Latest / Financial Planner Search / Holistic Wealth & Exit Planning for Business Owners with Jason Priebe | Financial Planner Search
Transcript
- Gregory Wilnau: Jason, how are you doing today, sir? Jason Priebe: I am doing great. Yourself? Gregory Wilnau: I'm doing awesome. Looking forward to chatting with you. I'm getting a little bit of echo on my side. So making a quick adjustment here just to close that off. And then we'll dive in. All right. I probably won't edit that just because it's, you know, you want things to be too smooth, right? But anyway, let's jump in here, Jason. Why don't you take a moment to just kind of introduce yourself and talk a little bit about your firm and and what you do. Jason Priebe: Yeah, for sure. Thanks for having me on here. ⁓ look forward, look looking forward to the chat. ⁓ again, I'm Jason Preebe. I am with Magnetic North Advisors. and I have been in this business since 2013. ⁓ took a roundabout way to get into financial services. I went to undergrad and at University of North Dakota, and then I went to law school out in Michigan. And I was convinced I wanted to be a lawyer for the first 20 some years of my life. Got done with law school. And I was like, you know, I really kind of like these numbers. And my dad had been in the business his whole life. He'd have been an advisor. and he had always talked about it. And I had always I always, you know, probably, you know, my my teenage rebellion years, I'd always kind of push it off. I'm like, no, I want to be a lawyer, I want to argue. ⁓ Gregory Wilnau: Sure, sure. Jason Priebe: And so I I I went the expensive route of going to law school, ⁓ graduating, sitting for the bar, getting my attorney's license, and then going, all right, fine, let me try out these numbers. Let me see, you know, see what it's like here. and so I started working alongside him ⁓ shortly thereafter, and I really, really loved it. And I never looked back. and So that that's my short origin story and and so we've grown from there. Gregory Wilnau: Love it. So you were the rebellious teenager who wanted to be a lawyer, not a financial advisor like your pops, but you f found that you actually loved doing it and fell into it anyway. So congratulations, man. Well tell me a little bit more about what you inspired what inspired you to do this. It couldn't have just been just your your pops, right? What else was there anything else? Jason Priebe: Thank you. I mean it in a way it it kind of really was. ⁓ I I really enjoyed I r I enjoy the the problem solving aspect, which is probably why when I wanted to go to law school, I wanted to be in negotiations, contracts, and mergers. I just I really loved the aspect of problem solving, ⁓ and trying to find solutions where it's, you know, yeah, you you win, but it's you know, it's it's it's a win win overall, right? ⁓ and I found that that really is very similar to what planning is, right? ⁓ You're trying to solve these problems or solve for a solution for for families that is a balance. It's you know, in our world, it's you know, I think planning gets caught up on this. Hey, can you retire when you're 60 years old? Right. And that's the goal we have set. And we really like to to bring that back and like, hey, we need to be planning for now and we need to be living now. Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Jason Priebe: And planning for the future. And I think that's a big piece of what gets forgotten in in our industry and and in our profession and working with our day-to-day families is hey, we gotta make sure that we are always finding what's important in our life and and making sure we're not saying we'll do that in 20 years, we'll go on the trip when the kids are a little bit older, you know, we'll we'll do this all these things. We we really have a people tend to have a a really good habit of. Putting things off. ⁓ And it might sound counterintuitive, but I think the more you get people to focus on what's important to them, we call that their due north here. But if you focus on what's important, then you'll start to really be able to plan and save for the future with a lot more intentionality. Gregory Wilnau: Sure. Yeah. Mm. I love not not not putting stuff off, right? Maybe we could talk about that for a a ⁓ a little bit. Maybe you could talk more about and describe the kind of person who who comes to you and what are some typical situations that you lead them through? Anything come to mind? Jason Priebe: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So right off the bat, ⁓ one of the top pieces, one of the top things that that drives people to us and what they're looking for and and how we've evolved over the last decade plus is with my legal background. We we really inherently started to find this relationship with small business owners, which makes a lot of sense too. We're also a small business owner. That's what we run day in and day out. And what we ended up seeing was the the small business owner who's really successful struggle to to find clarity and intentionality, and they were they're they're overwhelmed. ⁓ these guys, you know. They have a successful business. They they got all the things, but they're struggling to balance it. And one, it's really hard to talk to about talk to just about anyone about your quote problems when you're a small business owner making well into the six figures, maybe seven figures. It's okay to vent, but most people you vent that to and they're gonna be like rich people problems, how ridiculous, right? Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. I don't have any problems. Yeah, right, yeah. Well you're a s you're a small business owner probably too, just like me. Like you gotta you know, you gotta focus on doing better and you wanna be s you gotta be strong and solve problems. So but yeah. Jason Priebe: Yeah. ⁓ and so what we found is Yes. I yeah, exactly. And so we were finding that, you know, they they were doing all the things, but the business had grown from like starting at scratch to now they've got employees, maybe it's just a couple, or maybe it's five, ten, fifteen, and all of a sudden they're like, I'm overwhelmed. I'm doing this, I'm doing that, and I'm I'm running twenty different lanes. And if I could do any one lane on my own, they'd be crushing it because they can do them all. The problem is. They're so busy with everything they can't they're kind of discombobulated. And so they come to us at that moment in time where they're like, Hey, wha what do we do here? I I need help. And so our practice has evolved. So like we're working with a small business owner to take away all of that responsibility. And part of that is planning. Part of that is, hey, they've got a lot of things going on with the business. And that's why within our practice. Gregory Wilnau: To start. Yeah. Jason Priebe: We have brought in ⁓ alongside Magnetic North Advisors, we have Magnetic North Insurance and Magnetic North Tax and Accounting. And for the very reasons to say, hey, you want one team. You don't want to reach out to four different people. You want one team that coordinates amongst themselves and gives you a basically a one-page synopsis of here's everything we're accomplishing. We know we need to do this over here. We need we know we have to work on your health plan. Gregory Wilnau: Nice, nice. Jason Priebe: for the business and that needs to be reviewed. We know you have your business insurance that needs to be reviewed. And, you know, your planning wise, we know, we know what tax bracket we're trying to hit and we're coordinating with the CPA right next, you know, right down right down my office door. Right. And like, hey, what do we need to accomplish for this? And so we basically try and I don't I don't want to say take things off their plate, but certainly that a lot of that's what it's doing. Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Jason Priebe: Now they don't have to be the middleman between their accountant and their planner and the insurance broker and the health broker and their 401k retirement plan. They can access all of that from one single spot and and now they know what's going on. And they know what they're trying to do with the business. A lot of times the the business is the most valuable asset that that these individuals have when they come to us and they know it's worth a lot. They've they know they're making good money, but what happens, you know, they've been maybe at the business for 30 years and they're going, Well, I want to retire. How do how do I unlock all the value in this business? You know, maybe, maybe like me, they, you know, they got a a child that, you know, has the right qualities and skill sets and they can maybe hand it off to him. But even that is how do we do that? Because we still need liquidity and he's broke. ⁓ right. And so how do we how do we how do we work that transition? Or maybe it's entirely nobody's gonna take it over. We don't how do we how do we off what's the off ramp? We're going down the freeway and we're on cruise control and we forgot to think about how do we how do we take an exit ramp? You know. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. So it's like how do I get off the treadmill here, right? Yeah. S so you you primarily specialize in serving ⁓ bus ⁓ small business owners, business owners then? Jason Priebe: Yes, yes, exactly. Yes, that is a a core of who we work with. Obviously, ⁓ having started ⁓ and joined my father, we have ⁓ you know, a whole bunch of original households that are, you know, we love and we continue to work with, but the bulk of what we see come in, right, is is small business owners who are like, we need somebody who gets us and who can really, you know, take all these things that are quite disjointed. And and put them back in together. Nobody ever goes in the business or starts a business to figure out what health plan is best for them. Nobody ever goes in the business to figure out what retirement plan if works for them or if they have enough insurance or have any clue about taxes other than I don't want to pay them, right? And so how do we make all those things work most efficiently for you, the business owner, and not just Well, I need them because I need them because that's the size of the business and I don't know how it it does. And then taking that and going, all right, we've looked at your individual personal situation and here's where we're at and here's what we need to do to get you to the next the next spot in life, right? The next step. