Page 24 - Investment Advisor January/February 2022

WOMEN IN WEALTH

By Jane Wollman Rusoff

How to Really Connect With Clients:

Sarah M. Cain

“We see a lot of really generic marketing and messaging,” says the

vice president of Coaching and Consulting for the Carson Group.

arah M. Cain, Carson Group’s
Coaching and Consulting vice
Spresident, stepped into coaching
some years back by informally helping
a few entrepreneurial friends. Now at
Carson, she heads a team of executive
business coaches and practice manage-
ment consultants.
The financial advisors she coaches
are successful, “purpose-driven lead-
ers” who want to use their business “as a
force for good” in the world, as she told
Investment Advisor.
Cain’s own overall goal is focused on
diversity, equity and inclusion (or DEI).
It is to help change financial services
to be “more inclusive and welcoming
for people who have traditionally been
shut out — anyone outside the histori-
cal norm for financial advisors,” as she
puts it.
Cain also wants to create change to Cain’s team also helps advisors Investment Advisor: What’s the most
make “advice more accessible to people who the firm calls “accidental CEOs.” challenging part of your job?
who have been shut out of financial “Advisors are really great at work- Sarah Cain: Balancing what needs to get
advice — they need it,” she says. ing with clients. They’re not always done day to day with the change I’m try-
A 2021 Investment Advisor Group great at being a manager and leader,” ing to create to make the industry more
LUMINARIES award winner in the cat- she says. inclusive and welcoming for people who
egory of diversity and inclusion, Cain Investment Advisor recently inter- have traditionally been shut out. That’s
and her team help independent advisors viewed Cain, speaking by phone from women, people of color — anyone who’s
and RIAs — with any company affiliation, her base in the Kansas City metro outside what we might consider the his-
not only Carson advisors — to grow their area. On top of her full-time job torical norm for financial advisors.
thriving businesses. at Carson, Cain still coaches some Another change I’m trying to create is
Before joining Carson in 2016, Cain friends who aren’t in the financial making advice more accessible to more
was the chief operations officer at a services industry through her firm people who historically have been shut
large hybrid RIA. Sarah M. Cain Coaching. out of financial advice — they need it.
In the interview, she discussed the In her free time, she trains in muay
chief practice management issues that thai, a version of kickboxing. In our con- Most of the advisors are coached by
she and her team encounter and sug- versation, she explains why the martial your team. What determines who you
gests how advisors can give behavioral arts technique has been dubbed “the coach personally?
coaching to clients who are resistant to science of eight limbs.” If someone is really focused on using
recommendations. Here are highlights of our interview: business as a force for good and are

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