Our Mission: Helping Women Thrive in Financial Services

Leah Alter [00:00:10]:

Hello and welcome to WomenShare a marketing guide for women in financial services for successful advisors and corporate leaders who happen to be women, share their stories and best practices with a mission to help other women grow their businesses and careers. I am Leah Alter.

Joanna Ehresman [00:00:30]:

And I'm Joanna Ehresman thank you so much for listening today. In this inaugural episode of Women Share, we'll share what inspired the idea for this show and how our experiences in the financial services industry, which you'll find are similar in some ways and very different in others, have led us to this place.

Leah Alter [00:00:49]:

So if you're a woman in financial services, we hope that this is a space that you'll want to hang out in. We hope it inspires, we hope that you hear stories, best practices and great advice from other women who have had breakthroughs and success. And we're so excited that you're here.

Joanna Ehresman [00:01:08]:

I think to start out, we wanted to take a minute to introduce ourselves so you could get to know who we are as people and then we'll get a little bit deeper into our background. So, Leah, do you want to kick us off?

Leah Alter [00:01:19]:

Absolutely. Again, I'm Leah Alter. I am the founder of marketing by Foxy. I have spent the last 17 or so years in Austin, Texas, but just relocated back to Arkansas, where my family is from. So enjoying spending more time with my folks. I have two pups, hank and Rosa. And yeah, just excited to be here. How about you?

Joanna Ehresman [00:01:46]:

Yeah, hey, I was going to say Hank and Rosa may make the occasional cameo on the podcast, right.

Leah Alter [00:01:51]:

Whether I want them to or not. Yes.

Joanna Ehresman [00:01:54]:

Well, I'm Joanna Ersman. I am based out of the Minneapolis St. Paul area, so I'm just west of Minneapolis and I am a lifelong resident of Minnesota, so I will try to not complain too much about weather as we get into the winter, all of the things that Minnesotans are notorious for. But yeah, I've spent my career in marketing, actually, so we'll get more into the background. But I am the founder of Momentum Growth Solutions, which is a marketing consultancy, and I live with my husband and three boys here in the Twin Cities area.

Leah Alter [00:02:26]:

Okay, well, let's get into it a little bit about how Women Share came about. I had the idea of launching a podcast for a while now and really was inspired after a conversation that I had early, early 2023 with Sarah, who's our producer. She's going to be a guest on the show later in the season about what I could create in terms of a space for women in the financial services industry. And I knew immediately I wanted a co host and was really kind of noodling on who that might be or really who might be available to be able to do that with me since I had left and started my own thing. And almost within I want to say it was like, less than two weeks. I found out that Joanna was leaving her prior position, and I immediately sent her a message. And I said, hey, can you jump on a call? I have an idea to pitch to you. And she was like, okay. So we got on the call. I mean, I had, like, a PowerPoint deck. I really wanted to pitch this to her because I was so excited about the idea of her being my co host. I just knew immediately she was the perfect compliment to me. She herself is so inspiring, and I just enjoy our time together so much. So when she said yes, I was so excited. And we just immediately started the creative process, which has been so much fun.

Joanna Ehresman [00:04:06]:

Well, Leah, you're making me blush. Thank you. And I would say it is true. We would talk about this. It's a little bit, I don't like, not faded that we got connected, but there was just so many things we had in common when we first met and so many shared passions or shared perspectives, but yet we're very different people, as you will learn over the course of this podcast. But when Leah first approached me, like she said, and we'll get a little bit more into our career backgrounds here in a minute, but I was at a time of transition, and I wasn't in a place to say yes to much. But this was an easy yes for me. And I think it was the fact that there's really two components of it that were appealing. One is the obvious focus on women in financial services. We've got long careers in the industry and shared passion around helping women to have more of a seat at the table. And this isn't an anti man thing at all. It's just about this isn't a zero sum game. Women having more influence in how our companies are led and our clients are served can only lead to good outcomes for clients and for people who are working in this industry. And then secondly, the concept of generosity and sharing. So as career marketers, we have a lot of insights to share, and I think that's what inspired both of us to move into consulting, but then also be able to share very openly what we've learned, what we've seen work, hear from others, interview them about what's working for them, and share it with other women in the industry to help them grow. So it was an easy yes for me. And I'm so excited that we are launching this. And I think it'll be a great.

