Ep. 19 | Building Your Personal Board of Directors
Download MP3Welcome to the Teaching Tax Flow podcast, where the goal is to empower and educate you to legally and ethically minimize taxes paid over your lifetime.
Speaker 2:Welcome everybody back to teaching tax flow, the podcast, episode 19. It's time we hit a very I wouldn't call it a touchy subject. That's a really good subject. We always say that. I know.
Speaker 2:They're, and back by popular demand, we let Nate Hamill join us again. What's happening, Nate?
Speaker 3:Hey, buddy. How are you?
Speaker 2:Oh, pretty good. Pretty good. So those of you that haven't been annoyed by me on previous podcasts, I am John Topolsky, one of the hosts here at our show, with the teaching tax flow team. So episode 19, we're gonna get into building your personal board of directors. Now what in the world does that mean?
Speaker 2:Right? We're not talking about building a giant nonprofit, going out, finding these guys that you have to pay. Well, we won't give a number to it, but we'll just say a lot of money to be on your board of directors on an annual basis. And, you know, you don't even have to take these guys and gals on a, you know, a a retreat to, you know, Barbados once a year. These are people that are really just in your circle.
Speaker 2:So we're gonna dive into that a little bit. Nate, thank you again for joining us back on this. I figure you're a perfect person to jump into this. But before we do, sir, let's actually thank our sponsor.
Speaker 4:This podcast is sponsored by Strategic Associates. If you are a high income earner, real estate investor, or successful entrepreneur with $75,000 or more of annual tax liability, Strategic associates can help. Your first step to saving thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, is to contact Roger Roundy at roger@strategicag.net, or (801) 641-2956, and be sure to tell them TTF sent you.
Speaker 2:Let's jump into it. So board of directors, personal board of directors. I'll just name a couple of these. And then, Nate, let's actually dive into a little bit of an explanation. So when you're building your personal board of directors, you're thinking attorney, life insurance professional, bookkeeper, fractional CFO, banker lender, business mentor, CPA, licensed FA, financial advisor, etcetera.
Speaker 2:So, Nate, what would actually be a good starting point for somebody that's listening to this that maybe their ears just perked up and they say, what? Or they say, what in the world are you guys talking about a personal board? So run us through that a little bit. What's your thoughts on this?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So a personal board, think about it from a corporate standpoint. Corporations
Speaker 2:will
Speaker 3:go out and find the brightest, smartest people they can and have them sit on a board to advise them. And with personal boards, it's it's just like that. It's finding the the best connected, best educated people you can and learning from them and having them as a connection as you start to pursue your hobbies, your passions, your money making, whatever it is. You need to make sure you have these people in your back pocket. And you asked, John, what a good starting point would be.
Speaker 3:I always say about business mentor. Start with a business mentor first.
Speaker 2:Excellent. Excellent. And really looking at this from a individual standpoint, so we'll we'll call it the taxpayer. Right? Some people might say, well, why do I need a board of directors for my taxpayer, you know, criteria or situation?
Speaker 2:Well, I think the easiest response to that is, right, is unless you wanna pay a ton in taxes, you really gotta have all your ducks in a row. And by ducks, we mean your board of directors. Right? Like, these individuals need
Speaker 3:to need
Speaker 2:to be in communication with one another or at least at any given time really have a good gauge on where you are as a taxpayer. Correct?
Speaker 3:Yeah. And and let's take taxes out of it completely for a second, John. You gotta have the right professionals in place for your trust and estate planning for your family, for your property and casualty insurance. So it's not just, am I paying too much in taxes? It's, have I made the right choices for my family?
Speaker 3:Am I paying too much for my insurances? And the beauty of it is is these relationships with these board of directors John, you can't see me air quoting from over here, but board of directors, is that's a reciprocal two way street. If you connect and you're a business owner who, needs to to make connections in the local metropolitan area to grow your business, and if you don't have a financial advisor, I highly recommend you get one. Coming from an almost decade of wealth management experience, network is everything in that. And so you start to feed them people, they feed you people, and these relationships can really pay off.
Speaker 2:And that's a great point too about it being a two way street. And then almost using the example, right, if, you know, say you say you have the opportunity and it it's presented to you that you, you know, we'll we'll say the extreme. Say you have seventy two hours. Say you say you have a couple days to to really review a contract, possibly line up any lending on that. And would would you know, again, this is the extreme, but say it's a business acquisition.
