Today on the Book More Show, we're talking with Kara Stewart, a seasoned financial advisor and author of 'Put Power in Your Purse', a holistic, stylish guide to retirement planning.
Kara shares her journey from corporate finance to running a successful independent practice. A change initially forced on her through layoffs, but after reviewing her options, she decided that starting her own firm was the best path to helping those she truly wanted to help.
She shares insights into her pioneering approach to empowering women through financial planning and education. A path started by sharing other resources but developed into her own approach, framework, and more recently, her new book.
Identifying a target audience allows you to create a message and program that speaks specifically to their needs. Even if you work with a broader group or can help many people, treating your book as a tool for a specific campaign is the best way to start a conversation with a perfect prospect and plan their journey to working with you.
I love how Kara distinguishes herself in a competitive industry, and her approach is one that can be applied to many different industries.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
- Kara shares her career journey from corporate finance to establishing her own independent practice, focusing on empowering women in their financial lives.
- We discuss the complex yet vital subject of retirement planning, particularly for women, highlighting the necessity for women to be educated and confident in handling their financial futures.
- Kara simplifies the often complex financial language and explains different types of retirement accounts and potential tax implications.
- We explore the breadth of services offered by Kara and the importance of collaborating with other professionals in the industry for a holistic approach to financial planning.
- Kara shares how her book, "Power of Zero," serves as an educational tool for her clients and also as a unique marketing tool to distinguish herself in a highly competitive industry.
- We delve into the importance of building trust and adding value to clients, both potential and existing, in the financial planning industry.
- Kara shares her approach of taking comprehensive information from clients upfront to understand their overall financial history and prescribe appropriate financial plans.
- We discuss the significance of tax diversification and efficient distribution of assets during clients' lifetimes, improving their cash flow and ensuring the assets go to their families and not to the IRS.
- We highlight the multiple benefits of collaboration in the financial planning industry, with Kara giving examples of working with CPA firms and other financial advisors to provide the best solutions for clients.
- Kara shares her experience of using books as a powerful marketing tool for her business, helping to establish credibility, attract clients, and build long-term relationships.
LINKS
Kara Stewart - LinkedIn
Focus Strategic Solutions
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TRANSCRIPT
(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)
Stuart: Everyone. Welcome back to the Book More Show. It's Stuart Bell here and today joined by Kara Stewart. Kara, how are you doing? Excellent, how are you Fantastic, very good, thank you. Thanks for making time to do this, say I'm excited to dive in and share with the audience a little bit more about what you do and the book that you wrote. One of the things we talk about a lot is kind of dialing in this niche of the audience that you really wanna talk to. I think yours is a great example of doing exactly that. Why don't we start with a bit of background share with the audience where you are, what you do, and then we can kind of go from there?
Kara: Absolutely well. Thank you so much for having me. It's really a pleasure to be here today, Gosh. I've been in practice for 23 years. My career spans over Wells Fargo Bank, merrill Lynch, I was a market maker of community bank stocks, such as Bank of Petaluma, exchange, bank, sonoma National, which is now UMQUA, and then I spent a decade at Ventrio Insurance Brokerage as the assistant vice president and manager of the Financial Service Division, and then, in 2009, they actually eliminated my department and literally overnight, I found myself jobless and, of course, being married with a house and two babies. It was very scary and I decided well, what if I started my own practice? What if I went independent? And here, 13 years later, I am thriving, not just nearly surviving.
Stuart: It goes fast.
I always kind of it does it sure does A little bit scared. When I started in the math, people started talking about 2008-09. So I was on the IT side of financial services at the time and our department went from 40 people down to 20 and I was still there, fortunately, but you think that was just yesterday, but it was a little bit more than yesterday In that timeframe. Then there was a necessity in going independent. Obviously, it's still around, so there's no regrets of having taken that choice. But the apprehension or the fear factor of being independent versus trying to find another job was it an easy choice to make or was it necessities? The mother invention and that was the other person.
Kara: Yes and no. So I did have about eight different job offers within 24 hours of being laid off. So that was the good news. And so, again, thinking about, what if I went independent? What would that look like? And if, for some reason it didn't work, I had all these fallback positions. So I kind of went into it with the intention of hopefully it works well. Right, and here we are 13 years later. But again, if it doesn't, then I know that I am marketable and of value. And at that time, of course, I used to say how could you right? Like I felt very hurt and that was a hard time in my life. But now I say thank you, because have I not been pushed from the nest? I wouldn't have realized these beautiful wings.