Leah Alter [00:05:43]:

Journey just to talk a little bit about just the creative process. Every project sort of has a different creative process. And we went from the sort of spark of idea to actually launching this podcast in a matter of a few months. It was very fast. So if you're looking for a sign to start that creative project, or even launch your own podcast. This is the sign. Because it really has been such a fun process of learning about each other, learning about what we have in common, what is different, what we bring to the table, both as marketers, but also as women and our experiences. So if you're looking for a sign, this is it. And those are my dogs making their there they are. Their first appearance, first episode. We're like five minutes in.

Joanna Ehresman [00:06:46]:

Thank you.

Leah Alter [00:06:47]:

Hank and Rosa, to give a little.

Joanna Ehresman [00:06:49]:

Bit more about our background and why you as a listener might be interested in what we have to say. Thought we could just share. I'll share a bit about my journey and then turn it over to you, Leah. And hopefully the pups will cooperate. So, as I mentioned at the onset, I've been in marketing for my entire career. And as you learn about kind of the yin and yang of our personalities, that would probably be no surprise. I was the marketing major who, of course, went into marketing and know, followed the path. And I started out in the agency side of the world. So you may not know this, but the Minneapolis St. Paul area is actually pretty decent for marketing talent. We've got some agencies based here. Yeah. So it's not just a flyover state, people. There are things happening. And I spent the first several years of my career in working at advertising agencies or marketing agencies, but not necessarily at the big brand firms where it's like we're launching a Super Bowl ad or Rebranding for major CPG brands, consumer packaged goods brands. Rather, it was in firms that delivered really highly accountable marketing programs for their clients. So this thread of run marketing programs that deliver measurable results has been a big part of my story. Now, in 2009, I had the opportunity to go to Wealth Enhancement Group, which is a hybrid RAA, when at the time was two and a half billion dollars in assets, had just a regional player in the upper Midwest, and admittedly, I didn't think I ever wanted to be working in the industry. This was around the time of the financial crisis, right? There was a lot of people in that industry are shady. What drew me, though, to the opportunity was the fact that this was a very marketing forward role, and it was about the opportunity to build an agency type of model within a financial services firm. And through my time there, I was there for more than 13 years. I fell in love with this industry. And again, I wasn't directly serving clients, but I saw the passion of the advisors and the expertise. And I am so convinced of the power of professional financial advice and how it can help people's lives that that's what kept me yes, kept me so engaged in wanting our marketing programs to work. Because I know if we can, as a marketing team, do the right thing to attract the right client to our advisors. They're going to get the advice they need. And that's so powerful. So that's a big part of my why earlier this spring, so spring 2023, there were some changes at Wealth Enhancement Group, and my position was eliminated. And I found myself at a bit of a crossroads. Like I mentioned earlier, you and I had the conversation about this podcast, which was my yes. But I was still trying to figure out, what do I do? Do I go back to a full time corporate role? What's right for me? So I've landed on trying my hand at consulting with Momentum Growth Solutions. I'm so excited. Candidly a little terrified as we go into this, but I also think, Leanne, you and I discussed this. If we want to share a little bit about our journeys as solopreneurs right. And launching our businesses and how that has so so that's me and what I bring to the table. Leah, tell us about you.