Speaker 2:Right? And say you don't have attorney, say you don't have a lender, say you don't have a business mentor, you don't have a CFO in that sense, you know, you you're gonna spend all your time going out and finding one where you're kind of acting out of desperation. And as we all know, acting out of desperation, it never ends well, usually. And if it doesn't, well, you're extremely lucky, and I should you know, you should probably stop at one win right there because it usually doesn't happen twice. And really kind
Speaker 3:of with a thousand batting average.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. The ones that do that, you we just call them, you know, what, unicorns. They just they don't exist and when they do. Outliers. There you go.
Speaker 2:The the the few and far between.
Speaker 3:John, I love the example you gave. Let's say you have seventy two hours to acquire a multimillion dollar business. I'm gonna throw one more wrench into that engine. A lot of banks are require may require life insurance as collateral. So now you have to throw that in the mix.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:These banks that are willing to loan you the money, they're gonna wanna see that your books are in order. Hello, bookkeeper. The reality is, John, those things never happen that extremely quick, But it is important to have these resources. You know, personally, on my personal board, that I that I've worked with for years, includes a CPA, an attorney, a life insurance professional, property casualty insurance professional, a financial advisor, and a banker. And I would have meetings with them quarterly at my office, and I'd order Panera, you know, $30 for the bagels and coffee.
Speaker 3:And we would sit around my office for two hours, and everybody would get an equal amount of time to do a market update, to just update the rest of the group professionally about what was going on.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Do you think and and this is the beauty of it. Do you think that in a heartbeat, if I needed something on the personal side, I couldn't call any one of them and get that seventy two hour lending deal, get that contract reviewed, get all of that. And it's because of the relationships.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And they know and, really, when you say relationships, it's really those individuals really having a good gauge on where you're at and where your best interests lie. Right? Like, if Yeah. Like, almost thinking about it, you know, from from my marketing agency world.
Speaker 2:You know? Somebody just doesn't call you and say, hey. You know what? I'm interested in working with you. I'm a new client.
Speaker 2:We haven't met. I've heard your name before. I want this done. Right? You your first step is really kind of you know, we won't necessarily call it the honeymoon stage, but it's more of an onboarding.
Speaker 2:It's getting to know the client before you jump into the project, and it's very I would say it's very, very similar to a board of directors on a personal level. Right? Like, you don't call an attorney and then make all these suggestions to you or a business mentor making all these suggestions to you, not knowing a lot about you as an individual. You know, maybe what your risk tolerance is, to what your Right. Experience is, and really what you want in the future.
Speaker 2:So as far as for planning goes, I mean, you I'm sure you can attest to this a a million times over, you know, and Yeah. Really the wealth management. Somebody just doesn't book an appointment with you. They sit down with you, and you tell them everything that they need to do. Right?
Speaker 2:Like, there's a lot you need to take. So an in intake or an onboarding is really important. And you have those relationships, and and they're almost like friends. You know? You you trust their you trust their judgment.
Speaker 2:You trust their input. Are you gonna take every single thing they say to heart and implement? Probably not. But if you don't, you better have a darn good reason why. Right?
Speaker 2:Because they're looking they're looking at it from a from a different perspective for you. So looking at that list of individuals or or we'll call it board members, you know, the seats at the table, I know we we mentioned, you know, business mentor is usually a great starting point if you don't have anybody there. Right? So Yep. Talk talk a little bit about that one.
Speaker 2:Right? Like, if somebody doesn't have a mentor for their business, you know, how do how do they go about finding one of those? Because that one might be a little harder, I think, for people to find than, say, an attorney. Right? Like, an attorney, you could probably get an easy referral to from somebody you know.
Speaker 2:But if you had to go out right now and say you didn't have one, how would you go about finding a mentor?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I'll challenge you. John, I actually think this is the easiest one to find.
Speaker 2:I like it. I like it. So walk walk us through how you would do this.
Speaker 3:Sure. John, if I were to ask you, who's the most successful person that you look up to that you happen to know personally?
Speaker 2:Well, Chris isn't on this podcast, so I can say him, actually. Perfect.
Speaker 3:Chris p. It's as simple as making a call to Chris and saying, hey, Chris. It's Nate Hammel. Hey. I know we we have a friendship.