Stuart: Right and it gives you some opportunity to deal with the people who you prefer to deal with. We were talking with someone a few weeks ago who, again similar situation, came from a corporate background, but their perspective was very much. It was not burn insurance, not quite the right word but there was a certainly a male element to it of getting people in 10 minutes dealing with them. Move on to the next client. There wasn't really any tailored asset management or real holistic financial planning. I guess that's a big difference in the work that you've gone down the clients you deal with, because you can give that additional time and focus on those individuals.
Kara: That's absolutely right. So in fact, the very thing that I did when I immediately went independent was to really evaluate the model right. And working for Wells Fargo and Merrill Lynch, what I didn't like is that they employed quotas on their employees for certain product areas and so I would see sometimes coworkers not necessarily doing the right thing for the client because that then meant that they then got through their quota and extra bonus et cetera. So when I went independent, the very first thing I did was not employ that model. So most financial advisors charge on UM or assets under management. So you can imagine they wanna manage all your assets right when sometimes that's not appropriate Sometimes.
And the holistic approach is really true in my practice in that I look at mortgage positions, I looked at trust planning, I look at insurance policies all the things that are part and tax planning. I mean that's a big difference between myself and a normal, traditional financial advisor is that I look at tax returns and I can analyze them, because I and I often will say if someone has an existing financial advisor and if they're not asking for your tax returns, that's like going to the doctor and having the doctor prescribe a remedy without looking at your medical record. That's how important that piece is of the overall puzzle, and so my approach is extremely different, very independent and, again, very holistic.
Stuart: So the audience that you've got, are they locally, within a geographic area, or statewide or nationwide?
Kara: I can work nationwide. In fact, I'm the nationwide financial advisor for charitable foundation. However, most of my clients are local. I am in Windsor, california, actually in the heart of Windsor Town Green, which is an area that we focus a lot on community I do, I give back all the time with not only my community but with first responders, doctors, dentists, police, firefighters, et cetera. But then also I have a very, very deep passion for empowering women.
Stuart: And that actually is probably a great pivot into the book. So the book itself gives a little background into what brought you to, I guess, what brought you to writing it and then just dive into a little bit more on that group of people. It seems like an obvious question, but the idea to double down on the empowering women and helping that, if it's not too obvious, what made you want to focus on that group particularly?
Kara: Sure, well, and I want to make sure it's very clear, I do work with men. In fact, most of my clients are men, and that's kind of what triggered this or ignited this passion was realizing that most women don't know what they don't know, and, in fact, there was a period of one year where I had three females that came to me this couple of years ago, three females that came to me having losing their husbands unexpectedly and prematurely, and all of which had no idea what they had or didn't have or should have or could have, and so it kind of united this movement almost to where I wanted to put power in the purse and empower women with information, and I started gifting a book called the Power of Zero right after our 2017 wildfires, because we as a community some of it's I mean my own sister lost her house where I got married was gone. Several clients lost their homes I actually had a client pass away in the fire so it was a significant, impactful event, indirectly or directly, and so I started gifting this book, power of Zero, by David McKnight, and I've gifted that probably to 500 families by now, just trying to leave with education and let them just understand what it is that they should have or could have it again, that the ideas are not something you'll get from the Wells Fargo or Maryland or Ever Jones or Fidelity, because it speaks to the tax planning piece of financial planning. And so after gifting that book, I thought you know, gosh, I'm really kind of giving David McKnight all this. You know, cred. And so I collaborated with three industry professionals on a book called the Holistic Retirement Plan, and that's as current as the pandemic. It talks about very relative issues that we face globally and locally.
And then from there it was like but what if I wrote my solely authored book, which has been a goal of mine for many years? I've always loved writing. I could, when my kids were little, I could, like whip up a poem as their birthday invitation, literally within a matter of minutes. I enjoy writing and I'm very not to, you know, toot my own horn, but I'm very creative in the way I can just literally rattle off something and comes off in a way like it seems like it took me a long time to prepare, but no, it's just how I speak and how I think. And so putting that to paper and really trying to empower women with education was truly what made me want to write this book. As a native of Sonoma County, my reputation needs more to me than anything, and so, again, just trying to lead with that integrity and the authenticity is truly what the book is all about.
