Heath Johnson of Bera Wealth Advisors shares inside tips from over 20 years as a private wealth advisor in the Northwestern Mutual network. He and his team manage a suite of services designed to put clients in the best position when designing a plan for their cash, or creating more through investments. Learn more about what true financial advisory entails and how you can leverage it best when planning for the basics like entrepreneurship, retirement, big life events, emergencies, and college funds.
Thank you for listening! Subscribe to our YouTube page to be notified with new content. In the meantime, feel free to explore more accounting and business resources. If you think your entrepreneurial story is a perfect fit for an Accountfully Chat, reach out to the marketing team to talk more.
Heath Johnson of Bera Wealth Advisors shares inside tips from over 20 years as a private wealth advisor in the Northwestern Mutual network. He and his team manage a suite of services designed to put clients in the best position when designing a plan for their cash, or creating more through investments. Learn more about what true financial advisory entails and how you can leverage it best when planning for the basics like entrepreneurship, retirement, big life events, emergencies, and college funds.
Thank you for listening! Subscribe to our YouTube page to be notified with new content. In the meantime, feel free to explore more accounting and business resources. If you think your entrepreneurial story is a perfect fit for an Accountfully Chat, reach out to the marketing team to talk more.
Welcome to episode five of the Accountfully chat today we have Heath Johnson from Bera Wealth Advisors. How are you doing Heath?
Heath Johnson:Hello, Brad.
Brad Ebenhoeh:All right, looking forward to chatting with you. Today. He's so Heath's a friend of mine in the Charleston area, and a CFP and certified financial planner, planner slash wealth manager. And we've worked with Heath for over a decade. And I am excited about this chat, it's going to talk about some topics that we've never really touched on on this chat. So before we kind of go down those topics, Heath tell us a little about yourself, like what you do, where you're from, and what you do for your clients on a day to day basis.
Heath Johnson:Sure, I have been in some capacity with Northwestern Mutual for a little over 20 years, which makes me feel old. When I started, I was an intern in Mid Michigan where I grew up Brad's home state as well. And in 2008, I moved to Charleston, I think when did we meet Brad like 2012 200–it doesn't matter. Nobody cares. Long time ago, and before Brad had, like 18 kids, but I moved to Charleston, because in Mid Michigan, although I had a great growing up, there were a palm trees and beaches and golf courses. And so my friend Mike was running our office here. And I came down for a study group meeting, which is kind of just like an excuse to drink in a cool city for four or five days. And all of my buddies are like, Dude, you should move here. And Mike made it really easy for me to do that. He was in management at the time. And it was like the best decision of my life. And now today, I'm still affiliated with Northwestern Mutual, we have a Private Client Group, which focuses more on fee based financial planning. So as opposed to like, commission based, you know, sales based stuff, it's just pay me a fee, and we'll build you a plan kind of thing. But that's called Bera Wealth Advisors, I've got a partner named Chris Kanos. And I've got two limited partners named Evan and Spencer. And we just work with families all over the country, mostly in the southeast doing, you know, investment planning, around retirement goals, education, etc. And so anyway, I've picked up all kinds of designations along the way, we were talking about it before the show that alphabet soup after my name, but you know, those are all I guess, just sort of, you know, spin offs of the CFP designation just in different areas like estate planning, or planning for philanthropy, you know, that sort of stuff. And anyway, it's all I've ever done, except driving a forklift in Mid Michigan. And I love it because you get to talk to cool people all day.
Brad Ebenhoeh:Awesome, great background and looking forward to chatting. So our goal today is I want us to listeners to basically kind of picture a small business owner, let's say a team of five runs a service based company, let's say an accounting firm, runs it with his spouse or significant other, have a lot of plans on growing the business hiring a bunch of people expanding it and try to become rich, while at the same time growing a family.
Heath Johnson:So, Brad, are you just trying to get some free advice here today? Is that what this is about?
Brad Ebenhoeh:Yeah, I've gotten way too much advice from you. No, but I want to preface kind of that conversation. So we could start with the person that's just starting a business right now understanding maybe not even starting a business but maybe starting a family first but wants to become an entrepreneur. So I want to kind of go through the different things to think of along the way in terms of you know, your knowledge and expertise related to various insurances, the risks people should be aware of, you know, financial planning, retirement planning, etc. But I guess before we even start with that, can you define what does financial planning mean to you?
