Her Story
About Makennah
Makennah Bowling is an accomplished financial services professional based in Madison, Wisconsin. She currently serves as a Financial Advisor at Equitable Advisors, where she helps individuals and families, particularly teachers and public service workers, develop financial strategies and plan for long-term retirement goals through expertise in 403B plans and Wisconsin pensions. Earlier in her career, she served as a Universal Banker at Bank Five Nine, a community bank, for nearly three years, supporting clients with banking needs after working as a teller while earning her communications degree with a finance minor from UW-Whitewater. She attributes much of her success to her ambitious work environment and values transparency and compassion in building client trust. Among her notable achievements is earning Fast Starter recognition within her first six months by writing significant business in her branch.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Makennah
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think a lot of my success goes from my environment. Everybody that I work with is so ambitious, to where if I'm overwhelmed, being around all these super ambitious people makes me think no, actually we can do this and I can keep pushing. Being around a bunch of ambitious people has been super helpful, whether they've directly said something or not, just the way everybody acts and the culture of ambition has been super helpful.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Something I've been focusing on is the day-to-day, making sure that I'm doing the things during the week that I know I need to do that will make impacts towards that goal. Making sure that I'm booking as many meetings as I can, and when I'm in those meetings, doing the best that I can to keep that relationship, possibly get referrals, rather than focusing on the big goal at the end of the year.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say keep trying. It is hard to pass your exams. It's hard to keep going on a week-to-week because you deal with a lot of rejection, especially when you're just starting out. Just keep going, it gets easier, some weeks are gonna be good, some weeks aren't gonna be good, but overall things are great. As long as you keep pushing, and sometimes you do just have to put your head down and do the paperwork and do the work, and you can end up building a very successful business that way.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Biggest challenges for me is having to present myself as confident and like I know what I'm talking about even if I'm a little bit unsure. Stepping out of my comfort zone and pushing myself to talk to strangers and ask them questions and connect with other human beings has been very challenging. I'm naturally a homebody and pretty reserved, so that can be intimidating.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Specifically with work, transparency. I never want to be the type of advisor that is pushing something just so it can benefit me. I want to be as honest as possible and make sure that I really am accommodating. Building that trust with the clients because people have salespeople say things all the time and I want my clients to know that when I say something, that I truly mean it. Personally, I try and be as understanding and compassionate with people as possible. I always strive for that because people go through things all the time that I might not realize, and if I can give them grace, that could change things.
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