Redefining Financial Advisory by a HOLISTIC Approach | Kaitlyn Laney

Years ago, I had a client who ran a plumbing business and I said, you know, what are, what are your different revenue streams? And he said, well, I fix toilets. I said, well, do you do bathroom sinks? Do you do irrigation? Do you do this? He goes, yeah, I do all of that. I'm like, where is that on your website? I don't know what a plumber does. I have no idea. My husband handles that stuff. Right. So if I'm a single woman searching for irrigation specialist, how would I know to call you?

Today we are joined by Caitlin Laney. Now she is entering her second decade as a certified financial advisor at Trek wealth in Scottsdale, Arizona. She's on a mission really to redefine financial advisory through a holistic, very client centered planner. Welcome to the show, Caitlin. Excited to have you with us today.

Oh, thanks for having me, Richard. It's great to be here. I can't believe it's been two decades. I'm like, oh my gosh, that sounds. That sounds so much longer than I feel like I've been doing this. But when you see it there, it's like, oh, yeah, you're right. I guess it is.

Well, and in that timeframe, you've had a lot of different experience. And in fact, you know, again, prior to us hitting the record button, we were talking a little bit about where part of your journey began in the corporate world, you know, being part of what everybody likes to call corporate America. So you aren't there any longer, though. Something's changed. You made a decision to become an independent and exit that. But that's not an easy thing to do. Anyone who's been a part of that corporate track, there's a pull and a whole draw to it. It's well promoted in the place. But you were able to disconnect and go out and forge your own path. I can't imagine that was easy.

Oh, my gosh, no. And honestly, forced upon. It was like pushed on me. I left corporate America kicking and screaming. To be honest with you, there were so many moments where I'm like, in the bathroom, right? Like, I don't know why. It's like you're always having these. It's in the car by yourself, in the drive through line of Starbucks or in the bathroom thinking like, oh my gosh, did I make the biggest mistake of my life? So, yeah, I've started over several times. I've reinvented myself several times. And now I have a multimillion dollar financial practice in Scottsdale. And it's so funny when I Talk to people about my entrepreneurial story, because naturally, I'm a financial advisor by trade, but I never set out to be this businesswoman leading a team and having employees and having this office. That wasn't necessarily something I had a grandiose vision about. And so it's always a great conversation when I'm meeting with clients of I can so relate to. You had to do it because you had to figure it out and do it better. You know, I think for me, I felt like I was in corporate America and I couldn't be the financial advisor I wanted to be. I worked for some really great organizations. It was a great learning ground. And I always thought I would start my own financial planning practice, but I thought I had to be older, more qualified, have more backing, have more money. And it ended up being a point where I found myself in my boss's office and they were letting me go completely out of the blue, completely blindsided. I didn't know you could just, like, get fired for something you didn't do. Like, I didn't know that was a thing. I was like, what do you mean you're letting me go? I'm your number one producer. How does that work? Well, they can, and they did. And I went home and I said, okay. And I told my husband we had just gotten married and bought this beautiful house. And I said, well, you know, that job I was going to create for myself when I was in my 40s and 50s. Well, we're going to do it now, and I'm going to build it better. And I did. And so it took me about two weeks to kind of get my thoughts together. And I left corporate America and I started my independent practice in 2018 and never looked back. And it was the best decision I ever did. I created independence. I created a better planning platform, a better fee break point for clients that I ever could have served in the corporate world. I have more flexible planning to meet people where they're at. And it was just a classic example of the storm is happening for you, not to you. Because, let's be real, I never would have left that corporate job. I never would have left the benefits, the retirement package and Match and the maternity leave. I wanted to be a mom. I hadn't had children yet. And so the idea of all of that leaving that was way too scary. And so my journey into entrepreneurship was truly one of necessity and of, hey, we gotta figure this out, and I'm gonna just do it. Not that it was easy by any means. It took me about two Years to get back to the income I was making when I got essentially fired. But it was just such a good reminder in life, especially for those of you listening, like, if you feel like you are just tooth and nail, like holding on by your fingernails, it's usually darkest before the dawn. If you have done the work and you have something you believe in. Jam Lima's book kind of talks about that, too, is, you know, you are meant for more. Keep going. And you know the universe has a way of working itself out for you.

Well, that's fantastic because, you know, there is a tremendous amount of fear in that position. Lots of people have been in that position or something very, very similar. And there's a pull for something else that you want to do. But when you have things as well as they are, there's always that. Does it make sense? Should I get rid of this thing? That's amazing, because I want this other thing over here. It's hard to make those decisions, especially when you're supporting a family. You have bills to pay, and sometimes the decision, like you said, kind of gets made for you.

