Fee-Only Financial Planning & Advising: Clarity Financial Planning, LLC

Claire Emory MBA, CFP, CFA takes her new business to the Web

When Claire Emory founded Clarity Financial Planning, LLC she wanted to leverage the Web and show potential clients how her Fee-Only financial planning practice and client commitment differs from traditional commission-based financial professionals. As a Fee-Only financial planner and advisor, Claire follows a strict code of ethics and considers all aspects of her client’s financial lives to help them reach their goals. To remove the conflicts of interest that come with commission-based recommendations, Fee-Only advisors charge a yearly fee for holistic services.

Many modern families have very specific needs and circumstances to consider when planning for the future. From divorce to child rearing to same-sex couples, Claire’s individualized approach keeps her clients’ financial security and best interests in sharp focus no matter what their circumstances. She’s very aware that the traditional ways of doing business in the financial industry don’t benefit everyone equally.

Claire developed her expertise in Fee-Only financial planning so that she could dedicate her professional life to helping people make better decisions about money and take care of themselves and the ones they love. As a woman and a business owner, she is particularly sensitive to the special challenges women face when providing and caring for their immediate and extended families.

A Certified Financial Planner, an elite Chartered Financial Analyst, and a Registered Investment Advisor in Virginia, Claire holds a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from Boston University. She is a member of the Alliance of Cambridge Advisors, a highly respected Fee-Only holistic financial advisor network, and a registered Fee-Only advisor with the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors.

Since her business was in startup mode, Claire began with a clean slate. At the same time she always recognized that her web presence was a worthy investment and knew how important it was to get it right from the beginning.

Strategy: Minimize Claire’s workload during the startup phase by creating a complete picture of her practice on the website. Set up a blog so that she could start blogging when she was ready. Focus her energies on one outreach component at a time to keep the project manageable.

Challenge: Create a site that helps Claire stand out in a crowd of financial professionals. Reach out to her audience with clear communications that demystify financial issues—both in the site text and her blog. Use the site content and design to set an inclusive tone that inspires confidence and trust among different audience groups.

Audience Groups: Women and men who want to make better decisions about their financial future with the holistic help of a Fee-Only planning expert. Singles, couples, and families in the DC Metro willing to pay a yearly fee to benefit from ongoing guidance and support to ensure their financial security.

The Team

Web Strategy & Information Architecture: Jo Golden
Content Strategy & Creation: Jo Golden
Design: Mor Vimmer
Development: Tracey Holinka
Maintenance: Tracey Holinka

While setting up her business, Claire quickly learned that another out-of-state company already owned the url in her company’s name. We decided to use her tagline as a url instead, setting up her site at www.BringClarityToYourFinances.com because the message represents her philosophy so perfectly.

Thanks to her excellent communication skills, Claire was in a great position to provide Jo with a clear picture of Fee-Only services and the ethics that guide her financial planning and advising practice. We focused on speaking directly to potential clients while explaining her services in practical terms and within the context of her ethics and guiding principles. Making sure that the text was reader-friendly paid off, as did avoiding the assumption that readers would have deep background knowledge about financial issues. A visitor to the site told us “Claire Emory’s financial advisor site is the best explanation of a financial professional’s services I’ve seen.”

Mor did an outstanding job of designing a professional look that is also inclusive and welcoming—appealing to women without being exclusionary. Tracey developed the site with a blog from the start, but she didn’t make it public until Claire was ready. WordPress released a major update before the blog went live, so Tracey also checked, adjusted, and refined the look and function of the blog as part of our WordPress site maintenance service.

As her business grows, Claire continues to reach out to her audience through local events and writing for other financial publications. When she was ready to start blogging on her own site, a meeting with Jo helped flatten Claire’s learning curve so that she could meet her audience’s needs effectively. Social networks are also part of Claire’s longer term strategy, but for now she is staying focused on serving her clients, growing her business, and educating the public through her writing and community outreach.

Website: www.bringclaritytoyourfinances.com
(Launched May 2011)