Heath Johnson:That's a great question. I think that what people imagine when they hear financial planning is like, you know, somebody with like, 18 computer monitors and a lot of like charts and graphs and like stock market stuff, and I don't know, I it's, it's much, maybe less exciting than that. I think about sort of quantifying goals. Right? So pick a couple easy ones. Retirement like Well, you say like, I want to retire someday, you know, that's okay. But a better goal might be to say that you want to be, you know, retired or independent of work by the time you're 60 years old, meaning you need $10,000 per month after tax inflation adjusted from somewhere in order to be able to do that, right. So someone's retirement objective, you know, when you quantify, it might might feel a little bit different than just, I'd like to retire someday, like helping people really define what that means. And I think crafting, you know, a vision for where that person wants to be where that family wants to be, or that business or whatever. And then you can sort of backfill with recommendations about the most efficient way to get from point A to point B. And, you know, goals probably get a bit too much credit and financial planning. I mean, everybody likes the idea of goals, but I think transitions are probably more important. No, everybody's born, everybody dies. And there's maybe like, 60 of those life transitions that you can identify, you know, the birth of your first child, graduating college, could be the death of a spouse, some of them are, you know, maybe not fun. And you can't really have a goal, like, you're not going to wake up and say, Well, my goal is to experience a tragedy this year, I mean, that's no fun. So I think you've got to have goals and quantify those goals, so that you know, what you're aiming your financial resources towards. But you also have to just recognize that these transitions are going to happen, like Brad, your kids are going to leave your house, God willing, someday to, you know, go do whatever they're going to do. It your goal for them may be for them to get a great education at Michigan State University, and, you know, to thrive in the accounting field as their parents have, okay, but, you know, the transition is going to happen one one way or the other. So, quantifying goals, and then I think, you know, using resources, tools, you know, IRAs, 529, plans, insurances, etc, to really like, you know, get you closer and closer to those goals. So that you can actually accomplish some cool stuff.
Brad Ebenhoeh:Love it, that's a great definition. And I think it's perfectly set in terms of kind of what it really means, especially for someone going through this mentally, on their own. So, alright, so let's step back then and look at a small business owner, starting a business wants to start a family doesn't have a lot of money, you know, ready to put in the 60 hour work to make their work, you know, their business grow, like what did when they come to somebody like you, what do you talk to them about?
Heath Johnson:Well, I wish that more people came to us before they, you know, launch a business, usually, it's sort of like, Hey, I started this thing a few years ago, and now it's finally, you know, doing well, and now I've got some wiggle room in my budget, or I've got some excess cash, and it might be time for me to, you know, start a Roth IRA and you know, a way you go, it would be probably more comfortable for the person starting the business, if they just simply thought of, what does it take for my family to live the way that we, you know, like to live? I mean, you certainly need to know what your requirements are, I mean, you've got to live somewhere, and you got to eat something, you're right, you sort of know that fundamentally, but I think if you figured out, alright, it costs our family $5,000 a month to just survive to kind of get by, and I'm in, let's say, hypothetically, I'm in an employment role right now, where I have, you know, a salary and I'm moving into a job that I've worked for myself, and, and, and the salary is going to be based on the profitability of the business, right? Like, we don't know, when the business isn't necessarily going to be profitable. And it sure might not be six months in, hopefully, you know, it's 12 months, 18 months, and but I'd figure out, okay, I need $5,000 A month to like, pay my bills, and, you know, keep the wheels on the bus. I'd want to have a couple of years, if possible, have those expenses somewhere, right? So I think sometimes people will start a business and maybe they even put pressure on their potential customer base or their themselves. You know, to grow maybe faster than is comfortable, because they don't have a contingency plan. They don't have a plan B right. So like if I was going to go and start sort of a new gig, and, you know, was was going off into a land where there's no guaranteed revenue. I mean, I'd want to have a big chunk of cash that's just there. And there is an emergency, you know, account both for the family, right? And just for the business, right? I mean, sometimes you start a business and you realize, oh, I guess these people need laptops, or they can't like do their job, right. So like, you got to think about some of those things in advance. And I think that that would be like a great starting point. Also, if you are working for a large employer, like maybe you're working at an accounting firm, and your start, you're starting to think, well, I'm going to, you know, break off and kind of start my own my own gig, you got to think about what sorts of benefits you are leaving behind, right health insurance or retirement plan, stuff like that, maybe, you know, disability income protection. And not all employers have that. But like the big ones typically do. So, you know, once a year and like November, you sit down, you pick on the PDF, what, you know, dental coverage you want or whatever, like, you're going to own your own business, you don't have that, like you have to be the HR department also. And you got to really think about what kind of gaps might be opening up here that I need to, to address. But it's, I think it's the cash is the most important thing, you know,
Brad Ebenhoeh:100%, 100%. So if we do have cash, or if cash does exist, right, as as just living in a world where you have businesses or a business, you have employees, you have a house, a mortgage, you have a spouse, a kid on the way or two in the way, or you know, or want one future? What are the risk and the types of insurances that you kind of you discuss and educate your clients on that can help offset if something bad does happen? And how should people view that?
