Laying the Groundwork: How Financial Coaches Strengthen Advisory Relationships

Alan:  Welcome to Behind the Advisor with XYPN, your behind-the-scenes look at the challenges and victories fee-only advisors encounter as they launch, run, and grow their independent firms. Join us for a deep dive into the real life stories, frontline insights and actionable strategies it takes to build a thriving, purpose-driven firm on your terms.

Today's guest is Monica Scudieri, founder of Grab Your Slice, LLCA financial coaching business focused on empowering single parents, clients going through life transitions and those building a new financial foundation. Monica helps people get financially stable and confident to prepare them for a long-term relationship with a financial advisor. Think of her as the bridge between chaos and strategy.

Today we're going to talk about the powerful synergy between financial coaches and advisors, how to use coaching to improve client readiness, and how her own tenure journey to financial independence inspired this mission. 

Monica, welcome to the show.

Monica: Thank you very much, Alan. I am really excited to be here.

Alan: And I am excited to share your story because, as we were talking about in the pre-call, I have a real passion around financial coaching, because I thought financial coaching and the way we define it in this episode is what I thought all financial planning was like.

When I started the CFP program, I was like, I'd read a Dave Ramsey book and I think it's like budgeting and credit scores and debt and that sort of thing.

And then you get into it. They never mentioned debt one time in my entire undergrad and masters in financial planning. It just wasn't a topic.

Monica: Yes. Yeah. And it is really interesting because you go to–and even for me, starting out–you just go to a financial advisor and they're like, okay, how much money do you have to invest? And I'm going, not a lot, and they're like come back to me when you have this amount.

And so yeah, there's not a whole lot of conversation or support around the foundational toolbox of finances.

Alan: Yeah. So let's talk about that service. How do you define the role or the difference between a financial coach and a financial advisor?

Monica: Yeah. And I get a lot of people that ask me that. So when I think about coaching versus advising, the advisors come in and their specialty is, how do we invest this money for the long term? How do we need long-term care? Do we need annuities? Where are we? What is your, and they look at your risk assessment to see what would make the most sense as far as investing your money.

But when you work with a coach, I think of it as the pre-step. This is the person you go to when you've been through some kind of financial devastation. You're just graduating college. You have your first job. You want to know about how do I manage my cash flow? When I get clients that come to me, they have no idea the money coming in.

They don't know where their money goes. They don't know why they're in debt. They don't know why the debt keeps growing. And so working with me and we talk about not only your why of what, why are you coming to me now, but also the goals. And even just doing that much and understanding how you can define goals as far as retirement and even, you know, a lot of people, they come to me like I just want to travel in retirement but they don't really know what that means.

There's no thought around how long, where you're going, whether you want to RV, you want to stay home, grandchildren. There are so many ways to define that. And when you're working with couples, they tend to talk using the same words, but not the same definitions. And so coaching helps to bridge all of that, understand your cash flow, put a plan together to get out of debt based on your personality and what you're looking for, and then turning that into money now that the debt is paid off.

Looking for opportunities to rearrange your cash flow before you even get to budgeting. So a lot of people, they look at me and they think, oh, Monica's going to show me how to budget. But budgeting doesn't even come into conversation until the second or third month because there's so many things that need to happen to understand money.

And then money is just a tool that we use. It's not the thing that we worship. And so those are the types of things that I like to teach my clients so that when they get to the financial advisor. The conversation is so much more robust and the financial advisor benefits because they don't have to go digging for information.

If they come with confidence that they know what they want. 

Alan: I don’t know if this is the best metaphor, but it's always felt to me like financial coaching was the couch to 5K program. It's the - “I don't know what I'm doing”. I don't know what shoes to buy. I don't know how often to run. I can't run. My partner doesn't support me running.

It's the building of those habits and the foundation. Whereas financial planning has historically very much been like, oh, we take Boston marathon runners and increase their speed by five seconds a mile. And it's a great service. But that is a very fundamentally different service than the couch to 5K focus.

Monica: Absolutely. Absolutely. And a lot of times, I've had doctors come and I work with them and people are always surprised to hear that because doctors, they think they've thought of as they make all this money and that is true when you go into being a doctor, nurse or whatever.

