Episode Transcript

# FA Episode 1 - Beyond Money - Building a Legacy That Survives the Unexpected with Craig Andrews

Speakers: Narrator, Craig Andrews, Nils Vinje, Compliance Choir

Transcript generated from the produced MP3 and aligned to the full episode audio.

[00:00:00.00] Narrator: You never know how much time you have.

[00:00:02.88] Narrator: For me, that stopped being an idea and became reality on August 22, 2021.

[00:00:09.12] Narrator: The doctors put me on a ventilator and told my wife to call hospice so she could prepare for the day they planned to pull the plug.

[00:00:17.12] Narrator: Six weeks later, I woke up to an entirely different reality. I could not walk. I could not talk. I could not even lift my own arm.

[00:00:25.40] Narrator: And I woke up realizing something else. I had not made the right preparations for my family.

[00:00:30.68] Narrator: The plans I thought were pretty good fell through when it mattered most.

[00:00:34.52] Narrator: That is why Fiduciary Alchemy welcomes voices that would have warned me about the holes in my plans.

[00:00:40.04] Narrator: My hope is that you live a long and prosperous life, but I also hope you make better plans than I did.

[00:00:46.20] Narrator: So tune in, take notes, and stay with us through the end when Bluesman Grendel and the Compliance Choir bring a word of caution.

[00:00:52.76] Narrator: Bring a word of caution.

[00:01:00.44] Nils Vinje: Hello, and welcome to the fiduciary alchemy podcast. I am not your host, Nils Vinje, but I am with your host, Craig Andrews, Craig. Welcome to episode number one of your podcast.

[00:01:14.34] Craig Andrews: Nils, thank you. Thanks for doing this.

[00:01:17.72] Nils Vinje: Well, I'm Sengen, who to do our host, our inaugural episode, I couldn't think of a invite better than you. Well, I appreciate that, and I appreciate the trust you have in me. I'm excited to dig into all things that this podcast is going to be, where it came from, why it exists, who you're going to talk to, and we're just going to kind of set the stage for everybody. So exactly what to expect in all the incredible future episodes. So, Craig, why don't you start with, what's the point of the fiduciary alchemy podcast?

[00:01:49.02] Craig Andrews: to answer that, I kind of need to step back in time to 2021, because that's really what sets the stage. this, anybody that's been listening to my other podcast news, but, I went in the hospital in August of 2021 with COVID, almost immediately they put me on ventilator, and told my wife that one didn't make it. Obviously, I did, and I was in a coma for six weeks after I woke up from my coma, and then after my mind cleared up a little bit, my wife started telling me what had been happening. And one thing she told me was that my team had been running the business without me, and they've been doing an amazing job, and freelancers have reached out to my team saying, hey, we'll do whatever's necessary while Craig's in the hospital. And so, that was kind of the inspiration for my first podcast, leaders and legacies was it's about celebrating leaders who are making an impact beyond themselves, and also building teams that can run without them. But there was something else I also realized after waking up from the coma, what? There's a few things I don't quite have in place, and in terms of taking care of my family, financial matters, and all of that, I certainly didn't expect to die that young. And then there was one thing I thought I'd done a good job with. I made sure my stepson had access to my password manager, both my business passwords and my personal passwords for such a time as that. The problem was he forgot they had access.

[00:03:27.10] Nils Vinje: Oh, no, what happened?

[00:03:32.10] Craig Andrews: He there were a lot of things they couldn't get into, didn't know how, because previously it had sloppy password techniques, he found an Excel file and he was able to figure out a couple passwords, but, largely he, nobody had access. So one of the things, kind of the inspiration for fiduciary alchemy is we want to bring on voices that are helping people prepare for what's hopefully a very long and prosperous life. But also the eventual end of that life that their families wouldn't have to face the uncertainty that my family nearly faced.

[00:04:16.12] Nils Vinje: Mm. That's powerful. That's powerful. Because yeah, and that is one of those things that we don't often like to think about. It's one of those not often talked about, you might meet once a year with a advisor or something, but sometimes it might go years without thinking about what could happen. And truth is, we never know what's going to happen tomorrow or even today.

[00:04:39.14] Craig Andrews: And the other thing is we do this part time.

[00:04:43.54] Nils Vinje: Yeah.

[00:04:44.98] Craig Andrews: And as a result, there are holes in our part time plans that, that people who do it full time recognize and they say, Hey, what, I know you think that's a good work, like having somebody have access to your passwords. What are you going to do if they forget? Here's, here's how it's going to fail.