Yeah, I think Jeff Bezos talks about that, too, as one of the biggest. His mentor, he was on a walk with, and he was talking about starting Amazon, and his mentor said, well, you have too good of a job to walk away from to start Amazon. And Jeff Bezos went home and thought about it for two or three days, and he almost didn't do it because he had a great job. And so I think that's. That's the thing, right. Is sometimes what's most of the time, what's right for you and your gut is almost never easy. It's the most scariest thing. But you. You can't explore new lands in the bounds of your own comfort zone. So where is your comfort zone boundary and how are we going to go past it and push past it to really take you and your business to the next level?

Yeah. Fantastic. I appreciate the way that just everything about how you said, and having experienced similar things in my own life, I'm very aware of what those feelings are that you have and the restrictions there's almost to a degree, it feels like you're being squished in a box of, well, I've got all this great stuff here, but you know that there's something on the outside of the box. You really want to go pop open the top and take a look outside and see what's out there. But the unknown is what is scary for people. And so fear is, you know, a Lot of different acronyms exist for that one. My favorite has always been Future Events Appearing Real. You can't fear something in the past. You can only fear something in the future that hasn't happened yet. Now we often recognize or feel the impact or the beginnings of fear based on past events that have happened to us because they've established a baseline of where fear already existed. And we bring that past experience into our perception of what the future might hold. And that's why Future Events Appearing Real is my favorite acronym for fear.

I love that. And yeah, and I think too, I was never tied to our things growing up. It was pretty chaotic. I had great parents, a great childhood, but we moved a lot. We never had a childhood home, if you will. So after I was starting my own business, I sat down with my husband and I said, you know, if this, if this flywheel takes longer to get going than I think it, it might, we might have to be in a position to sell the house and use the equity from a house and live in an apartment for a year. Are you willing to do that? Because that's a very real reality. I was not as scared of that. I did not associate my success with this big house that we had just bought. I knew that my success in the long run would be there. But at the same time, when you have a partner and a family, you know, you, you have to have those conversations of, hey, we're on this boat together and I'm navigate it the best I can. But if we need to ditch a few things off the side of the boat, what are we willing to ditch? And for me, it was the house, because that's where most of our equity was. And my husband, God bless him, he goes, I know you, we're never going to be in that position. You're always going to be able to make a lot of money. But if that's what you need to sleep at night to take on this risk, yes, if we have to sell the house in a year, we will do it. And it was. I needed that just option on the table. And of course I was, you know, making money within, you know, two months and everything worked out the way it was supposed to. But sometimes we have to have those real conversations about what we fear most so we can push forward. Because we can't heal what's hidden and what we hide away sometimes kind of pops its ugly head, right? What we, what we don't understand or know can hurt us. And so having those conversations with your spouse, with your business partners, with your stakeholders and asking for what you need is so crucial in any business. Hey, I have a lot of money in the operating account. I'm sitting on $250,000 of cash. Our payroll is healthy. How I need help on how to navigate my finances better in my business. That's a very real thing that 90% of business owners have. And 90% of business owners are not managing their cash effectively, and they're not moving cash to their business effectively. But a lot of business owners are too afraid to have that conversation. Right. Or we want to hoard it. Because we've had those moments in the beginning where we were afraid of not being able to pay our mortgage, much less payroll. And now we're in year two, three, four, five, and things are rolling. But we haven't made any systematic changes to how we're managing cash. And so the same concept applies is whatever you're fearing is going to hold you back in your business. So the more you can talk about it and get it out on the table, the more you can heal it, move past it, and dial it up in your business.

Well, I like the way you put that. There's a lot of people who develop, I think, you know, the head in the sand mentality around areas of their financial life. And if you. If you're not willing to bring things out or they're. You're going to just, I get. Literally hide from it. There's no way that you can make that successful. It's. It's not possible to take that and turn it into something totally.

And maybe it's less head in the sand and more of, like, it's not a priority right now because they have so many other bajillion things going on. You know, as a mom, I'm dealing with the grocery list. Did the cleaning lady come today? Did I mean, my to do list as a working mom and running a company is literally insane. And so I get that if you're not in love with the finance piece of your business, it just falls to the bottom of the priority list. Not that you're ignoring it per se, but things are working. Things are healthy. Your revenues are up. You know, sales are up. You know, I have other things that are popping up in my life that I need to whack down. And so I think it's. It's less about, you know, the shame around, hey, I'm just going to ignore and more about being intentional with how are you managing your business? And are you really, truly acting like the CFO you need to be and the Leader you need to be to take your business from 1 million revenue to 10 million. Because what got you to 1 million is not going to get you to 10 million. And there's a whole lot more that you need to be thinking about when you're growing a business, especially when it comes to money.

Well, I appreciate that. And that makes me think of one of my favorite books, which is 10x is easier than 2x by Dan Sullivan. And the same thinking that created the environment that you find yourself in is in isn't the same thinking that's going to get you to a 10x version of that. That's a powerful way of recognizing that you have to modify your thinking to be able to create the environment that you want to be in. And that's not unlike how you were in a position where you were forced to modify your thinking about taking your age 50 business idea and moving it up a couple decades to getting it started sooner in your own life. Which is fantastic.

