It’s not easy finding financial advice as a young Millennial, and Brittany Castro quickly realized this could be something she could help with. Growing up, Castro was the kind of girl who would spend time playing with toy cash registers and fake money, but as she grew up, she learned a lot about how money works, and now she offers that knowledge to her social media following.
Living Within Your Means
Castro’s family belonged to the middle class, and she spent many hours watching them balance their books and deciding what not to buy so they could live within their means. As she became an adult, those lessons stuck with her.
While Castro didn’t have any formal financial education growing up, she learned the basics of managing finances to ensure she always had money when she needed it. She quickly learned early on that if you love money, it would love you back.
Fighting For a Place in a Backward Thinking Field
Castro completed her CFP credentials and jumped into the world of work, but something felt off to her. Instead of building relationships with her clients, she was instead trained to talk “at” people. This approach didn’t sit well with her; she figured there had to be a better way.
She realized that the industry she was in was averse to change. There was this feeling that nothing new should ever be implemented and that whatever worked twenty or thirty years ago would still work today. Castro didn’t like this approach and figured that it was time to innovate and give the industry a proper shakeup.
Finding Her Niche
After a while, she was fed up with the corporate world. She quit, threw out the business suits, and settled on building her own aesthetic. This was where Financially Wise Women was born. She wanted to be a game-changer in the industry and push people to learn about money instead of being enslaved by it.
The brand focused on giving people, especially women, a place where they could sit down and talk about their finances without fear or judgment. She wanted to build an approachable business that anyone could come to.
Entrepreneurship Is Not An Easy Road
Castro knows for a fact that there are a lot of hiccups on the road to success. In her own words, it was a personal opposition to her own ideas that made her rethink what was possible. Once she accepted that she could do something, it was just a matter of getting it done. However, second-guessing yourself as an entrepreneur kills many business ideas before they get started.
Castro suggests running ideas through someone you trust to filter out the really good ideas from the bad ones. Having an objective view of what could work and the potential of an idea helps to temper our enthusiasm for something that is too far out there to work as a business.
Use Your Network
As someone who had to build herself up from nothing, Castro knows the importance of a professional network. However, she advises that using your network is more than just calling on them when you need something. In fact, this approach is likely to lead to fractured networking relationships.
Instead, Castro suggests planning regular meetings with key members of your network. It doesn’t have to be anything formal, either. It could be something as simple as lunch or dinner to discuss what has happened in your professional lives. A lot of ideas come from these impromptu meetings.
Go For What You Want In Life
As a financial advisor, you might think that Castro is more conservative with her goals and spending habits. Except you’d be wrong. Castro understands the need for ambition and drive and advises all entrepreneurs to go for what they want in life. Pushing for that goal is worth the time and money you spend to achieve it.
However, she advises that there are good ways to spend money and good ways to waste money. Knowing the difference between these things can help an entrepreneur determine which is a good investment and which one is just a money sink. As a business owner, going for what you want usually means knowing how to afford it.
You Don’t Need To Do This Alone
Business ownership is a lonely business, especially since many of the friends you might have had don’t have that mindset of being an entrepreneur. It’s hard to discuss some ideas with them. Castro suggests that you should seek out people with the same drive and ambition as you do. You should build relationships with other business owners.
These relationships give you the professional push you need to do what you have to do to achieve your goals. Castro states that having the right people around you to talk about things or motivate you is crucial to being a successful entrepreneur. She even offers mentorship to help you build that network with other entrepreneurs.
Social Media Can Be A Powerful Tool
As an entrepreneur, Castro’s most significant marketing push comes from leveraging her social media network to get clients and advertise her skills. She suggests that new entrepreneurs look towards social media as the driving force for their marketing push at the start of their business journeys. Not only can it help build connections, it can create the starting point of a customer journey.
Her social media feed is filled with informational posts because she feels like these sorts of posts do better than the ones that are just about self-promotion. She suggests that entrepreneurs strike a balance between their personal posting and their business posting. Combining the two gives the audience a real person who’s successful – a winning combination.
Helping Others Manage Their Money
As a financial advisor, Castro has appeared in various articles, interviews, podcasts, and discussion panels. Her goal has always been to help others manage their money, even other entrepreneurs. Her presence on social media continues to drive interest in what she’s doing, and her business pivot to Financially Wise Inc. has helped her branch out to new markets. She’s an excellent example of what happens when you do business ownership and financial management the right way.