[00:05:03.34] Nils Vinje: Yeah. That's why we trust the experts, which are going to be some of your guests. All right. So the name fiduciary alchemy is quite unique and I've never quite heard it out there in the world before. So much to share a little bit about where that name came from and what it really means in relation to this podcast.

[00:05:23.04] Craig Andrews: So, yeah, fiduciary here, I love advisors saying, Hey, we're a fiduciary. And so that's kind of the essence of its kind of domain term, that that you're going to be finding people talking in the financial space. There's some other, it turns out the same laws that govern them, also are governing folks that deliver employer-sponsored health care, but that's not really our audience. It just helps narrow that down of we're talking about that. Alchemy was like the ancient art of the pursuit of gold, they were, they were trying to figure out how to synthesize gold. And, that's what a lot of the advisors are doing is they're synthesizing gold basically robust retirement plans and estate plans, but I would actually argue that greater gold is the relationships and the lives that they're being touched by the way they're doing that, and the, the number one persona, high net worth investors is the family steward. Their primary goal for investing is create a financial legacy for their kids and grandkids. But I would say really it's at least in my opinion, it's more of a wealth legacy and wealth is not about money. Wealth is about skills, it's about attitudes, it's about stewardship and the best wealth managers help their clients do that. The best tax players help their clients do that. The best estate planners help their clients do that.

[00:07:01.70] Nils Vinje: That's really interesting and drilling in on that wealth piece. I suppose that wealth is also has a different definition for everybody. And are those going to be key topics that you talk about with your guests as far as, yes, you are a wealth planner? What does that mean to you? And in some of your early episodes, have you even seen that one person's definition is completely different than others?

[00:07:24.08] Craig Andrews: that's not a question I've been asking so far. Yeah, as you've been seeing the way, I've actually already done some recorded some episodes. And, that's not been a question I've asked, but I do plan for it to be a question moving forward.

[00:09:13.20] Nils Vinje: So Craig, you mentioned that you've recorded some episodes with some guests and would love to hear little tees of who these folks are and what some of the topics are that you covered. So we can get the audience ready for what's coming next.

[00:09:27.32] Craig Andrews: Yeah, so our, our very first guest is Mark Miller with the Hilton family office. the Hilton hotels, he's with the Hilton family office. And one of the really cool things that he's about doing is making the family office accessible to more people, a lot of the investments that are done in the family office. He's trying to make those accessible to people who don't yet qualify to be in a family office. And, the, one of the things that he talks about is smart money and, it ties back to something I've seen before. Warren Buffett frequently sits on about a quarter of his investor assets. He sits on that and cash. And people are like, well, it's not, you're not making any money in cash. Why are you doing that? And part of his strategy is he wants to have the cash there so that when he sees something that's good to buy, he doesn't have to go raise the cash. He has it, he can go do it. Well, Mark Miller with Hilton family office, they do that as well. And they said, that's the way the ultra wealthy work. That's how they operate. And if you want to break out of where you are and start getting some of that, you need to have some of what they call smart money that's quick to deploy. And I just, I really love that point that Mark made. Episode number two is Peter Culver, who is a tax strategist. He's an attorney by training and a tax strategist. And he has some just absolutely amazing insights. one of the things he talks about is, one of the best ways of making wealth in America is to launch a business and build it into something big. And then the next way is to sell it. And so that kind of brings in, the tax strategist we, him and we have some other ones lined up that basically help businesses minimize the amount of taxes that they have to pay when they exit their business. And there's some really, really clever strategies out there that help you avoid significant amounts of taxes.

[00:11:46.12] Nils Vinje: That's the crazy part, right? And that's what I'm looking forward to in listening to your episodes is these are people who, oftentimes you're never going to get access to have a conversation with or the vast majority of people, right? Hilton family office. How many times are you going to sit down with Hilton family? That's the beauty of a podcast and you already sat down and had a great interview and pulled out all the juicy nuggets. So the, the general population can get some insight into that. So with all of these guests that, you've had on so far in the ones you hoped to and you were planning to have in the future, tell me this, what is the single most important thing that you want a listener to always be able to know they can take away from any episode of the fiduciary alchemy podcast?

[00:12:33.22] Craig Andrews: my hope is that any listener once they're done listening would say, what, I hadn't thought about that. And, and the thing is, in that world, there's just so many details. And I would love every listener. And for me as a host, that's my joy when I'm asking these guys and they tell me something. I'm like, I'm really thought of that. For me, that's a moment of pure joy.

[00:12:59.06] Nils Vinje: Yeah, yeah, that's, that's awesome. That's fantastic because that insight then brings whatever the next step is, whether it's asking your own financial team or person to question, or if you don't have somebody like a tax strategist on hand, maybe it would be a good idea at some point to have a conversation with some of those folks. And now they've already built some trust as a result of your conversation with them. And that can be a wonderful, wonderful virtuous cycle of adding value and building connections, which I know is near and dear to your heart.