You have money coming in, but that doesn't mean that you know how to manage the money coming in. You may be the best doctor in the country, but that doesn't mean that you're managing your cash flow so that you can maximize that and build the life that you want. So it's a very different mindset.

Alan: So you've mentioned clients going from your service to working with a financial advisor. Can you talk about how you partner with advisors and what benefit the advisor sees, by partnering with you with clients?

Monica: Yeah. So a lot of times an advisor will get clients that they think they're ready for a financial advisor, and it's exactly what you said. They're coming to the financial advisor. But what they're really asking is how do I get out of this debt? How do I start saving for retirement? Do I put money in my 401k or Roth?

What is an HSA, and so a lot of the advisors I speak to. They realize that really what they're needing is coaching. And so the client has the option to come to me. And I usually tell advisors to have more than just one coach to have two or three, because everybody has their own, just like advisors, you have your own niche.

Coaches are the same way. And so when I work with somebody, it's with the intent of coaching them for three to four months and get them and answer all those questions and get them in a place that makes sense for what they want in their life. Because we all have different needs, different phases of our life.

Some people come to me and they're single, they're not married. Others, they go through a divorce. They've got kids, some people come to me, they're single parents. Never married and they have all this debt, and so working with where they are, what's important to them, and then how do we build a plan based on that?

It's very customized and teaching them all of those things. And then when they can go, then when, once they have that, it's not necessarily that they're completely out of debt, but they have a plan. They have that confidence. They can always come back to me and ask questions. But the idea is that in those three, four months.

They have built a toolbox and they have a true understanding, changing their mindset about how to work with money and how you leverage it. And so that's the big takeaway. And then I send them back to the financial advisor.

Alan: Are there enough financial coaches for this to be a strategy for financial advisors? Because it does seem like. There's way more people who actually need financial coaching in this country than financial planning, financial advising. And so I guess, how do you recommend, it seems like, at least when I was practicing, it was hard enough to find one coach, much less three, to be able to refer to are there enough coaches out there?

Or is it simply that the service model allows you to work with so many more people than advisors, that we don't need a one-to-one, coach to advisor ratio out there.

Monica: So that's a great question. It's the first time anybody's ever asked me that. And to be honest I do feel like there are a lot of coaches out there now. The thing about coaching is that you don't really need a certification to be a coach. I use my own life experience, and I wrote the book to show that I have street cred.

I know what I'm talking about, but really anybody can hang a shingle and say they're coaching. And so that's why I think, it's, you have to have those conversations and vet them to see, is this person really getting what I need? Can they really support me where I am in my life and can they help me look forward?

So there are organizations, you can get certified as a coach, but it's not a requirement. And so I think that can make the water a little muddy and that, I think it requires a lot of conversations, building that trust and just seeing where a person is.

Alan: So let's talk a little bit about your journey. Like what led you to, financial coaching later on as a, I don't know, second, third career choice later on in life. Can you just talk about your story and what led you to becoming a coach?

Monica: Yeah, so I went through a divorce that was amicable. But in the divorce I got the kids and the house and the cats. But I also got the debt of the marriage, which was $257,000. I was a contractor. In the state of North Carolina, you have to be separated for 12 months, and then at the end of 12 months, in one day, you can file your divorce papers and then go through the process.

When I filed and the divorce was finalized, my contract came to an end and I was unemployed. And I don't have family here, so it was just me and the kids and it was a struggle. So I went through unemployment for nine months. One second time was seven months. The third time was six months, which was almost like a two year period in those first five years where I went through unemployment.

And yet. I was very resourceful because I knew exactly how much I was spending. I knew how much I needed. So you get really creative when you're in a position like that. The housing market was a mess, so I ended up postponing selling the house until I could get enough out of it to downsize.

And a lot of it is just. You have to swallow your pride when you're starting later in life. But then things turned around and I had a lot of opportunities that I was in a position to take advantage of, and so I got into real estate, ended up buying rental properties, and that carried me to 10 years later, getting to my financial independence.