Heath Johnson:Yeah, I mean, certainly, I mean, even if you're just completely single, and you're on your own, let's say you're used to making like$100,000 a year, and you're gonna break away and start your own business, obviously, you gotta have some kind of health insurance protection, right. And if you're healthy, you can have like a high deductible plan with an HSA and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, even if you're single, you know, you might not need life insurance, or frankly, want life insurance might be kind of a, a waste of money. I think disability income protection is really critical, right? So if you're not able to work because you're you're sick, or you got some kind of disease, or disorder or something, or an accident, which would be, you know, unlikely but still possible. Yeah, you can get some disability income protection is not expensive. But if you're, you know, you can't work you need to have some kind of cash flow, even if it's just you. Now, if you've got a family, spouse, kid or two, that kind of thing, you life insurance is probably something worth considering. Although, you know, there are all these like rules of thumb, you always have this or you never have that. And I think it's more subjective, right? It's sort of like, well, if I, you know, if I die, what do I want the world to be like, for my family? That is a very subjective thing, right? There's no formula, it's like, you are required to carry X amount of insurance. But, you know, if you're gonna make $100,000 a year, you're gonna buy a million dollars at Term Life insurance is probably like 50 bucks a month. And it's very, very inexpensive to have these kinds of basic things. But some of those things are what I was referring to earlier provided by your employer says, like, you don't even really have to think about it, when you go and you break away and you're on your own. You got to figure out how do I do accounting stuff? What kind of legal needs do I have? Right and, and the insurance pieces is something that I think is part of a plan. But those are the big ones, you know, health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, those are the kinds of things that I would you know, just at least have like a gut check on like, what what is my risk here? Like what is my contingency plan and you know, if you got a mortgage and a spouse that's not working, taking care of your children, you know, for instance, whatever it is, you know, you got to think about what happens if my income goes away, you know, and how might it go away? Well, one as you know, you don't do a very good job running your business and you're not profitable Sure. But you could also have something happened to you that's completely unforeseen it's not your fault you could get hit by a car you can take a dime is scary, morbid stuff, which I did not start there. By the way with our clients these days. My Northwestern Mutual background always has this, you know, solve your risk based needs first, but, you know, when we're when we're talking to folks, we don't start with like, Hey, real quick, Brad before what if you die? Like, let's start with like, let's, let's hope that the business pans out and does, does well. But those insurances are very, very, very inexpensive and, you know, seems like it makes sense to kind of cover those foundational risks before you, for instance, save money in a 401k. That's, that's my take anyway.
