’t necessarily ask for help when there’s some really easy, easy steps that can be taken that can help us move towards a different trajectory, a different future, and especially a better financial future for ourselves and our family.

Melinda Wittstock:

So one of the things that I’ve seen from my own experience and so many women that I’ve mentored and all the female founder entrepreneur groups that I’ve been part of over the years is that a lot of us start a business because we’re on a mission, or we have a passion, or we see a gap in the market through our own experience or something like that, and we jump in, but we don’t necessarily have a number in mind or a business structure in mind that’s going to be really focused on generating our own wealth. What are the things that women should be doing, anyone out there who’s a new entrepreneur, in terms of structuring their business or their business model that actually makes it a pillar of what they’re doing their own financial freedom?

Sarah Carlson:

That is a great question. And you are absolutely right, many entrepreneurs struggle with that. It’s very important, and I’m hoping we can reach those young entrepreneurial women with this, is that you have to put aside some diversification other than your business for yourself. It’s just prudent. You need to prioritize. It ends up becoming a boundary issue. And you need to understand what the end goal is, and not only the end goal for your business, maybe you want to sell it or maybe you want to pass it on to your children… what does that look like? … but also really important, what kind of lifestyle is it that you desire? And then helping to use your business to help you assemble your own personal financial wealth.

And it’s reasonable, it’s prudent, it’s appropriate to diversify outside of your business. And I know so many entrepreneurs, if they make money, they’re just pouring it all back into their business. But the challenge with that is you become too concentrated. You have all your eggs in one basket, and all it takes is one lawsuit or one change in the demographics of your clients and your business to change and then suddenly you can get wiped out. It’s not just about wealth creation, it’s also downside protection, really important.

Melinda Wittstock:

So where do you see a lot of mistakes that are being made at those beginning foundational moments? Is it a mindset issue, or is it lack of knowledge? Both?

Sarah Carlson:

Probably both. I think the biggest thing is boundary issues. Boundary issues with the people you hire being, well, so many times, and certainly when I started my business back in 1997, where you’re paying everyone before you pay yourself. And then you can’t continue to go on. If your business can’t survive you, you’re not going to be able to take care of your clients, you’re not going to be able to continue to be an employer. So having a clear vision and making sure you pay yourself so you can endure, because many times in entrepreneurship it is about enduring some of those difficult beginning stages of launching a business.

Melinda Wittstock:

So true. But it’s also knowing, I think, what is the goal that you have, visualizing, really, the end goal. So say, for instance, if you’re like me and you’re a tech entrepreneur, who is building a business that will ultimately exit. And so I’m thinking about building valuation growth all the time and being conscious of what my ultimate number is. What do I want out of it?

That affects all kinds of decisions about, say, for instance, how you take an investment, your capitalization table, for instance, what you’re paying people, getting results out of people that will actually be generating the valuation growth of the business and such. Other people create businesses that are cash flow living businesses that are harder to sell ultimately, but they’re spinning off cash and, say, wrapped up in a personal brand that can be harder to sell for the asset value. When you’re working with people, do you help them understand that the type of business they’re in not only dictates what the ultimate result is going to be, but is it in alignment with what they actually want in the end?

Sarah Carlson:

Right. So when working with entrepreneurs one-on-one, it is very much about their journey and customizing a plan to help them get to their goal. So what you just addressed really talks about the accumulation phase. And with entrepreneurs, especially the ones that have a heavy asset in their branding, that may not have liquidity. That’s not something you can convert, easily sell to another investor that can then take on that brand and monetize it. So understanding the limitation.

So there’s a different growth and phase for accumulation versus distribution and helping people understand where they’re at and what the potential benefits as well as downside of what they’ve created and then adding in and supplementing so it’s more balanced and it’s more enduring so it can take you through the next phases. Because you know, Melinda, I mean, you and I, I think we’re from the same generation, that we know it’s a marathon, it’s not a sprint, and life happens. And on the way to building a business, you have kids. Those kids go to college. Some of us get divorced. Some of us go through some tough financial funding, and some of us have gone through bankruptcy. So having the ability to reinvent yourself and having good guidance on that path can certainly make it a lot more manageable and a lot easier to navigate and to keep your long-term goals intact.

