Sons following their dads in a career path is pretty typical in today’s financial advisor world.
Not so much for daughters following their moms.
However Summer North did it and she’s pretty happy she did.
Summer has been an Edward Jones financial planner for four years and on Thursday, she opened her new location at 3401 N. Grimes to a packed house for a ribbon cutting.
“I just want to thank everyone for coming,” Summer said during the ceremony. “We love this location and we love all of our new neighbors. Edward Jones has been good to me and my family. This is a new fun and exciting adventure here.”
Summer’s mom, Luanne, has been in the business for 26 years, the past 10 with Edward Jones. It was a career field Summer took enough notice on to enroll at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas, to pursue a degree in finance. She took a break from college to learn the ropes under her mom.
“I started in 2012 and worked for my mom to get some experience,” Summer said. “A lot of it was stuff on the computers and programs. Then four years ago, I got licensed to be a financial advisor and Edward Jones allows you to stay for a year with your mentor, so I stayed with my mom for a year. Then we had an advisor leave in Hobbs and I got to take over his office and was there for three years before moving to our new location.”
Summer said the four years learning her business taught her more than just financial strategies and punching in numbers. She was able to sit in with her mom and her clients and understand the interpersonal communication needed in working with clients. She learned an important lesson of how to work with clients, how to ask the right questions and how to help them prepare.
“When you have clients of different ages you have to learn how to interact with them,” she said. “Younger people are trying to grow their money and put back as much as they can. That’s a whole different story than someone who is retired and is having to live off that money. So when you sit with people with different ages learn what they need during that specific time in their lives, you can’t get anything better than someone who does that and you get to sit in and learn.”
Luanne was in “proud mom” mode throughout the event. Visiting with friends, family and clients.
“You can’t image how great it feels for your child to see what this career has done for them in their youth and growing,” Luanne said. “To be able to help her have the same thing that we had, in terms of owning your own business, how great is that? Edward Jones is family oriented, so to be able to have these opportunities for your children and for them to want to pursue this type of career, I’m extremely proud of her. There are fathers who have their sons come into business, but there aren’t a lot of mothers and daughters, but it is growing.”
With four Edward Jones financial advisors in Hobbs, and one of them being her mother, does that pit all of them against each other in the client pool? Summer doesn’t think so.
“We are all in the same pool,” Summer said, “but when people come to us and say ‘why should I come to you instead of the others,’ it’s really about how we all have different personalities and you want to be able to connect with someone and feel comfortable. You have options as a client. We all do the same thing, so it becomes who the client chooses to do business with.”
Working in the new office with Summer is Branch Office Administrator Linda Taylor, who has been with Summer for four years. They shared the large scissors when cutting the cer emonial ribbon.
“We love this location. I don’t plan on going anywhere. We’ll be here forever, or until I retire Whichever comes first,” Summer said with laugh.
While growing her business Summer is half way through her training with Edward Jones to become a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) des ignation. The designation requires Summer to return to school and get those six pesky classes that have kept her from finishing her financial degree.
“The CFP training takes about a year and it requires you to finish your degree,” Summer said. “You have five years (from the start as a financial planner) and I plan to be done in November. I’m looking at finishing it up with online classes.”
Luanne said she was not able to obtain her CFP, which gives Summer a leg up on the “com petition.” But that’s not what’s it’s about in Summer’s eyes. It’s just the opportunity to do the kind of work her mom has done. To help people build and have better lives.
Todd Bailey can be reached at editor@ hobbsnews.com.
