Next Generation Planner: November 2020
Client Success Manager, Facet Wealth
President, FPA NexGen
Podcast Host, You’re a Financial Planner…Now What?
www.linkedin.com/in/alexandria-davis-62317992/
Louis Barajas, CFP®, has over 30 years of experience in the financial planning profession. He’s also an author of multiple books, a business and wealth manager and a national speaker. Of course, he has lots of fantastic stories and wisdom to share about his history in financial planning.
In a recent episode of You’re a Financial Planner…Now What? Louis and I discussed his upbringing, meeting people where they are and how he helped change the community where he grew up.
An Early Start in the Profession
At 11 years old, Louis’s father started his own business. As the oldest child—and because he spoke English—Louis helped his dad get a business license. At 13, he helped him file his first tax return. Louis then pledged to learn everything he could about personal finances so that he could help his family. He attended UCLA, got his MBA and began working at a financial planning firm in Newport Beach, California.
Louis remembers the exact day, time and location that changed his life: September 8, 1990, at around 7 a.m., when he met and spoke to Rick Warren, pastor and author of The Purpose Driven Life.
“He said things to me that literally just changed my life,” Louis said. “I quit, went back to the barrio. I ended up working there for 15 years, giving back to our community.”
Since then, Louis has written six books, runs a business management firm for Latin celebrities and handles $250 million for clients through his investment firm, LAB.
On top of it all, he’s a national speaker and does pro bono work throughout the country. But when you have a conversation with him, you can tell that helping people in his community is one of his biggest passions.
Financial Significance Over Financial Sense
People often associate financial planning with investing, Wall Street and the market. But looking at the titles of a few of Louis’s books—Small Business, Big Life; Overworked, Overwhelmed, and Underpaid—you remember that the average American has a different day-to-day relationship with money. Where did Louis find the inspiration for these books and, similarly, his approach to helping clients in his community?
It came from his clientele, Louis said. There wasn’t a lot of financial literacy where he grew up. Sometimes, even cultural beliefs were misguiding people on their finances. That’s why Louis had to create a different strategy by teaching people financial significance, not financial sense. It was important to understand people’s needs and tweak his approach, which is easy to forget when you’ve been a financial planner for a while.
“How do you approach [people] in a way that they can actually listen to what you’re saying, and they can understand what you’re saying?” Louis questioned. “Because we forget that when we learn all this terminology. They’re intimidated by the way we speak and how we say things, as compared to talking to them in their own language.”
Helping People in Need
Helping people in need means meeting people where they are and being aware that clients’ situations go beyond communication styles. For Louis, it also affected how he charged people for his services, the growth of his business and his struggle to hire minorities. According to CFP Board, fewer than 3.5 percent of all CFP® certificants in the profession are African American and Latino/Latinx.
However, the next generation of financial planners can continue the work toward change. We can help people in need who want to be helped. We can find pro bono work that we feel connected to and passionate about. We can educate ourselves by reading books and asking questions in order to solve those problems that maybe don’t get as much attention as others.
“You have to be a lifetime learner. You have to educate yourself,” Louis said. “There aren’t going to be classes for you if you’re going to be helping the middle-class or the lower-middle-class clients. You have to try to be a problem solver.”
Listen to the full episode with Alexandria and Louis at www.financialplanningassociation.org/yafpnw-206.