Stuart: And that's just as you started there. That was a great point because you were mentioning that you work with men and maybe even the majority of clients. That is a great talking point. Briefly, because oftentimes people have a skesities maybe not quite the right word, but they don't view the book as a campaign specific asset. They're looking at it in a traditional sense and thinking that a book needs to be this very broad thing, like you would say in a bookshelf, in a store, in the traditional sense of covering all of the elements, as opposed to thinking about the real benefits, particularly as business owners, of having a campaign specific approach. So just because this particular book is targeting this group absolutely not the case that you're excluding or not working with the other people it's just for this particular activity, this is the target audience and we're trying to write something that's as specific and useful to that group.
Again, nothing against or excluding the other people, but thinking about it as a campaign specific thing. I think it makes the whole process so much more straightforward, particularly if people aren't in your position of finding it easy or easier to write and enjoying it. If people are seeing this is an outcome that I want, but actually I'm a little bit daunted or not enthusiastic about the process. Thinking about it as a campaign specific thing which narrows down the scope, targets the audience, focuses the attention a little bit more into what's to include or not include makes it so much easier, but it was.
I took the point as you were saying, that it's definitely not that people are writing the book that is comprehensively saying only what they do. It's that we're trying to start a specific type of conversation and again there's many other things going on. The idea of what to include and what not to include then. So with having the target audience is being relatively dialed in and making that a little bit easier to align the content with the people. What was the thought process around what to include and what not to include, like the journey from someone seeing the book and being given the book three to a quarter action on the back? Talk us through a little bit about that process of you. Wanted to make sure that people knew.
Kara: Right?
Well, what I have been starting now that I have this office space in the Winsor Town Green, is I have a quarterly event called Women, wisdom and Wealth, and it's often at a winery, just because of the venue needs to be much larger. In fact, I just did my quarterly event last Wednesday and there was 45 women in attendance. So it speaks to the need for the information and I focus on health and wealth, and so obviously I speak to the wealth piece of it, but I also say that you have really nothing if you don't have your health, and so I invite what I call wellness warriors in to co-present with me, and that looks different depending on the quarter, but, for example, we talk about stress management and hormones and aging and all the things that we as women do need to understand and educate, and really, just once you talk about the things that you're dealing with on a personal, professional basis, you realize you're not alone, right? So the goal again is to empower women, surround them with other empowered women In fact, I point the phrase empowered women in power women but then also just simply focus on our two greatest assets. So I started with those events and again, kind of it was a process kind of that led me to wanting to produce this book, and it's the subtitles called how to have a stylish and holistic retirement plan a confident woman's guide.
So again, it's to infuse confidence in a woman that they know, at the end of the day, that they're going to be okay. Right, like when I looked at my surviving spouse and said, from a financial perspective, anyway, right, emotionally, physically, I understand you're struggling, but financially you're going to be okay. And we planned for, obviously, a long, healthy life. That's obviously the ultimate goal. But we've also put in, you know parameters, you know umbrellas, if you will, if we had compromise, compromised living or needing some former long-term care or ultimately, upon your demise, to your beneficiaries or to your loved ones. So really it's just to empower women with the education. In fact, often I open up those workshops by saying if you don't have a man, you need to have a plan, and if you have a man, be part of the plan, have a voice and know what it is that you do have or don't have.
And again, no judgment. That's the other thing I often will hear is I might be too young or I might be too old. And no, that's not the case. Neither is true. You know when's the best time to plan a tree, of course 20 years ago. When's the next best time? Today? My youngest client is 20. My oldest client is 103. So and clients come to me too A lot of times. I know them because, again, I'm a native and there's zero judgment of anything. What you have thus far, there's all that we can solve for, is what we know today, and then we make plans and then just accordingly, as life ebbs and flows, and so and of course I always maintain that most confidentiality I let people know. I mean because, again, we are in a small town and I just say you know, it's just like your doctor. I use that analogy often because some people can relate to doctors all the time, just like they are held to the same confidentiality perspective requirements as well that idea of the no judgment.
Stuart: It was interesting. Back in a previous career I did some financial what do we call it? So it's part of their FSA, which is the UK's equivalent, the financial regulator. So I was on the IT side, not on the enforcement side or the policy side, but the organisation would go out to other organisations and do education events just around financial literacy and as someone who'd been in the business for 20 years and just had a general interest in it, it seemed like a very basic introduction, which was the point of it. But it was surprising. I maybe did 10 or 12 of these.