[00:13:27.70] Craig Andrews: Yeah, and, and that's actually an example. One of the things that Peter and I talked about in his episode is the difference between a CPA and a tax strategist. So many people say, hey, my CPA is my tax strategist. Right. If that's your plan, you've got major problems and you need to make a change. Tune in. We're going to be bringing the people that are going to help you understand why your CPA isn't your tax strategist.

[00:13:52.60] Nils Vinje: Right, right. And how they should work together in ideal fashion, right? One that to know they're different is incredibly valuable. But two, then, well, how do you orchestrate them together? And do I always have to be the centerpiece? Or are there people that have this capability in two sides of the house in firms that actually do this for you? I don't know. But I imagine we'll find out on that show.

[00:14:14.96] Craig Andrews: Yes, yeah, and we have another guest Eric Brenner, who has, he actually pulled both things in house because what was happening with him, was he was working, he's primarily a wealth manager, but he was also starting to look at tax, and he would do some investments that were tax advantageous. And his clients were coming back to him and saying, hey, my CPA won't do what you said. Yeah, there you go. And he's like, it's because they don't understand. So he decided to pull everything in house, so he didn't have to explain. So he had people with different competencies in house. And so that's the other thing is different people are looking at the same problem and they're solving it in different ways. And so it's not that there's one specific way to solve these problems, there's a lot of ways we need to figure out which works best for you.

[00:15:10.46] Nils Vinje: Yeah, 100%, you're going to present the options and then everybody's up to each person to figure out the right path. So Craig, who is the ideal guest for those who are going to listen to your podcast, find a lot of value, and may be interested in being a guest on your show, who should fit into that seat? What's the criteria?

[00:15:31.44] Craig Andrews: Yeah, so the number one guest we're looking for, wealth managers that have four or more advisors in the firm. And the reason for four more is there's a level of sophistication that they have to achieve. Because there's still leadership component to this. We're still about people building big teams. And a loan advisor that builds a big book of business, that's great, but where it gets really interesting is when you start bringing other people in the firm. So that's the first one. The second one is we would like to have tax strategist in there. And third would be estate planning attorneys. And one that I just started thinking about in the last day or so is maybe even exit planners for businesses. Because that's the way a lot of wealth is generated, it's generated within the business. And I was having a conversation with somebody this morning and he was talking about one of the mistakes that people make as they're prepping their business for sale. Businessers like take distributions out of their business. And it turns out that's an enormous red flag if you're planning an exit. Other businesses say, hey, before we sell, we're going to start cutting to the boom, we're going to cut expenses. Well, it turns out that the guys are buying your business, they're not idiots. And they start looking for these markers. They know they know how to read the two weeks. Exactly. And so we may have some exit planning people, people that work it because that is a major way that wealth is generated. And there's some common mistakes that people fall into that minimize the value of their business.

[00:17:14.74] Nils Vinje: And obviously, you've worked hard to build this valuable asset. You wouldn't get paid the most for it. 100%. Not that's fantastic. Those are going to be some incredible episodes. Well, you had a bunch in the queue. There's more coming. If you fit any of those criteria, go to Craig Share, the link for them to apply to be a guest on the show. So you can send them to the right place, make sure they know how to how to go through the process.

[00:17:38.28] Craig Andrews: Yeah. So very simply go to fiduciaryalchemy.com and you should see a link that says podcast, a menu item that says podcast. If you wouldn't go there directly, it's fiduciaryalchemy.com slash podcast. And there's a form there. Just fill that out. My team will review it. And if you're a good fit, we'll invite you on the show. If you're not a good fit, we're going to try to give you some resources that help you out in your business. We hate just saying no. We'd love to see if you're an advisor with one or two advisors in the firm. We have some resources that will help you grow.

[00:18:14.44] Nils Vinje: So you do have a four or five, six advisor firm and managing, billion, and assets under management or billions, yeah, that piece about growth. And you are an expert in this space. And you've done a lot of work helping organizations like these guests, you're describing grow to that larger size, adding more advisors, adding more assets under management. Share just a little bit about what growth looks like in that world to you.

