What? Me Worry?

Kathleen Reichart is a worrier. When she began her career as an insurance agent, she worried that she wouldn’t be able to sustain her business. So she became a Certified Financial Planner. But when she started talking with broker/dealer Sigma Financial about signing on in 1987, she had to worry about fees and production minimums.

Instead of giving into her anxieties, Reichart harnessed what she was learning about herself and turned it into an educational workshop for other women facing their own financial woes. Called “Money Dynamics for Women,” the two-part series focused on the basics.

“I was working with women who had never written a check before,” says Reichart. “They had no idea what their investments were because their husbands always handled that. Back then, I don’t think there were any classes addressing women specifically.”

During the program, Reichart never made a sales pitch and never talked about specific investments. At the end, though, she passed out a critique form with a box at the bottom that participants could check if they wanted her to call them for a free consultation. Before long, she was worrying about how she was going to find enough time to meet with all her new prospects.

Calling herself “The Queen of Dollar-Cost Averaging,” Reichart built her business working with people who could only afford to save maybe $100 month.