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When Dalal Salomon first went to work in the financial sector in the 1980s, compensation was strictly on a commission basis. That meant no vacation, no sick leave and no paycheck unless she could drum up clients. At her first firm, where she was a novelty as the first and only female financial planner, she was expected to make cold phone calls. Instead, although she describes herself as an introvert, and, although it almost got her fired, she went in person to local businesses “to look the owners in the eye and show them that I was a genuine person who wanted to help them achieve financial independence.
“You don’t have to always follow the existing rules on how to be a success,” she says. “Perseverance is underestimated, but perseverance is huge.”
That perseverance led her to a job at Wells Fargo and, then, in 2009, to partner with Dan Ludwin to establish wealth management firm Salomon & Ludwin. This year, both Forbes and Barron’s ranked Salomon among the top wealth advisers in Virginia.
Salomon & Ludwin’s co-founders and their staff have donated their time to local causes such as building houses and tutoring, but Salomon says the most gratifying part of her career has been the cards and calls she’s received from women who heard her story and realized they, too, could succeed on their own terms.
“I showed them that they could do it, too,” she says. “I helped change their lives.”