Rob Schulz - Thoughts On Things Financial (#69)

On this episode of the Maximize Business Value Podcast, host Tom Bronson speaks with guest Rob Schulz, CFP - President of Schulz Wealth. The two discuss jarring statistics about saving for retirement, and how a wealth manager can improve those stats for business owners. Rob’s book, Thoughts on Things Financial: Your Guide to a Chaotic Money World, is a wonderful asset for business owners as they navigate financially planning for their future. Listen now to advance your financial future!

Rob Schulz is the founder and President of Schulz Wealth. Rob has found his true calling by becoming a Certified Financial Planner, and spends a lot of time writing on financial planning and investment topics. The best way to get to know him is to read the blog posts on his website. Rob finished his first book in 2020 entitled Thoughts on Things Financial: Your Guide to a Chaotic Money World. He was recognized as a 2019 Five Star Wealth Manager as well as a 2019 Investopedia Top 100 Investment Advisor in the country.

Tom Bronson is the founder and President of Mastery Partners, a company that helps business owners maximize business value, design exit strategy, and transition their business on their terms. Mastery utilizes proven techniques and strategies that dramatically improve business value that was developed during Tom’s career 100 business transactions as either a business buyer or seller. As a business owner himself, he has been in your situation a hundred times, and he knows what it takes to craft the right strategy. Bronson is passionate about helping business owners and has the experience to do it. Want to chat more or think Tom can help you?  Reach out at tom@masterypartners.com or check out his book, Maximize Business Value, Begin with The Exit in Mind (2020).

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Tom Bronson is a serial entrepreneur and business owner. He is currently the founder and President of Mastery Partners, Mastery Mergers & Acquisitions, and the Business Transition Summit. All three companies empower business owners to maximize business value and serve business owners in different capacities to help them achieve their dream exit. As a business owner, Tom has been in your situation a hundred times and knows what it takes to craft the right strategy. Bronson is passionate about helping business owners and has the experience to do it. Tom has two books to help business owners on their journey to a dream exit: "Maximize Business Value Playbook," (2023), and "Maximize Business Value, Begin with the EXIT in Mind," (2020). Both are available on Amazon.
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Transcript

Announcer (5s):

Welcome to the maximize business value podcast. This podcast is brought to you by mastery partners, where our mission is to equip business owners, to Maximize Business Value so they can transition their business on their terms. Our mission was born from the lessons we've learned from a of a 100 business transactions, which fuels our desire to share our experiences and wisdom. So you can succeed. Now, here's your host, the CEO of Mastery Partners, Tom Bronson.

Tom Bronson (36s):

Hi, this is Tom Bronson and welcome to maximize business value. A podcast for business owners who are passionate about building long term sustainable value in their businesses. In this episode of Like to welcome our guest, Rob Schulz, a certified financial planner and President of Schulz Wealth. That was first introduced to Rob a few months ago by our mutual friend, Lisa Harrington, a Vistage chair here in the DFW area. Since then, I've gotten to know and trust ROV as a financial adviser. And ah, he is someone who just gets it when it comes to helping business owners achieve their financial vision. Rob is also the author of Thoughts on Things.

Tom Bronson (1m 18s):

Financial will have a link to this, right on our website, Thoughts on Things, Financial, Your Guide to a Chaotic Money World, a topic that we are going to dive into today. So welcome to maximize business value. Rob, tell us about Schulz wealth.

Rob Schulz (1m 34s):

Hey Tom. Yeah. Thanks for having me on yeah. Schulz wealth is, you know, it has my name on it, so I guess I own it. We, we started in and a, we started in 2014 a day just as a solo practice RIA, which is a registered investment advisory firm a before that I was president of a company called first Texas financial from about 2000 to 2014, been in the business since 94. And yeah, we just, we're, we're all about helping business owners succeed from a personal financial standpoint and, and just love what we do. It's all a, it's a lot of fun.

Rob Schulz (2m 16s):

So

Tom Bronson (2m 17s):

You and the book, of course you give a, a, a kind of, of your, your path to getting to where you are today. Why don't you share a little bit about that and how you ultimately arrived at becoming a certified financial planner?

Rob Schulz (2m 30s):

Yeah, you know, I, I just kinda stumbled around for a while until I've figured it out a, you know, we, we make decisions in life and they seem to work out, but sometimes he take a, a, a, a circle route trying to get in their, I started out, I was, I w I went to the university of Texas on an ROTC scholarship, so they paid for my school. And, and then I went in to the Navy, you know, what the intent of being as a career, a Naval officer, but wasn't real conducive to family life. So as I started to start it down, the track of having the, for a wonderful kids that I have, we, we decided that we would, we would a, I'd resigned my commission in the Navy.