Speaker 3:I know we know each other. But professionally, I've always looked up to you. And I'd love to pick your brain whether it's one time, two times, or an ongoing thing because I just really, really look up to what you built, and I'd be willing to pay for lunch
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Just to just to buy an hour of your time if you'd be willing. The human that says no to that is not the human you want as your mentor.
Speaker 2:That's probably the the first qualifying question. Right? You ask that and see what their response is, and you either tell them to, you know, take a long walk of of a short period in a in a nice sense, or you Yep. Move on to the next steps. Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. And most of the time, people that are successful that you look up to in in any stage of business recognize that they got to their where they are because of the people that guided them. Mhmm. And so, you know, I I one of the things I love about working alongside you, Sean, Chris, is we all have people outside of our TTF network that we coach, that we mentor, that we guide, that we you know, whatever it is. And I think people will have an easy answer yes to that question if they ask it with humility and honesty.
Speaker 2:Then that is some some great advice. Right? So looking at that board again is one one of which or or each should say, really being a seat at the proverbial table. So going out and you know, it might seem overwhelming. Right?
Speaker 2:You have this list of individuals that you need to fill these positions, we'll call them. Mhmm. Again, doesn't necessarily or it's probably better off at their unpaid positions. Again, we're not talking about building a giant organization here. There's some some might be depending on depending on the organization and the structure.
Speaker 2:But
Speaker 3:And it might turn into a paid position. You may, go on retainer with an attorney. You may hire that CPA to do your taxes. But I'm telling you, and John and I are repeating over and over and over for our listeners, that having a relationship with each one of these people personally or professionally or business relationship will always pay dividends in the future.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And and some of these people too, they might, you know, you as the listeners may be able to go into this, look at this list. We have a blog article that we we pushed out about this, and there's, you know, there's a lot of information within teaching tax law, within the mini lessons, within a lot of the course content. But without even diving into that specifically, I mean, this is something I feel that we mentioned probably in over 50% of our shows that we do. So it's it's very relevant to everything that we're always discussing.
Speaker 2:And and why we do that is because it really is kind of dotting the i's and and crossing the t's with a lot of stuff. And I would almost bet that probably half, if not more than that, have over half of this, again, quote, unquote, board already in place. And it's one of two things. Right? You either don't realize it at all or you really don't see how they're really connected in a sense.
Speaker 2:So I know, Nate, we we talked a little bit earlier about this too. And before we do into before we jump into that too, I I do wanna thank our sponsors one more time. But I'll give you, what, about thirty seconds or so is is the spot takes to go through. Let's give these folks some homework. So before we do that, Nate, think about that, and we'll be right back.
Speaker 4:This podcast is brought to you by Strategic Associates. Are you a high income earner, real estate investor, or successful entrepreneur who is frustrated by having to pay $75,000 or more of annual tax liability? If so, Strategic Associates can help. Your first step to saving thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, is to contact Roger Roundy at rogerstrategicag dot net or by calling (801) 641-2956, and be sure to tell them TTF sent you.
Speaker 2:Alright, Nate. You're on the hook. It's up to you, my friend. So we're we're we're jumping into it. So I told you you had a a few moments there, so here we are.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, again, let's let's give them some homework here. And for everybody that's listening I mean, really, really listen to this because consider this a challenge to figure this out. Right? It's almost like you're in you're in a high school class or a college course, and you're just about to get up and walk out for Christmas vacation, and then they say, ah, well, you know what?
Speaker 2:Here's something for you to think about. Let's do that to everybody, Nate. So Yeah. Let it rip, my man. What do you got for them?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So this is a fun one for me. John, you know this about my background. I I have a coaching consulting firm on the side. I consult and coach inside of teaching tax flow.
Speaker 3:That's my plug for TTF urgent care. If you wanna meet one on one with me, go through there. But I love giving this homework. I want you or I want our listeners to know that they can fill the seats at their proverbial table, those eight spots, the attorney, the life insurance professional, the property casualty insurance professional, the bookkeeper or fractional CFO, the licensed financial advisor, the banker, the business mentor, and the CPA, they can fill all of those seats in eight weeks. It's super simple.