I did go through that “one more year” syndrome for a little while and, with COVID and, what was I going to do with my time? And I didn't retire right away, but when I did it was in 2022, and then that's when I came out with the book. And because even during that time, people would still come to me and ask me lots of questions about the 401k or HSA or any of these things worth it, and what's the difference?

And so I was doing it even though I didn't realize I was doing it and I was being a fire person, even though I didn't know what fire was early on in my little journey. So all of those things, I just felt like, especially single moms, there's about 12 million single moms here in the US. I focus on them because I feel like they are at more of a disadvantage.

Then the dads are the ones that are the caregivers for the kids. Most likely for the parents, the in-laws, most likely, they're the ones that sacrifice their career. They're the ones that get paid less. Unfortunately, that's still true. And so it causes them to be at a disadvantage. And that is why I focus on that area.

I've worked with married couples and I've worked with. Single men. But that is my sweet spot. So that's how I got into this line of work. It's absolutely my passion, my legacy. It's what I want to give back. And yeah.

Alan: That's, thanks for sharing that. And you mentioned you wrote a book. Can you tell us about Grab your slice of Financial independence?

Monica: Yeah. So here's what it looks like. I published in September, 2022, and it is my 10 year journey going from the divorce and $257,000 of debt to my financial independence. And what makes this different is that I grouped the years into phases and at the end of each phase. There's exercises that the reader can follow along and do themselves to make their own journey to financial independence.

And the other thing I do in my book, which I thought a lot about, was I actually publish my net worth at the end of each year so that people understand that it's not instant gratification. There is a lot of work, sweat, grit that you have to put into it to get to financial independence. And so those are the types of things.

Now what's funny about this book is that I wrote it with single mom in mind, and that is my audience. But I've had a surprising number of married couples buy two copies and they read it separately. They get to phase one, they do the homework separately, and then they come together and have a conversation about what they wrote, and it's just been.

Really interesting to see how those conversations become using the same definitions and they're talking the same language. And, they tell me that these are some of the most fruitful money conversations they've ever had in their marriage. It's been an interesting journey with the book.

Alan: That's awesome. Yeah, it really is a powerful way to get your brand out there, to get the message and honestly 20 years ago, it was a huge deal to launch a book. Now the tools and the resources have made it much more accessible. Even to us, when we launched the book on monthly subscriptions it was manageable, which, I don't think 20 years ago I would've been able to publish.

So you've mentioned the FIRE community and this is something that I'm a lurker in the– I love watching the conversations in the FatFIRE channel on Reddit. So fatFIRE for listeners is financial independence, retire early. That's the FIRE movement. FatFIRE is, I want to retire with a bunch of money.

So these are folks who are trying to retire with $10 million. It's fascinating because they really do not like financial advisors. They think we are all crooks and would never hire advisors. They're DIYers, which is

Monica: They're DIYers.

Alan: So I'm curious, your experience working with these clients, particularly anyone who resonates with your story of fire, are they most, are most of them going on to hire a financial advisor or are most of them sort of finding, building those foundational skills and then they go the DIY route where they never hire an advisor? I'm just curious.

'cause I do feel like fire and the way we are trained as CFPs are very much in conflict and it's just not how we're trained. And that can be really hard for advisors.

Monica: I don't, not everybody I work with is in the FIRE mindset. And some of them, it's a mixed bag. Some of them want to work with a financial advisor. They want someone to tell them, okay, I have this money. I've saved it. But now. I'm not sure how to invest it. And so they'll want to work with somebody and it could be to different degrees.

They could hire somebody to say, I'm a DIYer, but I'm leaving some guidance. And so they'll pay hourly and have a full workup of their money and kind of do a stress test of it. And then I've had other people, they're like, that's not my thing. I don't want to do it.

I'd rather have somebody else, I'll pay them to do it. And then I've had other people, they're just not ready for a financial advisor. They have a plan just to get out of debt. That is their goal. They have money for emergencies, they have money for the big expenses, and they just need to get past getting out of debt before they can build up enough cash to hire a financial advisor. So it's, it's like where they are in their journey, just like anything else.

