A Financial Advisor Reveals What Business Owners Get Wrong

In this eye-opening episode of The Business Owner Breakthrough Podcast, financial advisor Kirk Wrinn joins Pete Mohr to discuss the critical importance of financial planning beyond your business success. Kirk shares invaluable insights on protecting your wealth, preparing for unexpected events, and building true financial independence.

Key Discussion Points:

• Why business success alone isn't enough for financial security
• Essential insurance and protection strategies every owner needs
• Smart approaches to retirement planning for entrepreneurs
• The importance of starting exit planning early
• How to avoid post-sale regrets that affect 70% of business owners

Guest Expert: Kirk Wrinn is a Financial Advisor specializing in business owner wealth protection and planning Website: https://mwfg.ca/

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirk-wrinn-b15b253/ 

Host: Pete Mohr Business Coach & Exit Planning Expert : www.exitreadybusiness.com 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petemohr/

#BusinessGrowth #EntrepreneurLife #FinancialFreedom #ExitPlanning #BusinessStrategy #WealthBuilding #BusinessSuccess #SmallBusinessTips #BusinessCoaching #FinancialPlanning 

Are you looking to make some changes in your business and your life in 2024?  Head over to speaktopete.com and book a chat with me to see if we're the right fit!

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Pete's Websites:

Pete-Mohr.com
The Exit Ready Business
Kolbe Coach
Simplifying Entrepreneurship

LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/petemohr/
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Transcript

Pete Mohr (00:00)
Mr. Kirk Wrinn, it's a pleasure to have you here. You're a seasoned financial advisor, in fact, my financial advisor, and you've worked with countless business owners here in Canada to help them not only grow their business, but also to protect and build their personal wealth. And I think that's a big piece of what I want to talk about today. And I'm excited to pick your brain because so many of us as entrepreneurs tend to put all their eggs in one basket, you know, our business.

But there's a lot of risk to that approach, isn't there Kurt?

Kirk Wrinn (00:30)
Thanks Peter, I'm glad to be here and yeah, it's what I tell most of my business owner clients is like my job is to mitigate that risk and how we can ensure that business owner and their family are protected and set up, you know, for the worst case scenario obviously premature death and sickness if it occurs.

Pete Mohr (00:52)
of the things I do, and we've just finished a big series called the value builder series, and it's all around getting your business exit ready, as we say. And we've talked about on the podcast too, some of the reasons of premature, cause you, mentioned it premature exit. Let's call it would be, so the five D's that we talk about one is death. One is divorce. One is disability, physical disability or mental disability.

One is partnership disagreements. And you know, all of these different things can lead to premature exit from your business. And if you don't have anything outside of your house, because most people, know, they, have their most small business owners kind of have their house and they have their business and then maybe something else, depending on their level of business and depending on how long they've been in business, but.

These things can happen. And I think a lot of the people listening probably know someone in business where that has happened, you know, where they've, their partnership just disagreement has caused issues or somebody has died prematurely or a marital divorce, whatever the case is, these different things happen. And, you know, what are some of the ways that we can look at and start to think about from a financial independence of our business and from a business owner perspective of some of the

Key pieces of the puzzle we want to look at here, Kirk, when we look at our overall picture, because it's not just the business, it's the overall, you are the business owner and we need to look at it from an overall perspective sometimes.

Kirk Wrinn (02:21)
Yeah, so you know usually the first thing I say to a business owner is I'll never match the returns you're getting on investing back in your business. And that's probably why a lot of business owners put everything right back into the business because A, they understand it, they know how it works, and they know that if I put more money into inventory or more money into equipment, I know I can generate more growth, more revenue, and they just keep doing that.

That's how they become successful in their business. So, you know, my job as an advisor in those situations is to take a look at that and say, okay, how do we get a bit of diversification? But the first step, you know, I love that 5Ds approach because that is always, you know, shareholders agreements, partnership agreements. It's a lot easier to do them when you're getting along.

trying to decide on how to dissolve the partnership or buy out a partner when you have a reason to do that, that's where it gets messy. So if you can lay out the groundwork and have an agreement, and I always tell people that the paperwork, and it's not something I do, we always make sure our clients have those agreements and help work them and coach them to get them done with their professionals, lawyers, accountants and stuff.

