Today we’d like to introduce you to Helen Ngo.
Helen, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I started my career as a stockbroker ten years ago. Getting tired of selling stocks and bonds to “rich white men,” I decided to fire that 9-5 corporate life to start my own business and work more with women professionals to help them build their own wealth and achieve financial security. So, I launched my financial planning practice, Capital Benchmark Partners, in 2013. My main mission is to help women make more money and keep more of it for themselves.
In April 2018, I launched my podcast, Live and Earn, on iTunes and Spotify under my second company, Made®. On the show, I feature women from all walks of life to share their personal stories of how they’re making a living, empowering others’ economic advancement.
In addition to the show, I developed a training program for women to start their businesses from the ground up with a money-making mindset and become self-made CEOs.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It is never a smooth road as a business owner. I’ve learned to enjoy the troughs as much as reaching the peaks. I also learned that you can’t stay on the bottom or the top for too long either; there’s always got to be momentum if you want to continue growing as a person and as an entrepreneur. Breath in at the highs and exhale at the lows.
I learned early on as a business owner that my primary job is to get paying clients and my secondary job is to provide those clients services. If there are no clients, there’s no point for my services.
When I started my first business 5.5 years ago, my daily goal was to dial 250-300 people a day with a target of scheduling at least three appointments. Additionally, I knocked door-to-door two times a week to get appointments. My goal was to get in front of as many people as possible who would listen to me. As you can imagine, I got rejected over and over again. People would slam their phones or doors on me – literally.
This raw, daily experience of rejection taught me resilience because out of those hundreds of dials and doors, I was able to get my first 20 clients that first year and 80% of those clients are still with me today. It’s a numbers game.
And because I learned to take a “No” early on, I took the business from $0 to a consistent six figures in a short matter of time.
Though hard to accept, rejection is part of the game. Without it, you can’t appreciate the wins. Count your wins, not your “No”s.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Made; Capital Benchmark Partners – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Capital Benchmark Partners is a financial planning firm. In short, we work with women executives and solo-entrepreneurs, guiding them on how to plan for retirement, invest, reduce tax liability, manage debt, and how to spend and save with intention. Particularly, we specialize in working with women who are in major transitions of their lives, whether it’s getting married or reaching higher earnings in their career.
We help clients build wealth, not just how to manage their current state of personal financial affairs.
With my second company, Made®, I created an 8-week training program to teach women how to create a financial road map to launch their business from scratch. It includes sales training and lessons on how to price their services. Many start their business with no clue on how to use their current funds to launch, much less think about how they’re going to actually price and sell their services. I provide a blueprint in my 8-week training called “8 Weeks to Self-Made.”
Personally, my proudest moment has been being able to financially impact my employees’ lives; I am contributing directly to their economic well-being. Thus, it’s within all my intention to teach others how to build a financially successful business so that they too can experience the power of being able to provide jobs and a wage for others.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Talking openly about our personal finances is taboo in our culture, with many feeling guilt around how they manage their own personal money.
We tend to tie our own personal self-worth into how much money we have and make. The cause of that, I believe, is due to the lack of conversations around transparency of wages and earnings, our spending, our savings, our personal goals, etc. We easily talk about other people’s money problems instead of being open and honest about our own shame and insecurity around our money.
I want to encourage more people to have a positive relationship with money.
That’s why I started the Live and Earn podcast. On the show, I interview women from all financial walks of life, sharing their personal financial stories of success and struggles.
Through this medium, I want others to realize that they are not alone in their financial struggles.
With that, I am currently working on a writing a book that is complementary to this.
Contact Info:
- Address: 7000 Central Parkway Suite 1100 Atlanta, GA 30328
- Website: MadeModernMoney.com, CapitalBenchmarkPartners.com
- Phone: 770-217-1202
- Email: Hello@mademodernmoney.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/MadeModernMoney/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cbplifestyle
- Other: https://www.mademodernmoney.com/eight-weeks-to-self-made
Image Credit:
Elle Wood
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