Brennen ’19 “Prospecting with a Purpose”

Collin Brennen ’19 Foresight Financial Management – I have had the privilege to work as a Financial Intern for Foresight Financial Management located in northern Indianapolis. There I worked directly with the Wealth Advisory Team. Comprised of three advisors, they work together to create, analyze, and maintain over 200 personal wealth plans. Working closely with one of the advisors, I spent a majority of my time prospecting. I would send an initial email to either someone on LinkedIn, or a Wabash Alumnus. When a person responded I would log it into OneNote, an application like Excel that allowed multiple people on the Wealth Advisory Team to see what was being recorded. I then followed-up with the person either thanking them for the response, or trying to set an appointment with them. If the individual agreed to an appointment, I would add their contact information to Smart Office and put them down on the calendar for their respected meeting time. Finally, I would add the meeting to Zoho calendar which allowed the whole office to see where someone is having a meeting. Throughout this process I sent roughly 2,000 initial emails to various people and finished my 8^th week with a little over 80 appointments set. This process really taught me how to deal with certain responses, some being negative and others being positive. Prospecting has been a great experience for me because it’s really developed my communication skills. It’s shown me what type of rhetoric to use in certain types of situations. Prospecting has also been a great opportunity to get my name out there. I’ve meet new people who were really impressed with what I had been doing!

Working at Foresight Financial Management has allowed me to see how a real business operates. Yeah, I’ve had jobs the past couple of summers, but not an “actual” job. This opportunity gave me a chance to see how everyone communicates in an office and what it’s like to work 9 to 5 daily. It’s shown me the type of grit it takes to work in this industry. Another takeaway from this internship was figuring out whether financial advising is a path for me. Being a college student is scary because most of us have no idea what we want to do after school. With an opportunity like this, it’s helped me see that financial advising could be a career path for me! I would like to thank the Lilly Endowment for giving me this awesome opportunity to further my professional skills.