Rob Schulz (3m 14s):

But before that, I really, because I had an accounting degree at UT I, I spent a lot of time with my sailors on their finances. There is something that is always interested me. And then I found that I had a real, a real skill set there, and they had a real need you to know the, these, these guys, they had families that didn't, they didn't make a lot of money. And it was always very, very challenging. A so when I got out, I was like, well, that's what I want to do. I want to, I want to do financial planning. And so I went to work for a large financial services company and got, got trained and worked for some great people there, but I knew that isn't where I wanted to be. I wanted to actually work for my clients.

Rob Schulz (3m 55s):

So I, I got out of that and went what we call independent, where, you know, I really actually was able to work for my client's and got my CFP designation. And, you know, I just kind of kept, kept going and finally got to where a, you know, I, I was a, you know, and again, a, a registered investment advisory. True, true fiduciary fee, only advisor, which is, which is what I think I wanted to be like right from the start, but I didn't know what it was. And obviously the, the, the, to my industry has, has shifted and changed over those years, as well as become much more conducive to that way of doing business, which is really exciting. I think, I think our industry's really, really had an, a, a, a good direction there.

Rob Schulz (4m 38s):

A

Tom Bronson (4m 38s):

I S great, you know, in your book, you get in to kind of the alphabet soup of, of all of the designations, in fact, so you have a CFB, which I hold in a very high regard, right. And, and we tell our clients that they need to have a financial planner who is a CFP and somebody who is a fiduciary. And, and just briefly, I mean, I know you're a practice now really focuses on business owners. And, and before we get into stories into the book, what advice would you give to a business owner in terms of selecting the right financial planner?

Rob Schulz (5m 20s):

Well, it's, it's just a tough landscape out there. And the best advice I can give this is what I tell people. I say, Hey, if tomorrow I could not be my mom's financial advisor, because, you know, I manage my mom's money, obviously a and care a lot about how it gets, how it gets dealt with. If I couldn't be my mom's financial advisor, first place, I would go would be to the NAPFA and a PFA website, national association of personal financial advisors. And I would pick somebody off that list, you know, two or three and interview them because NAPFA takes it.

Rob Schulz (6m 1s):

Another level, a CFP is a great designation, but it doesn't necessarily mean you have to set up your practice and a true fiduciary, you know, a, a fee only manner, but NAPFA puts a whole nother layer on top of it, a lot of criteria to make sure that you are, you eliminate all of the gross conflicts of interests that can be there. And, and just all these guys and gals are just really, really good at what they do. So that's bottom line. That's what you do. And if you do that, you have knocked it down to about, well, let's say, say there are two, two to 300,000 financial advisors out there almost 300,000 financial advisors and wow.

Rob Schulz (6m 46s):

Okay. And there are only, I think 3,800, maybe 4,000 members of NAPFA. So, I mean, you've cut it down to what does that, that's like a 2%, right? You've, you've, you've eliminated a lot of folks. That's not to say that there are some folks out there who are not members of NAFA who do it. Right. And there are a great, you know, a great advisors, but to really be sure that's, in my opinion, that's what you do. Okay. Now

Tom Bronson (7m 18s):

That is some great advice. NAPFA and a P S awesome. Yeah. I had no idea. Of course it feels like that there is 300,000 financial advisors do the air quotes on that a in the DFW area, but sometimes,

Rob Schulz (7m 35s):

Yeah, it's a very competitive a career path I can share, you know, their,

Tom Bronson (7m 40s):

There are a lots of folks on that. So let's talk about the book a little bit. So I love the bucket's easy to read. It's a good mix of personal stories and practical advice, but let's, let's jump into the deep end. I read an article. In fact, I even read, looked it up, but in preparation for doing this a podcast, I read an article recently that said 64%, 64% of that it's two thirds of Americans are expected to retire with less than $10,000 in savings. According to the article, less than 4% of Americans where retire with more than $500,000 in savings.

Tom Bronson (8m 24s):

So there's a, there's that Delta between 64% of less than 10,000. Some of 'em by the way, many of them zero, where like you have is it would have zero savings, but a but less than 10,000. And then of course, you know, the 4% who will have more than $500,000 in savings, let's get right to it. Why don't we plan and save for retirement?

Rob Schulz (8m 51s):

Ah, this is such a can of worms. You mean, you know, those

Tom Bronson (8m 58s):

Going to ask you the easy stuff. I mean,

Rob Schulz (9m 1s):

You know, those statistics are so scary and, and we're talking about here, not necessarily, we've got to issues that I want to talk about around this. Okay. So first is, you know, that a statistic, you know, is definitely that's rank and file employees for the most part. Okay. It's not necessarily business owners that own businesses that, you know, a million-dollar and more businesses. Okay. We'll talk about them a little bit. They have their issues, but the rank and file, I mean, I can make a really strong statement and just say that the shift from pension plans to a 401k plans, you know, and the private sector has been a massive failure, you know, for rank and file employees.

