Wealth Management For Families, Businesses & Entrepreneurs with Brad Bestgen

0:04 Hi, you live done to the censure. Fore wow for you. Young, it's the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio. I'm very excited about this segment and our next guest because it's like ghost of Christmas past for me, for all of you listeners that know that I used to be in the financial business. So now we have one of our sponsors here at the network who is in the financial business. So we're gonna chat, especially with how things are going nowadays, and this guest will definitely give you some great advice and great information that will not only be apropos for your family but for the timing of the times that we're living here and twenty six.

1:01 So welcome to the show. Brad, Best John, how are you hey. I'm good, Teams, thanks for having me man, Yeah, excited too. Excited to join you, Excited to have you and one thing I love. Okay, so your company is Best Gen Wealth Management, and you know my time in the business, usually that was just somebody's ego putting their name on it, and it was wasn't really a family affair. But for you it makes sense because this has been a family affair for a long time. Hasn't it been. Yeah, that's exactly correct, and we're pretty proud of that. You know, my dad and I work together for over fifteen years, and I'm in the process of purchasing or buying out his share of the business. He's mostly retired at this point, but was in the financial services industry for.

1:56 Over forty years. And you know, I started in the financial service industry back in like two thousand and four and worked in other places for a few years before him and I decided we should join up and start our own start our own firm. So felt great, and it's you know, I think we all know the statistics on family businesses that transition from one generation to the next is very small, and even getting from G two and G three is even smaller. So hopefully there'll be an opportunity for that someday. But yeah, we're we're a family business and enjoy that very much. I think it's even smaller for the financial business from what I know and from my opinion, because generally a lot of people that entered the financial business are trying to get away from the family business.

2:46 Yeah, yeah, well exactly, there's definitely which we help, you know, given our experience, and you know, there's certainly a lot of pros and cons working with family and sometimes conversations spill over to the you know, Thanksgiving table and things like that, so you do have to and you have to have difficult conversations that you might otherwise not have if you weren't working together and things like that. But it's it is great, and it's one of the reasons we love working with business owners and family businesses because you're right, there's a lot of nuances there, you know, with people trying to decide whether they want to come into the family business or if they don't. It's definitely a lot more barriers to entry than people think, especially when you know, if you're the starting generation, you don't want to create any form of entitlement, and it's not just a birthright that you could walk in here. And if you've had employees working for you for fifteen twenty years and then you just hand the reins over to your kids out of nowhere, can be a lot of resentment there from existing employees, so it has to be done carefully.

3:59 You know, you should mention that because I have two examples that popped in my head immediately. One of which was when I was before I was ever in the financial business. When I was really young, I was in the pool and spa business, and I managed a store called Harrows that was a big chain in New York and New Jersey and had been around for sixty years. Wow. And the owners handed it over to their entitled kids and it's gone. Yeah. Imagine that sixty year old business gone in one generation. Yeah, And it's all because the kids were handed it and they didn't really know what to do with it.

4:45 They had all these fancy ideas. But those fancy ideas I kind of relate to the person that has no kids telling the person with kids how the parent Yeah. Yeah, well exactly, it's it is to you know, there has to be some level of stewardship, you know, when it comes to a family, and especially if it's a family of wealth and transition, and if you want your kids to come in the business, there should be the protocol of you know, do they have to work somewhere else to get experience before they come in here. Once they are in here, what departments do they have to work in? Like, what do they have to do?

5:26 You know, are there certain you know hurdles that they should jump over. Do they have to get any continuing education or you know, what, what is it that we need to do to foster our children learning about this business and what it is and what it took to get it there, especially if it's successful. The kids grow up seeing that they have a good lifestyle and you know, things are okay, but they don't see what mom and dad, our grandparents did to you know, get the business to a level that it actually is successful and profitable. And it's not easy to run a business. As you will, oh, you've had a lot of experience with it, so you can't just hand it over to somebody that has no idea what is.

