6 minute read
Competing to Win
Pushing for Olympic gold showed Lauryn Williams how planning is winning.
By John Hilton
Sprinter Lauryn Williams debuted as an Olympian in 2004, taking a silver medal in the 100 meters during the Athens games. The American fell .03 seconds short of gold.
Williams worked and trained daily for years to keep her dream of Olympic gold alive. Finally, she got the chance at the 2012 London games and returned home with a gold medal as part of the USA’s record-setting 4X100 meter relay team.
Now in her second career as a financial advisor, Williams, 35, is leaning on her athletic experiences to help navigate a similarly challenging path to success.
“I’m trying to teach myself to measure and really focus on what I’m accomplishing one step at a time instead of basically feeling like every client conversation is a championship race,” said Williams, who started her virtual company, Worth Winning, three years ago.
“You’re planting seeds all the time as an entrepreneur and some of those seeds are going to have a really delayed return on investment. But just show up and do the best that you can in that moment and be really proud of yourself.”
Spurning a traditional office means Williams can communicate with her mostly young client base in their medium of choice — be it Facetiming, over the phone or even via texts. Her client base is about 60 now, a number Williams is building through social media marketing on Instagram, Facebook and other sites. She also does webinars and delivers talks on topics such as student loan debt.
Much as in her athletic career, Williams is perpetually working and recalibrating along the way as she fights to establish her career in a field dominated by white, older men. She has a Master’s of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix, along with her Certified Financial Planner designation.
Williams has a plan for additional designations as her business and client base grow. In a unique approach to compensation, Williams offers specific services, such as student loan advising, for which she charges according to a specific fee schedule. She does not charge traditional asset under management fees.
“A lot of people are just blown away by that,” said Williams, who lives in Dallas. “But I think it’s really, really cool to be able to easily explain to clients what the fee is and that there are no additional charges.”
‘I Enjoy Math And I Enjoy Money’
Born and raised in suburban Pittsburgh, Williams developed into an elite runner while still in high school. Many of her records still stand nearly two decades after she became a high school sprinting sensation. Collegiate track success followed at the University of Miami, where Williams majored in finance.
“I enjoy math and I enjoy money, so that’s what led me to finance as a major,” she recalled. “It wasn’t a lot of research and I didn’t know what kinds of jobs existed in finance.”
As her running profile grew, it enabled Williams to defer any career decisions. By the time she graduated from Miami in 2004, Williams was already competing in track meets around the world.
She won gold in the 2002 World Junior Championships, the 2003 Pan American Games, and the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki — all in the 100 meters. That run of dominance established Williams as one of the fastest female sprinters in the world, which made her silver medal showing in the 2004 Olympic Games a disappointment. But lessons were learned. “You don’t just show up, run a race and become an Olympian,” she said. “You go to practice. And you practice day in and day out and some days practice sucks and some days you’re super sore. And some days, you don’t have anything in the tank and it’s not a very good practice.”
“But it doesn’t mean you don’t show up the next day. Because the good practices are what turn into good competitions.”
As she moved into her mid-20s, Williams’s running career experienced more downs than ups. At the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, she ran a strong 11.03 in the 100 meters, but finished fourth. She was the anchor on the 4X100 relay squad, but a botched exchange caused a dropped baton. Williams picked it up, but ran outside her lane, which caused the USA team to be disqualified.
Williams earned her MBA and retired briefly from sprinting before returning to finally nab the elusive gold medal in 2012. That year was life-changing in another way: a Google search led Williams to the CFP program.
As a young athlete making six figures, she received poor financial advice and that experience stuck with her. She wanted to help others in similar situations.
“I really didn’t know the basics, so that stuff was over my head,” said Williams of those early experiences. “There was not a lot of time spent explaining it to me. There was a lot of ‘You don’t worry. You just run.’ It was kind of frustrating to me, being a finance major.”
Virtual Office
Today, Williams remains the same energetic, ambitious success seeker on the move. She does podcasts, public speaking, wrote a book and arranged Worth Winning as a “100% virtual financial planning company.”
It’s not a concept that is easy to pull off, said Bill Perryman of Perryman Financial Advisory in Dallas, an early mentor to Williams.
“She’s an adventurer and a more traditional practice probably doesn’t fit her,” he said. “She’s reaching out and finding clients all over the world and designing her
My method for finding new customers is very precise practice to allow her to serve them wherever they are or wherever she might be.”
Williams recalled her shock when another mentor told her what to expect before she launched Worth Winning in 2016. She was encouraged to do it, but told not to expect to register a profit for at least five years.
“I was like, ‘Five years!? I want to be profitable in Year One,’” Williams said, laughing. “It gave me a little bit of fuel, but it also helped ground me and helped me understand that this is a long game. This is not an overnight success story.”
With a focus on young people, Williams is building some early success in two areas: new college graduates and student loan borrowers.
Her recent college grad package is $375 for the basics of finance and advice to get started with a solid fiscal foundation.
“It’s been a huge success with other advisors with clients who have children,” Williams explained. “Because it’s kind of like ‘How do I talk to kids, what do I do?’ And I’ve created this short road map of ‘OK, here’s what you do’ and other advisors love that.”
Williams also earned a student loan certification and is developing into an expert advisor on the topic.
“With the age group that I’m serving, mostly involving people in their 20s and 30s, student loans are a huge deal,”
she said. “I wanted to get ahead of that and learn everything that I could and I bumped into the right people and, by way of learning anything that I could, that’s a huge driver of business for me.”
As she plants the seeds and develops relationships, Williams leans on the lessons she learned during a six-month internship at Briaud Financial Advisors in College Station, Texas, in 2013.
“It was just wonderful in the way that they were able to help their clients, the service they were providing, the value system that they had,” she recalled. “I was just like ‘Wow, there are good people in the industry.’ Because up to that point, with my experiences, I was super leery of what existed and what was out there. And I got something different and I got super excited about being able to help people.”
‘Pale, Stale And Male’
Like many in financial services, Williams quickly learned the value of industry conferences for networking and idea-sharing. She occupies a very slim demographic, African-American female, and often finds herself the only one in the room.
Although racial strife is often in the news these days, Williams said she has not run into it in the financial industry.
“At first I was very intimidated because I would go into a room at a conference of 400 people and there would be four people of color there and I would just be like ‘Wow, there’s a huge mismatch here,’” she said. “But I was welcomed with open arms. The older, Caucasian guys are very excited to see new people joining the industry. They’re like, ‘Hey, how can I help you be great?’”
Williams has an innate desire to succeed and wants no special treatment, said Perryman, an industry veteran of 35 years.
“I appreciate that about her, because she has a real passion for helping people of her generation,” he said. “She really has her heart in the right place, a high-integrity young lady who really wants to make a difference.”
InsuranceNewsNet Senior Editor John Hilton has covered business and other beats in more than 20 years of daily journalism. John may be reached at john.hilton@ innfeedback.com. Follow him on Twitter @INNJohnH.