Rob Schulz (9m 45s):

Okay. I mean, cause what we did was we severely decrease the cost structure for, for private companies by shifting to 401ks. That's why they did it. Okay. But then we sold it as, you know, Hey, now you have total control and you can do whatever you want and you know yeah. You know, and we liked that as Americans, we like, we like control and it just, it hasn't worked, you know, a, because most people just aren't, they don't have the time, they don't have the skillset, they don't have the interest. They th th they just don't have the basic knowledge and understanding to be able to take that responsibility on.

Rob Schulz (10m 29s):

And in deal with that effectively, you, you know, bottom line, that's where we are granted our, the industry, a 401k industry is, has taken a lot of steps to try to make it more, you know, we have a <inaudible>, which means that when people invest now, they don't just go into cash. Like they used to, if they didn't make an investment option, you know, that go into a suitable investment of some type, usually a target date funds that helps we have a automatic enrollment, you know, where they'll, they'll automatically be set up for say 3% starting out. If they don't do anything, these are the things that the industry is trying to do.

Rob Schulz (11m 10s):

And many 401k's to just try and get those numbers up. I encourage all of that, but it, at the end of the DEI, most Americans, just to have no clue what is going to take you to retire someday. Okay. I just don't know, is that their own fault or is it, my industry is fault? Is it, I, you know, that we can say is the school system, I don't know. I don't know, but the bottom line is his, most of these folks that I know that I come and to a contact with, they have never seen the numbers of what the actually need to retire on. Therefore they have no clue what they need to do.

Rob Schulz (11m 53s):

And that's probably

Tom Bronson (11m 54s):

Because they, they don't really have a financial advisor who can kind of run those numbers and, and give that we're going to get into that in a little bit. So the shift, I guess, was away from a more of what he was pension plans into 401k is, is that what we're talking about?

Rob Schulz (12m 11s):

Yeah. And, you know, it's just a, it's an interesting deal because as Americans and, you know, we, we believe in the American dream, we believe in individual individuality, I guess you could say, and all that. And it's all great, right? If you take responsibility, you can do amazing things in this country. Okay. But if you don't, man, you hurt, you are a toast because there's, there is a very little safety net, their, you know, for you, if you're not going to pay attention to this stuff and act responsibly. Yeah.

Tom Bronson (12m 44s):

That's a that's for sure. You know, of course, you know, pensions had their issues as well. I can, my, my grandfather who was, who fought in world war two as an airman, and he, then I went to work after the war at a newspaper in Washington, DC. It was an evening, the newspaper, if you could remember back when we use to have a morning and evening newspaper's and write, after he retired, after he say, you know, he had a pension, he was, you know, there forever, right after he retired, the company went bankrupt in his and his pension went to a zero.

Tom Bronson (13m 28s):

And, And so, you know, there was a, it was a very difficult time for he and my grandmother. And of course for my parents' to have to kind of pick up some of the SLAC and all of that. So, so it's not, not, and the, of course that's an anecdote, right?

Rob Schulz (13m 43s):

Well, yeah. But no, it's a good point. And, you know, and that kind of falls into the realm of sometimes some, something that we think is, is absolutely as safe as it possibly can be, is not right. And, you know, there just, there just traps out their all over the place. But when it comes to the stuff that there was no other way to put it. Yeah.

Tom Bronson (14m 4s):

No doubt. So, so on that same article where it talked about this 64%, I was, I was a dare, I say, somewhat alarmed by another stat that I read in that article. And that was 48% of the folks who will retire with less than 10,000 don't even care about their predicament. You don't even care about it. Right. So, so half of the people that aren't going to be prepared for, it don't even care about it. Now I'm guessing that many of those that were survey, because this is a survey that was done by a banking institution, but a but many of those surveys were probably if there was a cross section of people that probably many of them, we're younger millennials, maybe a gen Z, or to have more time to plan, but statistically, they probably won't ever get around to it.

Tom Bronson (14m 52s):

So what would you say to someone who is just kind of starting out in their career about retirement and about saving for retirement? What would you say to them, to me to make it stick and think about this stuff?

Rob Schulz (15m 6s):

Yeah. I mean, that, it's important. Sometimes I try to put it in perspective of, you know, Hey, we, we get really worried. Like a young family gets really concerned about a saving for college for their kids. You know, we love our kids and man, we, we want to do that for them. And maybe we had student debt and we don't want them to have it. They'll get really focused on that. And I'll say, yeah, you know, that that's important, you know, but retirement is going to, at a minimum is going to be 10 times the number of assets that you need to retire, then what you need to put a kid through college. Okay. 10 times now we have something called short-term bias as humans.