Brad Ebenhoeh:Yeah. And that's kind of where like, my head was going to be as part of this topic, just from like, our conversations and my experiences, you know, as, as we've had conversations on this, and, you know, like, from, when, you know, health insurance, clearly life insurance, those things were kind of always talked about, but I felt like disability insurance that really was talked about, or as much epidemic, but our conversations, it's like, your, your, it's higher probability to become disabled versus like, you know, dying, and what is your coverage for that. And then on top of that, you know, there is a disability, like overhead expense coverage that you can get for your business in case you become disabled for a temporary time. And you have to find somebody to fill in your specific role, especially as a business owner to keep the business operating. So there's even conversations that you can have with your insurance folks, or your financial planners about those topics as well. So yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, you've got, I think about it sort of like, like, who would help me with this thing, right. So like, my bookkeeping, I've worked with Accountfully. And it's fantastic, right? Like, I don't want to have to do that. I don't want to mess it up. So when you think about financial planning, I sort of think about you've got,
Heath Johnson:you know, there's a tax component and accounting component, there's sort of a legal see those two, you know, things are very different, right? So you're going to ask, you know, tax questions to your tax people, you're gonna ask legal questions to your lawyer. On the financial planning side of things, I think you can have a financial advisor, without having insurance without having investments, to give you advice about things like having the proper cash reserves, and so on and so forth. But then you probably eventually will have someone sit in that risk management seat, that insurance seat if you will, and your insurance needs change all the time, right. Like if, you know, if you've got a bunch of money in a, you know, an account from Uncle Bill who died, you, you need less insurance than if you don't have uncle Bill's money, right? So someone that can sit at the table and just kind of like, explore, what are the gaps that exist and, and making sure those gaps Don't, don't open back up as your lifestyle changes, you may need to think about heavier coverages. Same with investments, right? So when it comes to like, Hey, we've got some money, now, we can set it aside outside of the business and maybe create some liquidity that's not correlated to the success of the entity. Yeah, you know, set up a 401k Have some, you know, savings that have a little higher risk tolerance to get a better return. And you could have like one person sitting in all of those seats, which is, frankly, what we hope to do for our for our folks.
Brad Ebenhoeh:That's good kind of now, as we talked about the infrastructure and kind of the base kind of needs, you need just to you know, from a more of a risk perspective, as the company grows two or three or four years down the road, and there's cash as profits. There's now 10 to 15, people who are now asking about, not just you know, medical benefits, but also 401ks and things like this. So maybe like two kind of questions and topics for you. Number one is, as a business owner, who becomes more and more successful, has profits as cash, etc. What should they think about personally more so? And then on the other end? Like what are things you should do as a business owner, possibly for your company, your employees for more of a retirement plan and things like that, so you can go kind of whatever?
Heath Johnson:Well, it's that's interesting way to think about it in those two ways, because I think they're like, very, very intimately connected, right? Like, What the It's like the good news, and the bad news of owning your own business is that you get to and have to make all of the decisions about things like benefits, right? So when it comes to your benefits package, though, if you're like, well, are folks really want to have a retirement plan, right? Well, you can install a 401k. For instance, everybody's heard that term. There are other ones too, but let's just use a 401k, because it's the most common one, but you can offer a plan to your employees where they can, you know, defer their compensation. You can even use a Roth 401 k and so on and so forth. But when you're designing like the plan description of, you know, what options does our retirement package come with? You as the person that owns the company gets to decide what that match is, you get to decide what the investment options are. You get to decide, you know how the vesting works and that includes your dollars that you save. So if you got some cash, let's say you're in your, like late 30s, early 40s, you sort of like, Man, I should have been saving a little money for retirement this whole time. And you have a bunch of great employees that you really want to stick around, and you want to give them a really nice benefit. That can benefit you and the employees at the same time, you can sock away, you know, $30,000 a year, something like that, you know, in your 401 K, and then give yourself a match. And then you can do the same for your employees. Right now, there are caps on these types of plans, of course, right. And they change every year a little bit hard to remember what they are from year to year, frankly. But, you know, if you're earning, you know,$200,000, a year of 401k, probably will give you all the headroom you need to save money for retirement. If you're making$2 million a year, it probably won't, right. And that again goes back to like quantified goals. If you're thinking well, I want to retire when I'm 60. And you say well, okay, you need to save 10% of your income, it's a lot easier to figure out strategies to save 10% of your income when you make $200,000 a year than it is when you make $2 million a year, because you run out a room in those qualified plans, and those IRAs, things like that, like a lot faster. So that's when you have to look at like alternative ways to accumulate money, you know, in kind of non retirement formats. And that could be in a large lump sum, it could be in, you know, annual or monthly contributions, you look at things like taxable investment accounts, you look at things like even like overfunding, permanent life insurance, stuff like that. But you really are only doing that, in my opinion, if you've quantified goals, and you've used all of the most efficient tax strategies, like IRAs, and Roth, IRAs, and all that, once you've done that, and you've got that kind of like stake in the ground, for your own retirement, you're also going to be way better at helping your employees take advantage of the plan that you provided them for themselves and their families. And, you know, providing that type of benefit, whether it's a retirement plan, or you know, ancillary insurances, whatever, and then knowing how those work and how they can benefit your employees, I think actually comes back and helps you, the business owner, be more profitable, because you've got better human resources, your people are better, they're happier, right? They're saving money, you're watching out for them, you're helping them, you know, set themselves up for their own financial goals, right? So there's all kinds of stuff you can do to save more, or you just go buy some like, you know, Bitcoin or whatever you want. And, you know, talk about it at the bar, like every other person around here.