Alan: That makes a lot of sense. So I guess with your service model, you've mentioned that you do a three to four month engagement model. Can you walk us through how you engage with clients, what that, what those three to four months looks like for a typical client case? 

Monica: Yeah. When they come to me, a lot of the conversation is around why they came to me and. What are they looking to get out of this? And really, it's a lot of foundational stuff. And then I'll start to give them homework. If they don't have a tool to be able to record their spending and their cash flow.

And what I tell them is in the first month, do not change your money habits. If you're going out for coffee every morning, go out for coffee every morning. If you're going out to eat twice a day, keep doing that. But I want to see what your life is like day to day. Don't make any changes. Most of the time they listen.

I have a few that are like I'm too embarrassed. It's like you hire a housekeeper, but you clean the house before they

Alan: Oh yeah.

Monica: So it's the same idea. But for the ones that do it it's an eyeopener, and so we go through that first month where they record all of their spending and the money that comes in.

And then I, the next phase is we analyze that first month and then we look at what debt do they have, what is the interest rate, what is the payoff amount? And we build ourselves a little chart on that. We talk about what their goals are, where they are in life today, do they have kids?

We factor that in. We factor in if they have a house, they want to buy one, whatever their goals are. And so we really dig into the smart goal way of building goals and really dig into what does that look like? It's - I want to lose weight versus - starting on the first, I'm going to lose one to two pounds every week until I get to my 20 pound loss, and that's what I want, and so really drilling down and understanding why is this important? Is this really something that you want? And so we'll start to put together a plan. We get to the second month of what their cash flow really looks like, because in the first month, they're just spending money the way they want. But in the second month, we start really thinking about - do I really want to spend $700 going out to eat? Do you remember all those meals? If you're a foodie and you remember all those meals and that is totally your thing, then maybe we leave that, but then we're going to have to take from something else. And that's why in the book, I use the analogy of a pie, you only can make so many slices.

So maybe you make some slices smaller and some slices bigger depending on what's important to you. And so we have those types of conversations where it's not for me to tell them. I can't believe that you're spending money on coffee or going out to eat. It's more of does this add value to your life? And thinking about that.

And a lot of times they just, it's like anybody can't believe I spent that much on groceries. I can't believe I went out to eat that many times. I don't remember half of those meals. I can't believe my discretionary spending. Oh, that's right. I bought concert tickets and I went to this festival and like all those little things that you never think about.

Now we have some really solid data. You're starting to move money around between categories, and by the third month we can start talking about what a budget looks like. But I tell them that don't feel like you're going to write it and that it's set in stone just like your goals. Budgeting is flexible, so I tell them, if by the first quarter, second quarter, the third quarter, look at the budget. Look at your spending for the year. Look at what you budgeted for the year, not just for the month. Look at what you budgeted for the year and where are you on that? Are you going to need to up your budget in these categories? Or maybe you can decrease them.

Or maybe I decided not to take any vacations this year. I just want to focus on getting the house done. And so having those conversations and telling 'em that it's okay to move money in different buckets. And when you build your budget for next year, you can use this year as an example and as your foundation.

And so just having those types of conversations, that is a lot of what we talk about. And then once we have the cash flow in a position where we're like 80, 90%, because it's always in flux, we start seeing where the opportunities are to pull money out of your paychecks to be able to put toward debt. And then when we start talking about debt, we start talking about are you an instant gratification person?

Because if you are, then you want to pay off those smaller total, and close those accounts. Or maybe we don't close them, maybe, and so it's a lot of strategy, a lot of leveraging, a lot of thinking about money differently so that you can have the life that you want that makes sense for you, that brings you joy.

And once we start having that by the third month, if they're doing their homework and they're being honest with themselves. They really start, they start getting super excited. 'cause like day one they're excited. By two weeks they're terrified, but the first month they're like, I'm sick to my stomach. This is so hard.

And then they're like, oh, this isn't so bad. And then they're excited again. And so it's the rollercoaster of feelings. But I love that, they come to me and they're like, oh my God, this is. Why didn't anybody teach me this? Why don't we teach this in schools? That's a whole other conversation of what I think is happening, but that is the, that's my goal is that you are excited about, you're like, money's not a scary topic anymore.

