Lois Basil

Lois set up shop in Chicago, joining an ever-growing Illinois ACP contingent. Lois attended the May 2011 training class and is off and running with her practice. She is trying to strike a balance between taking on new clients and implementing systems to make her business more scalable in the future. Lois is making a deliberate attempt to adopt the systems now that will help her achieve the practice she envisions having five years down the road.

Lois, like many ACP members, is a career changer. Thirteen years ago she opened an accounting practice serving small businesses and non-profit organizations. She primarily assisted her clients with cash flow. Lois built a nice practice through word of mouth but was becoming bored and realized that this type of business was not very “sellable.” At about this time, her family was trying to make decisions about their own finances and struggling to find advice that was understandable and unbiased. This experience motivated Lois to enroll in the Certified Financial Planner™ program at Northwestern University.

After completing the CFP® program Lois set out to open her own financial planning firm. She did not feel comfortable with the AUM model and wanted to work with middle income clients. She attended the 2010 NAPFA National Conference in Chicago to further research her career in financial planning. She explored hourly financial planning and did not feel it would lend itself to the services she wanted to deliver. She also met Bridget Sullivan Mermel at the conference. Bridget provided some background on ACP and urged Lois to attend the 2010 ACP Annual Conference in Scottsdale. After the first day of the conference, Lois realized that ACP was where she needed to be.

Lois enjoys meeting with prospective clients. She has attracted most of her prospects and clients through ongoing volunteer efforts at her church and her children’s school. Lois found a presentation she gave on FAFSAs to be a particularly effective driver for potential clients to contact her. As she builds her practice and gains experience in the financial planning realm she has learned that clients help teach her to become a better financial planner.