Leah Alter [00:10:04]:

First of all, I absolutely love your story, and you're absolutely right. Our paths of how we got here are so different. I am not educated in marketing, finance, even business. I was a liberal arts kid. I studied English lit and theater. And I loved Shakespeare. So as you can imagine, financial services was probably like the last thing on the list in terms of the industries I thought I would spend my career. I went to New York right after college and worked in the theater industry and got some really great opportunities and worked with some A list kind of celebrities and actors. And that is relevant to my story because when I applied for the job at NFP at the time, it was NFP Kestra then spun out from there. They hired me because they had just started to recruit advisors prior. That was in 2010. Prior to that, if anyone joined NFP, it was referred in by another advisor or some sort of connection. They hadn't done any real recruiting, and they really wanted to step up their game. And my boss at the time said, if you can deal with celebrities, you can deal with advisors. And that's why I was the one.

Joanna Ehresman [00:11:36]:

That got the job, which I thought.

Leah Alter [00:11:38]:

Was just so funny at the time. But as I got to know more advisors and work with more advisors, it was absolutely true. It's a certain gravitas that comes with your point about the expertise and the passion. And I just immediately fell in love with advisors, especially the women advisors that I was meeting. So inspiring. One of them had something, hopefully she'll be on the show, a presentation she did called A Man Is Not a Plan and Man Did It, fire Me Up. So I worked on the recruiting team, business development team initially, and at the time didn't have any marketing support. So I just asked if I could start doing things. And by doing things, I meant email, because I had no money and started some email campaigns that picked up some momentum. And it was enough that they were like, hey, maybe we should budget some stuff and maybe pay attention, a little more attention. And we got a new head of business development. And he was really passionate about us being more present in the marketplace. And so that was really my entryway into marketing in this industry. And I was just drinking from the fire hose. I was trying to learn as much as I possibly could about marketing, and that mixed with what I'm going to call just sort of natural instincts and had an opportunity. There was a role that opened at the time. This is right when Kestra had spun out of NFP.

Joanna Ehresman [00:13:27]:

What year was that?

Leah Alter [00:13:29]:

I want to say that that was like 2017. 2018.

Joanna Ehresman [00:13:35]:

Okay, so you'd been there about five.

Leah Alter [00:13:36]:

Years, about eight years. Oh, no, you're right. No, I had been there. Gosh, I'm messing up the timeline, I.

Joanna Ehresman [00:13:47]:

Want to say may not be relevant.

Leah Alter [00:13:50]:

I spent about five and a half years on the business development recruiting. There was I may have been in an NFP role in this role, and it was just like during the transition, as, you know, a big spin out like that, that transition takes a while. But a role came up as the marketing consultant for advisors, and I was like, listen, I know I'm not qualified for this, but I really, really want it. No one is going to be more excited and more passionate about this than I am. And they let me create a presentation. They let me pitch it. I got to interview with all the higher executives, and they gave me a shot, and I'll go ahead. I love shout outs. So Graham Lee, who is no longer at Kestra, he's over at LPL. He's an awesome man, great friend, great boss. Took a chance on me and gave me the role. And I really got to create something at Kestra around consulting and building marketing programs and helping advisors learn how to market wherever they were in their own journey, whether they were just starting, whether established, whether they had a budget, whether they didn't have a budget. We kind of wanted to give a marketing foundation to anyone who wanted to grow their business. And it was such a cool experience, and I'm so grateful for that. The reason I left Kestra was to go explore agency life. So kind of backwards from and I spent a very short time at an agency that was not the right fit for me. And I got asked to come lead marketing efforts at a fintech company that I was very familiar with and actually was a client of when I was at Kestra. Built one of my programs on their platform. So I went in house similar to you. Things changed, things got moved around, and my position got eliminated and I finally said now's the time. So at the beginning of 2023 I launched Marketing by Foxy and I work both with financial advisors. But I'm most passionate, I would say, about working with institutions who serve financial advisors to help them build value add programs that teach advisors how to market, how to grow their business. And that to me is really fun. I make the joke all the time that I'd rather teach a man to fish than to deliver fish to their door.