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. So let's talk about that a little bit more. Let's talk about some of the the the things that your your prospective clients ⁓ come to you with. What are some of the questions that they typically ask or concerns that they have when they meet with you for the first time? What keeps them up at night? Jason Priebe: Biggest thing that keeps them up at night is they know they've got assets, but they have no idea what to do with them or if it's enough. They they really want to hear somebody say, you've got enough. You can sell the business for this price. You can transition out. You can retire. You can, you can, you can open the, you know, turn the page to the next chapter in the book. That that's really honestly their biggest thing. The vast majority of of of what we're hearing is not them coming in and we're not seeing them go, ⁓ man, we gotta save more. You're broke, we don't have enough money. Like, my my goodness, what have you been spending your your money on with all the you know the growth of this business? It's usually they they want to hear they're all good, but they want to hear how we're gonna execute, right? How do I turn how do I turn it into cash flow? I've never thought about it for the last twenty years. There's just money flowing into the business. I move it over to my personal checking account. How do I keep the personal checking account full when I sell the business? And so that's usually their biggest like that's that's usually the biggest question that we see when when somebody comes to us. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. So lots of questions. Like you said they have assets everywhere. What do I do with them? How much is my business actually worth? Will it be enough to retire? I spent the last thirty years building my business. What's next for me? Those are all sorts of things that they come to you with that you kind of wrangle o everything together and help them on that on that path. I love it, man. I love it. ⁓ okay. ⁓ on that note, how do they typically find you? Where do you c where do you get your clients from? Jason Priebe: Yes. Yeah, you got it. I think at this point, the vast majority of our clients or prospects that are coming to us are typically through some sort of referral, right? Hey and that we see that because you know to circling back to small business owners that are are doing well but have all sorts of things that keep them up at night. They usually start venting with people that are of similar ⁓ you know, mindsets and in a similar situation. So a lot of what happens is we get referrals from fellow business owners because they're like they were venting to their best friend, the one that they can share their deepest thoughts about what keeps them up at night. And their friend is like, Wow, you really seem to to have it together now. What what changed in the last year and a half? And they're like, well, started working with this team, and they've really helped me organize everything that I had going on that I was like, I started it and it got confusing and I just couldn't couldn't handle it anymore. And and they've really they've stacked everything up nice and neat and I got all the blocks and ⁓ I'm good to go now. So I would say a lot of it is is referral. Yeah, it's referral based because they're talking these intimate conversations with Gregory Wilnau: You gave ⁓ some relief. Mm-hmm. Jason Priebe: with fellow business owners that they can, you know, pour their souls out to. And that hits a chord. The other one is we we like to put out as as much content as we can and we like to try and give, you know, general ⁓ things that we're seeing and talking about and hearing and and help other people hear that and share that. And so we're on social media, we're on LinkedIn and we try and do those things to ⁓ help people, you know, find their tribe, so to speak. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. I love it, man. I love it. I love how you get a lot of referrals from other business owners who are kind of venting to a friend. ⁓ and they're like, Well, how do you get all your crap together all of a sudden? You're like, I just I got my people. They send them your way. I love it. When it comes to your practice, let's talk a little bit more about ⁓ vision and where you're where you're taking ⁓ your ⁓ your practice. ⁓ where do you see it in the next one to three years? What's what's your vision? What goals are you working on? Jason Priebe: So in the next one to three years, our our business itself and and and what we're trying to do is is really take us from we've built these individual ⁓ th resources, the tax, the insurance, the the financial planning, the the business planning, and and we want to make it scalable so that ⁓ anyone can step into our business ⁓ that we hire or we bring on and we can we can help spread how easy it is to to do this for ⁓ for helping others and so right now we have a a phenomenal team in place ⁓ and we are working on continuing to scale up so that we can provide even more for everyone and Everyone gets the exact same experience across the board. ⁓ I have a minority partner, Mike Shaw. ⁓ he he r recently became ⁓ a partner within the last year. And our whole goal behind this is to continue to be able to bring up and anyone can step in and provide the exact same experience, whether it's me or him or whoever we continue to add to our team. ⁓ that process to be identical. ⁓ so that you're not we don't wanna look I love me ⁓ but at some point at some point everyone you know retires