Melinda Wittstock:

It can be tricky, though, to figure out how much money to take out of the business while you’re in it, you’re in the weeds. How much do you take out of it for yourself if you’re in that kind of trajectory to get to exit, right? You’re trying to build value, you’re trying to get the product to market, you got to invest in marketing, you got to invest in people, you need to invest in your technology, all these sorts of things. So is there a percentage, is there a number, is there something that you should be doing? Even if you’re just noting it down in terms of what you’re accruing in pay to yourself, you may not be paying yourself, but you should at least be accruing it. Is there any kind of formula that you use for that? What tends to be the best way?

Sarah Carlson:

There’s certainly a lot of different types of savings programs that give you tax benefits, like retirement plans you can structure inside your business. So there are some benefits that way. I think a general rule of thumb, and when I first say this to people, they sometimes think, “Oh my gosh, I can’t do that,” but then it’s always so amazing how over time they get to that and many times more, but I really like to encourage people to save 30% of their income, 15 of it for their long-term retirement goals and 15% for your shorter term goals in your personal life.

Many of our entrepreneurs, I bet you’re the same, I’m this way, is my personal and business life is very much intertwined. And so it’s really important to make sure I protect a part of that for my personal life because it’s what’s going to sustain, it’s going to be there to help to fund everything through retirement. I mean, as women, we live so much longer than men. And we forget. So many times we defer to everyone else, and some of us even don’t take paychecks and we’re supported by a partner for a period of time. And so some of us aren’t paying into some of those social benefits like social security as much as our counterparts. So it’s really, really important to invest in yourself. You’re worth it.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, so true. I want to dig into some of the money mindset issues, though, because I don’t know a person that doesn’t have them. Chances are we grew up and either overheard our parents arguing about money or had some sort of adverse financial thing as a young child, or we got this input somewhere, maybe from religion or others, that all people who have money are somehow evil. Whatever it is, everybody’s got a different one, right, this money story that goes deep into our subconscious brains when we’re very, very little. And we know now that 80% of our actions are our subconscious beliefs. So how many people are going into entrepreneurship or just their career or whatever with these very limiting beliefs about money that affect the decisions they make, down to even just something as simple as not really feeling, not really truly valuing yourself? [inaudible 00:14:24]-

Sarah Carlson:

Exactly. Well-

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. How much is this worth?

Sarah Carlson:

… Melinda, yeah, you teed it up. That’s exactly my book Facing Financial Fears: The 8 Steps to Financial Freedom for Women. It takes the reader on a journey from going from fear to joy through eight curious steps. It’s really about empowerment. I believe women treat money as a reflection of what they feel about self. And so I think it is, it’s as a society, so many of us grew up, women, we were treated to budget and to skimp and save and stay within a certain line, whereas many of our male counterparts, they were encouraged to be opportunistic and invest and be willing to take on risk, and it’s created this imbalance. And as a result, many women feel like, oh, well, if you’re good with money, that’s masculine and that’s bad. And I really feel on a mission to bring femininity back to finances, right? I mean, certainly, money doesn’t buy happiness, but having a nice solid bank account network, that can put a nice smile on your face. It gives a certain amount of financial security and foundation so you can take more risk in other areas of your life.

Melinda Wittstock:

I love this phrase that you’re using, “Bringing femininity to finance,” because, Sarah, it’s just money has been such a man’s world for as long as anyone can remember. And so women just historically are relatively new to business and entrepreneurship. Even back in the ’60s, a woman couldn’t even buy a house or have her own bank account. These things, it’s relatively new. And so, oh, I’m getting here to a question, hold on a second, it’s relatively new epigenetically, however we want to look at it. So do you think that women are really afraid of how other women perceive them when they choose to go out and be ambitious and do a bold thing, try and create a really game changing business? Is that what holds us back?