It was surprising every time that the language, which seemed very superficial and basic to us, was complicated and confusing to other people and, I think, just the nature of the industry, either intentionally or unintentionally. Some of the language that's used around financial products is almost intentionally confusing Things, concepts, that are relatively straightforward to understand if you just use plain English. Once you start using the English, the industry language, it makes it more complicated. And then, of course, like you say, you add in all of this baggage and judgment and pressure and fear and perception that there's a lack of education or people feeling stupid about it. It's such a disservice to if people aren't introduced to the conversations that you're having with them. That really helps them understand. Now is the best time to do something about it, no matter where you are, and the steps that you can take can be relatively straightforward. So did you find a similar thing? It's that once you start bridging that gap and making people feel better about the questions that they're asking, did that really start to accelerate the conversations? Yeah, absolutely.
Kara: In fact, I've been asked and would love to speak to the high schools and colleges because nobody is teaching our young adults about financial planning. And I talk and I really do to your point. Try to dumb it down and talk in layman terms about financial planning. So when we talk about the coveted retirement account being the 401k and IRA and the difference obviously is one's in player, sponsored, and one's not, and we have been taught to believe that is where we should be putting our retirement dollars. But if you really think about it and digest it and I did this whole video talking about the minus recalls of the buckets in wine country I call it the wine glasses but tax, now tax free, and then tax deferred and what the differences are. So a 401k and IRA is like kicking the can down the road in terms of taxation and you're adding money to the can as you go and at the end of the road I'll say I'm holding out his hand and say, well, I didn't charge you on a dollar, but now I'm charging you on $100. And so clients seem to resonate with that. They understand. And then, of course, taxes by percentage are going up. Right, we're going to sunset in 2020, the Trump tax laws are going away. Plus, we added $14 trillion to our national debt with the pandemic and the stimulus packages, and then further we've got a problem with our social security funding, all the baby boomers pulling on those benefits. Where is that going to come from? And then you know, we're also approaching election year, so taxes by percentage are going up.
So one of my famous examples as a client who came to me having quite a bit in our 401k, thinking she was doing the right thing by maximizing her contribution. So I simply asked her well, what's your company match? And she said dollar for dollar, up to 4%. She was contributing 15. So I said, well, let's take the 11% you're already contributing and let's repurpose it to a tax-free strategy. That's not a Roth, but it does grow tax-free and distributes tax-free. But unlike a Roth, it doesn't have income limits, contribution restrictions and, most importantly, accessibility. You can access it prior to $259.5. And it was going to change her retirement income by $7 million just by repurposing what she was already saving. So it's just those kinds of conversations you're not going to get at Wells Fargo Bank or Merrill Lynch or Ever Jumps, because the traditional buckets and the cookie cutter mold.
Stuart: people almost then check the box I'm doing something, someone else is telling me it's the thing to do. I've got that confident and comfortable feeling that it's all being taken care of. But unless it's actually case by case addressed in a with an expert, someone that can see the holistic picture, that difference is astronomical, and even more so over the long term. If you get to talk to people early, so having conversations with kids out of school, ours, the youngest is 14 and the oldest is 25. So the middle ones, as they're just going into the workplace out of school, saying to them, just start small, start doing something, and the benefit of the long timeframe can really account for there's not almost no bad decision that you can make, can just start with something and then dial it in over the years. It's quite a difference.
Kara: And that speaks to my approach. So my process includes gathering information on the front end and, again, different than a CPA, where output equals input they're driving a car through the rearview mirror, I'm looking at the windshield. How do we appropriately change your situation, the input to positively impact the output? So I do ask for a lot of information on the front end because, again, just like your doctor, I need to know about your overall financial history to be able to appropriately prescribe. And what I then do is show clients okay, this is your status quo. If you keep doing what you're doing, this is what your future self looks like. And are you on track to meet, exceed or fall short of your goals? And even if you're on track to meet or exceed, I can say with the almost 100% confidence I can still improve upon those results by the planning that I do. And so and I've created such a name for myself now that actually CPA firms are reaching out to me to ask them to help them with their text planning for their clients.
