In this episode, Lizzie Stewart joins us – she is a financial representative and prosperity coach. She was born and raised in Midwest, and now resides in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where she. owns her financial practice. Lizzie inspires and strategizes with people by leveraging her purpose, passion, and big dreams, accompanied by the three values that allow her to create a robust relationship with her clients—authenticity, joy, and connection.

How Lizzie provides supports for entrepreneurs

[06:23]

Lizzie educates her clients to understand that business and personal lives are the same. Even though they are separate during business’ infancy, her goal is to bring the two things together and ensure everything is in harmony and balance to reach the desired goal. Lizzie is excellent at building relationships, and it is the superpower she relies on to find what her client truly wants.

Lizzie’s Journey

[10:51]

When she transitioned from taxes to financial planning, Lizzie started looking forward instead of in the review mirror. It is empowering to look ahead as she shapes her and her client’s future. She commends her team for helping achieve and fulfill her endeavors.

When and why does someone need a financial expert?

[14:56]

It needs to happen sooner than it ever was before. The educational system should start talking about wealth management, and the younger it is being taught, the better. Families should have comfortable and healthy conversations about managing finances regularly. Meeting with a financial expert around your age is excellent. They are the people who know and understand your language, being comfortable having those conversations, answering your questions. Everyone needs a plan. Lizzie emphasizes that everybody needs a plan. You will eventually need to know the roads you traverse and talk with someone about how you want to live your wealth.

Financial Representatives vs. Financial Planner vs. Financial Advisor

[22:46]

Lizzie is a financial representative. As a financial representative, she utilizes her team of financial planners and financial advisors to ensure that each mechanism they recommend to clients is represented properly, ethically, legally, and culturally. A certified financial planner needs a college degree and undergoes certifications before being called as such. A financial advisor is a title that Lizzie needs to take to be more flexible on regulations. The financial industry is highly regulated to protect the consumers under cohesive and strict regulatory standards and ethical boards.

Financial Misconceptions

[26:35]

Clients don’t need to know everything before seeing a financial expert. Seeing them unconfident and fearful is something that Lizzie wants to break. And most importantly, the biggest misconception being that money is the root of all evil.

What services clients should take advantage of?

[33:31]

Lizzie focuses on three things when talking to her clients – foundation, assets, and distribution. Foundation is the base of your plan, ensuring that it should be sturdy enough. Assets refer to how money leverage the most tax-advantaged-lucrative to grow your assets. Distribution is how you can utilize your assets longer by spending less. Other experts offer a fee-based plan, where you pay them a certain amount to put together everything for you.

What should people know before working with a financial expert?

[37:37]

Everything should be at the personal level. Lizzie explained that experts who treat everything personally and take things seriously are excellent to work with and are interested in you as humans. Find out if they take notes, engage well, and are they sincere or authentic? You don’t want to work only with that one expert but with the people behind that expert. You want a trusted partner who does the right things both legally and financially for you.

Money Relationship

[43:02]

Money relationship is important. Your financial

In this episode, our guest is Jason McCarty, the Sales Executive of Imperial FPS. He enjoys being a resource in the insurance industry through creativity and teamwork and also enjoys problem-solving and helping his clients make the most out of opportunities. He is a body language expert and has taught business owners and entrepreneurs the knowledge and techniques that he learned in studying body language cues.

In this episode, we have invited Tina Nowick from Save The Day Assistant to join us to talk about the benefits of hiring a Virtual Assistant (or agency) to help you run your business. Tina demonstrated her entrepreneurial spirit from a young age when she started her own babysitting business at 14, with homemade flyers and all. After some college experience at San Diego State University, she stepped into the corporate world. Tina spent over a decade working her way up the ladder and acquiring a diverse skill set. After realizing she was not willing to be married to her corporate career, she began to look for ways to work for herself. Tina's first experience in the world of virtual assistant/business management began in 2012, with her sister's highly successful marketing company. From there, she started to learn all about the world of entrepreneurship and small businesses.

About Tina

[2:01]

She’s a wife and a mother. She’s been with her husband for about 24 years. They have two lovely children ages 21 and 15.

How Tina provides support for business owners and entrepreneurs

[4:43]

Through the virtual assistant agency, they focus on and really love helping women-owned businesses. They help with the daily tasks that typical business owners either don't like to do, don't know how to do very well, and kind of takes them away from the things that they really should be doing as the business owner.

Tina’s Journey

[5:35]

Tina always says she was kind of a baby when she started in the corporate world. She just typically work her way up in the corporate world. It was for a really large insurance agency that most people are familiar with. She ended up in a supervisory, managerial type of position.

Tina just got to that point, being a mother and a wife that she didn't want to be married to her career. She didn't want to be sacrificing her family, especially to get to the next step in the career. Tina took a crazy move to just literally walk away from the corporate world.

[6:43]

She dabbled in some different things and then found herself in the networking world and network marketing world. That's where she met all of her polka dots sisters.

[7:15]

Tina had a little stint while she was finding her next thing. She used to do these types of tasks for her sister and her business. What she realized is this is actually a thing. People are virtual assistants or virtual business managers. And so she got the idea that she could really help a lot of her fellow hooked-up sisters or just fellow women business owners that need that type of help in their business.

What’s a Virtual Assistant?

[9:06]

We focus not on the business owner's personal life. What we focus on is obviously all the things about their business. And then we take things off their hands, such as digital marketing, processes and procedures and integration, and client management. Those there are all kinds of virtual assistants. Tina did a range of things and then that's kind of how she created the agency around it.

Advice for people when it comes to letting go

[12:24]

Tina also practices what she preaches and she also uses her own virtual assistants and the agency to do the things that technically she shouldn't be focusing on anymore. There are some things that it's not that she doesn’t know how to do but she just shouldn't be focusing her time there.

