Childhood lessons inform advisor's empathetic ethos

Brad Sherman grew up witnessing how unfairly weighted financial systems can be. After seeing his parents mistreated by the system in terms of both benefits and the advice offered to them both, he understood that something was very wrong. Following his parents’ subsequent divorce, Sherman gained invaluable insight into how difficult managing finances can be for single parent families and younger professionals.

“My father taught me about the stock market when I was a kid,” he says. “We used to watch Wall Street Week together every Friday. I was very statistics-based - just really into money and entrepreneurship and personal finance, all of this intersected as a grandson of immigrants to this country. The understanding of the market and public companies were always a real passion of mine.”

Now, as President of Sherman Wealth Management, all these childhood lessons have certainly paid off. He explains that at the heart of his company’s ethos sits a love of helping younger professionals build out customized wealth management plans – with a real focus on aiding those who may have had negative experiences around money.

“I had this idea to help young professionals, Millennials at the time,” he says. “People who were either recently married or had a life event, such as a child or buying their first home - and there really wasn't anywhere for them to turn. We set out to be a fee-only firm with a lot of diverse thoughts [and ideas].”

One of these diverse thoughts originated from Sherman’s career history in the mortgage space – specifically as a loan originator.

“It taught me that intersection of financial planning, credit and budgeting to help couples and individuals think about their financial future and what’s important to them,” he explains.

Again, it all comes back Sherman's experience in quantitative finance and his observations around the lack of financial literacy among younger professionals – that’s shaped his approach to client education, especially where open conversations about money are concerned.

"I think it’s important for people to have open conversations about money,” Sherman says. “Part of our passion here is financial literacy and empowerment for individuals and couples  because it's not taught in school. I was lucky in that sense – we weren’t wealthy but we did have open talks about money. It all ties back to that behavioural aspect - everyone comes from a different upbringing.

“We're working with a lot of recently married couples [as well as] people who’ve been married for 10 years when they first meet us. And a lot of these folks have rarely talked about money before with each other – they’ve had premarital counselling like you would with the clergy but they don't talk about what money means to them.”

Sherman believes this lack of open communication around money is in some part due to an inherent shame or lack of confidence – individuals being nervous to talk about balances and budgets – which in itself only makes the problem worse.

“Being able to facilitate those conversations with folks is important,” Sherman says. “A lot of people have anxieties about money because they think that they're not bright enough [to talk about] personal finance. And that's just not the case.”

Beyond his own passion for financial literacy and education, Sherman's firm focuses on integrating technology into its services - a strategy he believes is essential in the current financial landscape.

“We utilize state of the art technology for our clients,” he tells InvestmentNews. “From a client portal to analytics for their investments to risk tolerance software to financial planning software and data aggregation for accounts that we don't necessarily manage – however, we think it's important for folks to have a macro view of their net worth and cashflow. I think that we were lucky - or maybe just [understood] the intersection of human advice with technology so that people can have an access to the information at their fingertips at any time.”

At Sherman Wealth Management they’re also working to coordinate with other professionals through their vast network to help clients with a range of services, whether that's estate planning, or life insurance professional or anything in between to ensure that the needs of their clients are not only met but prioritized.   

“I think it's important to have someone who oversees everything that's going on at a macro level. That intersection of the technology and the human touch, which I touched on earlier, is really important for folks thinking about the future and [for us] thinking about how to best serve clients.”