6:08 Going on or the appreciation like I have both sides of defense. Okay. I got into that pulling spa business because that was my dad was a man. He when I was like from the time I was like twelve, he had me work for him like a slave, and I did every part of the business, even parts he didn't do, so like he made me. I didn't like it then, but he made me learn every aspect in the business. And I think it's so important because if you are going to take over the family business, and especially you talked about employees. Okay, they have to respect that, you know, how to do their job as good or better than they do.

6:55 Yeah, one hundred. It's because if you're going to come into a leadership role, as you said, you have to earn the respect of the people you're trying to lead. They have to respect you. You have to respect them. That's to be mutual understanding that. Like, you know, you're not just flying in out of left field because you just graduated, you know, from graduate school with an NBA and now you like can just come in and run a business, you know, at twenty five years old. But there's a lot more to that. And you know, employees need to realize and understand where you're coming from and what your goals are, and you know that you're going to maintain the culture and you know things like that that you know, people want to see as a transition is occurring.

7:41 And you know you mentioned respect and stuff like that. That's so true, and that brings me now to the other end. You know, I had a daughter that worked for me for several years at the radio station, but she was young at the time. She would probably be better now, you know, but at the time she was young, so it was a different attitude, and it was that entitled attitude. It was that nepotism attitude. And you know, on top of it, I remember one day there was somebody that worked for me that I've been radio for years, but also knew my daughter very well, you know, because her daughter and their door were. Like best friends and stuff. So she knew. My door for years, and my door was talking about inheriting the business once I was gone, and she said, like, unless you start doing every part of business and doing it differently than you are now, you'll be out of business in a couple of months, you know, and basically said, your dad is the business. So if you want to take over the business and have it actually continue, then you need to start really shadowing your dad and doing and learning every aspect of the business and not enacting more like the employer than the employee. And I use that as that's a mentality. I always call that mentality.

9:02 There's the employer mentality and the employee mentality, you know, and that doesn't mean you're the employer. That doesn't mean you're an employee. It's how you think. Are you the one punching a time clock, and as soon as five o'clock hits, you're out of there, no matter whether you got your job done or no matter what's happening in the business. Or are you somebody that understands that the business doesn't punch a time clock. Yeah, exactly, it's a and that kind of goes without I mean, that is a key tenant for even I say, like now, like we're very lucky in our business where we have employees that have that owner's mentality.

9:45 Even though they're not owners. And you know, we're in a service business and you know, there are things that you have to do. You know, we don't make it expected, but we have employees that will do that. And especially if you're in the owner's family and you want to come in and be the owner or a leader in the executive suite, you have to have that ownership mentality that you know, yeah, you want to have some balance in life, and you need to have your personal time and clients need to respect that too. But there's always something to be done to work on the business, to you know, growth strategies, marketing, you know, looking at the books, you know, how do we improve our processes, our tech stack, you know what, more than just being a financial advisor. You know, you've got to do these other things. And it might be on a night, it might be on weekends, like you might be on your laptop while you know you're waiting for your kids practice to be over at night. You know, there are things that there's also there's obviously a lot of pros to being a business owner, and there's a lot of nice things to come on with that, but there's also a lot of sacrifice and things that you have to do. And if you're trying to bring children into the business that might not necessarily have that attitude, or they just want to punch the clock and they don't really want to learn anything about this department, or if you call them at five point.

11:08 Thirty, they don't pick up. You know, there's things that you want to look for to make sure the business is going to succeed. If you're in your standpoint as the owner or the founder saying, well, I'm you know, Jesus, I don't I want to retire, but you know, my kids aren't showing the qualities that I would like in a transition or success and succession plan. You know, what am I going to do? How am I going to deal with that? And that's stuff you've got to start working on years in advance if you're thinking of transitioning. Out exactly, And that is one thing, you know. I went to your best gend wealth management site and one thing I saw that I think you correct me if I'm wrong. What works for you and your dad and your family businesses. He has his specialty, you have yours.

12:02 Yeah, exactly, that is and I think that goes a long way in a lot. Of businesses, right, you know, I think a lot of times we have a hard time, whether it's delegating. Or we think we're the only ones that can do it. That way is working with people and putting people around you that have strengths that are different than your strengths, and then you make a great team. You know, there's a ton of sports analogies that would fit that description as well. Sometimes the teams that win don't necessarily have all the all stars. They just play together better, and they believe in each other as a team, and they utilize each other's strengths. It's almost like finding your unique.