Stuart: Fantastic and actually that's a great subject as well in this idea of kind of complimentary non-competing businesses the fact that as you're out there talking to your audience, there are other firms out there with their audience and where it crosses over huge opportunity to kind of get a synergistic result of more than the individual parts Right. A good friend owns an ICDISC tax planning firm which is so niche I mean you wouldn't as outside you wouldn't imagine that there was a dedicated business for it. But their benefit of being specialists in that area means that they can work in a non-threatening way with CPAs because they're just focused on their area. I imagine that's the same for you. Specializing in this approach, which is something different than a number of them try to offer that complimentary service. Really kind of ties in well. Do you see that happen quite often.
Kara: Well, you know, when I actually named my company Focus Strategic Solutions, that was very intentional. Focus is a pun I use all the time. You know. Get focus, let's focus on your future self. And actually it is an acronym that stands for various things, but strategic is referring to the trust advisor team, right? So in an ideal world I'd actually speak with their clients CPA, attorney, other financial advisors, insurance agents, estate plan attorneys, etc. Because as a team we can really support our clients, you know, at the utmost ability to create what it is we're trying to accomplish. So that's strategic. And then solutions means there's one side that does not fit all and, depending on what the clients unique goals and objectives are, there's multiple different options, right? So Focus Strategic Solutions is the name of my firm, and again, that's very intentional, and one size does not fit all. So I come to, you know, clients come to me and I don't know necessarily what I'm going to be offering them until I dive down deep into what it is that they're all suddenly trying to achieve.
Stuart: The breadth of services that you can offer. Do you hit a point where you need to reach out to other partners to provide additional services that are out with scope of what you do, or is the majority of what you do in scope of the nature of the things that they might need? That kind of overlap as well as incoming is outgoing as well.
Kara: Sure, well, I do ask on the front end who those other professionals are, and then I ask if those relationships are working. And so I'm very respectful. If the relationship is thriving and they are happy with that person and their service and the results, then I want to collaborate with them on the client's behalf. If they're not happy, for whatever reason, then I do have resources that I can refer them to and then together we can work for that client. So, again, if I don't know them, I reach out and introduce myself that we've now have a mutual client and then, of course, if they're not happy, then I've got a referral source and a network of other you know professionals I can refer a client to.
Stuart: Again, come back to a holistic approach. It's so much more beneficial. I really like the doctor's analogy that you use of saying that if you are trying to sort out a medical problem, you really want the doctor to know absolutely everything. So there's no ambiguity in the same situation here. Looking at the book itself, then, so we've talked about the use case of physically giving it to people. I'm guessing that some of that is along with the events, what going into the project, what other ways? Were you thinking about using it at the end? Or were you thinking about using it at the end? Or did you just want to get, want it to get created?
Kara: No, I am very much have thoughts on how I'm going to use it. I do lead with that and try to get clients. Again, I gifted this book, power of Zero, my example there was 500 to 500 people. Now did all of those clients or all those people become clients? No, some people just simply want the book because they want the book. Some people want the book for the information and they may take that to their existing advisor, all of which is okay. And then, of course, some people have become clients, and not only that, but raging fans.
So my goal is to gift the book, just similar than I have in the past, and that's to even perfect strangers. But then also at the events. And then also I'm going to be offering vouchers of free time, like free consultations, to accompany the book that my clients can give to their centers of influences, their friends, their family, their colleagues, etc. Just again to empower them with information. And if they become a client, then great. If they don't become a client, then great. I just want people to know, to understand and to have their B education about financial planning, because there simply just isn't at this moment.
Stuart: Right and again, that's another benefit of it being so tailored. It's very obvious who the audience is. Again, for this specific campaign, it's not here's a book of general financial advice. It's here's specifically a book to empower other women, and the clients you have that fall into that category almost certainly know of other people who would benefit from it. The idea of those orchestrated referrals and the so many opportunities, once it exists, to say to people, even on calendar based things, so tax return time or end of year or new year's resolutions, or April 15th deadline, the extended deadline, all of these things in the calendar where it makes people think about their financial planning elements, the fact that you can reach back out to the list and say, oh, by the way, if you have anyone else struggling, here's a copy of the book that you can give to them, being able to orchestrate it in a friendly way. It's leading with the information, leading with value first.