Yeah, I remember thinking I was like 20 something and I was like, oh my gosh, are people with a million dollars really going to trust me to manage all of this when I don't have this big corporate name behind me?

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I remember thinking I was like 20 something and I was like, oh my gosh, are people with a million dollars really going to trust me to manage all of this when I don't have this big corporate name behind me? And it took me about two seconds where I'm like, gosh, what a defeating mindset that was. You know, age is not the definition of success. People know your heart. And you know, I think probably from your background in electrical engineering, you know, people want competency and compatibility and when the two are matched, you know, then you can really bring real value. And in my case, the real value is people can sleep at night knowing where their money is because they're with a, a team that trusts and cares about their family at a price point that's really competitive. And so, you know, for me it was, it was all there. I just needed to believe it myself.

Well, and going from the corporate side to now moving into your own practice, you had to just establish fundamentally what is it you wanted to build. What did you want to take from your old life and skillset and bring in and bring with you into your brighter future as you built the current, you know, you literally went on the trek for your business, hence the name, to create the environment that you wanted to plant your flag in the sand for people to be able to come and see you and you could support them in that way. How was the thinking process that you went through other than, of course, you know, I need to start generating income, that's always there. But what was it about building things your own way that was really invigorating and that gave you a lot of excitement about being able to forge something that was unique to serve people the way that you serve them today.

You know, I think for, for me, especially with financial, you know, how many times have you emailed your financial advisor at an Ed Jones or a Vanguard or a Fidelity and the. And the standard boilerplate responses you need to see your tax consultant, how unhelpful of a response is that? Or you have a estate planning conversation and you have minor children and you're a single parent and the question is, hey, how do I make sure my kids are taken care of? And the financial advisor's response is, oh, well, that's a question for your estate planning attorney. And there's no one to help guide them and navigate them. So for me, I knew the answer. I just could not compliantly answer them. And that for me was so disheartening and incredibly challenging to show up as an authentic human, just human being of. Absolutely. That is a great question. Let me help outline a plan for you. I couldn't even put that in an email when I worked in corporate America. But now that I own my own firm, as long as it's accurate and compliant, I can answer people in an authentic, real helpful way. And for me, the freedom to do that and show up as more authentically myself has been game changing. And so many times out there we just get too vague of advice to be even actionable, even in your business. How many times have you sat down with your business coach and your coach is like, oh yeah, you need to focus on your sales pipeline. Okay, well, what does that even mean? And so, you know, I think for me as a business owner and a financial advisor, of being a partner in planning for business owners, there's a lot they have going on and they have multiple advisors on their team and so I can come in and Almost be that personal CFO is. Hey, let's get your. Let's get your CPA on the phone right now and make sure that we have the appropriate estimated taxes paid for your January 15th tax bill. Oh, I have to pay my taxes by January 15th this year. Why did my CPA not tell me that? Well, they don't get paid to. I do. So we want to make sure we don't pay more in penalties, taxes, and interest. So let's get that done. And so it's just those, like, simple things that I think when you're on. When I'm on their team, it's a completely different relationship. And that, for me, has been empowering. And for those listening, I think that would be the challenge. Right. Is how are you creating a product or a service that helps empower people to add real value to their lives? Because if there's real value, the price point becomes less important, and you can offer really dynamic pricing when you're bringing real value to people and solving real problems.

Yeah, Fantastic. It makes a lot of sense to me now when you think about again, so you've made these steps. You're able to build the business that you were looking for, doing the things that you weren't able to do previously. At what point in what stage did you realize, you know, as you started to see success in the transition, you said it was about two years to get back up to a similar level of revenue that you were when you left that corporate America position. When did you realize you needed to start growing and add to your team? You know, what was some of the first levers of support that you said? You know what? In order for Caitlin to make a real go at this, to help people properly, I need to deal with a B and C challenge in my growth plan, or else I'm gonna find myself, like, ripping my own ha out when I'm supposed to be also just making sure that my kids get food every day. Like, how did you recognize there was a time that you needed to start to grow?