But the paperwork is there to answer the questions that you can't answer at that time. And that could be because of premature death, for example. So your partner didn't wake up one morning, and now you're dealing with the family of that partner. And you guys had an agreement on how to do things, but very possibly the spouse or the children of that partner don't have.

don't believe that because they don't understand the business, they don't understand that, you know. So having something in writing helps communicate that after you're gone. And if you're not getting along, it helps kind of go back, well, here's what we agreed to. And then, you know, then you can kind of work from there with that. so definitely having proper agreements in place are extremely important.

And then ensuring that those agreements are funded. So life insurance is definitely key. And so I find with partnerships from the first starting is trying to determine what the value of the company is. It's hard at the beginning because you're growing it. we usually, insurance carriers tend to allow...

Pete Mohr (04:23)
you

Kirk Wrinn (04:36)
advise ourselves to build a business case and say here, we know that they only had a hundred thousand profit, but we know this business is worth two to three million and here's why. And therefore if it's 50, 50 or ship each partnership carry 1.5 million of life insurance. But there's also then the part of the key person of that partner. So even if the shares are valued at three million, you could say, the argument is,

that some of that 3 million or that 1.5 million insurance will be there to keep the business alive and keep the employees that are there or the team members that are there employed. So proper structure and planning also, you know, I think the employees of the business.

would love to hear that. think it would be good for business owners to make sure, share that they got that planning in place because that's certainly a scary thing for someone who's working for a small business. And what happens if Kirk or Peter are not there tomorrow? What happens to me, right? And if they know their places, or their stuff in place to take care of that, I think is really important. And then, you know, talking about keeping your personal lives kind of separate to a certain extent is important as well.

Pete Mohr (05:31)
you

I think that's good. know, when I, when I look at some of the core financial principles that every business owner should think about and de-risking is a big one, you know, it's a, it's a piece of that puzzle and insurance coverage, both inside and outside of the business.

What's your thought on, you know, having this, an emergency fund, you know, for personal or family needs or, know, a couple of things that I thought about when we thinking about this episode was the idea of, do I have either a separate bank account that's going to carry me through three months or six months, whatever the case is, or do I have diversification of assets outside of the business? Or the third one was how to

Um, avoid over leveraging the debt tied to the business. You know, those are the, some of the three pieces that I was kind of thinking about around ensuring long-term stability as we look ahead in our business over the next five or 10 years. Are there some other ones that I'm missing or do you want to dig down into any of these Kirk?

Kirk Wrinn (06:49)
Well, mean, everyone's situation is going to be different. obviously, depending on the maturity of the business will make a big difference, right? When it's a startup, I mean, every dime is going into that business, right? And know, like certainly the business owner is leveraging every place they can get money. their credit cards may be, you know, there's a lot of risk there. So it's great to tell someone they should have, you know,

Pete Mohr (07:00)
For sure, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kirk Wrinn (07:14)
three to six months of personal expenses set aside in the bank account. I would say a lot of individuals, forget the business owners, just individual in general don't have that. what I always do though, what I meet with people like that as a financial planner is take a look at their line of credits. Like what do you have available for low interest borrowing? You don't want to use the 19, 20 % credit card, but the six or 7 % line of credit, okay, that's bad. then that card is not bad, you can use it. And you know,

Pete Mohr (07:32)
Yeah, like.

Kirk Wrinn (07:43)
and then kind of get it off over a few months after the emergency is over. So we always know that, I guess the same thing would apply to a business owner for cashflow. I cashflow is key. So it's always making sure that the business owner is set up with enough cash to manage their expenses on a go-forward basis. And that might...

In the beginning, might mean having a operating line of business, you know, that they pay interest to the bank every month. But, you know, as they build up, their goal as a business owner, least the advice I would give, is to try and leave enough profit in the business to...

to be your own bank, basically, right? That would be the ideal situation. If you don't have to actually borrow the money and you have, a few months of operating expenses in the bank, by the way, the banks like it too, right? Ironically, when you don't need the money is when the banks want to give it to you. But it certainly is a good avenue to do that. And, for our Canadian clients, when the businesses get big enough and there's

Pete Mohr (08:37)
Absolutely.