Joanna Ehresman [00:16:39]:

Or a woman in this case. We really love to teach women to fish. Yeah, no, it's true though. Well, and it's interesting to know you being on the broker dealer side versus me being on the corporate kind of hybrid RIA side, that there were similar components to our roles as marketers where all of the advisors at Wealth Enhancement Group were under our master brand, right. They are employees of the firm. And so it was an interesting journey for me to figure out how do we take this brand promise? This brand that is we're marketing corporately and help advisors to find a place to merge their own styles, their practice. With that. So they don't have their own separate brand, which was a little different from some of the consulting work you got to do at Kestra. But it's the same tenet that even within a larger organization like that, every practice that I worked with, they had different needs or different stages in their growth cycle. And I think that's one of the themes people may get tired of hearing us say over the course of this podcast. But there's something start where you are and there is always something you can do even if you don't have a huge budget or endless resources to implement. Like marketing can be very pragmatic and that's another element that you, our listener, we want you to take away from listening to these episodes is that actionable takeaways are a big goal of ours within each episode. Not just talking about the academic or philosophical components of marketing, but what can you implement or consider for your business whether you're an advisor or on the corporate side.

Leah Alter [00:18:18]:

Yeah, absolutely. And navigating the corporate world. And let's be honest, the majority of careers in financial services are going to happen in a corporate environment, right? Whether it's a Custodian or a bank or a broker dealer or an RAA or a fintech. It's probably happening in some sort of corporate you know, I think one of the things that Joanna and I really bonded over were the fact that we had know our decade plus respective times in that corporate environment grinding. And sort of playing into all of the things that we've been taught you have to do in order to climb the corporate ladder or have this whatever success is defined. And I think we are both in that state of transition and that we are learning and creating our own definitions of success within the financial services industry and if we can help inspire other people to do that as well, whether they're in the corporate structure or not. Because that journey really started for me when I still was working in there and figuring out what was true for me versus what I had been taught or what I've learned. And I think that is another aspect of this space that's really important, which is you're going to get the truth and authentic versions of us, the good, the bad, the ugly, what we've learned along the way. And that's not to disparage any organization or any corporate structure, but so that we can help other people sort of maybe avoid some of the pitfalls that we had to learn along the way. And I think that is also a really important piece of this. And what we'll ask all our guests to come on and share is what are some of the things they've learned, what is some of the best advice they've learned along the way. So if you are enjoying what you're hearing so far, we would love nothing more if you would go and subscribe. We have so many amazing guests lined up from all over the industry. Lots of really cool topics, lots of actionable takeaways in marketing and growth. So please subscribe. We would love that. We'd appreciate it so, so much. Okay, so next up, what is next up?

Joanna Ehresman [00:21:19]:

Best advice. Like you said, this is going to be a consistent component of each episode.

Leah Alter [00:21:28]:

Okay, so Joanna, what is the best advice that you've received while being in this industry?

Joanna Ehresman [00:21:36]:

Can I do two? I have two of them as I.

Leah Alter [00:21:38]:

Think about can you do course?

Joanna Ehresman [00:21:40]:

Of course.

Leah Alter [00:21:40]:

There are no rules.

Joanna Ehresman [00:21:42]:

We make the rules. I would say first is related to marketing. So for all my marketers out there and or financial advisors who are thinking about marketing programs, this is so true and I have painfully learned this lesson time and again. Is the rule that your marketing has nothing to do with you and your opinion meaning yes. So let that sink in. I mean, caveat your brand, your why, your positioning. Of course it comes from who you are, right? Or like, who the company is. But in terms of your messaging, if you are speaking too much about yourself and your company, you need to think about your target client, who it is you're speaking to, what are their problems, and speak their language. We used to do an exercise back in the day, in fact, where we take some copy, say there was a brochure or a page on our website and drop it into one of those word cloud generators online. You can find them for free. And if the name of our company or the word us or we were the predominant words, it's like, go back and edit this, right? This should be all about you and also, I would say that has to do with creative. Meaning if I had a great flair for picking the loser in terms of ads, if we do a B testing of one ad versus another, I'd be like, oh, yeah, this one's great, or this direct mail piece versus that one. You never know what the consumer is going to like best until you test it and measure. So rule number one, it has nothing to do with you. From a marketing standpoint, the best advice that I received, not related to marketing, but just my career, is just put your work out there. Meaning as an admittedly actively recovering perfectionist, this is hard for me, right? I can spend time refining torturing things to get that next 1% to 2%, take it from great to even greater. But there's nothing like just putting the work out there and moving forward, right? I'm going through a coaching program right now where they're like, get comfortable with some B minus work to start. That's not to say typos, errors, things like that, but just sometimes you just have to get your work out there and get feedback and go from there. And this podcast is an entire exercise in that. By the way, I was just about.