Oh, my gosh. I did not. I didn't. I was, like, trying not to hire people for the longest time, and it was so silly. I still struggle with that. So I don't know that I'm, like, the best person to ask advice on that, but I will say the minute I hired my executive assistant was a game changer. You know, there's a great book called Rocket Fuel where we talk about the entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurial mindset of, hey, I have all these ideas, and then what is left behind of all these breadcrumbs that need to get put together. And that was my case is I had all these great ideas I wanted to implement in the business, but I had no time to integrate them. And so I hired an executive assistant, or almost chief of staff, I would say, to come in, look at our processes, create workflows, put projects together that have been on the list forever. There was like a data project I needed done, a filing project I needed done all these like low priority, low revenue generating tasks that needed to be done for efficiency. But because I wasn't getting paid on them, I wasn't in, I wasn't enticed to get it done right. You're always, as an owner, you want to be selling your business, you want to be in front of clients. And so I needed to hire somebody to do that. And at the time I kind of balked at the pay. I was like, oh my gosh, that's a big commitment. I laugh at myself now because I'm like, oh my God, that's pennies compared to what I have generated in revenue because I have a more organized system. And so if you don't have an executive assistant or a virtual assistant, I would say that's the number one thing is if you want to be working, you know, and, and getting in front of clients and closing deals, then you need to have somebody on your team that's handling the operations side of it and, and understanding the workflows of your business very, very well. But more importantly, if something happens to you, you're on the like, I had a baby this year, you know, I was in the hospital for like four days. My team handled everything seamlessly because we had spent two years setting it up that way. So the more you can remove yourself out of the business, the better off you will be and the more saleable your business is because eventually you're going to have to transition your business. You're either going to sell it, give it away, or you're going to die and there's going to be a fire sale or you're going to close it. I mean, right? We're all heading to the proverbial cliff at some point. And so thinking, planning with the end in mind, if you are not sitting at the table making those decisions, are people going to know how to run your business and help your clients? And if the answer is no, then you really need to start thinking about what service or personnel you need to hire to help you manage that. And if it seems overwhelming right now, do it in small Pieces, Start Googling AI. How can you start leveraging AI? Start looking at your vendors? Is there an AI solution that may replace three or four of your vendors, especially if you're an attorney? You know, there's, there's so many different pieces out there that is. Is now available. I just think business owners sometimes need to be whacked on the head, myself included. I needed to be, you know, kind of convinced, and it was the best investment I ever did.

Yeah. Amazing. And I appreciate that you brought in AI into the mix. In fact, just got off a conversation before we got started here today about that and found myself in a recent interview with another gentleman exploring some different AI ideas. And coincidentally, our conversation carried forth and he showed me how to build a random program using Claude AI as a test. And I thought, wow, I can get to do that. That's fantastic. So you're always exploring new things.

Yeah. For those listening, if you do not know what Claude AI is, C L A U D E A I. It is, you know, the newsletters, workshops, PowerPoints. You can give your team a task and have them utilize Claude. It is a game changer for sure. But I think there's like a 3% utilization of AI in corporate America right now, and corporate America is not prepared for AI. And so if you can leverage AI as a tool in your business, you're going to be light years ahead and far more profitable. So I would say that's certainly the biggest opportunity for sure.

Yeah, there's, there's so many applications for it. And I think to a degree, people are, again, it's like scared of the unknown AI being unknown. But also how do I, how do I implement it? What is the wing thing that I wanted to do? And you know, I would encourage people to just get started. Start by asking some basic questions. Pick a project that you have that's been sitting on the, you know, on the cutting room floor for a while waiting to be implemented and say, well, what could I ask this AI tool about that project to get some ideas? And you can even. I know a lot of people who even just use it as a brainstorming tool because I know for myself I activate really well in a brainstorming conversation and sometimes there's nobody around, so I'd rather not have the conversation in my head. I'll use, I can use AI to have the conversation with me as an example.

Yeah, yeah, I'll give you a real life example. So I sat down with a client of ours. She's a trial attorney in medical Medmow. Medical. Medical malpractice. It'll be 10 years sometimes till she gets her case paid out. I mean, that's massive. And the amount of investment she has to put into these cases is hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so the revenue stream in her business is not efficient. And so we sat down and we did a revenue analysis for her. And we said, hey, you need different revenue streams in your business. What do you love doing? Okay. She loves helping attorneys that don't litigate, don't go to trial. Go to trial and really take their claims from 1 to 10 million, you know, 10x their business, essentially same. So I asked her, I said, do you have a subscription model for that? Do you have a workflow for that? Do you have. No, I haven't had time to put that together. So in my office with her sitting here at this table, we pulled up Claude. AI I typed in what her goals are. I typed in what workshop she was trying to do. Selling from the stage, because she was about to go on this road trip for her book. And I said, we need to come up with a subscription package for your business that you can sell from the stage. And we came up with it. And five minutes, and I. I'm super excited to say she went back to the drawing board, she massaged it, and that's probably going to bring in almost $250,000 of revenue for her this year. And so it's stuff like that where you don't need AI to do the entire thing for you. You just need to help get the brainstorming going. And, hey, if she can build in a whole new revenue stream for her business that's on subscription, how powerful is that? And it's going to give her more flexibility to be the mom that she wants to be and not wait for, you know, have the stress of these massive investments in her business. So that's the type of consulting we do at our financial firm, is for business owners that are really needing a partner in planning, both on the financial side, but also their business side. What are some things they're not thinking about? And because we work with so many business owners in different facets, you know, we have a lot of ideas that they might not have thought of just because of our exposure to what other business owners are doing.

