February 1, 2018, was a landmark day here at Wentworth Financial Communications. No, we don’t celebrate Groundhog Day Eve at WFC. Rather, the first day of February was the third anniversary of the firm’s launch. More importantly, it was the day when Frank Kalman joined WFC as our chief operations officer.
Over the last three years, it’s become clear to me that there is far more demand for high-quality writing and thought-leadership content in the financial services industry than I could possibly provide on my own. That is why I wanted to bring on someone who was also passionate about helping companies articulate their expertise and who shared my vision for the type of company that could best serve our clients.
As COO, Frank will be focused on developing the processes and systems that will allow us to provide consistently high-caliber service for our clients. This means faster turnaround times and extra layers of editing to ensure that we catch any errors. He will wear several other hats (as COOs at small companies are required to do), including project management, content strategy, digital marketing, and business development. He will also be focused on helping us connect with other great financial writers.
If you are a WFC client, you will be meeting Frank soon, if you haven’t already. In the meantime, here are five questions to help you get to know WFC’s newest team member.
Five Questions with Frank Kalman
1. What aspect of joining WFC are you most excited about?
Working with Scott Wentworth, WFC’s founder and CEO, is definitely a big draw, because I think Scott is a lot like me and I admire his vision for what he wants to create in building WFC. But coming in as employee No. 2 is also a big challenge that I couldn’t pass up and am really excited about. Being able to help Scott grow and define WFC is the thing I’m most excited about. It will be a big challenge, but something I think will be a lot of fun as well.
2. How do you think your background as the managing editor of a trade publication will be beneficial to WFC’s clients?
One skill I’ve learned to develop in my young career is the importance of building relationships. My favorite part of being a managing editor was meeting all sorts of people—whether they were writers, industry experts, or business executives—learning about their interests and needs, and helping them in whatever way I could. WFC’s clients will find out pretty quickly that, even though I can be all about business, I like to get to know people and establish meaningful relationships. Outside of my expertise in writing and editing, of course, I think this skill of embracing relationships will be beneficial to WFC’s clients. I really care about helping them establish their voice and showcasing their expertise in a way that resonates with their desired audience.
The other skill from my time as managing editor that I think will serve WFC’s clients well will be my habit of reading everything I can find about an industry. As a managing editor, you have to sort of be a know-it-all, not in a arrogant sense, but you need to read and study as much as you can by way of news, magazine articles, books, and any other media in a given industry. Luckily for WFC’s financial services clients, I have been an obsessive consumer of financial and business news for years. I don’t claim to know everything, but I think this habit will help me “talk shop” with clients in our different verticals, which will help me relate to them better as WFC works to help them determine the best way to make their content stand out.
3. What areas of content marketing and thought leadership do you think present the biggest opportunities for financial services firms over the next five years?
Today’s media environment is constantly changing, and who knows what new platform or medium will be popular in five years. What I do believe is that writing will be the foundation of content marketing and thought leadership for many decades to come. The emergence and popularity of digital mediums like video and motion graphics; social channels like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat; and interactive web pages are certainly changing the way that content is delivered to the audience. But smart, focused, sophisticated writing will underpin all of it. Financial marketers should be excited because the opportunities to create, distribute, reach, and measure content have never been this accessible. Gone are the days of writing a white paper and posting it as a PDF on your website and “hoping for the best.” Today you can write the same white paper and create a plethora of supplemental content pieces that elevates that white paper to a new level, makes the content more engaging, and helps financial services firms engage with their audiences in ways they never could before.
4. What’s one interesting aspect of your background that people won’t learn from looking at your LinkedIn profile?
I grew up being very involved in music, particularly as a drummer. I was very serious about music for a long time, until college when I couldn’t move my drumset into my dorm room. I played in all sorts of bands in high school and summers home from college, from jazz bands to punk rock to funk to blues to pop. You name it. I made my money in high school teaching drum lessons to grade school kids. In college at Indiana, when I wasn’t playing as much, I got involved on the music business side, helping bands market themselves and get gigs at local venues. I also took a lot of music history classes in college, including the complete history of the Beatles. Music isn’t as big a part of my life today, but it definitely spurred my creative instincts, which I think are very helpful in writing and financial marketing.
5. When you’re not creating investment-grade content marketing for WFC’s clients, how do you like to spend your time?
As I mentioned earlier, I’m constantly reading and thinking about business, entrepreneurship, and leadership. I am also a die-hard sports fan, and I spend an unhealthy amount of time listening to Chicago sports radio and watching the Cubs, Blackhawks, and Bears, as well as my Indiana Hoosiers basketball. My wife is from Boston so I’m pressured to root for the Patriots too. I’m also a big runner. I ran the Chicago marathon in 2014 and hope to run another one someday. Otherwise, my wife and I love eating and spend way too much money at Chicago’s local restaurants. Pizza is my favorite food, and I eat way too much of it.
6. As a Cubs fan, do you think you’ll be able handle working with Scott, who is a die-hard Cardinals fan, once baseball season starts?
Time will tell! I don’t hate the Cardinals the same way older generations of Cubs fans do. I actually have a lot of respect for them. Still, now that the Cubs are contenders every year, and the Cardinals are still competing for the division year in and year out as well, it will be interesting to see how coming into the office will be those few weekends every summer when the Cubs and Cardinals play each other. That said, Scott will be among my first close co-workers to root for the Cardinals, so I may not have any idea what I’m in store for. My Cubs crazy side really doesn’t come out until the playoffs, so as long as the two teams don’t meet in October, I think things will be OK.
Reach Out and Say Hello to Frank
As you can see from Frank’s answer to question 5, his diplomacy will be an asset in working with WFC’s clients.
Feel free to reach out to Frank and say hello. You can reach him at frank@wentworthwriting or @FaKalman. After 1.5 months, Frank has already been a huge asset to our team and our clients, and I’m thrilled to have him on board!
About the Author
Scott Wentworth is the founder and head financial writer at Wentworth Financial Communications. Scott and the team of writers and editors at WFC help professionals across the financial services industry build their brands by creating investment-grade white papers, bylined articles, newsletters, blogs, social media posts, and other forms of content marketing.