There are so many pockets of the financial advice sector – from the top end of town to small business – young professionals to serving clients on the precipitous of retirement.
Financial advisor Christine Lusher has decided to focus on helping women to become more proactive with their money and it’s a pocket of the industry that has served her well.
Most of her female clients are entering a significant period of their life, such as divorce, or wanting to work less. She has a particular passion for instilling confidence in her clients by building their knowledge, straddling both education and advice at times.
“My clients are looking for help to find financial independence,” she tells Professional Planner. “We put them through a program to help them with the tools they need, and if the person has a more complex strategy, we work with them ongoing. We give them the action plan which we hope sets them free to focus on more important aspects of their lives.”
Lusher had been working in Darwin as an adviser, where financial advice is hard to come by.
These days, she’s based in Newcastle and is in the process of rebranding her business from Serendipity Wealth Advisors to Lush Wealth. The change will give her the opportunity to continue working with women, while her business partner moves in a different direction.
She is a Certified Financial Planner and holds a Bachelor of Economics and an Advanced Diploma of Financial Services. Like many, she’s turned to technology in a bid to reduce costs in her business.
Lusher doesn’t bother entering awards, preferring to focus her energy on her clients.
“There are women out there that don’t have those basic financial skills who seek out a financial advisor because for whatever reason, they are feeling financially vulnerable,” she says.
Other times, however, she discovers her clients are extremely financial literate, but lack the confidence to put the steps in place to get where they want to financially.
“These women quickly realise that years of inaction that has led to not being able to take advantage of compounding interest or that they have missed out in some way,” she says.
The cost of providing financial advice has of course increased, which means there are times when we can’t help clients that can’t afford advice. In those instances, she sends clients to a money coach.
Lusher has more than 20 years of experience in the finance industry including 18 years as a practicing financial planner, Lusher set out to establish her own financial planning business in search of a work-life balance. At the time, it was a concept that was hard to come by.
“When I started out, flexibility simply wasn’t available in the workplace. You had to work full-time, and if you left to start a family, it was common for women to have to come straight back to work, or opt out.”
There are plenty of talented professionals who only want to work a couple of days a week, so there’s no reason why workplaces can’t offer that sort of flexibility, she says.
“For some reason, there was a strange belief that financial planners can’t work part time,” she says.
“It wasn’t something that sat well with me, and I set out to give myself more flexibility, and also create a flexible workplace.”
Her team predominantly work from home, coming into the office one day a week.
“I get a lot of value out of providing a flexible workplace,” she says.
“I wanted to give people the flexibility to work they hours they want, rather than be too prescriptive about time at the desk. This approach has enabled me to grow my business with some incredible talent.”
Great article. I wonder if you could help as I am sure some of the readers would also be interested. I am doing some background research for a friend going through a property settlement prior to divorce. Could you recommend an Australian book that focuses on money matters during the property settlement.