12:44 Brilliance right as a key tenant that I've learned in a lot of coaching I've done and becoming a business leader, it's like, what are you best at that you love doing? Okay, let's narrow that down. Everything else you either spend a lot less time on or you delegate. You hire somebody to do that. Because when you start spending time on stuff that either you're not good at, or you don't want to do, or you shouldn't be doing, that's when things start bottlenecking. And Yeah, I think my dad and I. Have done a good job of We've always kind of had a key focus on business owners and that marketplace for our planning, but definitely have had different strengths within that sphere that helps sort of give a holistic approach for people.

13:33 Yeah, and you're right because I live by that here with people that work with me, I'll get out in the beginning when they first come on. I'll give them all different types of tasks because I want to see what they have passion for, and because what they have passion for, it'll probably be good at and they'll get it done the right way and they'll care about doing it, not to mention. Also, for me, it's like, if they're really good at this. Task that I don't have to do anymore. That frees up my time to do what I do best because a lot of business owners they do a lot of tasks that take up their time of things they don't like to do, don't want to do, maybe even aren't best at, and then have no time to do what their best at that will grow the business.

14:25 Yeah, well exactly. And there's a lot because we do a lot of planning with business owners and that can evolve into like exit planning conversations or you know, what they want to do as a approach retirement, and you know, that's a key tenant is kind of diving into the human side of it. And we've had situations where you know, client things they want to sell or exit their company, and we try and get to the why why do you want? Why now? What's important to you about that? And all, well, multiple highs are ever going to be well maybe maybe not, But like I'm burnt out, It's like, well, let's separate this out. Are you burnt out on the company or are you burnt out on your job? And that gets to your point, like you are probably doing eighty percent of the tasks you're doing. We could farm out to somebody else. In your company or hire somebody. And if we did that and your time was just focused on these three or four things, would you still want to work for that? Would you still want to run the business and run the company? And a lot of times it's like, yeah, I actually would, Well, so okay, so we're really not having an exit selling conversation just yet.

15:38 We're having a conversation on how to make the business a little more efficient and have you sort of live the life that you don't need to take a vacation from, right, like living your best life while you're still owning the business, not just like I'm going to run myself into the ground until this business is worth enough that i can sell it and retire, and I'm not going to enjoy life until I'm sixty five or sixty. It's like, well, let's try and create a life that you can enjoy the whole way and not just wait until the end of the day. And there's a lot of other nuance that goes into that and the planning and for an exit. But you know, that is one of the big things that people end up doing a lot of stuff that they either shouldn't be doing or they're overqualified doing and they just haven't taken the time to delegate or hire the right people to take some stuff off their plate.

16:33 I also think that sometimes people of business owners or entrepreneurs more so than most business owners, they don't want to delegate because they want to save money and they don't even realize that they're costing themselves money like that. You know, they're like, oh, well, I wouldn't want to hire somebody to do this job because then I'd have to pay them and that'd be less money for me. No, it would be more money. You'd have to pay out more time to generate more revenue to where you put more money in your pocket. Yeah, exactly. I think you mentioned a moment ago. If you're focused on the tasks that you're best at, then that's going to be more beneficial for your business.

17:13 Your employees, your clients, and not. To mention, if you are moving to a point where you want to have an exit someday, whether that's to a third party or to a family member, or to an internal transition to another employee, and you want to create enterprise value for your company, the business. Can't revolve around you one hundred percent, because then you leeve what is. A buyer buying, right, if you do everything and you're responsible for all the new revenue and new clients and you know, whatever the case may be, whoever your business is structured, you want to try and separate yourself from as much of that stuff as you can. And that's one thing that buyers will look at if you're trying to exit the business for any reasonable.