Brad Ebenhoeh:Perfect. Moving on, to the next kind of, you know, you talk transitions, right, where we're talking kids, houses, whatever else that kind of comes into play, but a big transition from a business owner can be selling your business, and what that means. So how do you kind of chat with your clients or prospective clients who are kind of nearing that time? Or have that, you know, into their plan or are going to execute on that in the short term?
Heath Johnson:Yeah, that's a great question, too. And, you know, I think that a lot of people that own businesses, maybe, maybe it's less about like the tactics, right, like, surely there are like legal ramifications, like, what is the agreement to sell the business, right? There are tax ramifications? Like, how is this taxed? If I sell my business like that, that tactical stuff sort of seems like it's it's like, just sort of known to be complicated. So you got to go out and you got to, you know, find good people to help you navigate that, again, accounting stuff, legal stuff, financial planning, whatever. But I think it's way more important to figure out like, well, what is this meet? Like? What are we trying to, to accomplish? By having this this transaction go through, it's like, I'm going to sell my business. That in a nutshell, doesn't, that doesn't mean that it's good or bad, right. But if, you know, if you're earning $250,000 a year, and you're selling your business for $10 million, you know, you probably going to be able to replace your $250,000 a year pretty easily with some boring mutual funds and investments that are just generating return. Well, I would like to talk about that, at least conceptually, before we go out and, you know, try to piece together a deal to sell this this business, or it could be that you're selling your business, but you're like 45 years old, and you don't want to like stop working, you might want to start another business. So the way that you would like approach, I think the that transition is what does that transition mean? In terms of your lifestyle? Like, what is that? What does that mean to you? Like, are you Is this like a, I won the lotto? I can't believe I sold this widget for, you know, a billion dollars? Or is it like, well, I don't know, I sold my business. And now I gotta find something else to do. So you start there. And then once you know, like, what that means, like, I sold my business–and so I'm going to live in Italy, like, that's a different conversation, then, you know, I had to sell it because I had to help the event, or, you know, I had to take care of my parents and they live, you know, in, you know, Indiana, or whatever it is right?
Brad Ebenhoeh:Love it. Best practices in terms of working with somebody like you like at that point, or as you kind of near, you know, more of a mature kind of relationship with a financial planner, like annual updates, five year updates, when transitions happen, like what like, what's it should somebody like on my side of the table? Do or expect from somebody like yourself?
Heath Johnson:Yeah, you know, it seems like if you're in sort of the antiquated investment forward financial advisor role, it's like you're talking to this person, like once a quarter about, you know, what did your investment portfolio do? And like, to me, that's not really financial planning at all, it might be, you know, a worthwhile conversation to have in terms of what is our investment strategy? How are we pivoting based on big sort of events, volatility, etc? Sure. Or you might just like that conversation might be interesting, in terms of like, a business exit strategy, like a large transaction feels like it's going to happen in the next few years. Okay. I think if you're meeting well, in advance of even like accepting an offer, or even soliciting an offer to sell your business, you know, it'll allow you to think like, what does this mean for our family first, and then does the sale price, get us what we want? So I think if you have like a really great financial plan, overlay, where you've got your income, your expenses, you've got your assets, your liabilities, you've got all that stuff mapped out. And it's sort of like, here's my path forward. And you've already talked about all the different transitions that you want to address, like, how are you going to help your kids with their education expenses? When do you want to be, you know, capable of just not working and having like, you know, mailbox money or just regular income without, you know, a lot of like effort, right? If you do all that stuff, it really allows you to poke at that plan and say, Well, what if I sold my business? And I got two and a half million dollars? Like, would that help this plan? Would it hurt this plan? And so I think if you have that foundationally, sort of structured in advance, it's going to allow you to really see what kind of variables might exist. It's like, if you're taking a road trip, and you're like, Well, we're going to California, we need to be there in a month, you've got tons of time to stop at other places. But if you're going to California need to be there, like two days from now. Like, it might not even you might need to get get a plane ticket instead of trying to, you know, drive your Ford Bronco out there. Okay, like, yeah, so I think you got to have some kind of roadmap, but the the map is allowed to be like a Google map, right? You know, it's not like 1995, they printed out like a three ring binder. And they're like, here's your plan. And, you know, the plan changes, man, it's Google Map, right? There's a wreck ahead. And you know, you want to get off or there's a ways like, there's a cop over there, like, you know, that kind of stuff. So, I think that if you if you know what the transaction is going to be, and you know, that you want to do it, but then you're trying to backfill with like, what does this mean? That that's okay, too. I think it's just better. You know, planning, it's just better. Sort of, I don't know. It's just easier if you already have a plan. And then you say, like, how does this event affect my plan, as opposed to this event has become my plan? You know what I mean?