Rob Schulz (15m 47s):

Okay. It means that we, we tend to think that the, the threat that's right there in front of us, you know, is the most important threat. It makes sense. You know, because that's the way we survived, you know, pre prehistoric times. Right. So, but, but then we, if something's way out their like retirement where like, oh, you know, Manyana right. I mean, we can worry about that later. And the reality is we can't, you know, because its such a big number or you just can't start. I had a, I had a meeting with a, with a couple yesterday and I mean they, they make, make a lot of money about, you know, $30,000 a month in income hidden about 60 years old and kind of decided as time to plan a look at all the numbers for percent probability that they're a retirement plan will succeed.

Rob Schulz (16m 44s):

You know? And there's just, there's nothing you can do at that point except for damage control. You know? And granted, we were able to work through some things and get that probability up to about 55%, but there was some drastic decisions OK. That had, had to be that need to be made to make that happen. So you just, you can't put this stuff off you've, you've got to start early and even business owners need to do that to you. You know, we, as business owners, we tend to think that, you know, well, you know, the most business owners do, you know, 90% of their, their net worth is in there business. Okay. But that's a, that's a risky scenario. You know, you, you don't know exactly when and for how much you're going to be able to sell that illiquid investment.

Rob Schulz (17m 31s):

And so it just makes sense for everybody all the way along the line, you know, to, to be saving, you know, and, and there's a, a, again, there was another 401k trap there, you know, you've got, if you, if you're a high income earner, like, you know, the couple that I met with yesterday, you can't, you cannot put enough in your 401k. He, you know, to replace your income, it takes, in my opinion, takes about a million dollars to create $50,000 of income a year in retirement. Okay. So if you're making a, a $150,000, any, any, he needed to end your business, you need a net out 3 million, okay.

Rob Schulz (18m 13s):

From your business to be able to retire in, you know, a rough numbers. Okay. How are you going to put all that in to that one? You know, scenario and just hope it works out. I hope not. I hope that you're, that's

Tom Bronson (18m 27s):

What a lot of business owners who are doing, but you do.

Rob Schulz (18m 30s):

Yeah. You, you, you need to do, you need to be, we need to have, you know, some other things that you are doing to make sure that you, you know, make sure that you can complete that plan regardless of what you saw that business for. All right. We're going to do you get in

Tom Bronson (18m 44s):

To business owners after the break? One, one last question, before we jump into the break though, and it's something that I read when I was a young man, and of course it goes to the longevity of planning. They, you think is possible for every American to retire with over a million dollars in savings.

Rob Schulz (19m 7s):

Oh, absolutely. That's very possible. You know, you run the numbers from a time value of money standpoint and you, anybody can look at that and go, yeah, I think I can do that. So I call it the hardest, easy, cause you know, it's this, you actually say that. And I like, I like that term, the hardest EASI and the hardest, easy means that yeah, it's easy I have to do is put this amount of way per month for this a number of years, you know? And, and you can have a million bucks. Okay. The hard part is this life, right. You know, life comes in and you know, and no matter what stage you're in of life, there's, there's challenges and things that pop up that you've got to be able to deal with.

Rob Schulz (19m 54s):

And the trick, the real trick is to be able to stay on course, keep it as a high priority and do it, do what you can, even when all those other winds of change and so forth are happening. That's the, that's the key right there. Yeah. I

Tom Bronson (20m 10s):

Couldn't agree more completely. Now, a lot of people look who might be listening to this are, are, are there some that may be younger and frankly, the younger you are, you know, the, the, the power of compounding, you know, who is it? A Warren Buffett talks about that, that quite a bit of the younger you are, the lower, that dollar amount is that you need to sock away, but it grows just exponentially over time. The older you are though, a lot of people might be in their mid forties or, or even mid fifties who get, I missed the boat. It's too late for me. My message is it's never too late to get started, right?

Rob Schulz (20m 48s):

No, I mean, like I said that a couple yesterday, I mean, you could, you could look at that and go, oh, well, you know, you're done, but you know, a good financial planner and, you know, just as humans solving problems, that's what we do. You know, if we make it a priority, no matter how old we are, we can, we can come up with some kind of solution. And I do that all the time. Okay. I mean, you can do that. And it usually takes like a massive paradigm shift, meaning that, you know, again is humans. We don't like to make big changes in the way we live in and what we do. We just don't like change. Well, if you get up to that point, you have to have a big shift and the way you think about saving and money and, and so forth, and you're just going to have to change, you know, and, and you can, Mike, I've people come in here and they do it all the time, you know, and they start thinking of thinking of it very differently and their fifties and, and we've solved that problem for a lot of people that have come in and just kind of started, but they were a little bit like that, that, yeah,

Tom Bronson (21m 59s):

But that's one of the things I love about you. I mean, you're so passionate about helping people and, and a solving problems and, and a, you know, and, and sharing the information that, you know, even through your book and through this podcast and things Like that. So it's time to take a break. We're talking with Rob Schulz. You want to take a quick break. We'll be back in 30 seconds.