Kirk Wrinn (08:46)
profits we start looking at ways of not only having that cash available but ways of protecting it you know you know by using holdcos and family trusts and stuff so you know where the the persona could flow money out of the company the profits out they may not need them personally but they want to have maxes for the business we'll put them into another spot and then they can then just borrow against themselves on a go-forward basis so

And there's similar structures in the US as well, I'm sure, if they talk to their professionals and stuff.

Pete Mohr (09:20)
Absolutely.

Pete Mohr (09:21)
So one of the

things I wanted to hit on here, Kirk, was this, I, you know, the, talked about the D's, one of them being disability. And I think it's one of the things that so many small business owners overlook. And can you kind of go through some of the, insurances and the ways to de-risk yourself in the event that you do have to be out of your, cause I'm sure you've known somebody who has been out of their business for a month or two months or three months, or maybe six months, and it causes issues and we need to be prepared for that. So.

Tell us on how we can help de-risk that a bit.

Kirk Wrinn (09:54)
Yeah, so definitely having something in place, both the Sherrills agreement that addresses the disability and that link.

the severity of the disability, I think is extremely important if you have a partnership. Having emergency preparedness,

Pete Mohr (10:05)
Absolutely. You know what, when I think some of the stuff around and you know, lot of business owners listening to this may be in that sort of early phase. think even more of the business owners listening are have been at it for a while and are looking to do even better. And some of them are looking to exit. And when I think about that sort of idea in the longterm, because

One of the things I say is you should really start exit planning from day one. It's, it's just good business sense and strategy to start thinking around how you're protecting yourself and your legacy and all these different things. And the finance piece, personal finance piece is a big piece of that. But how do you think business owners should think about retirement planning, especially when so many of us see the business as the retirement.

Kirk Wrinn (10:52)
So I think having a good understanding of what's business and what's your personal life, right? And I would say for a lot of my business owner clients, especially the sole owners, right? Where they don't have partners. When you have a partner, you tend to have to keep things fairly fair and equal. So you're not going to run a lot of personal stuff through the business. You'll see the obvious things like your cell phone and some vehicles and gas and maintenance and stuff will come through.

Not telling people not to run it through the business. It still makes sense both because you are half the time using that stuff for business, but knowing like what expenses is my business paying for today that when I no longer have this business, I'll have to pay for personally. So when you're preparing your budget for retirement, how much do need to live off? That is probably the number one question business owners that are pushing retirement is they don't really know that. So what is your burn rate, right?

And so that would be one that I struggle with even as a financial planner. have my business and stuff like that, but it's always saying, okay, well, how much do we? So, you know, what we've done is we've put ourselves on a set income, you know, as a family and seeing, okay, this is what we're living on. What's happening to our overall? Are we still saving? Are we still taking care of the repairs around the house? Are we still planning our vacations? Are we still paying for the, you know, so I know where the money's going every month. so now I have a...

pretty good idea. You do that for a year, you have a pretty good idea of what your lifestyle is going to cost. Then you can work backwards, right? So yeah, so I would say getting a good handle on separation. And personally, you'd say like, you know, I love your comment about always planning for that exit. I call it always having an exit strategy. It's the way I think. It doesn't matter what I'm doing.

Pete Mohr (12:23)
Yeah.

Kirk Wrinn (12:39)
If I'm buying a rental property, I'm investing into something, if I'm buying a life insurance policy, what's my exit? What's my cost to exit this idea, this strategy, this plan? And it should be the same thing in business. What is the worst-case scenario? If I need to sell my business tomorrow, what's the bottom line I'm gonna get and what is that gonna leave me? And I think you said that, always kind of knowing what that exercise is. I think that is great. But I would say as a financial planner,

business owner or non-business owner, we always start thinking about that retirement five years before.