Brad Ebenhoeh:Oh, that makes sense. One last question before we kind of go to the final couple of topics here. A lot of people think wealth managers, financial planners, tax people are the same people talk to each other all the time. They both know everything. You're my tax guy knows what I should do. Financial Planning. My Financial Planning guy tells me do these things on the tax side of things. How does it work and kind of real life from kind of what you do versus the tax person and then what's the best kind of solution just from like integration and working together for your clients?
Heath Johnson:Is that not how it works? I thought that I mean, don't you just do the same thing I do? I think, you know, like, maybe even three or four years ago, I was like, I should know, like a bunch of tax and legal stuff. And then that way I can, like, give advice about those areas, at least in the context of the financial plan. And, man, I think, I think differently now. I think more that like, I would rather be hyper focused on the things that I know I'm competent with and good at. And, man, like every recommendation that we make that has a tax like flavor to it, we are going to put that in front of our clients CPA, right? Because if you implement a Roth conversion in April, like of 2024, and the family doesn't file their 2024 tax return until like, you know, the summer of 2025, they have long forgotten that like, up, you know, like, like, front loading the tax on this IRA was a really good strategy, because 18 months from now, all they're going to see is like, what on earth is this $35,000 tax bill from right, so we want the CPA that our client is working with–many times, that's someone with Accountfully, by the way–we want that person on the tax team, to look at the recommendation that we are making before the client implements it. And I think that our clients really appreciate that. And I know that our client's CPA appreciates that because they don't like surprises. Right? No one likes a tax surprise. I'd say it's kind of the same thing in terms of like legal, legal stuff, like if we're titling an account, instead of using an individual account, maybe you want to use a trust account. Well, if you have a good estate planning attorney, and you've got those documents in place, this is like an email chain. This is not like it takes a tremendous amount of time and energy, right? So we just have everybody on an email, and then we keep track of those emails in our CRM, so that we can look back and see how did we make this decision? Who said like, Yeah, it sounds like a good deal, right? And I will say this, this is not like beat up on CPA time. Okay, but CPAs really, really like to get the lowest possible tax outcome in the year that they're working on. Like right now, of course, they do like that is in fact, their job, right? Sometimes, though, things like a Roth contribution versus a traditional IRA contribution are like, objectively way better for the plan given these quantified goals. And I think that, before we even make more complicated strategy, recommendations, like those Roth conversions, or whatever it is, like cash balanced pension plan, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, doesn't matter. Whatever that thing is, before we even get to making recommendations, we want the CPA that our client has hired to look at the financial plan so that they know where our recommendations are coming from, right. It's not just like, I don't know, this seems like a good move, you should do it. It's like, well, this helps you progress towards your goal. And so I like collaborating with the CPA. And sometimes they just like, completely let us off the hook of having to explain all the benefits, you know, benefits of the strategy. Okay.
Brad Ebenhoeh:Yeah, I think, just from our aspect of the accounting kind of CPA aspect of proactive conversations with our clients, number one, and having our clients being proactive, in general is the start. Number two is that if you have other people involved, like he get them involved on various topics that we need to talk about, but the more that you collaborate, and everybody understands kind of what what we're doing moving forward, it's going to be a much better process for everybody. Which is great. So this was awesome information. I loved it. Heath I think it's gonna be very good for the audience before we leave.
