Morningstar - Q3 2021 - 86

Investors
Coaching Confidence
Charlotte Geletka helps clients feel
secure in their financial decisions.
Charles Keenan
USER PROFILE
To Charlotte Geletka, too many people lack
a clear sense of direction and purpose with their
finances. Managing money is not something
taught in schools, and all too often, the average
person is too intimidated to speak up.
" A lot of people do not have financial confidence, "
says Geletka, managing partner and owner
of Silver Penny, an Atlanta-based advisory firm.
" Our industry has been pretty exclusive. "
This has been the case with some of Geletka's
female clients who have called on her after
unexpected events such as divorce or the death of
a spouse. These women often aren't the
money decision-makers in the relationship. In one
case, a widow didn't feel confident to make
big or small financial decisions. Geletka worked
with her to construct a financial plan and
develop an investment strategy.
" I wanted her to feel comfortable to ask even
the most basic questions, " Geletka says. " I wanted
to translate the industry lingo, which can
sometimes make women investors feel excluded. "
Geletka, 40, has built a practice around coaching
people to be better stewards of their own
money. She likes to focus on the financial planning
and leave the stock-picking to third-party
asset managers.
" The value I bring as an advisor is helping the
individual investor make decisions aligned
with their plan, " she says. " My time is best spent
in the nitty-gritty of financial planning. "
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The approach resonates with clients. Geletka
has steadily built her business over time. The firm
has five other advisors, including partner
Jason Walker, with about $500 million of assets
under management. Most customers are retirees
with $500,000 to $5 million in assets, but
Geletka has structured fees to allow anyone to
come to her for financial planning.
Geletka charges a 1% fee for investment
management for assets up to $250,000, and 0.75%
thereafter. But for clients with less in assets, she
also charges flat fees ranging from $1,000 to
$10,000, depending on the complexity of the work.
" I don't want my business model to stand in the
way of giving people good financial advice, "
Geletka says. " A lot of young professionals don't
have the asset size to be served by traditional
wealth management. "
Earning a Slumber Party
Geletka was encouraged to learn about money
from her parents: " They always told me, 'Girls
can be good at money.' " Her father was a financial
planner and steered her to open a money
market account to earn a higher interest rate than
she would in a savings account.
Her mom taught her the importance of earning
one's keep, by tying rewards to chores. Geletka
would take out the trash, mop floors, and clean the
bathroom, accumulating points that would
allow her to enjoy treats such as renting a movie.
Sleepovers were the most expensive item,
so she would enlist friends to help her do chores
to help them all qualify for a slumber party.
After graduating from college in 2003, Geletka
faced a tough job market. She worked as a claims
adjuster for an insurance company, a position she
describes as " clock in, clock out. " She wanted
to make more of an impact, something that she
saw her father had. She landed at Lincoln
Financial as a retirement consultant, signing up
college professors who opted out of the
university pension plan at North Carolina State
University, her alma mater.
She became a financial advisor at Lincoln Financial
in 2007, following in the footsteps of her father,
Robert Cowan, and joining his business, Cowan &
Kohne Financial Group. Her confidence as an
advisor grew over time. One symbolic example was
how she dressed. In her days under the
Lincoln Financial umbrella, she wore gray suits to
fit in with the men. She eventually realized that
blending in was preventing her from differentiating
herself and shed the suits for dresses in colors
such as pink, allowing her to stand out. She says
her clients liked the change.
She's also differentiated her practice by getting
people to focus on life goals. That philosophy
helped her land one of her most personally
influential clients, a 70-year-old man with
ambitious travel aspirations for retirement. She
says he told her she was the only one
willing to approve a five-year travel budget
to travel the world.
" I'm one of the few financial advisors that will
actually encourage you to take money out of your
account if it makes sense, " Geletka says.
" I think he wanted permission to say, 'Hey, can
I take this large amount of money out to travel?' "
The retiree and his wife were four years into
the travel plan when he died suddenly in
2018. Geletka spoke at his funeral, which gave her
an affirmation of her approach. " This isn't
about money, " she says. " This is about people's
lives, goals, hope, dreams, and fears. "
Penny Wise
Geletka has also reshaped her practice in
recent years. After purchasing her father's book
of business in 2017, she added like-minded
advisors and renamed her practice Silver Penny,
inspired by the story of how the United
States in 1943, to preserve copper for World War II,
Morningstar - Q3 2021

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