You can have these conversations because you have confidence. You know what you want, you know where the money is. You have opportunities to do more with what you have. And then it's going toward the things that make you happy, not just willy-nilly. I always say, I have parents, I always tell them money is like children.

If you don't give it something to do, it's going to go off and get into trouble, so it is true, you have to keep an eye on it. Even me, I still, every once in a while I'm like, ah. And then I look and I'm like, Ugh. Maybe I need to curb that a little bit, 

Alan: So how often are you working with clients beyond the three to four month mark? 'cause it does seem what you just described feels like an ideal scenario, but I also think, sometimes habits just take longer to form and also just sometimes you just need more time to actually get, start getting debt paid off and that sort of thing.

So I guess what percentage of your clients are good after three to four months? And then how many are staying with you for a longer term relationship?

Monica: So most of them are good after the three, four months. If I can get them somebody to help them with the next phase just depends on where they are. It’s rare that I have somebody come back and go, and usually it's around. This happened, it's, my son, had whatever situation and I don't really know what to do with this.

And so can you help me think through it? It's usually a very specific situational thing, and then we just brainstorm what the opportunities are. What makes sense for them and then I just give them things to think about and then that, that, that's usually when they come back to me.

It's stuff like that. 

Alan: So I guess from a client perspective if we're speaking to advisors, most of the folks listening are advisors and they may be thinking like, what, who needs coaching versus who needs advising?

Monica: Yeah.

Alan: just talk about how you differentiate, like how you figure out quickly if someone, which service someone is really in need of.

Monica: Yeah, so with financial advisors, a lot of times we focus on three different clients. So usually it's somebody that's brand new that's just starting out. Maybe they're in their early mid to late twenties, early thirties, and they think they're ready, but really what they need is a coach.

They can send them to me to help get them the foundation set up and then they go back. Another client is somebody who, maybe you have a married couple that's been with you for 10, 15 years and now they're going through a divorce and the wife has really not sat in on these conversations.

They don't really do anything with money, and so usually the wife is the one that I'll take on to help them to teach them how you manage money and where do we go from here? And then the third client that we talk about is clients that you've had for 10, 15, 20 years. And they have kids, but their kids don't know how to manage money.

They're going to get this big inheritance and they need some help with the foundation. And so we have conversations around that where you have young people coming in and so that you can build that generational clients and help them to understand how do you manage this and what is it, how does it impact your life?

Where can we, 'cause it's not all about saving and investing. It's about enjoying today, but also investing for tomorrow. So it's a little balanced.

Alan: And how do you charge for your services?

Monica: So I do a sliding scale. So it depends on the person, the situation, the complexity. They pay upfront on the month, and we can have as many or as few conversations as they want. Usually the first month we've got two or three lined up. And then after that it's more of a check-in through email. But that's what we meet as often as or as little as they need.

And so it really depends on the person. When married couples, I will say that I have a hard rule about both, both husband and wife or the couple they have to come together. And it's surprising how sometimes I get people who they're like it's just me. My husband doesn't really do anything.

Or we don't even mix our finances. To me, you're married, you come together. If you can't do that, I am not your coach. And it's it is a, balance, but

Alan: So what would you say maybe is the average fee a client would pay you? Recognizing there's a range of complexity. I just thinking for advisors as they are talking to a client to know can they afford financial coaching? Is this an approachable service for their clients?

Monica: Yeah. I'm usually around the two 50 to three 50 range, per month. But it can be as much as 400. It just really depends on how

Alan: call it 800 or 700 to a thousand dollars, something like that for the three to four month engagement.

Monica: Yeah. Yeah.

Alan: As you think back over your career and just all the people you've been able to help with this just awesome service that, again, there a whole lot more Americans need financial coaching than need financial advising.

And I know way fewer coaches than I know advisors. I guess what's something that you're most proud of as you think back on so far? You, you, you already referred to this as your legacy, which is awesome. That's such a cool way to think about it. What are you most proud of through this journey?