Absolutely fantastic. Caitlin. This is great. We're going to talk about more AI fun stuff when we come back after this important break. There's certain moments in our life where we know that things are going to change. That happened to me In August of 2009 my life completely and totally changed forever for the better. I learned about this incredible concept concept called the infinite banking concept. Becoming your own banker. It was created by R. Nelson Nash. Nelson became my friend and my mentor. I loved him dearly. I now have the blessed life of being able to teach his incredible message, his incredible concept to the people I love to serve. You can learn all about it by registering for a free webinar@learnibc.com Go ahead, take the initiative. Start your learning journey now. So we're taking a forward looking view at 2025 and beyond and we're discussing with Caitlin how AI is playing a role in her business and with the clients that she serves. But more importantly, how it's important to have good person to talk to, to be able to unpack the challenges that entrepreneurs are having now. Caitlin, I suspect in all the meetings that you're having with your team and your office, the clients that you serve, working with so many business professionals, you're hearing what challenges they're going through and you're probably getting an insight into what challenges they aren't even experiencing yet, but they're concerned about. So I kind of want to jump down that track a little bit. What are some of the things coming up in 2025 and beyond that you're hearing about through the grapevine where business owners are bringing concerns to your team and they're seeking some coaching, mentorship, guidance and maybe just some brainstorming on how they might tackle some of those upcoming items?

Yeah, so I would say it's kind of divided in two camps. One is the small business owners that serve individuals. I'm finding they're not as worried, you know, individuals, you know, that human behavior in nature is going to continue on the consumer side of things, regardless of who's in office. You know, as a mom, I'm still going to be buying eggs and milk and taking my kids to daycare like normal, regardless of who's office. So I would say for the small business owner that are playing in their local communities or to the direct consumer are not as affected by the political regime. I would say the business owners that have clients that are at the Fortune 500 level is a lot more concerning a lot of times because when there's volatility, uncertainty, we're not seeing as big of investments from the Nikes of the world, from UnitedHealthcare is a great example. Right. Of what can happen there. So for clients that have big government contracts and big vendor contracts with some of these larger companies, we're finding that the renewal process is slowing down or for shorter terms or even for less because there's so much volatility that is associated with the Trump administration. I think in general, we're seeing that the Trump administration is pro business, that should be pro market. However, the biggest headwind that we're all going to face is inflation is not going away. If anything, inflation is highly under reported. And so as we head into the next year, prices are going to continue to go up, meaning that's going to hit your revenue. And so I think the biggest advice I'm giving my clients is how are, what are you doing to make sure that if business slows, we have a plan B and how are we increasing your revenue streams? So the most successful businesses I work with have between five and and seven different revenue streams. So if anything, I would say now is a really, really great opportunity. It's the beginning of the year. Go and do a profit analysis. Identify where your main income streams are coming from, what products and services, what are the gross. And you know, there's different, three different profit margins. You want to be aware of gross and operating and net profit margins. Understand what those numbers are and take that information, send it to your board of directors, your cfo, your coo, your stakeholders in the company ahead of time, and have a brainstorming meeting around, hey, this is what we're current, this is our current offering. Is that adequate? And if we expanded it, what markets do you feel like we're missing? Or what markets do we feel like are underutilized? Or what markets do we feel like we could potentially gain a bigger perspective or market share of? And I think the more you know your numbers, the more strategic you can be about business planning in 2025. And it's going to be extremely crucial that you are insulating your revenues from inflation that will be coming either from additional revenue streams or from increasing prices. And you have enough cash either in your operating account or access to a business line of credit. If you don't have a business line of credit, you need to get one today. And really make sure you have a strong business banking relationship. And I'm not talking with a Chase or a Wells Fargo. Nobody wants a business relationship with a big box bank. I'm talking about a credit union. Open up a business account, have a decent deposit and know who the business banker is and make sure you have a relationship with them today. So those are the two big things I would say is know your numbers, figure out where you can increase your revenue streams and make sure. You have a great local business banking relationship.

Well, one of the things that I picked up in that of course, you know, I, I would refer to it as concentration risk. There's, there's a degree to which sometimes an entire business structure is built off of one major client relationship or totally somewhere between 60 and percent of revenue comes from one major contract. And if it's a government related contract or like you say a major company and they need to pull back, they need changes, how is that going to impact your business? And if, you know, I would position that as, you know, a house needs a foundation to be solid, but if you all of a sudden you just smashed out the walls on 80% of the foundation, house is going to fall over. Well, that's what a business is built on. If, if 100% of their client base is based in that environment. So what I really hear you saying is create, then that plan B option is create a stability effect to shore up your foundation around the business so that it's structurally sound to weather the earthquake when it does come around 100%.