something happens to them and I want our clients and our families to understand that they're gonna can Gregory Wilnau: I love it. Well that's good. Jason Priebe: They're gonna always be taken care of. God forbid something happens to me or anyone else on our team. I don't want it to have an impact on our families. I want them to be able to continue to feel confident and where they're at and what's going on. And and that can only be done by, you know, continuing to grow and create scale and and work on the business. Just like ⁓ you know, our clients that come to us are venting about their growth and what's going on. That's really where we're at is. is is taking it to that next level. Gregory Wilnau: Sure, I love it. ⁓ on that path in working towards those goals, is there anything standing in your way? Any specific challenges? Jason Priebe: Specific challenges. I think the biggest challenge that I face and and our business faces is the same challenge that we we talk about with our clients on a daily basis. And that's prioritizing and being really intentional about your time and what we're doing. And Not getting distracted on the day of the day. It's really easy to say, hey, you know, things are going really well. Our business is run running really well. And walk into the office and ⁓ I've only got one thing on my calendar. You know, I've got one meeting today. Well, that's really nice. And it's really easy to to say, ⁓ you know, let me get through the day and and at the end of the day look back and be like, I didn't really accomplish a a lot, you know. I was gonna do this, and then I got one phone call, and that took a little bit of time, and then I went and did this, and the next thing I know, like I wasn't super intentional with what I accomplished today. And I think the more intentional we we work and we operate. I the the the goals that we set can be achieved far far faster than we ever possibly imagined. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. It's interesting that a lot of the things that you're personally focused on you also personally help your clients with. ⁓ does that help you does having that personal perspective and experience help serve you in giving the best recommendations to your clients as well? Jason Priebe: It does, I think, and like without a doubt. If if you understand the risk of running a business and operating a business and dealing with employees, we love our employees, but you know, we all know how that is, right? Employees, you know, there can be employees just issues that come up. or you know, a s you know a client calls and says, Hey, you know, I'm I'm moving another direction. ⁓ doesn't happen often, but to say it's never happened is w w simply not true, right? It happens in any business. And so being able to to completely understand where that small business owner and where that family is at, ⁓ it's second to none. I mean, you there there's nothing else you can do. ⁓ you can try and go to, you know, to somebody who's just starting out in the business, not, you know, working for for a firm and Gregory Wilnau: Yes, yeah. Jason Priebe: It's gonna fall on deaf ears. They're not gonna get it. They're not gonna truly understand the, you know, what you're talking about and what your real underlying concerns are. I mentioned this earlier. W we rarely have somebody come in and not have enough saved. It's rarely a savings problem. Rarely, rarely, rarely. They almost usually it's a spending problem. Gregory Wilnau: It is it a matter of priorities? Spa bending and setting the right priorities. Yeah. Jason Priebe: Yeah. Yeah. They're just, you know, business took off and and it's been so well and they forgot to be intentional. They forgot what they did it for, right? ⁓ what were the important things? And and so it's really it usually is it's hey, I get it. We've all been there. We have our ebbs and our flows in every single business where, you know, times are busier or times are less busy and you know, sometimes you wanna just go home at night and just Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Jason Priebe: Take a load off and sit on the couch because you know it's a very busy time of year. And there's other times where you come home and you get home and you're like, can't wait till tomorrow morning. Like this day was awesome. We we did this and we did that. And like I'm I my cup is really it's overflowing right now. I'm really full, you know? And ⁓ so being able to relate with those things, that's that's really ⁓ it's a it's a it's a big benefit. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Peaks and valleys, ups and downs, that's that's not just life, but also also business. ⁓ being able to help your clients and work through them ⁓ through that is ⁓ something that I know and I'm sure they find extremely valuable. All right, so let's try to do this. I know this might be challenging, but we're gonna try to do it anyway, Jason. ⁓ I want you to let's say someone becomes a client Jason Priebe: Yes. All right. Gregory Wilnau: today. What happens the first four to eight weeks? What is your onboarding process look like? And what does it look like to work with you during the course of a calendar year? Can you kind of walk us through that? Jason Priebe: Yes. So somebody reaches out to us. The first thing that we're going to do is have what we call a fit meeting. And that's really