Sarah Carlson:

I think that’s part of it. You’re absolutely right that even if you look in our own history, I mean, women couldn’t have a credit card in their own name or a bank account in their own name until the ’70s, the mid-70s. And since Title IX, and Title IX is where athletics, they had to provide male and female athletic sports and give women access to compete, so much of it is learning how to win, learning how to lose, and the experiences that we learned from going through that process. So there is so much tied up and historically, but I think you’re right, also, if you look even further back, if we think about women and how we were gatherers and wanting to belong, I mean, belonging was part of survival.

And so we, as women, having opportunity. I mean, the feminist movement certainly has created… I am an offset. I mean, I am a direct beneficiary of all the amazing work the women before us did. I mean, I got to compete in athletics. I got to come into a male-dominated industry in the ’80s. I got to be rewarded not for what I looked like or the time but what I did. Women a generation ahead of me didn’t have that same opportunity. And I think some of us embrace it and some of us are still trying to navigate it. As women, sometimes we’re really tough on each other, and that’s where I think shows like what you have and the amazing work you’re doing is really, really important because it’s really about honoring each other and each other’s choices and giving everyone a push ahead.

Melinda Wittstock:

A hundred percent. I mean, this is why I launched this podcast because I believe really, truly that we can all do more, we can all fly higher when we fly together. So, that assumes that women are ready to show up, to mentor each other, buy from each other, invest in each other, all of these things. And one of the prisms that I operate under, because the type of business I run, Podopolo, which is a podcasting platform and a very innovative technology with seven proprietary technologies, it requires investment.

Women navigating that whole VC world, when you have numbers like only 2% of VC qualified businesses, these are businesses that have the potential to be billion dollar unicorns, actually get VC money, only 2%, a number that hasn’t changed in two decades. It’s really, really hard for female founders to get funded. And it’s a complicated problem because, how much of it is our mindset? Do we know how to have the conversations? Are we networked into the right groups? Because VCs tend to invest in only people they know. Or is it bias, unconscious or otherwise, in that VC industry? And how to solve that problem, because access to capital is a really significant challenge for a lot of female founders.

Sarah Carlson:

Absolutely. Yeah. And that’s where I think there is an opportunity for us as women to support each other in our choices and efforts and to put money behind those businesses that we want to succeed. So, yes, we definitely need to have more opportunity and more access that way. My business partner, my back office, is LPL Financial, and I’m really proud of the work that they’re doing in inclusion and diversification and diversity of just allowing us to have more. I mean, some of our most successful wealth managers are women, and they’re giving us the opportunity to compete and they’re investing in us, and that is so important for every entrepreneur to have access to those relationships. What do you think is important for those entrepreneurs seeking VC? I mean, since you’ve been in it so long, what kind of ideas do you think that is the best place for them to seek that capital?

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, it’s tricky because in my experience, it really is about being networked into the right communities. It’s all about the warm introduction, all of those sorts of things. So that’s one thing, just access, even knowing where to go. But it’s also speaking the language, it’s overcoming all the bias. There was a study, it was either by MIT or Harvard, sometime back, where they sat in on thousands of pitch meetings of startup founders, both men and women founders pitching VCs, thousands of these meetings. And they found that men tended to be asked questions about the size of the opportunity and how they were going to maximize the opportunity. Whereas women almost always were asked questions that put them on the defensive, how were they going to mitigate risk? How were they going to spend efficiently? Just, the questions were different.

Sarah Carlson:

Yeah. Kind of going back to that women, the budgeting, how are you going to take care of and piecemeal this together versus how are you going to make this thing grow, right? That’s what we need. Yeah, that’s the opportunity we have, right? We have-

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, we’re all swimming in the same soup. So we all have the same sort of subconscious biases, right? So, women go into it having been acculturated in that way. Men also have been acculturated that way in terms of how they think about women and handling very large sums of money. So I’ve just even noticed women asking for… Say you’re raising $5 million, if you say, “I’m raising $5 million,” you’re not going to get it. Right? So it’s knowing how to speak the language, but being confident, and then turning those questions around and back on them, being conscious and aware enough about that.