Announcer (22m 20s):

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Announcer (23m 1s):

Now is that time get started today by checking this out at www.MasteryPartners.com or email us at info@MasteryPartners.com. We're

Tom Bronson (23m 13s):

Back with Rob Schulz, owner of Schulz wealth. And we're talking about retirement planning. Okay. Before The break, we talked a lot about a retirement planning overall, and we touched a little bit on business owners, but let's bring it home for business owners because this podcast is really foreign about the business owner's and building a long-term a strategies to build wealth and value in their business. I'm always surprised by the number of business owners that don't have a financial planner or wealth manager. And I think it's because most of their net worth, as we said before, the break, most of their net worth is tied up in a largely illiquid asset, namely their business.

Tom Bronson (23m 54s):

And they think the financial advisors only wants to manage the assets. What would you say to a business owner that doesn't have a financial planner?

Rob Schulz (24m 5s):

Well, I would say that the reason that you gave is a, a a hundred percent correct to the most part that, you know, financial advisors don't want to work with somebody who doesn't have assets 'cause. And for me to, I will tell you that the, the easiest and best way to, to charge for our services is off of what's called assets under management, which means we charge off of the assets that we manage. The more assets you have, the more we charge you, you know, and I like to joke that, you know, is financial advisors. What we really want is you come to us as a business owner, you don't have any assets and we go, Hey, you know, you need to go and start trying to save and invest on your own.

Rob Schulz (24m 45s):

And when you have a million dollars, you come back to me and I'll charge you on it. Okay. That sounds like a great deal, then it, yeah. So there is some truth to that is unfortunately, but the good news is that there are firms like ours that will charge, you know, kind of more, have more of a flat fee or per hour or something like that. A four, the planning part, and, you know, like an RIA firm like ours, you know, we, we can, we can engage with the client at whatever level we feel like is mutually beneficial to both of us.

Rob Schulz (25m 27s):

And we love bringing on folks, business owners who maybe have not don't have the assets yet. Cause I mean, we know they will, you know, when they sell their business and as we help them accumulate and so forth and so on, and we can figure out a way to charge a fair amount for what we're doing and, you know, and, and help you get there, you know, that's the way I've I feel, so this is a business owner. If you can find somebody like us, their, there are others out there, a who can kind of meet you where you're at, as you like to use to like you to say, downtown Taylor, Texas, to meet you where you're at, then, you know, that's a, that that's, that's something that you should consider.

Rob Schulz (26m 10s):

Sure. Of certainly.

Tom Bronson (26m 12s):

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I think it really all goes to a couple of things to, you know, you've got, you mentioned this before the break, if you had all of your, the liquidity of your business, would you go out and by one stock with right here right now? I mean, that, it's a ridiculous concept. Right? Right. But yet that's what most business owners do with having a, a, a a hundred percent of their, their, their net worth tied up in one stock that, Hey, look, you know, you're, you know, one is going to improve the value of a business more than a business owner and do that, but, and that should be an incentive to go out and do that.

Tom Bronson (26m 59s):

But, but really business owners should think as early as they can about diversifying that because you just never know silly little things. Like, I don't know COVID to come up, you know, that, that last year, many business owners who had great businesses, their business, where businesses were almost decimated by something that they had absolutely no control over. And so there's a of, that's what we call it with that, you

Rob Schulz (27m 32s):

Know, unsystematic risk. Yeah. You know, diversifiable risk and they don't, they, you are right. They, they just, you know, as, as business owners, I'm one year one, we have an unrealistic view of risk because we're, we're in the business and we know that we're going to do whatever it takes to make it successful. And the other thing is, is they'll have an unrealistic idea of what kind of return they can get outside of their business, you know, because, and I always tell him, I'm like, look, you're gonna get the best return on your business. You're diversifying out to other investments, you know, to, to diversify your risk. We should not be able to make as much money on your investment portfolio as you, and you know, is you doing your business because we're not taking as much risk?

Rob Schulz (28m 18s):

Is that simple? You know, it's just different.

Tom Bronson (28m 20s):

Right? Well, and sometimes the, a in and some years of the, the investment of portfolio might do a way better than, than the business a can. So it is all about diversification and a, and mitigating that long-term risk. You, you talked about toward the end of the book. I remember these commercials while in fact is I was reading it. I was just laughing, thinking about, I think it was a ING, a financial, a commercials that he had people walking around and they had a number on top of their head. You know, that, that was the number of that they'd had to retire on. The one that made an impression on me was, you know, it was people who were clients of ING and it showed, you know, the exact number. And then they went to one guy says, and he's like, and over his head, he had like a budget because he had no idea right.

Tom Bronson (29m 7s):

What the numbers should be, because he didn't have a financial adviser that was helping him a do that. But it's all about really understanding when enough is enough. So how do you know when enough is enough Rob?

