After 11 years as an emergency room physician, Carolyn McClanahan saw her career change course.
When her husband, Trib La-Prade, an engineer, decided he wanted a new career path, Ms. McClanahan, a successful investor during the early 1990s, also considered making a switch.
He became a track coach, and she decided to become a financial planner.
After spending three years as an adviser for an insurance company during the early part of this decade, Dr. McClanahan, a Jacksonville, Fla., native, began a
financial planning practice there that focuses on assisting doctors who have recently completed their residencies.
Now the Southern regional chairwoman for the Arlington Heights, Ill.-based National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, she heads Life Planning Partners Inc., a fee-only firm.
"I wanted to make sure I would get the processes in place, so I would get the business," Dr. McClanahan said. "And that is what happened."
Physicians, Dr. McClanahan said, "are not a trusting group." But "I was friends with them, and they knew that I would be upfront, ethical and do everything in their best interest."
One way her niche is unique is that much of the planning for doctors in-volves protecting assets from malpractice lawsuits, Dr. McClanahan said.
As for career fulfillment, most doctors ultimately aren't satisfied with the health-care industry, she said.
"Most doctors are focused on career transitioning, and many are trying to become financially independent," Dr. McClanahan said.
Despite working full time as an adviser, she hasn't abandoned medicine; she runs a clinic at a homeless shelter in Jacksonville.
She is just one of several planners whose past careers or life experiences inform their practices as advisers.
Robert Reed, a former professor of cultural anthropology at The Ohio State University in Columbus, was one of the few people at the school who could explain its 403(b) retirement savings plan to his colleagues.
He now specializes in working with professors and creative-arts professionals, most of whom are in their mid-20s.
Mr. Reed's Columbus-based firm, Reed Financial Planning LLC, manages $15 million in assets.
He works with clients on a re-tainer relationship: They pay an annual fee at the beginning of the year and then meet with him as many times as they wish.
When working with clients, Mr. Reed focuses on how a client can best use their real-estate position in their portfolio. He also helps them compute their taxes.
"I would rather grow my clients at [the middle-income] range," Mr. Reed said. "We have a way of doing that and making a living at the same time.
"Most clients need help, because the material is out there for the businessman who is selling the product," Mr. Reed added.
He suggests that advisers who want to work with middle-income clients come up with a specific niche in order to have a skill set that goes beyond financial planning.
"You might as well work with the kind of people who you hang around with anyway," Mr. Reed said.
While most parents can leave work, come home and relax with their kids, parents of children with developmental disabilities face as many challenges after work as they do during it.
Ron Pearson, a fee-only financial planner at Beach Financial Advisory Service in Virginia Beach, Va., comes home to 36- and 33-year-old mentally retarded sons on a nightly basis.
Following 26 years of flying jets in the military, he had wondered what the future would bring for his sons if something were to happen to him.
After meeting with an estate-planning attorney — Mr. Pearson makes monthly contributions to a special-needs
trust for his sons — he eventually went for a certified financial planner designation on his own.
He started his practice in 1994 with a focus on helping parents of children with such conditions as Down syndrome, mental retardation and autism. Such parents now make up roughly one-third of Mr. Pearson's practice. He manages $50 million in assets.
The 18th year in the life of a disabled child is a critical one, Mr. Pearson said, as once they reach that age, they can receive government benefits only if no funds have been put in their name.
"When a parent is set to put their child in their will, I usually tell them to stop it," he said.
Mr. Pearson explained that money for those children is placed in a special-needs
trust so that it doesn't prevent a child from receiving government benefits.
An adviser with a specific area of expertise has a competitive advantage in their market and beyond, he said.
"It was easy to go to the local television stations. I was interviewed in newspapers and magazines, and spoke to support groups," Mr. Pearson said. "We were able to get in front of a lot of people and get referrals from professionals associated with our niche client.
"Having a specific focus to your firm gives you a competitive advantage," Mr. Pearson said. "You can get interest from support organizations, which help your firm blossom and add a lot of value to your practice."
An industry analyst agrees.
"We have seen a lot of people whose marketing strategies are specifically niche driven," said Peter Vessenes, chief executive of Shorewood, Minn.-based Vestment Advisors and co-author of "Building Your Multi-Million Dollar Practice: 8 Success Strategies of Top Producing Advisors" (Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2005). "People who are driven to become an adviser have a passion to help people who they see suffering."
Louis S. Harvey, president of Boston-based Dalbar Inc., which provides education about fiduciary matters to many advisers, cited the kind of niche planning fostered by
Edward Jones. The St. Louis-based broker used to recruit people from the communities it served to become advisers.
For instance, Mr. Harvey said, an adviser who worked at an auto dealership would naturally relate well to car salespeople.
"That phenomenon may not be as visible as it once was," he said, "but it is certainly a characteristic of practices that we see all over the place. The characteristics and economics of cash flow is something that an adviser can understand and match the needs to."
Mr. Harvey added: "I believe that you are going to see much more industry specialization. The business will not grow simply by going in there randomly trying to collect clients."
Aaron Siegel can be reached at [email protected].