Pete Mohr (13:10)
It takes long time to get the business up and ready to become, to maximize the value in order for you to turn it in. Usually takes, you know, two to three years and up to five years to get it to the point where it's truly going to maximize your value of exit. And, you know, when we look at it, most small business owners don't even have a clue of their range of value to begin with, let alone what they're going to get at the end. And.

Kirk Wrinn (13:33)
Mm-hmm.

Pete Mohr (13:36)
I always encourage people. And it's one of the things that we do, with the value builder, assessment that I have on my website at the exit ready business is you click that and you go through a series of questions. And at the end of it, whether you want to do it at this time, or whether you want to do it later, you can put in some financials, which we'll go through it more in depth down the road, but at least it gives you a range of value. It's not a, it's not a valuation or rubber stamp valuation. That's like, this is, this is it, but it's a range of value.

And to have a range of value at least gives you sort of an idea around what it should be worth. And now we've got a lot of times, quite honestly, Kirk, that kind of comes back and it's maybe a bit of a slap in the face because you're getting back something that you might, you might have this idea that your business is worth 3 million and it comes back and it's worth 900,000 between 900 and 1.3. So what do we do now? Well,

Kirk Wrinn (14:16)
You

Yeah.

Pete Mohr (14:32)
If you need the 3 million as part of the financial plan, we got some work to do and it might take three or five years to get it to that point. And we've got, there's different things that are going to raise the multiples and there's different things that are going to raise that value. And you've got to be willing to put in the time and effort to get it there or else the business isn't going to be worth it. And if you, if you got that in year four out of the five year exit plan,

That's a problem, because you're counting on the three million bucks and now you find out it's worth 900 to 1.2 or 1.3, what do you do? Right? And so many business owners fall into this because they think their business is worth way more. And then they've left themselves with not as much time as they need to get it to what they think they need it to be so that they can live the burn rate, as you called it, they want to live.

Kirk Wrinn (15:22)
And I think working to maximize the value of your business, working with a consultant like yourself, Peter, and the programs you have is extremely important, right? Like how do you make sure that, because not only by doing that are you going to maximize the value of your business, but by getting the business organized and running, you know, properly and maximizing the value of the profits. And it's also going to help you raise some cash, right? Like if you're, you know, the...

at the end what determines the value of the business? Well, it's usually the profit. And so if you can make your business more profitable as you approach retirement, and you can save that money and put it aside in a tax-effective manner, that is going to make things a lot easier in retirement, right? And I would say it is for business owners that are planning that, no matter what jurisdiction they're in, they should definitely talk to their professionals.

For me as a financial planner, financial advisor, I'm the quarterback. I'm not the tax lawyer. I'm not the litigator that's going to prepare the documents, know, or negotiate the thing. I'm not the business broker that's going to sell the business and I'm not the accountant that's going to buy it. We make sure that those conversations are had. You know, we just had clients who are us that sold their business last year and it was like, from outsiders looking in because, we know them in our social circle.

Like it looks like it was easy, but it was a four year process, right? Getting their personal lives set up, getting everything they want to done personally done first, then cross the T's and dot in the I's with the accounts and the lawyers talking, you know, to people that are in that business that have sold their businesses similar, working with professionals to make sure the business lined up. their expectations were set. That also helped them.

when talking to the buyers, Because when they're talking to the buyers, if a buyer comes in and is kicking the tires and makes them a low ball offer, they're going, no way, No, no, you're double discounting us here. We know that there's this issue, but no, we know our numbers and we know what the industry is saying. I definitely think five years, at a minimum is what's needed, you know, to both, like you said, clean up.

the valuation of the business, maximize that value, but also getting all the other stuff in order. Sometimes there's tax laws, right? If you can get that $3 million, if you can get that 3 million tax free, or 2 million of it tax free, that takes you a lot further than if you have to pay tax on that 3 million.

Pete Mohr (17:40)
What a difference.

And it also takes sometimes to work those deals out on the tax saving side of things. Those are the ones that take the time to set the corporate structure up so that it allows the flow throughs and things like that in order to maximize that as part of the planning procedure.

Kirk Wrinn (17:54)
Mm-hmm.

