A chat with Chui Laam
We sat down with Chu Chui Laam, Senior Financial Consultant of Life First Advisory (LFA), to have a chat about her experience working in the field of wealth management.
Why did you choose be a financial consultant?
My love for money management started from a very young age. At 14 years old, when most teenages were getting daily or weekly allowances from their parents, I requested for a monthly allowance.
I saw that as a smarter way for me to better map out my expenses and savings. It simply made more sense. My habit for financial planning kept growing since then.
At 25 years old, I accumulated over $100,000.
While planning to get married, my fiance noticed that I was very good with finances, especially when it came to budgeting and planning expenses of both big and small ticket items. That was when he encouraged me to consider financial advisory as a career.
I saw it as a good amalgamation of my financial planning skills and my passion for connecting with people. After all, I have always enjoyed making friends - be it with strangers from all walks of life, or in maintaining friendships spanning over over decades.
I saw this as an opportunity to help others in their financial planning. I was confident that I could value add to their lives meaningfully.
Financial advisory felt like a calling.
Most of my family and friends encouraged me to go for it, saying that it seemed like the perfect job for me. Some even blocked my schedule immediately and told me that they would definitely look for me as a trusted advisor to do up their financial plans.
These people ended up becoming my first clients, and remain to be so till today.
Thinking back, my decision to be a financial consultant was very much due to the support of my family and friends, which I am really thankful for.
What do your clients say about you?
My clients find me reliable. It’s not uncommon for them to tell their friends and family who need help with financial planning to “just look for Chui Laam, I trust her to do all these planning for me”.
Trust is the #1 factor in choosing a financial advisor.
Afterall, financial planning deals with a lot of sensitive, personal, and private information. Clients are looking for a proven professional who is dependable enough to make sense of these confidential information.
Most of my clients are my friends or friends of friends who have seen how I am like even outside of work, and they know they can count on me.
My clients see me as a partner who works hand-in-hand with them in each life stage.
They can be getting married, having a child, buying a home, going through a career switch, getting a huge promotion at work, and more. All these different life milestones result in different priorities in needs. This is where we will sit down for a review to make sure that all these needs can be adequately met.
My clients also say that they can understand difficult financial concepts after my explanation. I find it easy to break down complex jargon into digestible information for them. This may be due to my experience as a teacher in the past. My clients always walk away from our meetings feeling confident on not just being a step closer to their financial goals, but also about their improved financial literacy.
They have thanked me, time and again, for going the extra mile in taking the time and effort to educate them.
What is your personal financial planning psychology?
I don’t sell products.
I don’t give a shoutout to get attention. I don’t sell any “promotional plans”. I don’t ride on headlines or short-term industry changes to create FOMO or hype. I don’t hardsell or shove anything down any client’s throat.
I don’t believe in doing sales, and I treat my clients like my own family members.
What I do, instead, is to develop a solid and comprehensive plan to achieve my client’s goal. I work towards understanding what is important to my client before structuring a plan or making any financial recommendations for them.
Since the start of my career, I have always enjoyed and valued the importance of listening. I listen to their dreams and concerns, and see how I can help.
Client consultations are always filled with insights.
When I help a client to look at his financial options, I consider everything, down to his blind spots. I plan something that is not only useful for him today, but for tomorrow, and 20 years down the road.
At the end of the day, I believe that financial freedom can be achieved with three rights - the right mindset, right understanding, and right actions. My job is to help my clients achieve these three rights, and maximise their resources at various points in their lives to achieve financial freedom.
What do you do for fun?
I am very social person and relationships are very important to me. I enjoy hosting friends for dinner parties at my place, organising meet ups to cycle, hike, and run, as well as spending time with my family.
What is one quote that you keep relooking at when the going gets tough?
“Trust the process.”
As a goal-oriented person, trusting the process does not come naturally to me. I have to remind myself consciously that the destination is not all that matters. Doing financial planning for clients has shown me that the process towards financial freedom is as important as achieving it.
I actively try to have a deeper understanding of my clients’ goals to ensure that they are not setting it blindly. I make it a point to know why he wants to reach a certain net worth within a certain time horizon, what he is really trying to achieve, and how that will impact him in life. This is why I make it a point to re-evaluate goals at various junctures.
In many ways, I double hat as my clients’ life coach.
If you were not a financial consultant, what will you be now?
I would probably still be a math teacher. I enjoy coaching and helping people to achieve their goals.
Chui Laam used to be a math teacher.
In a way, I still see myself as a teacher now - guiding my clients to reach their financial goals.