18:01 Valuation, of course, and that goes back to what I was saying in the beginning about that person telling my daughter, like, there is no business without your father, you know, And that's also you know, that was way back in the beginning, but that also was kind of a wake up call to me hearing that, because I'm like, yeah, that's right, you know, like it wouldn't have any value and then you're just working for the rest of your life, you know, because you know the saying you don't own a business, the business owns you, you know. So I mean, if you're the one doing everything, you're gonna be doing everything for the rest of your life and it won't have value to go to anybody else, whether it's a family member or trying to sell the business.

18:46 Yeah, well exactly, And that's one of the a big problem we see in that space. You know, business owners just they put all their discretion at dollars back into the business, which for sometimes for good reason, especially if you're getting it off the ground and starting, you have to do that to grow it and get it past a certain break even point. But a they probably do it because they it's what they know the most. It's probably where they're going to get better returns on their investment if it's put back into the company. But they don't. Really pay attention to anything else with regards to coordinating their personal planning and business planning, and they just think they're going to get to.

19:29 The end of the road. There's going to be some you know, someone's going to come along and offer them ten million dollars for their company and they'll retire, and then they come to find out, oh, it's only worth three million, and you didn't save any money outside the company for the last twenty years. And so you either have to keep working to get the value to where you want it to be at a point in your life where you thought you were going to start slowing. Down, and you know that usually doesn't work. You know, it's unfortunate lot of business owners don't think about exit planning until they want to exit, and you should start thinking about it like a decade in. Advance, No doubt. I think it's the same like retirement planning.

20:14 I remember being in my young twenties doing financial needs analysis and telling people about putting them for retirement. But the same token in my own head was like I got plenty of time, and then I woke up and now I'm fifty nine, and really that that what forty years went really quick? Yeah? Right by? Yeah, And that's exactly what happens, you know. So we all have busy lives and things going on, and maybe sometimes the days seem long, but the year seem to go by pretty quick, which you know is happens to all of us.

20:54 Which is why you have to prepare as soon as possible, you know, because if you say, ah, I got time, that preparation day is going to be a lot harder than if you started right from the get go. Yeah, exactly. And there's, you know, there's so many things when you have time on your side. There's it opens up the door to so many other planning techniques and things you could do to you know, what can we do to increase the value of the company. What can we do to you know, save money outside the business? How can we be more efficient? How can we save taxes? Like, how can we structure this? You know, what entity structure should I be looking at besides what I'm doing. It's so many things to discuss with people. But if you say, like I want to sell in six months or twelve months, all right, well we really that eliminates a lot of different planning techniques that you might be able to use to save taxes on the exit or you know, position the next generation to be in the best position possible and.

21:57 Retain the culture of the company or whatever it is. And I know we've sort of circled around talking about exit planning here, but this goes even if you think you might not have an exit or you're not really building your business to do that, There's still so many things that you can do when you look at things in advance. And I know most people you know want to retire at some point. But if you can get in and go through a process early on, you know, you can live a great life. I mentioned earlier that you don't have to take a vacation from like enjoy the journey right, How can I get the most out of my experiences that I'm having now and not just saying I'm planning for everything and then when I'm sixty I'll be in great shape. How can I be in great shape when I'm forty and fifty and still get to the destination.

22:49 I want to get to? There you go, and like, we don't know how long we're on this earth, so maybe you don't make it to sixty five. That's the other thing too. Yeah, you have all this long range planning, which you have to do some long range planning, of course, but you also live your life today and do what you can do, because, like you said, all of a sudden, you have a health scare at sixty and you thought you were going to retire at sixty. Two, and now you know you might not make. It to sixty two, and so those unfortunate things happen, and so you want to make sure you're getting the best of. Your life now. And I wanted to ask a question too, I was thinking about before. When you're talking about exit strategies and selling the business, you know, I get it. I'm sure a lot of business owners get it all the time.

23:40 I can't tell you how many emails I get about, oh, people are looking at your business and we could have buyers for him. Those people, those people that are email what's your opinion on those people? Post to what you do for people? So nine out of ten times I would avoid those situations, right, I mean they are just sending those out to a lists serve of business owners and hoping they get a couple of people to catch on. And in nine out of ten times it is not advantageous to you. It's not, Oh, I got a guy, just sign the letter of intent. Here, we'll grab a dinner.