Rob Schulz (29m 22s):

Well, it's, it's taken years for me to learn as a financial planner, how to call it. That's what we call it, a calling it, you know, we'll call it for, for,

Tom Bronson (29m 35s):

Can you tell a story about that in the book? I love that calling it. Okay, we're going to call it, we're calling

Rob Schulz (29m 40s):

It. So we will have a meeting. And we, we, we we'll do that as a professional financial planner's and it is, it's an exhaustive deal. I mean, we need to run this scenarios all different ways. And I know that we have a sufficient probability of success that if they just didn't make another dime doing what they're doing tomorrow, that there are there going to be okay. Mmm. And, you know, it has to do with, you know, how much you haven't assets and so forth. And so on. I mean, is what it is, making sure that one of you dies then early, if you, if he lived to your a a hundred or whatever, what are all of those different scenarios write?

Rob Schulz (30m 20s):

And so it really, the only real way to know is to have having an exhaustive financial plan is kinda the answer. And, and, and I, I did, I always loved that commercial because you know, that we want, we should want to know what are number is, and we should be trying to March towards that and have it as a longterm goal. And, and its fun by the way, that it's not anything to get. People get so stressed out about, you know, coming to see me sometimes. But, but it it's a lot of fun to be able to achieve long-term goals, you know, because

Tom Bronson (30m 55s):

He was a little bit like go on to the dentist is that sometimes, you know,

Rob Schulz (30m 59s):

It can be, but you know, most of our clients that get into the groove, they'd get really excited about the, you know, every six months they come in and where we're marching towards a goal, you know, that's

Tom Bronson (31m 8s):

It, I mean, frankly, it's the small wins, right? The, the baby steps that are, that suddenly builds momentum and then you get excited about that goal. And so, but it's got to start somewhere. And, and so, so I love that. I wish that everybody really did no their number. I really wish that that most business owners not only knew their number to retire on because it would give them a target tissue for a, in the value of their business, right. Which is what we do a is help them improve the value of their business. But the other thing is that most business owners just don't have any realistic opinion of what their business is worth. And so, so I say the business owners are to very important things that the actions that we want him to take it as a result of this podcast, number one, find out what you're business is worth, where the, you engage with us to do that.

Tom Bronson (31m 59s):

And we have a great product to be able to do that. Find out what you're business is worth and engage with a financial planner to, to really understand what you're going to need to be able to retire on cars. If you know those two numbers, right? What's your business is worth today and what you are going to need to retire on, then you can start making incremental improvements in order to reach the financial targets that you want to. So I'm a, I just, I, I love knowing in a eliminating all of the ambiguity right, to of many people, don't, don't kno you know, the financial market. So I want to share a little story with you. I'm a financial markets are not a hallway is kind of a better Rosa is as we know, right.

Rob Schulz (32m 41s):

And

Tom Bronson (32m 43s):

Every few years we have some sort of financial what I'll call a correction. I don't know if there was some real term for that butt and the value of someone's portfolio can be decimated kind of overnight. Now that happened to my mother, my parents retired and the late nineties and my father passed away shortly thereafter. I mean, it was, it was really a tragic situation. He had enough money to live on for the rest of his life. And it turns out that is life didn't last, that much longer, so that he left a very comfortable nest egg for my mother who was always conservative and kept money and CDs and savings accounts. So again, consider the time the late nineties. And of course the, at that point shortly thereafter, right after my father died, the bubble burst on the whole a internet, you know, a Bumble that we had, you know, and 1,001, I think it was 2000, 2001, but then stocks of course, came back very rapidly.

Tom Bronson (33m 38s):

You know, things started improving. And as the stock market continued to outperform her low yield savings accounts and CBS and other things, she eventually started moving money into the market to get a better return, which I think it was a wise choice, a on her part, but when the market crashed and I think it was 2008, what she did next, she lost nearly half of her net worth on paper. He lost it on paper. What she did next was catastrophic, not only for her, but also for generations to come and our family, she sold everything the next day, The day after the market crashed.

Tom Bronson (34m 22s):

And she lost more than half of her net worth, by the way, my siblings and I never knew this. Wow. She passed away several years later. And then we're starting to piece together the records. In fact, that I was so angry with the, a financial advisor, because we grew up with this guy. Right. We knew him. Well, of course I, I recognize that he asked to maintain confidentiality, but I'm a, I tell that story because you addressed that very issue right. In your book. And I just want to ask, should people be afraid of the stock market and a, how should they react when a correction comes?

Tom Bronson (35m 2s):

Cause it invariably will come.

Rob Schulz (35m 7s):

Yeah. I mean, we could talk about this for hours, right. I mean, it's just, like I said,

Tom Bronson (35m 12s):

The easy questions right here, just as a softball.