Kara: Right, and that's important. And again, another differentiator, because oftentimes financial advisors have specific minimum net worth that they require a prospect to have in order to even talk to them. Again, different than what I do, I help literally anybody, and the reason for that is twofold. One is I was once getting started having a family, buying a house. I wish somebody would have held my hand at that time.
But then two, you never know who they know, and one of my largest excuse me, one of my smallest accounts, that I was helping her with debt management and expense budgeting and all the things refer me to one of my largest accounts. So again, just do the right thing, even when nobody's watching has served me very well, personally and professionally.
Stuart: Yeah, that idea. I think that would serve a lot of people very well across the whole board. It's interesting as well, this idea that you don't know. I mean those people.
We've worked with, people who were another financial planning company up around Detroit. So they, how many years ago would it be 15, maybe 20 years ago? We very much in the college planning, college financing type world, so they had a not small list of people who they'd worked with all of those years ago. But now those same people they're completely out of that audience group. They're not in college planning anymore but they're moving towards the perfect time, towards retirement planning, because they were in their 30s 20 years ago. Now they're in their 50s. So that same audience group has maintained some level of relationship over that longer period, not really from a client perspective but just from a kind of slow burn, reach out, keep in touch type of campaign.
But now we've got the opportunity to reignite some of those people with something that's more timely and useful and relevant for them in the moment, from the book itself then. So we've got a way of reaching out to people who you don't know. Just by offering the book and having out there you've got relationships or referrals from people who you do know, making that warm connection. There's opportunities for all of their speaking, and the social media kind of relate to the book and have that as the next step. Once someone reads and consumes the book, what's the best next step for them to take? Once they've read something and there's something there, what's the next step that you have for them to? I don't even want to say get started, but kind of take the next step towards more of a conversation.
Kara: To get focused. You mean? Well, first off, I wanted to say that the book is not a prerequisite to any meeting, right? So I do have clients that say, well gosh, give me a book, I will never pick it up. So I want to just flush that out. That's not something. That's not a requirement that one reads the book. But the next step should you choose to read it or not would be to schedule what I call and explore one conversation.
That is a completely preliminary 30 minute phone call that I kind of coin like. It's like a speed date, right, you're interviewing me, I'm interviewing you. Let's first find out do we have alignment philosophically and do we want to continue and have that next date? Right? And so if we agree, both agree, to proceed, then the next step looks that I then ask for information, again looking at, I've got a questionnaire that I asked them to complete, just again similar to a medical questionnaire, and then together I with my team, I put together that status, close situation, and then I invite them into the office and of course, if they're not local, then I assume just works just fine, because I want to share my screen and I go through all my input so they can see, this is what you told me on the questionnaire, right, this is what you, these are your assets, this is your age, this is what you've been doing thus far and this is what that looks like. And then I give them my proposal and how much greater that can then yield.
The other objection I often get with clients may or prospects, excuse me, may say well, I already have an existing financial advisor and my objection to that is I'm not surprised most successful people do. But just like when you go to your doctor and your primary care physician gave you a terminal illness, would you seek an opinion from a specialist? And likewise, you know, my. My approach is so very different than normal financial advisors because I focus not only on asset allocation, which is important, but on tax diversification, which I would argue is almost more important. Also, on, you know, most advisors look at accumulation, which again very important. How do we get up the mountain? But are they like poised and ready to get you down the mountain in terms of distribution? You know I'm looking at efficiencies with distribution. How do we get your assets back to you during your lifetime with as least taxation as possible, to improve cash flow and ultimately to your family and not to MPH.
Stuart: The family point is a good one there as well, because being having an established footprint within a local area, the fact that you do know these people and have a long term relationship with them, I mean it. Just all of those elements reinforce. Not that it's essential in this day and age I mean we're talking on opposite sides of the country at the moment, so not that it's essential but there's definitely a continuity of care to keep the medical analogy going, there's a continuity of care to those people and their families and I think, looking at it in that holistic way, but anyone who's got an interest in doing more than just a cursory check in the box and putting some money in a pool of, in a bucket of something, then that must really add to the connection that you have with people and just reinforce the fact that you're in it for the long term, just like they are.
Kara: That's true. In fact, I always say people say you name Kara or Kara, and I'm like you care about me, I care about you. So that's a good, easy way to remember it, because, it's true, I've been in practice for over two decades, so I certainly feel like I have expertise. However, having said that, I still have a coach and I think that's important to note as well, because even professional athletes have coaches and so I again have the expertise behind me.