Heath Johnson:I love you too. Brad. You love me? I love you.
Brad Ebenhoeh:Okay. Back away. So, to last questions. Number one, if you're that small business owner, if we go back to having five employees, what is the biggest do that they should be focusing on from their perspective?
Heath Johnson:Hmm, that's a great question. I you know, it's such a boring thing. This is like I remember taking the CFP exam like years and years and years ago and one of the like, study hacks was like, if you see that, like one of the multiple choice questions is like, you know, address custodial arrangements for for children like that's the answer, which just sounds so random is what I'm saying here. But like, the the basics of financial planning, estate planning, tax planning are kind of boring, but people skip them all of the time. And so not having enough cash reserves is like a huge gap. You know, I think if you are set up on a regular monthly savings plan for literally any goal that you can imagine, it just, it makes other financial planning easier, right? If you're saving five grand a month, and you don't really know why. And then you have an opportunity to buy like a second home and you figure out that the mortgage is going to be $3,000 a month, like great news. You can afford the second house like you already know that. So I would say that it's to assemble a team of people that you've got really, really good communication vibes with like, these people respond to my emails, you know, if I call this person, and you know, and have a question, they call me back, like, you want to have people that can sit in those seats that, you know, if you really need to figure something out, they know you enough to be able to give you a quick answer. So that you can move on with your day, right? Because when you're a new entrepreneur, like even in the first like five years, there's just a lot of new things that you have to get good at fast. And whether it's tax or payroll, or blah, blah, blah, there's just a billion different things. I'd rather have really great people that I trust that I've got good relationships with that I can bounce things off of quickly. Right. So it's not so much a tactical thing. Maybe this isn't a good answer. I would just like get people at the table that you think are going to give you objective good advice that's in your best interest.
Brad Ebenhoeh:Perfect. I don't think there's not a bad answer there. I think that that was awesome. And the other aspect, what is one don't? Hmm.
Heath Johnson: One don't:I think that you don't just assume that plan A is going to work, you have to have like a rip cord. Like it's okay. That your business didn't work. Right. Like, think of all the entrepreneurs that you see on social media who are like, you know, they're like this, like, godly creature that has this amazing business, like, I'll bet you if you went and looked at the their, like track record, that they had some other things that maybe like didn't work out. And so I would have a plan B, I would have like a, this didn't work. And it's okay, if it didn't work right now, or it didn't work the exact way that you wanted it. But I think that and that's not like a that's not like a doomsday, like don't even don't even bother starting a business, it's just not going to work. That's not what I mean, what I mean is, you have to have like some, you know, game plan to gauge whether or not your business is actually going to succeed or not. Right, is to have watched people even in my industry, where they really liked the idea of being a financial advisor, right. But like, it's just not great timing in their life where maybe they didn't have enough cash or a good backup plan. And so what they are delivering starts to become, you know, maybe it's questionable advice that they're doing. Or if you're like a product manufacturer, maybe like, you start to cut corners on your product and this thing that you really liked that you wanted to like, manufacture and put out into the into the world. All of a sudden, it's like kind of a crappy version of this
Brad Ebenhoeh:No
Heath Johnson:Yeah, of course not. Right? So you're gonna say, Yeah, this thing could have been cool. It could have been like, I thing, because you're like, having to cut corners. Right? don't know, a different like Uber before Uber existed or Brad, you've owned other businesses. You had like gas something. It's actually a really clever deal. But it's like, I don't know if it didn't work. So you just do something powered scooters, which were super fun, by the way, right? So different and Accountfully is like a smash hit. So
Brad Ebenhoeh:I realized that I was better at accounting than have any of those? that. So but this is awesome. Heath loved your last few answers to the questions. Thanks for the time. Awesome information. Where can people find you?
Heath Johnson:People can find me if they just ask you for my cell phone number. You can also go to berawealth.com B-e-r-a Berawealth.com. I'm still affiliated with Northwestern Mutual or just email me at heath.johnson@berawealth.com
Brad Ebenhoeh:Awesome. Alright Heath, that was episode five of the Accountfully Chat. Heath Johnson. Thanks again bud.
Heath Johnson:Thanks Brad.