Rob Schulz (35m 15s):

Yeah. That's not a soft ball, even the, well, we just, so behavioral finance is a term that has to the CFP. We, we study that constantly and that just has to do with the emotions around investing. And, you know, there are real, we know that their real, they, and they have to be, they have to be dealt. And that's a big part of my role as a financial advisor, as a CFP is, is, is to, you know, help my client's hold the line when a, when that happens. And we have a lot of different tools that we use, you know, here to make sure that our clients are in step with us when, when those things happen, it all comes down to, from my side, at least it comes down to communication, you know, a lot of communication.

Rob Schulz (36m 9s):

And a, and then that when the, when that happens like March 23rd of last year, same deal. Right. Yep. And you know, a, a good advisor will like, we'll just double down on communication and we'll reach out proactively to everybody in every way that we possibly can and communicate with them and say, Hey, we've been here, we've done this. This is, we've talked about this. You are okay. And he was really cool this last year. I will tell you that because it's a surprise me. I, and I didn't get surprised by a financial financial plan is very often because I knew him so much, but we re, re we offered to rerun.

Rob Schulz (36m 50s):

Everybody is financial plan at the lowest point to the market last year. OK. That, that, that few weeks after March 23rd, they ran incredibly well. I, I was shocked. I was like, you know, we're going to run your plan and say, Hey, if this is where its at, you know, where, where are you probabilities has this effected your ability to retire? For the most part, it really didn't have that much of an effect. So that, that's, that's what I would say there is. Don't, don't, don't pay attention to it as, as, as the end of that is the end of everything, you know, just kinda make sure that a, that you're communicating in that you understand that is just going to happen from time to time.

Tom Bronson (37m 36s):

Well, and I, I think you just hit of something that the is so very important that it's the same thing that I really talk about with business owners when they get to close to transaction time. So close to that transition time, it can be extremely emotional, but you know, all, let the emotions drive that decisions. If you think about it in advance, if you plan for it in advance and you understand kind of where you are and, and you kind of run those, what if scenarios in your mind then you'll be better prepared to deal with that. And, and I, I think you, you hit the nail on the head with don't, don't be emotional about the decisions I get that its an emotional time with it, but I always made the worst decisions in my life when I'm being driven emotionally.

Tom Bronson (38m 32s):

Right. We all do.

Rob Schulz (38m 33s):

Yeah, no question.

Tom Bronson (38m 35s):

Yeah. So before we end here, I do want to ask, you know, I'm a big fan of what you guys are doing at Schulz wealth, what you guys a really do a great job for business owners. And so for business owners who are out there kind of shopping and looking around what sets you apart from other wealth management?

Rob Schulz (38m 56s):

Yeah. No thanks Tom. For the opportunity to talk about that, I'd say the first thing is we specialize in business owners. I've been working with business owners for 25 years now from day one. When I started at principal financial group, you know, to through first Texas Schulz wealth, it's always been business owner's there have been in the main focus of, of my business. So I understand business owners, I work with them. I've set up my practice in a way that a, you know, that we can charge in a way like I talked about earlier, that is, you know, is that where that just works for business owners? The other is, is that we are a fee-only fiduciary RIA, which means that we have eliminated op you know, all of the major conflicts of interests in our, and our working in, and the best interest of our clients, which is very, very important for business owners.

Rob Schulz (39m 50s):

And then I would say that our investment prowess is also designed for business owners. So we don't like most, as you may not know this, but most investment advisers kind of a subcontract, all thee investment advisory stuff is called subadvised. And most of 'em do, you know, there are just kind of outselling and then they, they push it off to somewhere else to have the investing done. We don't, we do it all in house and to do it at the sophisticated level that we do to make sure that, that the risk that we're doing the best we can to mitigate risks, there is some very advanced strategies.

Rob Schulz (40m 33s):

You can only do that if you do that in house. And, and, and we're very, very proactive and the way we invest, which believe it or not is kind of unique. So, so those are kind of some of the reasons why we think that we're, we're a good choice.

Tom Bronson (40m 50s):

A I agree that those are all great reasons. You know, your, a business owner or you said this before, you're a business owner, I'm a business owner, but one last business question is podcast is all about maximizing business value. So in your opinion, Rob, what is the one, the most important thing that you recommend business owners do to build value in their business?

Rob Schulz (41m 12s):

Yeah. Well, I would say something that we've talked about a little bit is, is risk. I think that risk is something that, I mean, obviously you want to be profitable if you want to have a good books and all that kind of stuff. But I think that as business owners, we, we tend to not understand the risks that we're taking within our business until we get ready to sell. And we have somebody on the other side looking at it going, whoa, there's a lot of, and like in my case, there's a lot of regulatory risk here. Wait a second. You know, so maybe, you know, you have one large customer, that's a, a major part of a, of your revenue and that's a risk that you've dealt with and that you've just gotten kind of used to, okay, as a business owner, I would say that you should start looking at it from an outside perspective and try and do the best he can to mitigate a lot of those risks so that when somebody comes in to buy a business, they can see that you're doing the best you can with that.