It’s, “Here is how I am going to get you a 10X return on your money,” and understanding not only your own value, but the value that you’re providing. And it is a real mindset shift. It takes a little bit of time, I know from my own experience, to get there and really understand that dynamic. But there’s a lot of things going on there. But it comes down to, I think, really knowing your own value and being able to express it without apology, or fear, or any nervousness, or any energies like that around it.

Sarah Carlson:

I absolutely agree. I think doing the inner work and coming to a place of self-love is probably one of the most profound and powerful things any entrepreneur can do in presenting and certainly raising money for whatever venture they have.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think also, you ask a question of what do I think needs to change? I think women need to start investing. I think there’s a risk adverseness. One of the things that I experienced in the context of raising money is that you can have seriously high net worth women with huge money. I mean, maybe it’s come from inheritance or maybe they were major players on Wall Street or whatever in a corporate sense. They have money. They have no compunction about writing a really large check to charity, but if you ask that same woman, time after time I’ve just experienced this, in an entrepreneur’s venture, they’re much less likely to do it. And I’ve even had women in that context say, “Oh, no, that’s something my husband does.”

Sarah Carlson:

Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s like, “What?” Yeah.

Sarah Carlson:

Well, yeah, because writing a check to a charity, they’re doing something for someone else, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Sarah Carlson:

Investing in this unicorn idea that may result in incredible opportunities for them personally, too many times women view that as being selfish, and they need to view it as they’re able then to do more of everything they want to do. It’s been my experience that it doesn’t matter how much money a woman has in the banks. Many times they suffer from bag lady syndrome. They can have millions and millions of money in the bank, and they’re still worried they could end up a bag lady. And that’s where I think working with a financial planner where you can do different what ifs. And so in the scenario like you discussed, there’s an opportunity where women can do their charity work and through planning show that their needs are met and there’s a part and it’s appropriate for a portion of their money to be really opportunistic and take on some risk for the opportunity to transform and do more good.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. So take me through those different scenarios. I love this kind of scenario type thing, because we’re trying to get women to get over that idea that somehow their own financial freedom or wellbeing is selfish, first of all, knowing their value, all of those things. But what does it take to allow women to feel better about taking risks and seizing on opportunities and actually understanding what’s available to them?

Sarah Carlson:

Right. Well, so many times, when many times I work with a new client, many of them haven’t had the opportunity to talk with a professional. Maybe they were in a relationship where their partner took that over. Many times if they’re going through transition or divorce, they’re really many times in a pivotal, really important point in their life. Through financial software and different what ifs, it’s really important to find out from the client, I believe, where their values are and what it is that’s important to them because that’s really important to honor those things as they navigate in growing their business, as they navigate in taking care of their family, as they navigate to take care of themselves in later years. And so it’s possible to do some different what ifs.

Certainly, I mean, most recently the markets had a pullback, and it’s scarier than it has been. But doing some different planning to kind of take a look at, “Well, okay, what if we stay in a bear market? What does that look like? And what are the different options?” Many times by looking at those numbers and those different what ifs… What if they were to start another business and put an investment in? What if that business failed? And just take a look at, how does that have the domino effect to affect the other pieces of their financial life? It can be really empowering because sometimes people hoard and stay small and safe because they’re scared. And once we’re able to show them through projections and honoring their values with their numbers, what they’re doing and to show, “Well, what if that were to come true? This is kind of how it looks like 10, 20 years from now,” you see that just dissipate.

And what it does is there’s also an opportunity, you can eliminate certain problems. I recently worked with an entrepreneur who has adult children, and she’s done very well for herself. And ideally, she wanted to educate her grandchildren, but she was also very fearful she would need her funds, her vast wealth later on in life when she was in her eighties. And so what we were able to do is do some different what ifs for her and to show her that we were able to eliminate the need for long-term care by basically funding that with an insurance policy. And by eliminating that, it basically freed her up. So she is now able to use her resources while she’s alive in doing what honors her needs and her values, which is educating the next generation.

