Latest / Marci talks money (and life) / Making Financial Advising More Accessible with Sonia Martinez-Trujillo
Transcript
- Marci Grossman (00:15) Hello, I am MoneyMarci. Welcome. I am thrilled to welcome today's guest, Sonia Martinez-Trujillo. Sonia is a fee only financial advisor, licensed engineer, and homeschooling mom of three. She was drawn to the financial advising industry after personally experiencing how difficult it was to find a Spanish speaking fiduciary advisor willing to help her low income mom after her dad passed away. That experience shaped her mission to make objective, trustworthy financial guidance more accessible to families who may feel overlooked by the industry. She's built her practice around accessibility, education, and advice that puts clients first. Sonia strives to live and serve with purpose and faith. Welcome, Sonia. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (01:08) Thank you so much, Marci. I'm so excited to be here with you. Marci Grossman (01:11) Well, I'm thrilled to have you. Now I know that your mom's situation motivated you towards your direction, but other than that you it looks like you had an interesting path if you started as a licensed engineer or was that kind of on the way of everything? Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (01:27) No, that's kind of what I thought I wanted to do. You know, sometimes whenever you're good at math and science, that's kind of what the teachers encourage you to be. And so I enjoyed it. I loved it. It was fulfilling. But it was time for a change. And I find that a lot of the skills that I use in engineering are very easily able to transfer over. Marci Grossman (01:50) So on this podcast we talk a lot about how people you shift, you pivot. Life throws you curves and you end up going in different directions. I love hearing about what that translation was like. I assume you were already working at that point as an engineer? Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (01:56) Mm-hmm. I was, yes. Marci Grossman (02:08) And you said, Okay, you know what, this there's this gap in in the financial advisor market and I wanna fill this. Did you start taking courses or internship or how did you translate? Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (02:21) Yeah, so I had already done a lot of self-study and self-teaching to manage my own assets and to do planning for my family, my husband and I. And so I felt like to immediately to help my mom, I just wanted to make sure I knew all I could for a person in her situation. So that was the first thing I did. I just helped her. And so about a year later is when I decided that it was time for a change. I was already really loving helping people, just friends and family and I just thought I would switch. It was also a little bit selfish of me, but it was also time for a change because I homeschool my kids and in engineering the more that you grow the more responsibilities that you have and the more of your time that you give to your work. And so I just made the choice with my husband to just spend more time at home with my kids. And so that was a big part of why also. Marci Grossman (03:29) Yeah, that's true. For engineering you probably need tools and supplies and software and whatever else that makes it harder to do it from home, than financial services. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (03:40) Yeah, that's right. And even though you're at home and you're supposed to be off, things always come up. Like an important question comes up with a project and you just have to attend to it. No matter where you are or what you're doing, or someone in your team needs help and how can you not help, you know? Yeah. Marci Grossman (03:58) Right. Absolutely. So you are bilingual. I hear an accent, so I assume you were you are an immigrant yourself? Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (04:05) Mm-hmm. Yes, I'm originally from Mexico. Marci Grossman (04:14) And when, what age were you when you came here? Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (04:17) I was twelve about to be thirteen when I came here. Marci Grossman (04:22) Okay. So that must have been a challenge, but on the flip side you've got a solid core of Spanish as well as you were young enough that you have a solid core of English. And that makes you very valuable, I would think in any industry you're in to be so fully immersed in both languages and cultures. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (04:46) You know interestingly, I never fully appreciated the fact that uh was bilingual until I joined the financial advising industry. I feel like you know, everywhere you go there's usually someone who speaks Spanish. I feel like in this field it's hard to find a person who not only can speak your language but can understand your culture and what's important to you, you know? Yeah, so now I feel like, maybe it is kinda cool that I speak Spanish. I mean other people really value that. So it I'm just seeing how they appreciate it makes me feel like this is this is good. This is actually a skill that I should put on my resume. I never did that in engineering. It was almost irrelevant, I would say, at least in the industry that I was in. Marci Grossman (05:36) I would imagine as an engineer you weren't necessarily client facing in the same way as you are as a financial advisor, so you didn't need to have that connection in the same way. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (05:50) Yeah, that's right. And you know, most of our clients were government entities and so it's US government. It's all English. I did do a few public meetings where I had to speak to the public, and sometimes speaking Spanish was helpful but not too much. Marci Grossman (06:12) So would you say of your clients, that a lot of them 'cause you know, you're in an industry much like myself where a lot of my clients come from referrals. So are most of your clients Spanish speaking or are is it a wide diversity of languages? Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (06:21) Mm-hmm. I want to say about half of my clients are Spanish speaking. Mm-hmm. Marci Grossman (06:38) Okay. As their predominant language, not necessarily their only language. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (06:44) Yes, I do have a few that that's their only language. yeah, and that's I love working with those clients. They remind me of my parents so much and so I really enjoy that. Marci Grossman (06:48) Okay. Do you find other than the language, do you find that their financial needs or their financial goals I should say are significantly different? Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (07:06) I mean they just want to be able to retire. I would say their situation is very different because maybe they got their social ten years ago, you know, and so that's all they have for to build up social security credits or ⁓ maybe that the jobs that they were working in they never had a retirement account. And so maybe they're more likely to keep their money as cash, I feel like for that reason. But the goal is the same. They want to retire. They want to help their kids if possible. Keep their independence. Keep their house. Very important. Yeah. Marci Grossman (07:47) Yeah, I agree with what you said. I mean in the introduction it was about "overlooked by the industry" and that's really what it is is they're overlooked or they just don't feel connected to the advisors that are out there because either they don't have the language or they are coming from not necessarily poverty but different jobs in a different situation where they don't have you know, if you if you move here when you're forty, you don't, you're missing twenty years of work experience and the connections and the networking that that can significantly change your income and resources and options. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (08:18) Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think you're definitely right. I've also so whenever my clients find me sometimes, they're so happy and they say, I'm so glad that you that you speak Spanish. I'm like, you speak English. I heard you. Like I know you can communicate. And they're like, it's not the same. It's not I can't fully express myself or I know you're not going to look at me weird when I switch back and forth or when I can't think of the right word to say, you know. Yeah. That part is so beautiful, being able to understand the culture. Yeah. Marci Grossman (09:56) I think it's important I think for every financial industry, for every service industry to be able to connect with their clients, to be able to serve them better and certainly having more people that are bilingual, makes a big difference. We had a family friend, she was from Hungary, ⁓ she came here as an adult with this heavy accent. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (10:20) Mm-hmm. Marci Grossman (10:20) But her English was so much better than my Hungarian. She's like people looked down on me because my English, you know, the grammar was all over the place, her pronunciations were whatever they were. And it never made sense to me because I had no Hungarian. To me she was brilliant because she could speak in two languages at least, and I have one language. My Spanish is limited to, you know, I think I can order chicken, rice and a beer. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (10:57) So that's what you get wherever you go. Marci Grossman (10:59) Right, that's all I can or... no, I can also say water. But everything else, I mean, you know, just because I had Spanish for a few years in high school and haven't really used it, nowhere near bilingual. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (11:01) Yeah. Okay. Marci Grossman (11:12) If you've been here for more than two generations, ⁓ the languages are not passed down the same way, that culture, that that connectivity. And as people come here, you know, you wonder how they get the resources they want if we're not if we're not putting the languages more out there. I love what you are doing, and making financial literacy more accessible to people that may have language barriers for what I do. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (11:47) Yeah. Yeah, thank you. You know, it's interesting. I'm in Texas and so very recently school districts have started to implement a dual enrollment option, which I think it's great progress to make just Americans more fluent in other languages. It's open to everyone, so I feel like us Americans we are heading in the right direction to be more global, you know? Especially with languages, hopefully. Marci Grossman (12:21) I think we have to be as the internet brings us closer and closer together. I mean I've interviewed people from all over the world. I've been interviewed by people all over the world and this world becomes smaller and smaller as we get more connected, as it is so much easier for me to order something from another country, which is great 'cause I love the candy in England. ⁓ Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (12:26) Mm. Yeah. Marci Grossman (12:49) And now I can get more Cadbury. I mean, you know, it's important to have access to these resources of these other countries. So it's we have to make it more accessible and we can't just walk around and say, Okay, well, English is typically the global language for business and I know English and that should be good enough for whatever I wanna do and that's limiting us. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (12:52) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree. I agree with that one hundred percent. Marci Grossman (13:19) So tell me about what things from engineering were most transferable into financial services. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (13:28) The very first thing is the analysis, the thoroughness, the I want to make sure that I get every single detail because it matters. ⁓ that I feel like I s I still have and it's very much it's useful and it's beneficial for my client that they I feel like they have somebody looking at their details and I'm not going to let anything go and we're not going to have surprises down the line down the road. So I feel like the attention to detail ⁓ and the analysis, the almost obsession to optimize, to not just go with this is good enough but like what is the absolute best case scenario that you could have. I would say that's probably the top two using my resources. If I don't feel comfortable with a specific topic, you know, I'm going to network and I'm going to find somebody who's going to help me help my client better. Because I don't want to leave things half done. I it absolutely has to be, you know, I have to do the best for each person that I help. And so I feel like I've learned a lot from other senior advisors. I'm so grateful that everyone has been so generous with their time to teach me and to mentor me. But I notice that I am very ⁓ sometimes could be a flaw, I guess, but I'm willing to spend the time that it takes to make sure something yeah, to make sure I optimize pretty much. Marci Grossman (15:00) Okay. Did you feel you had a good financial education going into this? I know you said you self studied yourself before you started transitioning into being a financial advisor. Was that because it was already interesting and you knew some stuff or you just felt you were so far behind you wanted to understand money? Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (15:23) Yeah, you know I first started when my husband and I got married and I felt like we were making so much money and yet we had debt. And so that was back in 2012 and And so then we started researching how can we get out of debt and make sure that we grow money? Because at this rate, who knows when we'll be able to get a house. And so we started doing a lot of research. Then as soon as we pay that off, how can we grow the money? How can we invest? And then what can we invest in? Then we started looking at the stock market and real estate and that kind of thing. But all the research that I did was for people our age. So when I started researching for my mom, that just opened the door to so many things, to the whole world, I feel like. And then I did prepare for my license exams and I'm in the process of studying for my CFP. So every course that I take, it's just s I feel like I just learned so much and there is so much to learn. Marci Grossman (16:29) When you started, were you just looking at YouTube videos or were you were you taking coursework that you knew where it was coming from? I d this this digital age makes things so much more accessible, but it's sometimes hard to judge the quality of what you're accessing. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (16:45) Yeah. You mean back in twenty twelve when we were in debt? Yes. Mm. Interestingly, we started listening to Dave Ramsey. And we started reading his books. And then we started reading other books by other people, and just listening to as many audiobooks about finance that that we could, that I could. Marci Grossman (16:48) Yeah. Okay. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (17:12) And then it was pretty much through books. I don't think before I started studying for my licenses, I don't think that I ever took a course on finances. So it was all through books, through videos, ⁓ through reading websites, that kind of thing. Marci Grossman (17:31) Okay. But ⁓ you know, again, backing up, when you go to websites, when you watch videos, how do you vet the quality of the person imparting the information? 'Cause anyone can make a video, anyone can create a website. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (17:44) Yes. Yes. So you have to go to your primary sources. So the IRS, right? The US government. ⁓ those documents that Congress writes whenever they implement the change, right? so that's the primary. So it's useful to hear videos and people give their commentary, but then you have to go back to the source and what is actually said, and then you see everyone interprets it a little bit differently, but you have to go back to the source, that's really important. Primary sources. Marci Grossman (18:20) Yeah, I think I think a lot of people need to hear that. Do you hear that? Go back to primary sources. Check your sources. Don't just say, look, they had a great TikTok video, so this must be true. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (18:25) Mm-hmm. Yes. I heard that you should do this. ⁓ my goodness. Yeah. Marci Grossman (18:36) Do you have clients come to you like that that we've got financial advice we got off of TikTok? Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (18:41) Yeah, yeah. Sometimes my older clients message me and they said, Hey, you think this is true? This sounds like a great opportunity and you know I am more than happy to I actually encourage them, if you ever hear of something an ⁓ an investment, an opportunity, something that you think you wanna do, send that my way and I will check it for you. I'm just so paranoid about scams. You know, I just I hate it when I hear stories about scams, especially on the more vulnerable people. And so yeah, that's there's a risk about just getting all your information from social media. Marci Grossman (19:21) How old are your kids? 'Cause it says you home school. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (19:25) Yeah. there's eight, ten and twelve. So Marci Grossman (19:28) What are you doing for their financial literacy? They know mom works in financial industry, so do you talk about money? Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (19:39) Mm-hmm. Yes, all the time. ⁓ the very first thing we do is that they have an envelope system. So they know they're supposed to save, they know they're supposed to spend their money and they're free to do so, and they know they're supposed to be generous with their money and give it away to causes they believe in. I feel like that's one of the most important habits to teach a child and keep it very simple. Teach them that they should always save and that they should always be generous and not be not feel guilty about spending what they chose to allocate to spend. So I do that for a long time. I also encourage my kids to be entrepreneurs. So as soon as they start earning money, we start talking about raw diaries and we start talking about how to invest it, ⁓ high yield savings, how much do you want to keep in your fanny pack, and how much do you want to keep in your high yield savings? That kind of thing. Marci Grossman (20:43) That's awesome. Now I don't know if Texas has any financial literacy coursework in high school. I don't know if you're planning on homeschooling them all the way through or if you're gonna transfer to a more standard type of of high school as they get older. Here in Michigan, you need a a personal finance class before you graduate high school. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (21:03) Yeah, we be moving in the right direction. Just a few years ago we started transitioning first i it's through the economics class. First it was just global economics and then ⁓ throughout the years they offer a financial path for economics and students or teachers could choose and now they've made it. This is by school district or all of Texas, but no, it's all of Texas. They have to learn personal finance. And I think it's up to the school district how they interpret that. Our local school districts, they're all switching to personal finance and investing for economics to take place of that. So yeah, I feel like hopefully long and gone are the days where adults say, I just never learned this in school. You know? I feel like that's going to change. Marci Grossman (21:55) I do worry though because you learn it, you memorize it, you write the answers for the test and you go on. I don't know how the high schools are doing so that this is something you retain more than what we retained in some of the classes we were required to take. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (22:11) Yeah. That that is true because even if you practice doing a budget, it's not really your money, it's not real money. So sometimes you take you know, I'm sure everyone takes it as serious as they as they want to. I yeah. Marci Grossman (22:29) That that's a good way to put it. So for families seeking multi generational support for their children, for their parents, ⁓ depending how do you deal with that? Because I imagine some of your clients you are dealing with more than just one generation. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (22:48) Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. A lot of my a lot of I would say my Spanish speaking pre retiree clients I don't think we've ever met where it's just them and me. It's usually one of their adult children that's there too. And they're both concerned for each other. The adult children are concerned for the parents' retirement and their options. And the pre retiree parents are concerned that their kids might not be making the best choices, the best financial choices. And so I feel like whenever I speak to that that I feel like it's really nice that they come together and then I speak to my client, the retiree couple, and I see their adult children taking notes and saying, I guess I'll talk to you whenever I get there. And I'm like, actually what are you doing? These things that we're trying to fix with your parents, we don't have to wait until you're there. There's probably some very simple things that we can do now to put you in a better position. And so I feel like it's so helpful when you just come and listen. There's a lot that you can hear. 'Cause now at this point you're earning money. You have choices to make. Yeah. ⁓ so usually I feel like whenever you say what was the word that you say? Multi-generational. Yeah, I like that it's not just the parents down to their little children and what legacy they want to live them, but also you looking up and supporting your you know, your parents. Marci Grossman (24:14) Multi generational, yeah. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (24:28) Yeah. Marci Grossman (24:29) It's important not just supporting them but obviously learning, I don't wanna be in that situation. How do I how do I prevent it? It's so much easier any ⁓ anything you start planning for earlier. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (24:41) Yes, it is so much easier if you start earlier, yes. Marci Grossman (24:46) So do you work with many clients on life transitions and planning for those life transitions or is it just if it comes in you get to kind of work it in then? Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (24:59) It's usually somebody that's going through a transition. I notice that every client that I have is going through something or is about to go through something. A very common one is retirement. Another one could be maybe they're a W2 employee and they want to branch out and maybe start a side gig and eventually grow it into a business. Another one can be that maybe your children are getting older and it's time to start planning for it. Either college and believe it or not, maybe they're Quinceañera maybe they're fifteen, they know that's coming up and that's expensive. How are they going to plan for that? Yeah, I feel like every one of my clients is in some kind of transition where they feel like they need support to go through it. Marci Grossman (25:47) So if you are her client and you're listening, don't wait until the transition is happening. Talk to her. You know your kid is going to be turning fifteen. You know you're gonna have that that Quinceañera coming up. So how about we start talking about that when they're ten? Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (25:51) Mm-hmm. Ha ha ha. Yes. ⁓ my goodness. Even a little bit before then, I feel like Marci Grossman (26:11) Right. I mean that's the whole thing. None of these are surprises. Your father passing was probably a surprise, but your parents wanting to retire, not a surprise. You know, you've got ⁓ I assume you're planning Quinceañeras for your children and you are hopefully starting to have funds for them and maybe you want them to go to college and you or they are starting to talk about the funding of that, of those choices or whatever it is that that's coming next. Plan ahead, these things are coming. Your kids aren't gonna stay at home forever. Eventually they're going to go to school or go to trade school or go off and start a business or go and do whatever. None of these are surprises, people. Talk to Sonia Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (27:01) Yes, none of them are surprises. You know, I feel like sometimes you know how time whenever you have a kid, time just passes by so quickly. I feel like sometimes we say, Yeah, we'll do that next year, and then we just never get to it because and when we realize it they're fifteen and you know they're already a sophomore or a junior in high school, and you're like, my goodness. That just it came out of nowhere, sometimes it feels like, but it really didn't. Marci Grossman (27:23) Right, it came out of nowhere. Sonia, do you have anything else you'd like to mention that maybe we haven't covered? Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (27:32) There's a lot of fraud out there, there's a lot of bad people out there. And s sometimes like I feel like it we are so lucky in this generation that we have so much knowledge accessible to us. But I feel like that means that the predators are that much more sophisticated also. And so it's important I feel like if you ever have a question or something sounds too good to be true, I feel like it's always good to reach out to somebody, like a financial advisor. A lot of us the first consultation is always free. Just come and bring a screenshot of that. Just share it with somebody. Get someone's opinion before you give all your life savings to an investment. Unfortunately I feel like as we approach retirement and then you realize ⁓ shoot, I am not where I wanted to be. I need to start investing. Like sometimes if we have no knowledge, we can be vulnerable to these kinds of schemes. And so I just want to encourage anyone who might be listening to just if you ever wanna check something and something that's important, a question, a concern, a lot of advisors have free consultations. Just like take advantage of that. No one's feelings are going to get hurt. I feel like advisors like to talk to people in general. So we'll always appreciate meeting you in the conversation. Marci Grossman (29:07) And you may find out that having an advisor is a good option for you. It may be that you've reached the point in time where you need an advisor and it never hurts to talk to a professional. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (29:22) Yes. Marci Grossman (29:23) Well, Sonia, thank you so much for being my guest today. We appreciate you taking the time to join us here. Sonia Martinez-Trujillo (29:29) Thank you so much for having me, Marci. I enjoyed this so much. Marci Grossman (29:32) Thank you. To my listeners, we will be sharing a link to Sonia's information in the show notes. Please check her out. She has a lot of interesting information. And don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and stay tuned. I'll see you next time. This has been Money Marci on Marci Talks Money (and Life). You got this.