And in Canada, sometimes there is tests and some of those tests are 24 months, right? So you can't, know, the CRA is going to do a test on it. You got to be prepared 24 months in advance because they will go back and run the tests. There's different types of measurements that accountants and auditors will do. So you need to have that stuff all set up, you know.

Pete Mohr (18:25)
One

of the things Kirk that I, you know, when I look at, and I'll use my, my business as an example at shoetopia, because I refer to it a lot here on the podcast, but you know, I work give or take a day, sometimes two days a week in that business. And as I've removed myself and moved sort of from operator of the business to owner of the business to allow myself to do more coaching and more of the stuff that, that I'm doing these days in.

simplifying entrepreneurship, the coaching side of business. it's the same procedure to remove yourself from the day to day operations as it is to maximize value in a lot of cases, operationally, because when somebody buys your business, they don't necessarily want to buy you and you don't want to stay there. Right. One of the, one of the pieces of exiting your business is you don't necessarily want to have a three year workout.

and all of these other things because everything's still in your head and you're still making all the decisions and they know that. So they need you to stay after they bought the business or the buyout or wherever the case is. So in the preparation for you to get your business exit ready and to remove yourself from majority of the operations and be very high level operational, it's an interesting piece of the puzzle. But for those that have helped kind of get them

let's say out of more of the day to day and into that owner's box on the accountability chart. Once they get there, they're like, Oh, I'm not sure that I really want to sell this business because now I'm actually enjoying what I do. I don't feel as tight. can take a vacation. I can, but that's also the time when your business is actually worth more money to somebody else looking at it. Cause now they can come in and they say, well, I don't really need them to stay because things are getting done without the owner. And.

Kirk Wrinn (19:49)
Thank

Pete Mohr (20:07)
This does still have a good stream of profit, but from your perspective, you, set it off the kick. cannot always give the returns that your business could.

Kirk Wrinn (20:18)
Sometimes I will sit with business owners and why. The joke I make, maybe it's not a joke, said, your business is giving you this per year, right? And what do you want to do is sell it, then give me this, and then I lose 10 % in the first year, like, you know, because of the markets and stuff like that. So, you know, we have to do the math and stuff. Usually the answer I'll get from business owners is

as I'm tired or I don't want the risk anymore. There's other stuff I want to do. I want to travel. And they'll come up with a reasoning for it. if then we do the financial plan and the personal lives are all organized and we can do the retirement plan and say, we show the money of the business coming into the personal lives through the sale. And then they see how much money they're going to have to leave as a legacy.

Because some owners want to leave the business as legacy. Some owners want to leave an estate as a legacy. And those are all choices, what they want to do. if we can show them how much they can spend, and if they go, well, that's more than I need, and you're still left with a little chunk at the end, and I call that the safety net, then they're OK selling it. And then they know how much they actually have to get for it, right? And then they can make their decision whether.

that X dollar that was being offered for the businesses is enough or not. But you're quite right. It's sometimes business owners might sell a little too soon, you know, because they a, they didn't maximize that value yet, or they didn't have enough money personally or adjust their spending. And then the other two on the soft side, the non-financial side of it is...

Sometimes I've had, you over the 30 years, you know, I've had clients who've exited their business and then you're kind of looking back and going, their kids are struggling right now and they would have been perfect for that business. you know, now they're taking money from their savings to help the kids start up a new business. And one comment I heard years ago now was,

How do you create a small fortune? Well, you start with a large one and buy a business, right? So, you know, if you're trying to help out your children, you got to be careful with that too, right? Or buy another business or they miss that they've been successful in their first business and they miss that drive of owning a business and they go out and buy something else and it, you know, they may not have that same energy or that same focus they had and so then it becomes more of a cash train.

So I've seen a lot of different situations in 30 years.

Pete Mohr (22:46)
So Kirk, one of the things that we see a lot in exit planning is that, okay, the person's got to that point where they've sold their business and realized whatever they've got for the value of their business. you can only golf so much, you can only go on so many vacations. And after that sort of first year, maybe even two years down the road, it's kind of like, not so sure I made the right choice.

Kirk Wrinn (22:46)
Good stuff.