You know, years ago I had a client who ran a plumbing business and I said, you know, what are your different revenue streams? And he said, well, I fix toilets. I said, well, do you do bathroom sinks? Do you do irrigation? Do you do this? He goes, yeah, I do all of that. I'm like, where is that on your website site? There's nowhere to be found. And so it's just, it was so close to him. He's just like, of course, that's what I do, duh, I'm a plumber. Why do you. And I'm like, well, I don't know what a plumber does. I have no idea. My husband handles that stuff. Right. So if I'm a single woman searching for irrigation specialist, how would I know to call you? And so sometimes it's already there. We're just not outwardly communicating it with our clients or our audience. And so, you know, again is just what's common sense is not always common practice. And so I think that's the common theme I see from business owners that sit down with me is there's so many things that are right there, low hanging fruit, easy revenue generating opportunities. They're just not capitalizing on it because it's not a priority to think about it. And so as you head into 20, 25 things, liquidity is going to be tighter, it's going to be harder to get access to capital, inflation's going to be harder and you're going to want flexibility in your business to continue do the things you love. So now is your wake up call to really pay attention to what is driving revenue in your business and making sure you're communicating that out into the world.

It's interesting. It makes me think of asking a lot of good Pareto based questions in the 80, 20 of things. So, you know what, what are the 20% of your clients or vendors or people that you serve that cause 80% of your pain and frustration? Maybe they, maybe they aren't as good at revenue. But if you got rid of all that pain and frustration, how much more energy would you have to go create new revenue? You know, those types of questions that I find are very eye opening for a business owner because they're not generally thinking about those things all the time unless they're presented with a good question.

Yep. Gosh, I went through Pareto like years ago, so I've, I've totally. What's the book behind Pareto? What's it, what's it called? Do you know?

It's the 8020 print principle.

There we go. Okay, so I was like, for those of you listening, go, go, go get the 8020 principle. I read it like five or six years ago. So I'm like, I've forgotten now. But yes, you know, a lot of the building blocks that we have in our business is all of those same, same principles. But again, as business owners, we just get busy. There's so many things we should be doing. And the answer is, okay, great, when, when am I going to find time for that? And so I think the answer is, you know, you hire for it, you delegate to it, and you make it a priority.

Well, there's a lot of people looking at the things that they should be doing, but there's not a lot of people looking at the things that they shouldn't be doing. And isolating what, you know, eliminating what is unnecessary frees up a lot of bandwidth, both mentally and often physically.

Richard, are you attacking my coffee addiction right now? Because I probably should not have had that third cup of coffee today.

Well, but you're so engaged and fired up for our conversation. It's totally worth it.

I'm so fired up. I'm just like, I'm like going on four hours of sleep of a mom of two young boys. But you know, we are here, we are here to celebrate. Right? So, but no, you're, you're, I joke because that's my vice. But you are, you are not wrong. And what, what, what tasks should I not be Doing. And I'm sure there's like a million every day. You know, I was folding laundry the other day. This is funny. My husband stays home, he runs our house, and I'm a mom, right? Like, sometimes I just feel guilty that he's doing so much around the house. And so I was working from my home office on Monday, and I heard the dryer go off. So I leave my home office and I start folding the laundry, and my husband very kindly comes in and goes, should you be doing this right now or are you procrastinating, preparing for what you actually need to be doing? I'm like, I'm 100% procrastinating. No, my time is not best spent folding the laundry. And that's just so classic, right? Like, so classic. We are all victims of our own environment. And I understand I am the problem. But it's all in good fun and perspective. It's just how do I create a life of harmony for my family, for my kids, for my husband, and for my clients and business, of course. And there's no balance. Balance is such a joke. But we can create harmony and laugh. And my husband and I definitely have a. He has a lot of fun making fun of me for doing things that I should not be doing.

Well, there's a lot of that that goes around, and I think things that have I've felt in my. At least in my life, and I know in the clients that I serve, we talk a lot about understanding our natural gifts, our natural strengths. That's why I became a Colby certified consultant, to really help people understand by instinct what is it that you would naturally do when solving problems. And the more you're aware of those subtleties about your own life and you can explain them to the people around you, you. It doesn't get you out of doing things that you're not supposed to be doing, but it helps you zone in on what is the best area of focus. And, you know, there's something to be said for people want to work on their weaknesses, but then you're just going to have really strong weaknesses. It's much easier to try to minimize and eliminate anything that you would consider a weakness. Have someone else who's really strong at that come and help you and leverage. What I like to refer to from Dan Solomon, which is who patients. You know, there's a lot of how power available, but what a lot of people need is more who power around them.

You know, I'm. I'm dyslexic. And so my trigger is that I'm not smart enough and I think a lot of people can relate to that. And so I've spent my entire career making sure I'm the smartest person in the room and focusing on all of the things from tax mitigation, estate planning. I mean I, I probably know more about non financial things that affect Your financial house than 9 find 90% of financial advisors out there easily because I was so sensitive to the fact that I had dyslexia and was never like a good student and I had somebody years ago when I worked at Vanguard a boss tell me, you know, if you're constantly misspelling emails, no one's going to trust you to manage their money. And it always stuck with me. And that's such a lie. And it was such a lie I carried with me four years. No one cares that I can't, that I have a misspelled word in an email that's a 30 second response time.