a 15 to 30 minute phone call. I want, you know, if they're married, I want both both spouses on the call. And I'm going to give a little, you know, presentation spiel of what what I've talked about, how I got in the business, what I do, and kind of what our focus areas are and what we think is important. And then I'm going to ask them the Hey, number one, what prompted you to reach out today? And then two, just tell me about your life. And I don't mean about your assets, your investments. Just give me a little bit of feedback about who you are and and and what's important to you. Because if if we're not a good fit and we don't seem like we're gonna get along, or it seems like your priorities are are somewhere else, then there's somebody that's gonna be. better capable of of working with you. But assuming we get through that meeting and we're like, hey, we really got along, we had things in common, I can I can understand what you're looking for, and that's really what we provide, then we're going to move to that next step, which is a discovery meeting. At the discovery meeting, ⁓ we're gonna have a whole list of things that we want you to bring, but we're not really gonna go over at the meeting. We'll very briefly flip through the pages and look at them. And yes, it's your prototypical, your investment account statements, your insurance statements, ⁓ any debt you might have, estate planning documents, your will, your trust, all of this stuff. And so that first meeting, if you can make it to the discovery meeting with everything we asked, well then you're set because you just did the biggest heavy lifting. Okay. And now at the discovery meeting, I'm kind of briefly paging through, starting to get a handle on it, ⁓ looking at the tax return, ⁓ kind of just seeing some some general overall things. ⁓ I can see how many kids you have, or you know, and all these things. And and then we're gonna just start having that conversation. What do you do? What are your vacations like? Where you know, like just tell me what your day the day looks like and you know, what are the big goals? And they out everyone's got the big goals. ⁓ I want to retire. Of course we want to retire. What what else do we like to do? Like, what are our hobbies? Like, let me picture this. If you don't work tomorrow and you're done tomorrow, what are you gonna fill your time with? And so then it's you know, my kids, ⁓ my hobby, I really like to golf or whatever it is. And we start building out what are we trying to accomplish here? What are we really trying to accomplish? Gregory Wilnau: Right, yeah. Jason Priebe: And after the discovery meeting, lasts about an hour. Usually we get talking, lasts a little longer, because we're having great conversation. We'll go to work on the backside. We'll take all those documents and all those those numbers and everything that they've got. We'll build out a net worth and we'll start building out an actual plan. Nothing crazy there there, right? Like that's just it's just something we do. If you go to almost any advisor, it's gonna happen. That's how it works, right? And we'll build that out. We'll then have ⁓ our next meeting, which I call it an implementation meeting, but it's usually where we start walking through everything that we've found so far and things that we think are important and what we're trying to accomplish with that. And we start saying, Hey, are does it sound like we're hitting this? Is this is this what Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Jason Priebe: Is this what we're looking for? And we start walking through that based on what we talked about before and what we're seeing here. And we try and get to this point where, yes, this is checking the boxes right here and right now. And from that implementation meeting, it's called an implementation meeting because in this day and age, virtually everything can be done via email and docuSign after the fact for anything that needs to be accomplished. So it's really where we get the yes, we're all on the same page, we're on board, let's start moving forward with this. ⁓ and so then we will have, you know, the the paperwork and what do we need to do. Perhaps we're moving accounts, maybe we're not moving accounts, but you know, we have to reach out to the attorney and make sure we get an estate plan corrected or updated. ⁓ and we have a a list of everything that needs to be done. It's basically what I like to call a little one-page plan that s you know is a synopsis of everything that's important and How the money pieces relate to those things and what we need to be thinking about and what our next steps are. And as you know, when you're doing financial planning, if you're really looking at everything, somebody coming in to meet with an advisor for the first time is probably gonna have five or six really heavy-hitting things that need to be accomplished. A lot of times an estate plan hasn't been done at all, or maybe hasn't been looked at in 15 years. And so what we do is we're prioritizing. Here's what we need to accomplish. But you and I both know we're not doing this all tomorrow. So what do we need to accomplish first? What are some, you know, what are some easy things we can just check the box on and be like, yes, we accomplished something. And then what's the first what's the first big thing we're gonna do? And I type like to take