24:21 He's going to offer this much for the business, and we'll sign the LOI and then we'll start. Doing some due diligence. And you know, once you sign an LOI or something like that, then it's very binding and you don't have as much leverage and the buyer holds leverage, and like, oh, we noticed this about your books, and our offer is dropping and we notice that and this, and versus doing it the opposite. And if you thought you wanted to start going through a sale process or entertaining it, okay, let me get let me get a deal attorney. The deal attorney's going to review everything and all these dot all lois all offers, then we're going to get maybe we need an M and A, we need. A business valuation person, you know, we need.

25:03 So those are all things that we quarterback and would put together for somebody in the right order to try and let's evaluate the offers that are coming across, and we would even if it got to that point, we even dial it back a level to talk about the human aspect of it, at which I mentioned a moment ago, like what's important to you about this company? What is life going to look like for you? Picture yourself the day after the sale. Maybe you have enough money that you're never going to outlive the money that you have. It's generational wealth. How are you going to feel Are you going to be in a position to start to live your life's purpose or have you just sold your life's purpose?

25:46 Right? A lot of business owners, their entire self esteem, their net worth is built into the business, especially if they started it or founded it, and you need to work through that and make sure people are going to be emotionally ready as well as financially ready for a transaction, because it can take a long time. There's a lot to be considered, and so I would encourage if anybody is potentially thinking like that and they got an offer, you know, in an email, you know. I would not respond to it. I would contact an advisor and attorney that specializes in those types of transactions and you know, see what your proper steps should be before entertaining something like that, because you can get stuck in a tough situation. You know, there's a lot of unscruptless people out there unfortunately just trying to find you know, sending out thousands of emails a week, hoping a couple of people.

26:41 Respond, Yeah, no doubt. And so also, like you're a financial planner and you have a financial firm, but when you work with clients, it's not just about the finances. You know, the end goal isn't just stronger financial outcomes. What else is it? Then? For people that don't know, So it's. A great question. And of course being financial advisors and financial planners, we have to be very proficient in the numbers and the projections and using the planning software, using tax analysis is a lot of stuff that goes into it. But on the other side of that coin, there is the human side.

27:29 And I subscribe to a program that I've been dealing with, you know, it's called the Wealth Integration System for Entrepreneurs. It was founded by another advisor and I've gone through the program and it talks about two main points, where one is ROI return on investment and the other is return on life experience and really helping people understand the why behind decisions and getting into sort of their history with money. If it's a business owner, you know, tell me how you got started in this business, what's your story. It's one of the things I love about doing what we're doing is get the stories behind how business started, how it transitioned, you know, how it got from A to B, and really just getting into people's lives and what is important to them about them, their.

28:22 Family, charity, what do they want. To see out of their money as a legacy as you know, Let's get to like a values conversation and then try and wrap some of your. Financial goals around how. That ties into your values and you know what you see your life looking like three years, five years, ten years down the line. A lot of conversations like that that frankly, most advisors don't have in our industry. A lot of people want to us get to you know, finding a problem. And giving them a solution. Here's a product, or we can manage your money and do better than the other guys there. We could sell you this thing that's going to. Help you here, but really not diving into it's why it's important to them. And that's frankly, I think where really the rubber meets the road a lot for people.

29:14 I think that's the difference between financial planning but in and of itself and actual wealth management. Mm. Yeah, well it's I agree, it's and it's a blend of all that's you're almost like a coach, you're. An advisor, you're a guide. You know, there's a lot of circumstances where you know, we the decision is yours, right, it's your money, it's your business, your family. We're not going to tell you exactly what to do, but we're going to put you in a position to have all the information so that you can make a great decision. There are times where like yeah, we're we are going to tell you this is what you should do, like this is a no brainers.

