Business & Finance Coach, Savannah Elam
Who/what inspired the creation of your financial services agency?
As soon as I graduated high school, I moved out on my own and started working my first “big girl job” where I was on salary and had benefits. Living in Los Angeles working an entry-level job, I simply wasn’t making enough money to make ends meet. I had to pick up two other part-time jobs -- one I worked before or after my nine-to-five, and the other on weekends. Meanwhile, I was a full-time college student, and I quickly became unhappy with the routine my life had fallen into. I didn’t like the idea of waking up early every day just to go to work, just to come home, make dinner, go to bed, and repeat. I felt like I had no sense of purpose. On a whim, I decided to pack my things, break my lease, and move up to Seattle, WA. While I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, I knew I needed and wanted a change. However, I moved with no savings and no real plan, so by 19 years old, I found myself in almost $15,000 of credit card debt.
Why is your work important to you?
My work is important to me because I know the pain and discomfort it feels to live paycheck to paycheck. I used to hate feeling like I was always playing catch up and it seemed like I could never get ahead with my savings or investments. I also know how it feels to be educated on how money works. I love feeling more confident heading into my financial future and I want to be able to help everyone feel that way, because we all deserve to live a life of worry. There is a freedom that comes with being able to pay to live versus trying to figure out how to pay to survive. My firm and I take an educative approach to teach basic financial concepts to individuals, families, and business owners, to spread financial literacy to all!
What moment in your career are you most proud of?
The moment of my career that I’m most proud of thus far was back in July 2019. For about a year prior, I was running my own office in a mid-to-small sized town. While it seemed like a good location when we first selected it, my business team and I quickly realized that it was not the best fit for what we do. A bigger city, about an hour away from the office we were originally in, had a unique energy. After visiting it for the first time, my gut was telling me I had to open an office there. It was a hustle and bustle, up and coming city that homes some of the biggest companies today: Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, Nordstrom, and more!
The only problem was, I didn’t know anyone there, half of my business team at the time was unwilling to move or make the commute to the new location, and I had zero dollars to my name and a far less than perfect credit score to be able to get a new office. But I’ve learned over time to always trust my gut. So, I signed up for one of those open co-working spaces and started making the commute (usually about two hours one way during rush hour) and started to interview potential business partners/other financial professionals. After two months, we had a team of about ten to fifteen people, and we opened our first private office. Our clientele almost immediately quadrupled what it had done in the year prior, production skyrocketed, we had a buzzing office, and I knew it was all because I decided to take the leap, jump out of my comfort zone, and build a business in a new location with no connections and no money. “Always go with the choice that scares you the most, because that’s the one that is going to help you grow.”
What have been the most valuable lessons you've learned as an entrepreneur and financial advisor?
Some of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned as an entrepreneur are the idea of “Some will, some won’t, so what? Next,” and that the “compounding effect” is real. Not every person we sit down with becomes a client, but plenty do, and kids go to college one day because of the services we provide. People retire with our help, businesses are started because of us, and long-term care, estate planning, life insurance and more, provides peace of mind to families throughout the country because of us. So just because we may face rejection (almost every single day), we focus our energy on the families that we do help. Plus, since we offer complimentary financial coaching sessions, I believe people are better off after sitting down with us anyway, simply because they probably walked away with some knowledge they didn’t have before. The “compounding effect” is the concept that you don’t have to have huge wins every day, but by just implementing a series of small, good habits and keeping consistent with them every single day, you will achieve your goals as soon as the efforts have compounded. I’ve seen this become so evident in every aspect of my life, especially business. The first few years are hard – you’re doing a lot, A LOT of work with seemingly little to no results. But as long as you keep going and don’t quit, one day you’ll wake up and realize you have everything you one day dreamed of. I know I’m just getting started, and I’m excited to see what the future will hold! □