those things as a quarterly, you know, accomplishment. Okay. Gregory Wilnau: Sure. Yeah. Quick wins. Jason Priebe: Let's take the next quarter, the next three months to to check this off the box. And we'll do all the heavy lifting. If it's an attorney that we have to update something with, we're making the phone call. We're having the the first conversation with them. Here's where they're at. Here's everything they have. Here's what we need to, we've talked about that we need to change that we know. Now let's get them on the line with us. Let's get them in the meeting. I'll be there too. And let's make that change. But let's do all the heavy lifting for them. And once we accomplish that bullet point, then we'll go to the next one. And so onboarding is going to continue to look like accomplishing one big bullet point every quarter until we're done with that. Once we're done with that, it usually takes six months, six to eighteen months typically, to really say, you know, hit that point where like, I think we have all of our ducks in a row. We got everything kind of taken care of, and now Gregory Wilnau: Nice. Nice. Jason Priebe: Now we're feeling pretty darn good. We've accomplished a lot. And hopefully we're feeling much more intentional intentional about everything we're doing at this point. And after that initial onboarding process, we go to we transition to the hey, we need to stay in touch. ⁓ let's not for let's not let anything fall off the bat. So we have a s a sheet that is like, hey, triggers. Any of these things happen, you Please reach out instantaneously. You can always reach out to us. That that's what we're here for. You're never gonna call me and ask me, you know, a question or, you know, hey, is this up your alley? It's always up our alley. Like if it's important to you, it's important to us. And that's the same way we we feel about, you know, their family, right? If somebody in your family has a question, like we're gonna take the time to figure it out. And so at that point, we're gonna meet. Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Jason Priebe: At least once a year. Sometimes we'll meet twice a year. It dep it yep. And it's always at the beginning of the year, right around tax time. We're gonna accomplish and take care of their taxes, and we're gonna plan everything we th we we can at the beginning of the year for what we're gonna accomplish this year. And then we're gonna set tasks and when we're gonna accomplish them. So, you know. Gregory Wilnau: Minimum. Yeah. Jason Priebe: There might be only one thing. It might just be at the end of the year, we're gonna run a final tax analysis and we're gonna make sure we are hitting the tax bracket that we wanna hit. And maybe that's it. But whatever, whatever things we need to accomplish throughout that year, we're gonna set tasks, we're gonna set date due dates, and the client's gonna go home knowing I'm gonna I'm gonna hear from them on these dates to accomplish these things. And and then I have this. If it goes more than three months without hearing from a client, it's too long. So we have a recurring task within our system that says, Hey, it's been three months and you've had zero contact with this person. It doesn't happen all that often, but I don't like to go more than three months without picking up the phone and saying, or or sending an email and going, Hey, how's it going? What's new? How was the how was the vacation you went on? Where are we at with things? Like Anything, you know, everything going good yet? ⁓ and sometimes those are trigger points for, hey, thanks for reaching out, you know, because something did just come up. I've been meaning to circle back. So that's what that's what our typical ⁓ after you've onboarded looks like. That's our process. Gregory Wilnau: Sure, absolutely. Yeah. I love man, you did a great job explaining that. So we'll we'll land the plane. You got the the fit call discovery meeting, you know, build out the plan, implementation meeting. Love you how you do the quarterly c accomplishments, get some quick wins, set priorities, and take action on the bullet points. And the minimum you meet once every year, but you always follow up and check in quarterly. And I also love the trigger points. So if this happens, you contact us, okay? Making that really simple and clear for your clients. Jason Priebe: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Gregory Wilnau: Man, I could see how a busy business owner would really value, would really value that that structure and helping set those priorities. On that note, for somebody listening who wants to get in touch with you and is interested in possibly working with you, ⁓ what should they do next? Where should they go? Jason Priebe: Absolutely. ⁓ you can do it one of two ways. If you're on social media, just go right to LinkedIn, search my name, Jason Preebe. I'm on there all the time. We're yeah, glad to connect there. Otherwise, our website is the easiest way, www.magnetic northadvisors.com. And there's a contact us in the top right of the page, and you'll be able to get a hold of us real quickly that way as well. Gregory Wilnau: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Jason, for coming on and sharing with us what you do. Really appreciate it. Jason Priebe: Absolutely. Thank you for having me. It's been a blast. Gregory Wilnau: My pleasure.