Speaker 3:So there are three steps to doing this, and eight weeks later, you can have all of those potentially filled. Step one, identify the people. So, John, we're putting this resource that we created, a simple visual out and available on the blog article. Right?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Perfect. So feel free to print that off or save it to your computer, and just write the names, email, and phone number of the people that you identify in each one of those that you would like the opportunity to meet. That's step one. So you have that list. Step two is a simple email or a text or a call.
Speaker 3:Pro tip, I recommend a call. It's personal. And call that person. If I said, hey. I wanna meet with, the attorney Johnny t, I would call Johnny t and say, hey, John.
Speaker 3:I know we haven't met. My name is Nate Hamill. I I live here locally. I've seen you. I I really look up to you and your practice, and I'm in an area where I'm not really sure I need an attorney legally yet.
Speaker 3:But as my business grows, I may. And I'd love to establish a relationship now to see if that could pay dividends for later. Would you be willing for me to or would would you be open to me buying you lunch next Friday?
Speaker 2:Okay. Okay. So really just kinda recap just those two until we till we come out with a third ask there, kind of the, we'll call it the capstone of the challenge. So really identify those individuals. Right?
Speaker 2:So everybody that's listening, take that list on the blog article, and there's a little description, really, which each one of those or I should say the value of having each one of those individuals as part of your board. You'll you'll see that noted in there. Take note of those literally. Print it off, write it down, and then try to match your network to those. Right, Nate?
Speaker 2:So we're we're we're getting that and then reaching out to them?
Speaker 3:Yeah. And and and there may be people who say, no. I'm not interested. Mhmm. Oh, cool.
Speaker 3:Cross their name out. Call the next one. The reality is they may not have time. They may not be a good fit, but you'll find it. And structure these use Fridays for an example.
Speaker 3:I used to use Fridays in my wealth management firm. My lunch every Friday was with somebody in my board of directors. Mhmm. And so in eight weeks, if you arrange eight different board of director member lunches every Friday, you could circle through them six times a year. Six times a year, you're sitting down with the people that you've identified that you see as industry leaders and people you need in your back pocket, and you're constantly learning, and you're adding value to them, and you're sending them referrals or connecting them to business opportunities as well.
Speaker 3:It it it's perfect. So, can I tell them the third step? The third step to all of this?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. This is this is the best part about it. Right? It's what really holds people accountable.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, Johnny, t, you and I have really kind of been focused on what do we want the voice and the brand of TTF to sound like. And the one thing we've always said is we are approachable people. We are those people that, people love to email us, but they like even more to hang out with us. And so for the time being, email is is all we have.
Speaker 3:So I'm encouraging our listeners. If you need help to set up your board of directors, email me. Nhamill@teachingtaxflow.com. N h a m I l at teaching tax flow dot com. That is my direct email.
Speaker 3:I don't care if it's now when we're releasing this or ten years from now when somebody is listening to this in the vault. We still that that that still remains true. If you need help setting up your board of directors, email me. I will help you work through that process.
Speaker 2:Awesome, Nate. Awesome. And that's that's really gracious of you to kind of extend that out. I mean, as everybody knows, you know, we're all we're all busy in our own little world sometimes. But as Nate mentioned there too, it's you know, a lot of the content that we develop as part of teaching tax flow, it's it's in response to questions or challenges or just overall, you know, inquiries, we should say, from from listeners, from members already.
Speaker 2:You guys, as in the audience, really steer, drive, and really motivate. So as far as for the development goes of our organization, of our platform, of our content, we're just not at home sitting here keying away at stuff coming up with ideas. As mentioned, it's a direct response to to interest, I should say. So follow-up with Nate on that stuff. Again, Nate, thanks for joining us, man.
Speaker 2:This was this was a good topic. I think it's a perfect time for it too. Hopefully, you know, people are in that mindset of of taxes. If you're not, you clearly don't listen to the radio, watch TV, drive down the road, or talk to any other human being on planet Earth or at least within the The United States Of America. And you got bigger problems in life.
Speaker 2:So, thanks again for joining us, Nate. Follow everybody follow-up with him on that. We will drop the link to the blog article as mentioned in the show notes for this podcast specifically, this episode, and then follow it. And any questions, again, drop us a line. Any of the questions regarding any connections for that too, Nate, myself, Chris, anybody on our team would be happy to happy to, make those connections.
Speaker 2:So, mister Hammel, until next time.
Speaker 3:Until next time, brother.
Speaker 2:Alrighty. Well, everybody have a great week, and we will see you soon.