What is this incredible thing called the Colby A Index I keep hearing about? I'm a certified Colby consultant and I can't wait for you to discover what your natural instincts are. It works incredible for team teams, for business owners in families with our kids. The more you can develop and understand your knowledge of how you go and get things done in the world and how that happens with the people around you, everything can get so much better. Take the initiative. Learn more about how this might show up in your life. As a certified coach, I'm happy to sit with you and help you understand the depth of your own superpowers. Get the process started by downloading downloading my free guide@coachcanfield.com 9 times out of.

10 people would want a response quickly than a perfect response, not as timely and that took me a long time to get rid of. And I think as business owners we're often forced to start a business because we had to, we had this calling or we were pushed into it. But we sometimes carry those falsehoods about our own worth, value or what we have going on. And the sooner you can a identify it because we can't heal what's hidden. Identify what your triggers are, what lies or disempowering words are you telling about yourself and how can you spin it into your success story and be about who you are? Most clients know I have dyslexia and that's my secret power. It's why I'm good at what I do. I can see things differently. I can see their entire life on a chessboard and put it together in Ways that they would never have thought. I just met with a $10 million net worth client about a month ago. They've had three financial advisors. In the first meeting, I identified four major issues with their plan that nobody else had identified yet in their trust language, in their estate plan and in their tax plan. And nobody had ever talked to them about any of this. And that's just such a great example of if I wasn't dyslexic, I might not have seen that because my brain thinks about all these different puzzle pieces and how together. And so I think we all have these weird quirks or things in our world where it's labeled by the outside world as a weakness or it's going to hold you back, or it's why you're not going to be as profitable and lean into that. Because chances are your secret power is what's going to really drive revenue and make you a really great leader in your business.

Yeah, absolutely. Phenomenal. 100% agree with all of that. And to be able to identify those things, and I really think it's important to identify, like you, you know, that your clients are aware that you have dyslexia. You know, my son just got diagnosed with that, although I never was, I suspect to a degree I also have it. And I've spoken with many other people. In fact, I've had other folks on this show with that similar issue and problem and how it created challenges for them in their youth. But all of those challenges allowed them to create almost uncanny mental shortcuts on how to deal with it in life so that it wasn't a problem. And then those shortcuts and the way that they created them becomes part of their superpower. So there's, there's a, you know, kids are very resilient and they're able to solve things in ways that a lot of adults can't because we, we often lose the inspiration to learn new things over time. We lose a level of curiosity. But children don't have that issue. And so they're always solving problems to the best of their ability. And I think issues like dyslexia, there's a lot of, you know, behavioral things around ADHD and stuff. That's a really big, big, you know, it's all over the news. It's, you can find thousands of blogs and articles and Facebook groups and you know, all this stuff about people talking about that. But we're not also heavily recognizing the value that these things can provide for us. Everyone has these unique superpowers in them. It's just a matter of recognizing how can they be applied and are they being applied in an appropriate way. You know, there's, there's so much more.

And I think too the one, there's a book called the Gift of Dyslexia. If you haven't already heard of it, you might check it out for your son. But the biggest disempath, empowering story I hear with, I would say most of the entrepreneurs that sit down with my team is they don't have a great money story. They've either had a bankruptcy in the past, they've had a failed business in the past, and they associate those failures as they're not good with money. And that's not true. That has no definition of success. And so we really coach our business owners and clients to don't live life in the rear view and mirror. We move forward. So what do you want your relationship with money to be? Because money likes momentum, money likes speed. And so how are we going to create more momentum and speed around your money story? And, you know, how do we get you from being an owner mindset to being a CEO mindset? And it's going to come with writing bigger checks, getting more comfortable, taking on more risk and moving faster and being less afraid of failing. And, and, and that is a superpower that if you can harness as a business owner, where you're going to start stop playing small and willing to hire the people you need to hire, invest in the team, invest in workflows, invest in your operational side of the business, you're going to be in such a better position in 12 months. I just, I can't tell you enough to really take the time to understand what's holding you back and turn that into a superpower.

It's interesting. It makes me think of, again, we have a lot of similarities here where, you know, a lot of people will go and generate a bunch of money in revenue with their business and then they'll take the money and they don't.

Know how to store it or keep it.

They'll take it and then they'll go and put it into someone else's business rather than helping to augment the thing that's already built all the money and revenue for them. And yeah, maybe there's some diversity aspects there and to a degree, but often it's almost like they're scared to reinvest in the thing or maybe they've lost the inspiration to see, see how can I take this thing that I've built to this level and take it to the next level. Maybe they don't want to be the person to do that. But you know, so there's all these kind of advantages that exist and a lot of times people don't recognize. I really firmly believe that you are your greatest investment. And if you can double down on that, you know.

