Top 63 Independent Broker/Dealer Women Advisors in 2011
Women are controlling a greater share of the world's wealth. The FA industry is taking notice.
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Lynn Ballou
I Did It My Way
Lynn Ballou
Firm: LPL Financial/Ballou Plum Wealth Advisors
Age: 58
Location: Lafayette, Calif.
Years in the biz: 32
Years with firm: 14
Specialty: Women, family office
Independence and entrepreneurship are in Lynn Ballou’s blood. Her grandfather left Poland to escape World War I at age 14 and came to the U.S., where he went from pumping gas and selling tires to running his own gas station in Miami, Fla. Ballou grew up watching him build a business from the ground up, and she always knew she wanted to do the same.
She got her start working for Bayhill Financial in 1980, doing tax preparation and financial planning. But she had a different vision for how she wanted to do business, so in 1985, she struck out on her own, launching Ballou Financial Group. Three years later, she partnered with Marilyn Plum, dropped the tax business to focus solely on financial planning, and formed Ballou Plum Wealth Advisors. Both of them hold CFPs.
Ballou’s investment strategy differs for each client depending on whether they’re still accumulating assets or spending them down in retirement. Her firm uses LPL’s strategic asset management platform, the b/d’s fee-based investment platform, almost exclusively. Her client portfolios include a variety of mutual funds, bonds, some ETFs, some stocks, and REITs.
Ballou has built the firm’s AUM to about $200 million mainly through referrals. Many of her referrals come from clients’ insurance advisors, estate planning advisors and attorneys, all of whom she tends to bring into the planning process. “As a result, we get an equal number of referrals from centers of influence as we do from clients.”
But her biggest challenge has been learning to say ‘no’ to clients who aren’t appropriate for her practice.
“You get to the point where you get a lot of referral business, and you have to learn to cull,” she said. “You cannot say yes to everyone.”
That’s meant having to stick to a minimum of $1 million in investable assets for new clients. The firm’s sweet spot is clients with between $1 million to $10 million in assets, she says. “In the bay area, that’s comfortable, but that’s not amazing. It’s easy to have comfortable disappear with bad planning.”
Another focus for Ballou and Plum is women going through big life transitions, such as divorce, death of a spouse or retirement. About 75 percent of their clients are women; Ballou says she and her partner have a knack for making complex financial issues accessible.
Ballou even has a blog devoted to her clients; once a month, she features one of her clients. “It’s like a love letter to my clients, and it’s a way for clients to connect with each other and learn about each other.” —Diana Britton
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