Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | April 26, 2021 | Worcester Business Journal 21 Confronting a world event like a global pandemic is not an easy task to handle for any person or busi- ness. In addition to the obvious health concerns, in- creased stress comes from many people's finances, which can be helped by financial coaching. 10) Understand your expenses. Many people do not know how or where their money is being used. The pandemic has opened the door for you to better understand where your hard-earned money is going. 9) Prepare for an emergency. When the pandemic hit, the vast majority of the people in this country were not prepared to absorb a financial shock. Think about paying yourself first no matter what. 8) Get life or disability insurance. Most people know the legality of having home, auto, and health insurance, but most don't talk about life or disability insurance. Think about how to protect your family in the event you can't provide enough income to fulfill their needs. 7) Use support wisely. If you received stimulus program funds, use the funds to increase your savings or pay down debt. If you own a business with access to Paycheck Protection Program loans, work with your business coach to use the loan in the most sustainable way. 6) Be flexible. Money behavior is one area within financial coaching where people struggle the most, because they get so attached to a routine. Once you adapt, it does become second nature. 5) Have patience. During the pandemic we have shown our capacity to tolerate delay and be patient. It is the same with financial coaching. Being able to slowly take one step at a time is part of the process. 4) Ask for help when you need it. A solid financial strategy will always give people and business owners a better chance to overcome adversity. If you don't have a coach, find one. Every financial institution's business representative should serve as a coach. 3) Share information without shame. It's power- ful when coaches listen to their clients, empathize with them, and give them a welcoming feeling of being present and self-aware with no sense of embarrassment. 2) Draw on your past, present, and future. Look to the past for experience, the present for consistency, and the future for inspiration. As financial coaches we must understand the human component of financial wellness. 1) Pursue happiness. Financial coaching during COVID-19 has shown me people want to be happy. Happiness is a universal goal, even if the definition of happiness is unique to each of us. They want to enjoy life, and having a coach putting happiness at the center of any financial plan is a good partner to have. K N O W H O W Alternatives to investing in the stock market A siloed organization keeps information secret from the rest of the company, where it can't be of benefit. Whether due to power struggles or organizational inefficiency, silos can cause a lack of trust among co-workers, communication gaps and cultural complacency. Every department of your organization can suffer as a result, without the information it needs to take advantage of opportunities. Know the signs. Duplicating tasks is a giveaway that your organization is siloed, says Ken Tacelli at CMSWire. com, a site for senior digital leaders. Without communication, he says, there is no way to know if your work is being duplicated by another department. is can lead to a lack of productivity, inefficiency or worse, such as with data analysis, for example. "e best- case scenario for this duplication … is that teams came up with the same result. However, in many cases, these individuals or teams produce different numbers, causing disagreements about who had analyzed the correct data and which can be fully trusted," he says. Band employees together to train and work. Cross-departmental development and collaboration is a great way to dovetail already-budgeted training with silo-breaking practices, says Melissa Agnes at Salesforce.com. ese inter-company interactions breed understanding, she says. Agnes suggests, when feasible, physically moving people's workstations from other departments to be near one another to further build rapport. Train team leaders to ask frequent questions, not just those prompting 'yes' or 'no' answers. A 2019 Harvard Business Review article advises requesting information in the least biased way possible. "is means asking open-ended questions that minimize preconceptions … For instance, 'What do you see as the key opportunity in this space?' will generate richer dialogue than 'Do you think this is the right opportunity to pursue?' Posing those inquiries in your organization's departments will garner the information you need to eradicate silos. 1 0 T H I NG S I know about... ...Financial coaching during COVID-19 BY MATTHEW ERSKINE Special to the Worcester Business Journal W ith the recent rollercoaster ride of the stock market, the idea of alternatives to the stock market for investment has resurfaced. During the course of almost 35 years of settling estates for a diverse group of clients, and seeing the results of their investments, I've seen first-hand the range of investment opportunities beyond publicly traded stocks. Real estate. Over the long term, investing in a primary residence is a good investment because of the numerous income tax advantages from deduction of some of the interest in mortgages, to exemptions from capital gains when the property is sold. e main drawback of investing in a primary residence is, usually, they do not produce any income, and require money to pay for the operating costs, taxes and upkeep. Owning a rental property has similar advantages and produces a net income. Debt. is can vary from a Certificate of Deposit, which is a loan to a bank, to loans to individuals and everything in between. e return on a debt investment varies directly with the perceived level of risk involved. A CD might have less than a 1% return, while a loan to an individual could have an 18%-20% return. Tangible assets. Art, numismatics, collectibles, wine and Bitcoins are a few examples. e allure of tangible assets is driven by the news of spectacular returns on specific cases. However, investing in tangible assets has its own set of problems. First, the market for tangible assets, even Bitcoin, is opaque, largely unregulated and varies widely by location. Second, more than most investments, emotions play a large role in the value people place in an asset. It becomes your work of art, and you develop a relationship with the piece that increases its perceived value. ird, this relationship can create conflict between the perceived value of a piece, as opposed to its actual market value. Owning your own business. Potentially, the highest rates of return come from investing in your own business. Many startups have little costs or overhead to begin with and, you can, by selling your time and expertise, make something out of nothing. Startups have become easier to do with the acceleration of virtual offices and online services such as professional services, consulting, coaching and IT support. e downside is you are now your own boss with all that that entails. You have to do the work to make the returns you want, and you have to pay for all those things you never realized needed to be paid for, like bookkeeping. at said, many of the greatest fortunes in the world started as a result of someone investing in their own business. e one commonality that these alternative investments share is that it requires hard work to achieve those returns. You cannot passively put money into these alternative investments and expect that you will make any money. From an estate planning point of view, my one word of advice is if you do invest in these alternatives, consider how you will sell an investment. It is tempting to put more money into a venture when things go bad, with the hope that just a bit more will turn it around. Similarly, it is tempting to keep investing in an asset long aer the value of that asset has grown to the point where you can't effectively manage it. Matthew Erskine is managing partner for Worcester law firm Erskine & Erskine. Reach him at (508) 753-7100. BY SUSAN SHALHOUB Special to the Worcester Business Journal By Johan Romero Luna Johan Romero Luna is assistant vice president and area manager of the Worcester Location of the $2-billion Workers Credit Union. 101: B R E A K I N G S I L O S W W W

• Cover