29:57 But other times just putting people in a position to have all the information and look at things from a couple of different perspectives to be able to make the best decision they can for themselves and their family is, in my opinion, adds a lot of value. It's not just about what the Excel spreadsheet says, you know, or what that's important, But the financial answer isn't always the right answer. You know, Let's look at the other sides of the coin here and your history with money and your family's history, and you know how that's guiding some of the decisions you're making, and you know, we have to take that into account when making recommendations. So it's frankly not done that often in our industry from what I've seen.

30:44 So true, which brings me something else that maybe is not done so often in your business that you do is annual planning, which I don't Can you even tell me why any financial planner would not do an annual planning and more importantly, why do you do it? And what does that consist of? So we did this, we've so there's a couple of different definitions. So there's a lot of advisors that do. Annual planning, but it is very basic. It's sort of a means to an end where hey, we'll do a plan, we'll do a retirement projection, and then we're just trying to get you to move your assets from wherever they are now to have us manage them.

31:31 And they might charge a nominal fee that. May cover the costs or not, but it's not really like in depth planning. It's just like a way to you know, let's get your money to manage, because that's how I make most of my money, and we manage money as well, not you know, full disclosure, we do. Manage money for clients. But we started doing an annual planning engagement for folks because we were coming across so that frankly, they were business owners or they own a lot of real estate, they had a high net work, but they didn't have a lot of liquidity, and a lot of firms would say, oh, you need a million to work with us, you need five million to work with us, And frankly, we were seeing a gap in the marketplace where we're going to charge an annual planning fee for you. You don't have to manage any money with us, but that is going to cover a bunch of areas in terms of you know, tax planning, you know, asset management review, balance sheet review, which includes the value of your company, like all your assets, all your liabilities, you know, asset protection strategies, estate planning, you know, philanthropy and gifting, you.

32:46 Know, a whole bunch of stuff. Will review your business agreements, We'll review your insurances and put It's a process we take clients through that takes several months and multiple meetings of gathering in depth data. Once we see some gaps in planning. Usually you see people, especially higher end Yeah, maybe they have an investment guy, or maybe they did in this date plan a few years ago, but nobody talks to each other. Like the account doesn't talk to the attorney, and the attorney doesn't talk to the insurance guy, and no one is really working together. Where we come in and say, here's a process we're going to take you through, and we're going to quarterback this. We're going to find the gaps in your planning. We're going to go and do a joint meeting with the accounts. The attorneys, talk to them about what we've seen, talk together to find mutuals so we're not trying to replace them. Like we don't do taxes, I don't draw up legal documents, but we would want to have everybody in the room talking about what are some of the gaps in the planning, what are some of the solutions based on the goals that mister and missus Smith had told us they had and their values and their family which we are very much in touch with as part of our due diligence, and how do we get them from A to B in this situation.

34:02 And so that's where we do planning. It's an annual engagement. If you end up side and yeah, we want to have our money managed by you as well, we would charge a separate assets under management fee. We discount that if you're a consultant client. But a lot of times the planning and the consulting gets renewed year after year. And it's especially relevant for you know, maybe it's a business that thinks they want to sell in three years and we do all this planning and bring people together to help them in a myriad of areas get. Ready for that. And most advisors won't do it, you know, they want to just manage the money. And then a business sells and they get fifty five phone calls because it was just a liquidity event. Everyone wanting to manage the money they got out of the transaction and where in there years and years in advance, whether it's a business owner or not. We offer those planning consulting services because we found it was a gap in the marketplace.

35:05 And frankly, a lot of people need a lot of planning. Yeah, they certainly do. And what I think is really important too is whoever you're going to talk to about your planning is their credentials, because as somebody that was formerly in the business, you don't realize the difference between the credential planners and the people that just call themselves financial advisors or that are just brokers or or any of the different names, because there's different trading, different training, certification, education that makes you above the rest. You know, Listen, I started in the business, and you know, you were told at Prudential when I started Prudential brand new, like one day in okay, we're going to we put financial advisor on your business card.

