Message from the CEO - The Financial Gym’s Impact Report
Eight years ago, I delivered a pro-bono financial plan to a former co-worker; and after I had gone through all of her numbers with her, she said, “You know you’re saving my life, right?” Those words hit me like a lightning bolt. At this point, I had been delivering financial plans for almost two years, and no one had said anything like that to me. I had no idea that a financial plan could save a life; but I knew deep down in my soul that she was right, and that I had to find a way to offer my services to the masses. This woman gave me my “A-Ha” moment that led to starting The Financial Gym.
Within months of our meeting, I had left my secure, six-figure salary job at Merrill Lynch to build a company that gave people of all financial shapes and sizes a place to go where they could get financially healthy; and hopefully change the trajectory of their lives for the better. My first two years of entrepreneurship were filled with many dark days as I drained my personal life savings, put my family’s financial future at risk, and wondered if I was as crazy as my family and friends thought I was.
In all of those dark days, though, rays of light showed through, and those were messages from my clients sharing their personal financial wins with me, wins they never thought would happen in a million years, wins that seemed so improbable at the beginning of their journey that we started to call it “magic.” “Magic” could be anything from a five-figure pay increase to a credit score going up 40 points, to student loan forgiveness, to an overwhelming sense of financial clarity that replaced decades long of financial confusion.
“Gym Magic” has occurred so frequently for Financial Gym members over the last eight years that it is a core value of our company. It reads: “We believe in Magic, in the unlimited possibilities that come to our clients when they focus on their finances.” Every single employee at Financial Gym has seen, witnessed and believes in Magic, in fact, we have an entire Slack channel filled with these stories; and on particularly bad days, I go into that channel and read all of them.
Eight years later, I am so happy to share with you our first ever Impact Report which provides the data behind the Magic we’ve been witnessing for over eight years now. This project was a labor of love of one of our long-time trainers, Georgina. Despite a heavy workload, employee turnover and a global pandemic, Georgina’s desire to uncover the true value and impact of the work that we do every single day never wavered.
Below is a link to preview and download the full Impact Report, which lays out the way the data was collected, the population it was collected from, and the areas of quantitative and qualitative metrics we focused on. We love seeing clients have more money in their bank accounts or less debt to worry about repaying, but sometimes the greatest financial win for a client is a decreased amount of anxiety around their financial health or a better understanding of financial concepts they were never taught at home or in school.
Of all of the report cards I’ve ever gotten, this is the greatest. It’s the representation of years of dedication by this amazing team of human beings who care so deeply about the financial health and security of others that they have sacrificed their time, their personal lives and their finances to make sure this company survived a Global Pandemic and other headwinds. It’s also the representation of the hard work that our client’s put into their financial health. We can give the roadmap and provide the backseat cheerleading, but our client’s have to do the hard work of driving the car, sometimes through and out of some really scary places.
We get asked all the time, “Why should I pay money to save money?” My response is always, “If $85 per month is going to make or break your financial future, then you NEED to join our Gym.” No one should live a life where $85 a month is going to send you to the brink of collapse. We know more than anyone, how important financial health is, and we’re the last ones to have you spend money haphazardly. What this report shows is that if you invest the time and money, we will get you amazing results; results that most of our clients were never getting on their own.
Now that our framework is set, we will release Impact Reports annually going forward and the team is committed to continually improving and delivering life-changing results for our clients. If you’ve ever wondered about whether or not The Financial Gym was worth the investment, I hope this report gives you the evidence you needed.
I want to give a very big congratulations and job well done to the entire Trainer Team who work tirelessly to change the financial lives of our clients, Caitlin and Rebekkah who spent hours working on the client experience and marketing aspects of this project and finally to Hector, Myriam, and Yash, our Impact Project Team, led by Georgina. This was the result of countless hours of research and analysis, and hours of cross functional work with the Trainer, Client Experience, and Marketing Teams; and I am so proud that we get to share this with the world now.
Cheers!
Shannon McLay
Founder & CEO
The Financial Gym, Inc.