Rob Schulz (42m 18s):

And, and they can, they could be comfortable with what is something that you've just gotten kinda used to.

Tom Bronson (42m 23s):

I love that and eliminate the risks. That is one of the things that we do is a risk assessment and there's all kinds of ways to mitigate risks. And you mentioned several really good ones there. So I love that. That is great advice for business owners, but a, I can't let you away from here without asking our bonus question. Everybody loves and weights for the answer to this. So, so are you ready for the bonus question,

Rob Schulz (42m 46s):

Rob, but go ahead.

Tom Bronson (42m 49s):

What personality great has gotten you into the most trouble through the years?

Rob Schulz (42m 54s):

Yeah, well, that's, that's an easy question. I know that one, you do, you live this life for long enough and you know how to get yourself and terrible. And so on a, on a disc profile, I'm a D I V. OK. And so kind of what that means is, is that I go quick, I go a very confident and very fast and that can get me in trouble because I'll, I'll just man, I'll just be going. And then I'll look behind me and nobody's there. They're all like, whoa, wait a second. Where are we get it? So I know I have to slow down and I have to have to build, you know, a sum I have to communicate and make sure everybody's with me.

Rob Schulz (43m 39s):

And, and when I don't, I, I get, I can get in trouble.

Tom Bronson (43m 43s):

Yeah. Yeah. A, I tend to a just, I guess is so far I'm Heidi is well attended so far away from, from people that I just got to catch up.

Rob Schulz (43m 53s):

Yeah. Yeah. But you know, you do the same thing I do to mitigate it. And that is, I always work in a team format, you know? So I'm always working with people like you, Tom, and, and others. I have a junior advisor where he's not a junior advisor or anymore. He is, he's actually a partner now. Austin's, Austin's awesome, Austin. I do everything together. He's very analytical. So, so, you know, I'm, I'm plowing forward and he's kind reaching go, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. Let's let's look at this a little bit because you, you, you do it to Tom. I mean, I'm just like, you know, oh yeah. I've seen this before. I know exactly. I know exactly what we need to do, but I, you know, we have to slow down, make sure everybody's with as, and make sure that we run the traps.

Rob Schulz (44m 40s):

You know, that that's what gets me to the biggest trouble.

Tom Bronson (44m 42s):

You've gotta, you got to have a side kick like that. And then I'm glad that you mentioned cost. And he said he is a great, great young man. So how can our viewers and listeners get in touch with you?

Rob Schulz (44m 53s):

Yeah. You know, he can find us on the web, on our website, Schulzwealth.com, spelled weird without a T in Schulz, where on Facebook or, you know, I have a Thoughts on Things, Financial group, you know, on Facebook, if you search it, use the title of the book. You know, we talk about stuff in there and yeah, I'm really, the website is the best. And we have a lot of material out there. If you wanna read, you know, about, of what our philosophy, his and stuff. I right. All the time. And there was just a whole lot of, a lot of information there if you want, and then you can e-mail me from their as well.

Tom Bronson (45m 31s):

So that, it's awesome. As somebody who also puts out a lot that a lot of content, I know how difficult it can be sometimes. So you guys do have a lot of content that post, you can go to a read and learn from it. And I love that. So thank you, Rob, for being our guests today.

Rob Schulz (45m 48s):

Yeah. Thanks for having me, Tom. It was a really fun

Tom Bronson (45m 50s):

A, you can find Rob Schulz at Schulz wealth and it's S C H U L Zwealth.com or on LinkedIn. And of course you could always reach out to me and I will be happy to make a warm introduction. We will put a link to getting a Thoughts on all things or Thoughts on Things, Financial a on our website this week. And so you can go there and get it and you can find it on Facebook. You can find him on Amazon. So it's a great book, but a great read on their record, That and that for everyone, this is the Maximize Business Value podcast, where we give practical advice to the business owners who are passionate about building long-term sustainable value in their business.

Tom Bronson (46m 36s):

Be sure to tune in each week and to follow us wherever you found this podcast, be sure to comment. And you love your comments. And let us know if there are any topics that you want us to cover on future episodes until next time I'm Tom Bronson reminding you to, to plan for retirement while there are still time while you maximize business value.

Announcer (47m 2s):

Thank you for tuning in to the Maximize Business Value podcast with Tom Bronson. This podcast is brought to you by Mastery Partners, where our mission is to equip business owners to maximize business value. So they can transition on that terms on how to build a long-term sustainable business values and get free value building today by visiting our website, www.MasteryPartners.com that's master with a Y Masterypartners.com.

Announcer (47m 47s):

That was perfect where I wouldn't make any changes.