Monica: I have to say, I never in a million, if you would've told me like five, 10 years ago that I would've published a book, I would've thought you were crazy. I thought, I don't even have enough to say to fill a pamphlet, and here I am. I wrote this book and, the other thing I was like, nobody wants to hear about a single mom and going through debt and raising kids and all of that craziness.

But it turns out lots of people do. And then there's a huge audience for it. And so I'm, I am proud that I wrote the book. I am humbled at the feedback I've gotten the reviews on like Amazon or Good Reads. I'm just so humbled that I've changed lives, that I've had people think about money differently and that they reread the book just to absorb the different ways to manage their finances.

It's it gives me goosebumps to even think about it. But, it's a very proud moment when I have a client that I work with and that light bulb moment comes.

And that's when I can tell I'm going to lose another one. But it's because they graduate and they go on with their life.

And so those are the things that really make me proud. But I'll say, as many people that I talk to, and a lot of times they'll say, oh wow you're a coach. Oh, that's what you do. God, I really need to talk to you. I really need to work with you. But I never hear from them again. And a lot of it is because.

You may know emotionally, you may know you need to, but it doesn't mean that you're ready to look at the situation. And I gotta be honest, the people that come to me, they're terrified. But then they, when we go through the process and we do the analysis and we look at it nine outta 10 times, they look at it and they go.

This is nowhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be. This is manageable. I can do this. And there's hope and there's excitement that they can turn their finances around and make the life that they deserve. So that's something that I find very interesting when I work with people.

Alan: Have you found the book to be a good source of lead gen in bringing clients in? Or is it more-so once they meet with you, you can give them the book and it serves as validation or social signaling that you're an expert?

Monica: Yeah, it's definitely the latter because I am not a sales and marketing person at all. This is, it's like anything, like I like the coaching part. That's my lane. To pump up the book and to talk about the services and the book is so great and you should buy it.

I'm not really good at that kind of thing. So it's just I love doing these things and helping people, and this has probably been a good source of getting clients, is doing podcast interviews and working with people. Yeah, I do like that.

Alan: It's amazing the reach that podcasts have. I definitely encourage folks to, if you get the opportunity to be a guest on a podcast in your niche, take it

Monica: Yeah, yeah, I had a woman send me an email. She was somewhere in Asia, going all the way over there. It was like 14 hour time zones away. And she was like, I heard you on a podcast. I looked you up on, on it, LinkedIn, and I have listened to all of your podcasts.

And she said to me, she goes, you hear a lot about men and how they make money. You're maybe the third woman I've ever heard that self-made, that started with less than nothing, six figure debt. And, but you found a way and she goes – I just want to tell you how much she sent me this email. I appreciate so much you sharing your story.

Stuff like that. It's just, it's better than any paycheck I've ever gotten.

Alan: It really is. That's awesome. So where can you know, for advisors who are listening, they want to learn more, they want to stay in touch with you, what's the best way for them to find more information about you, your services, and to stay in touch?

Monica: Yeah, absolutely. So I do have a website. It's grab your slice.com. My email is Grabyourslice@gmail.com. You can find me on LinkedIn. I pay attention there as well. The book can be found on Amazon. You can find Review or Barnes and Noble. You can find reviews on Goodreads as well. Some people, financial advisors, they'll buy in bulk to hand out to clients.

And so if people are interested in that I do give a discount for a bulk purchase and I can even customize it to put your financial advisor firm on the front, or all the best or happy holidays, and we can do stuff like that too, which is, I think, always a nice touch. But yeah, those are the ways to find me.

Alan: Wonderful. Thank you again for taking the time to come on the show and share your story and the incredibly important service that you're providing clients. Hopefully some advisors reach out to you after this.

Monica: I would love that. I would love that. Absolutely. Thank you very much for having me. This has been a true joy and a real pleasure.

Alan: All right, listeners, thanks for hanging out with us on Behind the Advisor. Want more bonus content from this episode and future episodes? Subscribe to our email list at joinxypn.com/bta. Remember, it's all about helping people live their best lives here at XYPN. We'll catch you in the next episode.