Melinda Wittstock:

We don’t see what we don’t see. So actually being able to visualize it and run the scenarios sounds very valuable to me. I think not enough of us really do that. Or, yeah, sorry, none of us really do that. And so we’ve talked a lot about women starting out or at the very early stages. What about if you’re a woman later in life, perhaps an entrepreneur who’s lived through a number of adverse things?

I know that one of my businesses didn’t get funded right after the 2008 economic meltdown and I lost all my real estate wealth and just everything kind of imploded, I had to build up again. Then there was a divorce, so there was that. You know what I mean? So later in life, is it too late ever? I mean, what do you do if you’re, say, in your fifties, okay, and you’re a swing for the fences entrepreneur or you’re developing a new business? A lot of women are coming into entrepreneurship in their fifties, even sixties these days, right? So what are some of the things that those women in that generation have to really think about?

Sarah Carlson:

Yeah. It’s never too late to make a positive impact on your financial future. It’s never at any age. And I too have seen some amazing women in their fifties and sixties starting new businesses that are taking incredible needs of funding and risk, and they’re getting rewarded for it. So it is really important. I think people need to realize you’re going to live long a lot longer than probably you realize. And financial planning in middle age is many times even more important because the choices you make end up having a longer impact on your future.

So if when a client comes to me, and many times women in that age group will come to me, and they’re going through a very contentious divorce and it’s emotionally grueling and so many of them want to throw in the towel just to emotionally feel better. And it’s my job to help them understand where they’re at and also how important the decisions they make, it many times is the most important financial decisions of their lives of what kind of divorce settlement they get, and that ends up being the springboard for their new business. People forget how important those decisions are. And the same with inheritance or selling a business. Those tend to be some of the most pivotal times we end up helping people is through a divorce, navigating to retirement, selling a business and dealing with inheritance.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. Selling a business is a really interesting one because so many folks don’t get necessarily the true value of their business because they don’t necessarily understand what’s driving the valuation growth of their business. So if it’s measured only on revenue and earnings, for instance, opportunities can be missed. There’s a lot of otherwise, how could companies that are largely pre-revenue sell for a billion dollars or whatever? Right?

I think of Zappos, say, selling to Amazon for a billion dollars. It wasn’t really doing anything that Amazon wasn’t really doing, but it had an amazing customer culture, customer service, and a team culture. And that was very valuable, valuable enough for Amazon to buy it for a billion dollars. And so getting really cognizant of what those valuation drivers are and aligning to a lot of people, say, in the startup phase say like, “Yeah. Yeah, what’s your exit plan?” “Oh, I’m going to sell it to somebody.” “Okay, well that’s interesting, but it’s not really a strategy or a plan. Who would want to buy it and why? And what’s the value to them?” Being aware of these things I think is really important in that context as well.

Sarah Carlson:

Absolutely. Also, I’ve worked with some entrepreneurs going through selling their business and, yes, it’s important that they get a competitive price and be rewarded for their investment, but also to take care of their employees, making sure their key employees have employment through the transition and future career with the new entity and definitely prioritizing the clients, because without the clients, without the end service, all that revenue goes away.

Melinda Wittstock:

All those things.

Sarah Carlson:

So that, many times, is part of the legacy.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. All those things are so important. I think with every phase that you’re at in entrepreneurship, it’s almost like as the CEO of the company, you’re called to be different people at different stages of your business growth. Because it’s one thing to be in idea stage and then product market fit stage or getting your first customer stage and then scaling and then the operations and then, what’s the legacy? And there’s so much that you can’t know at the beginning of the journey, but the more you can be aware… Because it starts by really knowing what you want. Oh my god. And that’s really, I’ve seen so many women, and men too, that have this sort of businesses that they take in investment capital. By the time the business sells with all the different terms and various term sheets and whatnot, they’re left with not much, even if it’s a billion dollar exit. So how to be really savvy about that kind of thing and protect yourself in your own cap table.