Pete Mohr (23:11)
Something like 70 % of business owners surveyed a year or more after they've sold their business regret having sold their business. Do you find this in your world when you're talking to business owners as well?

Kirk Wrinn (23:25)
I do. mean, as you're talking, I'm thinking of all the different people that I've dealt with, that regretted selling their business when they did. And I'm thinking of more recent people who were quite happy and ecstatic and enjoying life. I would think those that prepared properly, like we talked about, tend to be happy in their retirement. Those that kind of happened

you know, quickly because they had a, you know, just, you know, lucky or they, you know, they had a reason they had to sell that might not have been 100 % their choice. They probably tend to less happy. I've seen it everywhere from because they don't have enough money. So they're fine. They're restricted. They're, they're afraid to spend the money that even they have. I if they have enough, they're afraid to spend it because they don't want to run out. So, we work with them to

build graphs and show them how the money is, because now the money is working for them instead of them working for the money, right? And then the other ones is that, you know, they've seen there are people that took over the business and then the business goes like this and then they have a seller's remorse, right? If I could have stuck in a little longer, maybe I would have been the one, you know, riding that tail up. And that's probably because the person saw an opportunity to...

do some of the stuff that you talked about in your coaching, right? You know, they go, they, they, they, you know, clean up the business and they package it up better and, uh, and get it working really good. Um, and you know, and like you said, it's, know, you know, the old 40 hour work year, as opposed to 40 hour work week, you know, most business owners probably would say 60 to 70 hour work week. But, um, if you get, uh, you know, if you get the right team in place and the right.

Pete Mohr (24:58)
Yeah.

Kirk Wrinn (25:03)
Right, that's not true for all business owners, right? If you're a dentist or a chiropractor or even a financial advisor yourself, you have to keep working in the business. But if you've got the right business model and you can find ways to leverage time and love other people to make that business successful.

Pete Mohr (25:19)
I think it's

interesting because you said the one you didn't say was when they see the business go down.

Kirk Wrinn (25:25)
Yeah, well then they wouldn't regret it though. They wouldn't be unhappy that they were done. Or they like, yeah, or they...

Pete Mohr (25:28)
Well, no, but a lot of times, yeah,

a lot of times it's like, this is my identity. I've built this business up for 50 years. you know, to some business owners, it is about the money, but sometimes it isn't even about the money anymore, because they've got enough to last and all that kind of stuff. And they've built this identity. They never really wanted to get out. And they kind of go through this thing and maybe their names even hanging on the shingle, right? And they're like, I should have never sold this business.

Kirk Wrinn (25:55)
Yeah.

Pete Mohr (25:55)
It's interesting to see some of these

different things hang out. And, I think the big, the big takeaway is that if you don't have a life after business plan and you can only golf so much, can only ski so much, you can only travel so much, all of these things. If you don't have the, what, what am I actually going to do with those 40, 50, 60 hours a week set out in your mind and really clear.

It becomes very hard for you to even grasp the concept of wanting to exit the business. And these kinds of things can cause deals to go down too, for a lot of small business owners in that sort of one to $10 million range where their identity is really truly, and a lot of times their name is on the business. And for those kind of entrepreneurs, it becomes hard for them to release and even think about

the life after, so they end up sabotaging the deal that's maybe sometimes in place so that they can actually have the comfort of coming back to the desk every day.

Kirk Wrinn (26:59)
Yeah, I can see that. think if you're talking about the business that failed after the sale or talking to the business owner that, I think when you're talking about doing the coaching and helping people get the business to manage itself, because that's how you're going to maximize value, but that also allows the business owner to start trying to do different things besides working in the business. So it's almost like, I always talk about people as

Pete Mohr (27:07)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kirk Wrinn (27:27)
prepare yourself for retirement by taking more time off, right? So that you don't go from working six hours a week to no hours a week. You go from 60 to 40 to 30, you know, and then you also create habits and circle of friends and, you know, I can think back when you were talking, I thought about, I turned 50 during the pandemic, right, Jane? And I was, you know, retirement, you know, is something that's been in my, it's what I do.

Pete Mohr (27:30)
I love it.