35:58 You're a financial advisor. And I found out later that that doesn't mean crap, and like, so that's why I think somebody like you that first of all, you're a certified financial planner, as somebody that went through that same program, I'm here to tell you people, I sat in for the CFP with lawyers and accountants that failed it because they said it was the hardest test they ever had to take, and you have to take these might be different now when I did it five modules, pass all five and then this final exam. That was a bear. Yeah, yeah, and you learn a lot that I would have never known before that if I never got that CFP and I was handling people's money, you know, Like I want to explain that to the listeners from my perspective, like you can be an investment broker at brokerage firm and people and you're managing people's money. Doesn't mean you're doing a good job of It doesn't mean you're planning.

37:01 You may even be, you know, just selling product. But somebody like yourself that has a CFP, you also have a couple other letters after your name, like a credited investment advisor or a credited investment fiduciary, which is to me extremely important, and you can explain to. People what that is. And you know, the fact that the matter is that when you have all these credentials, it means you have the proper training, experience, education to really be able to analyze their needs and give advice that's not based on a product but based on a customized plan for that business or that individual.

37:53 Yeah, well exactly, and thank you for mentioning that, because, Yeah, the CFP was very difficult exam to pass and go through. And like you said, there are people that can call themselves a financial advisor who have never taken the CFP. They've just taken the basic like securities licensing exam to get licensed to sell mutual funds or annuities or you know, stocks, whatever it is. And so there is a big difference, and they hold you to a higher standard that with ethics, and you've got to you know, his all background checks, and you have to do continuing education every year to make sure you're staying up to speed on tax laws and regulations and those in the last number of years, those seem to change, you know, every twelve months there's a new tax law, and you know, if you're not up to speed on that, it can really impact people's plannings.

38:45 But the AIF for. The incredited investment fiduciary, I mean, I think it's just being an investment fiduciary in its simplest. Form means that you obligate you put the. Client's interest first at all times and your your objective as an advisor with them. And you know, like us, we're independent. There's no proprietary products, there's no you know, there's no sales quote is it's we're a fiduciary that acts in our client's best interest at all times and puts their interests ahead of all else. So that to me is is extremely important. You know, I shouldn't I took the designation. I you know, was acted as a fiduciary before I had the designation. Obviously I think, uh, you know, it's a character trait to you know, put clients before yourself. You shouldn't need designation to do that, but it does help you know, client see that you have that. And the other one that you mentioned was a CPWA, which was Certified Private Wealth Advisor, which was a program I took through University of Chicago Booth School of Business, which is just.

39:57 An elevated sort of CFP. That is geared towards working with high net worth basically clients that have a. Five million or more net worth. And is focused specifically on like family business, family transition planning for closely held business owners, planning for executives, you know, stock options, charitable giving, tech, you know, complicated estate and tax issues. So whereas the CP is a little more. Broad with you know, you have a state income tax, insurance planning, and it's like kind of broad on all those topics, this was very narrow. It goes really deep on a couple of small topics geared towards like high end, higher net worth clients and the issues that they go through that are different than you know, your average investor, and so we have a deal with a lot of those types of clients, and I thought it would be it was very interesting going through the course because there's actually stuff that applies directly to clients.

41:03 We were working with at the time. Nice and you're doing some complicated planning for them, and you know, I'm always trying to you know, learn and grow. I think if you're not growing, you know, if you're. Not learning, you're not growing, I should say, And trying to always stay up on, you know, what's happening in our industry and the regulations and the new tax laws, new everything all the time, which is one of the things. I love about it. I don't know. You're dealing with different people, but there's always something new to learn, which is exciting. And I love that part there because things move faster than ever nowadays with technology and political climates and everything.

41:46 And it's so funny you're talking now sitting and thinking about just recently I moved my studios, and moving my studios, I was going through all I still have all of my books from all of my licenses, from CFP, from CFS, l utcf books, fifteen different licensing books, and I was looking through all of them and I'm like, I wonder how non educational these books are now because they're from the nineties. Yeah, it's exactly. It's funny. I had a similar experience. I was, you know, at my parents' house not that long ago, and I was going through, you know, my bedroom and cleaning out a book and there was, you know, a book about you know, there was something like how to be a financial Advisor and the topics you should get and it was written like twenty five years ago, and you start going through some of it and it's when like the estate tax exemption was a million dollars and you know, the maximum IRA contribution was like fifteen hundred bucks, you know, and some products that.