But yet I am somewhat young still, and I'm going to be around long term for my clients to exercise the plans that we're putting in place, which is important, and so every year at a minimum, I review the existing plan and decide like is it on track to still meet your current needs, or are you playing a trip around the world, or do you have a wedding you're going to be funding, or is something changing in your life to the better, or hopefully not the worst? But that happens, life happens, and so we need to adjust the plan accordingly, and so my relationship is long term, hence the speed date right. I want to make sure that I am enjoying this relationship as well, because it's going to be for the long term.
Stuart: And brings us back to early on in the conversation when we were saying that's the opposite of being in the traditional large business sense of sometimes you don't really get the choice of who you work with. You just have to. You've got a roster of clients that you're working through, okay. So, with all that in mind, and one question I'd like to wrap up with and then we'll make sure that we give people links so they can get in touch with you and see more about what you're doing but the process of using books in the business so you've used a bit of a combination of someone else's that you're using a joint one, and now you're out and is there anything throughout that process that has been a surprise in terms of using books as a marketing tool, either you own or other people, I don't think, a surprise.
Kara: I feel like it's held helped me build credibility because I think when you say that you're an author of a solely you know book, I think that does yield to the additional you know expertise that I might have. So in the process 90 minute books I've been pleasantly pleased with the process itself. I wasn't quite sure what to expect and there's been very thorough and thoughtful and efficient and effective steps along the way. So the process has been somewhat very efficient, I'm very hopefully effective.
Stuart: That's it. Thank you for that. This isn't the reason why I do podcasts with people to hear nice things, but it's always nice when it happens. The point you were talking about is establishing its credibility and it has an energy bigger than the thing itself I always refer back to.
We did a podcast a couple of months ago now with Paul Ross, who's a podiatrist. So he had again a couple of books and the most recent one was a solo one, similar to yourself. But his latest book was my Damn Toe Hurts and it was podiatrist procedure. So again, a very niche book but relatively short, relatively kind of. That outcome is a surgical or a medical procedure, so there's only so much you can tell people in the book. It's not really a self-help type book, but so it's relatively to the point. But he'll have people coming in and saying, yeah, I'm here for my appointment, oh, you're the person that made the book. They don't make the connection beforehand because there's a couple of people in the practice. So it's always interesting to hear people talk about that element books.
I think we always talk about ourselves as a marketing company, not a public Marketing, published company. The fact that books work so effectively it's almost Continental. We weren't looking for use case for books. It was what's the use case for engaging people in a book is the way, but it's always interesting to see that even in 2023, when self-publishing has been a thing for years, it's not the process itself isn't technically rocket science. It's a pain in the neck sometimes, but it's not rocket science. But still, with the audience out there, it has a power greater than just the fact that some words are written on a page and Reestablishes or establishes you as the person giving that and creating it, as an authority.
Kara: Well, right, and I again, I just want to leave with education and integrity in my heart and so just to empower people with information, and Hopefully that's provokes enough, you know, thought and interest to speak to me directly. But what I do also say is I look at everybody as my own family member. If you were my brother, what would I suggest you consider? Or my own mom? You know, I tell people all the time like this one my mom has, or this is what my own son has, or Whatever that might be, to make them relate to the fact that, again, this is in your best interest, and so I just want to maintain that integrity.
Stuart: So, as people are listening to this, watching along, where can they find more about you and the work that you're doing?
Kara: Sure Well, my website is focus strategic solutionscom. I am on social media as such focus strategic solutions Facebook, instagram, my team and I are actually about to launch up some podcasts Ourself, and then, of course, working on TikTok and all the other Platforms. Right, so I can be as hip as all of them out there right.
Stuart: What's that? It's all of those 20 year old clients right, exactly Exactly.
Kara: Luckily, my kids are helping me with that.
Stuart: That's asking what. We'll put links to all of those in the show notes so, as people are listening or watching along, I'll be in the podcast app on the website. Thanks again for your time. I always say that time goes faster, but it really does. It'd be great to check back in down the line, maybe as we get into next year, to see how things are going and what's come from it. And then, as always, thanks everyone for listening. Definitely check out the show notes and follow along with what Kara is doing, and then we will catch you all in the next one.
Kara: Excellent. Thank you, so much do I appreciate you.