Ep 097: Transitioning From Financial Coach to Financial Planner Serving Underserved Communities with Phuong Luong

Financial Advisor Success

Michael Kitces

News, Business, Entrepreneurship, Business News

4.8 • 696 Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2018

⏱️ 114 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

My guest today brings a very different perspective to the show, not just because of the clients she works with and how she runs her practice, but also because of her unusual path into the industry. After transitioning from working as a math teacher to offering financial coaching and counseling to doing financial planning work, Phuong Luong founded Just Wealth, a virtual, fee-only, hourly financial planning practice focused on working with younger clients who are still in the wealth-building phase of their careers. Having worked extensively with low-income individuals and people of color, Phuong has seen firsthand the racial and socioeconomic challenges that impact their ability to build wealth.

In this episode, she shares how stereotypes about race and low-income individuals can become blocking points when it comes to giving them effective advice and helping them to reach their financial goals. Listen in to learn how many of the financial challenges people of color face can be traced back to past institutional and government policies, how this may be limiting the reach of financial planning to minority communities, and what we can do to help.

For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/97

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner,
0:08.4	speaker and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading financial advisors
0:13.6	navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight from leading
0:19.2	industry consultants about how to break through to the
0:22.0	next level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone.
0:29.1	Welcome to the 97th episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast. My guest on today's
0:34.3	podcast is Fong Long. Fong is the founder of Just Wealth, an independent
0:38.6	RA specifically focused on working with younger clients in their 20s, 30s and 40s who were
0:43.3	still in the wealth building phase of their careers, and with whom Fong meets entirely
0:47.4	virtually using video conferencing tools, even though most of her clients are actually
0:51.5	in the Boston area where she's located as well.
0:59.5	What's unique about Fong, though, is not just her virtual practice, but that she comes from a background of doing financial coaching and counseling. And as a result, more than half her
1:03.7	practices working with clients who are below the median household income in Massachusetts,
1:07.9	about $75,000 a year, for whom she charges an ongoing monthly retainer
1:12.5	fee of 1.5% of their monthly income. In this episode, we talk in depth about what it's like
1:19.1	doing financial planning for lower and middle income families, why they really are willing to pay
1:24.0	for financial planning advice, despite being of limited means, how the focus typically
1:28.5	is not actually on budgeting and household cash flow planning, but on building up their balance
1:33.4	sheet instead. And why, until those clients build up their personal balance sheet, it's necessary
1:37.9	to understand the community balance sheet of local programs and resources to help.
1:43.1	We also talk about the progression from financial education to financial coaching to financial
1:47.9	counseling to financial planning.
	...

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