42:59 We had now weren't even invented. And you know, as you know now is the Estates tax exemption is thirty million for a married couple. So you know you've started looking at some of those books and say, geez, like this, this does not even apply at all anymore, right, how much these things change over time. And it's interesting too. You made me think of like I did. The CFP before there was a such thing as an RIA, which I ended up being an RIA, But I remember when that first started and I ready had a CFP. So it's like even letters nowadays being a whole different thing than they did then, and how the business is.

43:41 So I think it's very important. My point is is the deal with somebody like you that is up on it, that takes continuing education. And that's why that annual you know, planning, it's so important because anything can change in a given year. Whatever you recommended in twenty twenty five, maybe in twenty twenty six needs to be adjusted. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, for those clients that are doing the annual planning, you know, we're we have several meetings a year, you know, just to let's get caught up on where you're at. You know, how's the business, how's the family? You know, where we you know, is this new laws going into effect next year? Do we need to take care of anything now that we can't do next year? Or you know, where are we at with your income with gifting? You know, there's a lot of stuff that can be impacted with these changes in tax laws, and a lot of people, especially a you know, a business owner or a family running around with kids and all obligations, is not paying attention to that stuff.

44:50 And you know, there can be a lot of. Misses if you aren't paying attention and looking at ways to improve the situation. So it's uh, it's it's good. Yeah. I think the annual planning is is great. And excuse me, so we're all our clients several times a year. And for anybody that's listening, isn't a client. Now you do offer a free additional consultation. Tell them a little bit about that and how they would set that up. Yeah, so you can. You can go to our website which is Bestionwealthmanagement dot com and.

45:34 That's Bestion is b E S T G E N Wealth Manage. Dot com and on the contact us page, you know, you can fill it out and email will come to us that you want to you know, you want to chat and where Yeah, we are happy to do an initial consultation. Uh, you know, learn a little about your. Situation, what you what you're looking for, tell you about our practice, you know, our fees, everything, and then just kind of see if it's a good fit for everybody. And then you know, we would go down the road of gathering enough information from you to put together a proposal to say, here's what our fees would be to do the work, and here's what we think the complexities are, here's what we think we can add value. And you know, if you decide yeah, we want to move forward, here's what the fee is. Then we would get like deep dive on and go through like a couple meeting process where we're deep diving on a number of topics and coordinating with your other advisors and putting together plans and recommendations.

46:40 So it is like a multiple meeting process, but the initial phone call or zoom meeting. We have clients all over the country. I know we're based out of Massachusetts, but we have clients in a number of different states all over the country, so it's not just a local business anymore. Well, there you go. Well you've been a wealth of information. Is there anything else you want to leave the listeners with that we haven't covered yet? It's a good question, but no, I think we covered a lot. All I would say is, you know, if we take on a lot of new clients that came to us having existing advisors already. So if you're asking yourself, you know, you know, m I al set like does my account coordinate with my advisor?

47:35 Does my advisor know who my estate planning attorney is? And do they actually coordinate and have a plan together, Not just like they call each other once a year to get a copy of the tax return and that's all the communication that they have with an accountant. But are actually doing planning together. You know, we we'd be happy to chat and you know, can't hurt to get a second opinion out there, So would love to do it and get a better return on life experience. You know, that's the main goal. There it is, And even if you find get confirmed that you're doing the right thing, it's worth getting a second opinion always. Yeah, Well exactly, you know, if you were if you needed to have Arthur knee surgery or heart surgery, you'd probably talk to a couple of surgeons first.

48:24 And you know, especially if you have doubts. And you know, or you're looking towards a big life transition and you know, want to get a second opinion on what's going on, reach out to us. We're happy to have a call. Well, it's been amazing having you on and helping our listeners, and I urge everybody to at least reach out and get that free initial consultation. You never know, it might change your life. And thank you Brad for being on the Adventures of Pipe Man. You're welcome. Dean, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure and he enjoy the rest of the day. It up alright, thanks man.

49:05 Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipeman on w fur CUI Radio