Yeah, I'll give you a quick client success story in that. I had a doctor who owned a practice here in Arizona and they had about 500,000 they were going to give me to invest. And I said, well, we can invest this and make 8, 9, 10 last year we made 22%. Great. Or we could invest this back into your business. If we invested this back into the business, what would you do with it? And I said well, we would buy the building. I said how much is the building? 800,000. So we, we owe 300,000. I said how long would it take you to pay off that building? They said probably about five years. I said I think we should do that. So they did. They bought the building, they put 400,000 down. They had kept a hundred thousand back. They paid off the 400,000. They now have a million dollar building. They're in the process of selling, selling the, the doctor's practice. Right now they have a stronger EBITDA earnings after interest and you know, it's a calculation, you should know as a business owner what your EBITDA is. They're going to sell the business standalone, the office building is separate and they're going to be able to retire because they're 50. Right. They have a longer retirement and they're going to generate cash flow, $12,000 a month from that building forever. And that is a personal pension. And so, so that is a great real life example of not only are they going to have a higher successful exit because they planned with us, they're going to have an income stream after they've sold their business that's going to be passive, that's going to allow them to live a much more flexible life in retirement. That is the crucial planning conversations that you get when you have the right people on your team. And that's a big investment. Right. That was more money than they'd ever had in the past. It was really scary. But they listened to us. We had a plan and here we are four years later and it's, it's working out exactly like we had we had outlined.

And in the same process, not only did they have more control that they're going to maintain more control on a long term basis.

Correct. Because if they hadn't bought that building, guess what, Their rent would have gone up by 20 to 30% every single year. Their business would have been less profitable. They would have sold for less of a multiple. It was a chain, chain link reaction. And so that's the other thing is what are your expenses in your business and how can you bring some of those expenses in house and have more control to not be impacted by things like inflation? And so, you know, again, it all comes down to who's on your team to help you understand, know your numbers and invest back into the business strategically. So you're going to have the most successful exit possible.

When they sold the business, I would imagine one of the, there's lots of levers in negotiation. One of the levers they were able to play with as part of that negotiation was how long they might be able to fix, fix the lease for the new buyer taking over the practice so that they could A, secure their own income, but B, provide stability and confidence to the new buyer of the business to make sure they could stabilize cash flows while they take over that practice for the first number of years.

100%. Because when you buy a business, the lease becomes up for renegotiation for any business. And so if you have the owner of the business also own the building, there's a huge incentive because you can redo the lease negotiation at the exact same time time. Because as a dental practice or lawyer, you know, there's a huge investment that goes into creating that space with all the tools and chairs and operation rooms and, and, and you know, lab rooms. And so yes, it was a huge factor in what made her business so much more saleable is what we would call it.

Now another fun component of that might be the fact that they're probably well capitalized and should that new business need to update their equipment, equipment, perhaps they could be the financier of some of that equipment, knowing the industry and knowing the physical location quite well. So there's lots of new opportunities that can be created with a little bit of creative thought and having the right type of people like Caitlin and our team to be able to bounce those ideas off of.

For sure.

Love it. Well, Kaitlin, what are you most excited about? We've talked a little bit about some of the challenges facing everybody in 2025 and before beyond. What I'm really curious about is what are you really excited about as you look into the forward future? The future that's so bright that you sometimes can't even see it through the sunshine coming in. What Is it that has you really excited about what you're looking to build for your clients and for your practice?

You know, I think probably a lot of people can relate. I'm looking. I'm so excited to just have more harmony in expanding my team. So right now, there's a lot of things in my business that require me to be at the table, especially on the strategy side. So I'm most excited of bringing on more advisors that I can train to have the same approach so that we can start helping more people. I think the challenge with what I do is I'm the only one that does what I do, and so I can only meet with so many people a year, and that is really hard on my heart because there's a lot of people that knock on our door and I'm just like, I have to go pick up my son at 3. I can't meet with you. And so I think for me, what I'm most excited about is figuring out how we can bring our offering to more people that really need us. And how can I train other advisors to take what I know and help more people dial up what they need? And so I'm working through on how to let go of control a little bit more and not be so hands on in the business. So for those listening, you are not alone. I am right there with you. But I'm making it a priority to hire and train other folks that can bring the same same type of knowledge and planning to more people this year, which is such a great gift.

Fantastic. It looks like you and I are running some parallel tracks this year as we do some similar activities.

Caitlin, if I say it out loud, it has to happen right?

There you go. You're putting it out to the universe. Well, this was a ton of fun. Thanks for being with us today, sharing some of your value, sharing some of your great ideas that you progress on with business owners to help them think differently about their cash flow and the their business structure, their great ideas, and adding so much value to everyone watching today. For those of you tuning in, make sure you stay tuned for next week's incredible episode as we continue to unpack the amazing challenges people are overcoming and the innovations of tomorrow.