Leah Alter [00:24:06]:

To say, man, this podcast is already probably just hitting all those buttons for.

Joanna Ehresman [00:24:12]:

Yes, I'm way outside my comfort zone. You told me this, leah, what was the poster you had by your desk about where the magic happens? Isn't there a graphic that said there was a visual where there was a circle that said your comfort zone?

Leah Alter [00:24:27]:

Yeah. And then all the good stuff right.

Joanna Ehresman [00:24:31]:

Outside the comfort zone. Anyway, so this has been an exciting one thing I've appreciated there's so many things I've appreciated about the season in my career, but getting outside that comfort zone and just putting my work out there and being like, just go for it, it's been awesome. Okay, you.

Leah Alter [00:24:48]:

We did not share these with each other.

Joanna Ehresman [00:24:50]:

No. I'm surprised to hear you.

Leah Alter [00:24:53]:

We're getting those. So my best advice came from Lisa Gilbert. Hopefully she's going to be on the show too. And she would say, Leah, not your circus, not your monkeys. I had the bad habit, I'll call it a bad habit of sort of taking everything on and taking everything really personally. And really her advice was what is yours to own versus what is not. And then you can go all in on what's yours to own, but if it is not, you got to let that go. You just got to let it go. And so true. Really being able to embody that advice was like a game changer and so helpful in getting to me where I am today. Because I felt like for so long, if I just kept grinding and working hard and exceeding expectations and beating every deadline, that that would just be enough for me. That I would then deserve whatever the thing was that I wanted at the time, whether it was a title or money or whatever. And in doing so, I would get away from what I was most passionate about and what was truly mine to own. And when I was able to sort of clear those cobwebs and just focus on what was mine, that's when I was really able to get creative and build programs that really resonated, and I was a happier person, and so my work was better. So that was my best advice. And of course, I giggle every time I hear it because I could literally visualize little monkeys that are not mine. But, yeah, that's my sort of best advice. And then from a marketing perspective, I would just say, just start. Yes, just start. And I think you can be super educated and know all the things and learn all the things, but if you never try anything, you never do anything, then it's kind of for not so actually experiencing and doing and learning. It kind of goes back to what you were talking about. That is the best way to become a better marketer, is just to do.

Joanna Ehresman [00:27:58]:

Yeah. Do fail fast. Refine. Go. Yes.

Leah Alter [00:28:02]:

Well, and I think in general, right. We think about growth as very linear. And what we know as marketers is that growth is very cyclical and that incremental growth happens each time you do the cycle of trying and learning and adjusting and trying and learning.

Joanna Ehresman [00:28:27]:

Yes. Awesome.

Leah Alter [00:28:29]:

Oh, I love these. I can't wait to hear our guests.

Joanna Ehresman [00:28:32]:

I know. I think we'll have real light bulb moments.

Leah Alter [00:28:36]:

Absolutely. All right, well, we are so excited if you've made it to the end of episode one. Thank you so much for being here. Again, our mission for this show is to create a space for women in financial services who want to learn and grow from other women who have had success and have had those breakthroughs and have learned and are ready to pass that along. So thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it.

Joanna Ehresman [00:29:08]:

Yes. And if you found yourself nodding along in this conversation, chances are this is the right place for you. So please subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform to keep up with us. And do us a favor, share this episode with someone, another woman that you think can benefit. All right, until next time. Thanks for joining us on WomenShare. Bye.