[13:18]

There's no real easy way. It just has to be done and know that the transition is going to be a transition. It's not going to be perfect as soon as the business owner lets go of everything. So it's not that this business owner is having to talk to someone who doesn't necessarily have business experience. They're just really good at the particular task that we're having them do or the project. That's kind of where the value of this agency is a little bit different in that Tina does play that middleman role and able to kind of help the business owner so that we can figure out what do they need,

In this episode, we have invited Brittany Ratelle to join us. Brittany is a startup and intellectual property attorney who helps modern businesses in the eCommerce, digital marketing, media, tech, and retail space. She also sells curated DIY legal templates in her online shop at Creativecontracts.co. With a background in PR, influencer marketing, and law, Brittany helps modern businesses navigate the digital landscape without losing their minds or sense of humor. She believes in the power of cute office supplies and solid contracts and hosts a weekly podcast, Creative Counsel, with business strategy tips and inspiring female founder stories. As a brand protection strategist, she helps clients protect and grow their physical and digital offerings, diversify their revenue streams, and protect boundaries with co-founders, partners, collaborators, and vendors. Brittany lives with her hunky husband and four kiddos in her beautiful hometown of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and loves to ski, read, craft and rock out in her minivan.

About Brittany

[1:58]

Brittany used to be an exclusive naptime attorney when she was first practicing and building her business. She did it when she had her littles at home and always just practiced for herself because then she could have the ultimate flexibility.

[5:28]

There is always a lot of love in her life for the habit. All the eating is wonderful. Brittany loves snacks. That is always her number one priority when she is going and traveling somewhere.

What are some other ways that Brittany provides support?

[6:33]

Brittany has clients all in all 50 states. She serves people all over the country. Some people though, maybe do not need one-on-one legal services. It could be outside their price point or where they are in terms of business and the evolution of their business. She has templates that have education and training that go along with them to kind of teach you if you are just hiring a freelancer and want to know, am I supposed to have something in writing? You need to get an independent contractor agreement. She has a little video to teach you what all these

things mean in here and your big decisions that you need to be making in terms of how you are going to pay them.

[8:38]

According to Brittany, her goal with any of her resources and educating that she is doing on Instagram and on her podcast is that she wants people to be no more at the end than they did at the beginning. If all they did is get a legal form and send it to somebody and they do not know what is in it, I do not really feel like that serving the relationship and really helping people move forward and avoid the kind of conflict that then turns into legal trouble because we want to make sure that we have a good, fair deal that people have clear expectations of what are we agreeing on here.

How did Brittany end up where she is now?

[9:36]

Brittany graduated from law school. She was not sure what she was going to do but she was open to having her path be navigated by a higher power and trying to be thoughtful and intentional.

[10:27]

She made sure that she dug deep and understood more about the world of licensing and influencer marketing and how she could make sure that she can provide help in terms of intellectual property, in the intersection of kind of privacy, internet, social media, intellectual property, and startup law.

Is there a practical difference between an attorney and a lawyer?

[11:36]

Brittany said that it is the same thing. So, they are used interchangeably.

[14:43]

She kind of forged her own path in terms of, she really like having control over who her clients are. Brittany really likes having control over her schedule. And so, she tried to build

her business and her practice around that so that it could serve her and serve the people that she really wants to be working with.

What different types of business-specific attorney specialties are available for

In this episode, we have invited Brennon Poynor, he is the executive producer of Speak Studios and also has been a longtime podcaster. Brennon has lived in Spokane since 1991. In 2002, he met his wife, and they got married in 2005. He worked for a lawn mowing company for a couple of summers, worked at hotdog on a stick, and Red Robin. He also went to school for graphic design at the Spokane falls community college.

In this episode, we have invited Kara Hooper, a Web Designer, Digital Marketer, and SEO Expert. Kara founded KLH Technology Solutions about five years after graduating from college with a Computer Science and Mathematics degree. Kara has created and managed a wide range of custom web design, development, and marketing projects for her clients over the years. KLH continues to innovate and extend its services in response to its customers' needs and evolving technological demands.

In this episode, we have invited Chris Angell, the founder, and creator of Groundswell Marketing Agency, a High-Performance Growth Strategies Agency that helps conscious companies stay focused on and build strategies around their Important Work in the world. He helps big thinkers simplify their steps for changing the world. With his vast experience as an excellent business coach, he can draw out your "Important Work" in the world and develop strategies and tactics to expand your influence.

In this episode, we have invited Kendra Gudz, a coach for business owners and individuals. Kendra has been in the coaching field for over 15 years. She started out coaching when she was doing clinical bodywork and realized how much of our emotional selves manifest in our physical body if left unaddressed. She started her first business when she was just 23 and sold it ten years later for six figures while providing coaching support to her successor. She has coached dozens of other small business owners through their journeys and takes pride in being a member of the community and bringing people together.

In this episode, we have invited Malia Rogers, a nationwide health insurance broker with over 15 years of Award-Winning Customer Care experience. Known for her integrity and passion for helping others, it has given her a great sense of fulfillment. Today, Malia shares the aspects of insurance, debunks myths and misconceptions, and her advice for someone looking for an insurance.

In this episode, we have invited Mark Pond, a business research librarian at the Spokane Public Library. Since 2006, Mark has been the business research librarian with the Spokane Public Library. From 1998 to 2006, he worked in a similar capacity for the Seattle Public Library, as well as the University of Washington libraries. In the course of his work at the Spokane public library, Mark has built a world-class collection of freely available business research tools ranging from competitive analysis to sales, lead development, retail site selection, demographics research, to on-demand workforce education.