[00:18:44.54] Craig Andrews: Yeah, one of the biggest problems that we see, and it's not just me, we, we listened to the industry, Schwab does a survey annual survey of RIAs. And one of the biggest challenges is organic growth. And, the, and the reason I believe is a lot of that industry is about one to one contact, and they don't know how to build trust on scale, and because you can only, you only have so much time for coffees and steak dinners. Yeah, and you can always scale yourself so far. You can only get, well, we've figured out how to build trust on scale. and it's not that we figured it out. Like most things in life, we saw somebody doing something and we stole their idea. we stole from Hollywood and Hollywood knows how to write magnetic characters that bring you back week after week that you're able to form bonds with people that you've never met, and actually people that are fictitious, and what Hollywood writes around fiction, we write around truth, and it's about developing the magnetic character of your company. It's there. It's intrinsically there, but a lot of businesses don't know how to structure it and communicate to others to make them really stand out, especially in crowded, markets like wealth management.

[00:20:07.44] Nils Vinje: Yeah, that's fantastic. And where without that distinction, one wealth manager like might look awfully similar to another, and you have to be able to stand out in order to grow, and you have to have a unique, persona, if you will, and you have to target specific personas, right?

[00:20:25.38] Craig Andrews: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it's, yeah, and this gets a little bit, and a little bit deeper into what we do, but one of the biggest problems that we find that financial advisors or wealth managers are doing is their qualification criteria is anybody with pause and a money. And, and the reality is there's 9% is a high net worth investors, and you will work really well with two or three based on your unique wiring. You're going to work horribly with two or three based on your unique wiring. And so what the very first tool we give advisors is we help them figure out who their top two or three personas are, and we give them some tools so they can quickly, quickly figure out who they're dealing with so that they never waste time with somebody that's just not a good fit. Doesn't mean they're bad people. It just means, they just, you and them aren't going to make magic together.

[00:21:21.54] Nils Vinje: Wow.

[00:21:22.08] Craig Andrews: And so that's a tool that we give. We don't charge for that. we, we, we want to see more people swinging in their strike zone. So that's an assessment we have on the website and it's available to anybody. Let's take it free of charge.

[00:21:35.06] Nils Vinje: Fantastic. And so if you're going through any of those challenges, organic growth is a problem. You're reaching limits yourself or you have a team of advisors that are reaching limits. Sounds like you got to go to fiduciary alchemy dot com. Grab a hold of that tool as a starting point just to help you grow. And then listen to all the episodes of the fiduciary alchemy podcast. And you will be in fantastic shape to help you grow your business.

[00:21:51.48] Narrator: Let's make a plan and bring your next steps into the light.

[00:21:55.16] Narrator: But don't leave yet. Stick around a minute more and listen to Bluesman Grendel and the Compliance Choir deliver a word of caution just for you.

[00:22:00.96] Craig Andrews: Absolutely.

[00:22:02.50] Nils Vinje: Okay. As fantastic has been awesome. Episode number one, glad we covered a lot of bases. Got the audience fired up for what's coming next. I'm excited to listen to these episodes. And I don't really have much to do with the financial world, which is what I'm excited about. Because I get to learn just like you were saying when I hear something like that, it 100% will apply to me in a different way that it applies to somebody else, but that's the beauty of it. Thank you for allowing me to interview you for this first episode. I appreciate it. And I look forward to all the episodes. Find them on fiduciary alchemy dot com. And they'll thank you for doing this.

[00:22:19.00] Compliance Choir: This podcast is for information and education. That is all.

[00:22:27.72] Compliance Choir: It is not financial, tax, or legal advice to guide your call. Nothing here is an offer. Nothing here is a buy or sell suggestion. No recommendation. No solicitation. I'm saying it plain and well.

[00:22:36.22] Craig Andrews: I appreciate you. I appreciate your friendship. And, yeah, I just really have enjoyed you being a part of my life. So thanks for hosting this.

[00:22:45.20] Nils Vinje: I'm my pleasure. Same feeling as mutual.

[00:22:47.50] Craig Andrews: Thanks, man.

[00:23:03.80] Compliance Choir: Past performance ain't no promise of what tomorrow brings. Markets turn and people loose on all kinds of hopeful things. Every investment carries risk. Friends are broke and fade away. What works for one won't fit us all. That truth is here to stay.

[00:23:44.84] Compliance Choir: That's the compliance blues. Lord, the compliance blues. Get your own financial, tax, and legal help before you make your move.

[00:24:09.00] Compliance Choir: Your situation's yours alone. Your needs are not the same. Different facts and different goals can change the whole damn game. So talk to somebody qualified before you choose your own, because the weight of every move is your own load to hold.

[00:24:46.36] Compliance Choir: That's the compliance blues. Lord, the compliance blues. Get your own financial, tax, and legal help before you make your move.

[00:25:38.76] Compliance Choir: Get qualified financial, tax, and legal advice that is right for you.