Sarah Carlson:

Yep, exactly. People also forget the impact of taxes. You need to be aware of that net amount, what you’re going to come away with. Some of the more successful transactions I’ve been involved with with my entrepreneurs, as many of them have taken chips off the table where they’ve taken on a partner. Technically they’ve sold, but then they stay. So they’ve monetized and shored up their own personal financial life. And so they’ve transferred that liability to the new owner, but then they’re still very much part of it. And then they have an earnout where they’re then rewarded for the continuing success of the business. And I’ve seen more and more deals like that and going really well. It ends up being a win-win all the way around.

Melinda Wittstock:

So many things to think about. And so I could talk to you for a lot longer, but I want to know a little bit more about your entrepreneurial journey, Sarah, and how you came to this. Have all your businesses been in the financial space, or have you done other things? Or tell me a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey.

Sarah Carlson:

Yeah. I have been in the financial business since I graduated with a degree in economics from Yale in 1986. So I’ve been in the industry since then, and primarily it’s been in my wealth management business. I founded Fulcrum Financial Group in 1997, and I went independent and fee-based. Since then, certainly, things have taken off. I joined my current back office, my partner, LPL Financial, in 2008, and that was one of the best career moves I made because it gave me access to talent, 10,000 people and talent that could help me problem-solve. And it just helped me be able to do more for our clients. And so since I’ve been with them, we’ve had a lot of growth, and they certainly have helped to navigate some difficult situations and, bottom line, help our clients achieve their personal goals. So it’s just been so rewarding in doing it.

I mean, as an advisor being in the business as long as I have, it certainly has been nice because I have perspective and certainly spent a lot of time and effort continuing to get better at my skills through continuing education and situation, working with entrepreneurs. And then I have a team. I have a team with the other advisors. Collectively, we have over 75 years of experience. And that kind of experience has been really helpful, especially in such a turbulent, difficult financial market that it is now. Most advisors, they don’t last past five years and very few actually grow. And in our practice, we have systems and services in place that we… It’s during difficult times, really, we just explode with growth. And it’s because of all of the problem-solving and financial planning we do with our wealth management. A lot of other advisors, they charge separately for that. We don’t.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s wonderful. And so who are your ideal clients? Take me through the type of people that you’re looking for. A lot of people listening to this podcast could certainly use your services, Sarah. I might be calling you.

Sarah Carlson:

I would love that opportunity. We always give a complimentary consultation. We have clients, a really growing clientele all over the country and some in other countries as well. So, Zoom is definitely an easy way for us to connect. So the ideal client is someone that is coachable and nice, I mean, that is the crux of it, and wanting to improve their situation. So obviously, if you have a longer runway ahead of you, it’s easier to make decisions that profoundly impact. But in a market like we have now, the decisions people make and certainly during transition of that business sale or gearing up for some of those big pivotal moments like retirement or divorce, that is a must-have of getting some inputs and advice because the decisions you make will profoundly affect the rest of your life. And advice can be very powerful and helpful in those changes.

Melinda Wittstock:

A hundred percent. So what’s the best way for people to find you and work with you?

Sarah Carlson:

My company is Fulcrum Financial Group. Our website is Fulcrum, F-U-L-C-R-U-M, Financial, F-I-N-A-N-C-I-A-L, Group, G-R-O-U-P, .com. So they can certainly find us there. And then the book I just wrote, Facing Financial Fears: The 8 Steps to Financial Freedom for Women, you can go direct to Amazon through the website facingfinancialfears, and with an s, .com, and it will take you right there. And I’m currently working on an Audible. But it’s Kindle version, soft cover, hard cover currently. It just launched October 4th.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, congratulations on the book launch, and thank you so much for flying with us today.

Sarah Carlson:

Oh, Melinda, thank you so much for having me. Just, you are a real angel with wings in this-

Melinda Wittstock:

Thank you.

Sarah Carlson:

… efforts to unite us, so thank you.