Same here.

Kirk Wrinn (27:54)
So and free 55 is what we all talk about. Okay, five years to retirement, right? And, and I remember on my wife's birthday, we're sitting outside and, you know, in November, you couldn't sit inside with friends and we talked about retirement. And I was just like, I looked at my wife and I went, Oh, no, I can't retire. Right? Because I was just realized, Oh my God, I, you know, I need to keep working. Like I need. And so I committed to my team and to my

Pete Mohr (27:58)
Yeah, right.

Kirk Wrinn (28:23)
clients and everything that I am sticking around. I'm not retiring. It's not because I have to, it's because I want to, but I am going to work less, right? I am going to take, you know, I'm going to try, it's a work in progress, but try to go to a four-day work week, you know, and so, you know, I'm a few years into that and I would say I'm pretty successful at trying to take one day off in a week. Sometimes just means I'm working 60 hours in four days instead of, you know, over five days, but

Pete Mohr (28:29)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Nice.

Kirk Wrinn (28:50)
it, you know, I've kind of committed, but I think as you build the team around you, I think that whole, you know, 70 % of unhappiness, I think the number would be smaller for those that actually had the coaching and the planning and the financial, so they're not unhappy financially and stuff like that.

Pete Mohr (29:12)
It's interesting you mentioned that Kirk, as we're recording this here in January, I've got a speaking gig to do in Atlanta on February 14th. And then we're traveling on to Florida and I'm basically taking a month off from my business. One of the things that I preach kind of going from operator to owner and having other people have the accountabilities, right? So I have set up everything in our shoe stores, I think, and we're going to test it for a full month away from me, including I said, don't send me any emails.

The only thing I really want to hear is if there's a severe issue that really like the place burns down type thing. And for the most part, my team does make all the decisions, but I'm talking even banking. I'm going to basically say, I'm not going to look after banking for the month, like not do the final authority checks on any of the payments to any of our suppliers or any of the things that go into regular rhythm. So, you know, taking, taking it to that level.

which is literally nothing to do with the business for a full month. So I'm still gonna work with my coaching clients and do some of that stuff, but on the shootopia side, we really wanted to give this a go to see if I could be completely absent without any contact for an entire month on that side of the business. So we'll maybe reconnect at the end of March and I'll let you know how that one went, but that's my test here in 2025.

is are we, do we have the people in place? Do we have the accountability in place? Do we have the communication in place? Do we have the process in place that allows things to happen truly without me as the business owner? I think once we can get to those sort of levels, now it's kind of like, all right, how much do I want to be involved and where do I want to be involved? And how much can I afford to have other people make decisions for me? Because it costs money.

Kirk Wrinn (30:59)
Yeah, you gotta keep that talent, right? you... and that was part of me was I make a little bit less because I gotta hire more people, but I'm gonna work longer, right? I guess that's the, right? So, yeah.

Pete Mohr (31:02)
There's a cost.

Yep.

And as we

look ahead, I have no intention on retiring. I love what I do in coaching and doing all this stuff, having conversations with people like you and with other business owners. It fires me up and I can't see myself ever really wanting to retire. It may be somewhere down the road that I do, but it's certainly not in my plan to retire, but I still need to be exited.

Kirk Wrinn (31:30)
Yeah, it's good.

Pete Mohr (31:31)
And,

Okay,

Well, Kirk, thanks so much for being a part of today's episode. You know, it's so important because, and I'm talking to you, the listener now, your business is important, but you and your family's future are even more important. And we can't be leaving this sort of thing to chance. You have to get proactive about understanding your finances, not only inside your business, but outside of your business too.

know Kirk, it's been incredibly valuable and thanks so much. If somebody would like to reach out to you, how would they get ahold of you and where should they go?

Kirk Wrinn (32:06)
Probably the easiest would be just to Google my name, find my website and send an email to us or my phone numbers will be on the website as well and be more than happy to answer questions and chat.

Pete Mohr (32:17)
Awesome. Well, thanks

again, Kirk. And I really appreciate it. We'll talk to you soon. Make it a great day.

Kirk Wrinn (32:21)
Okay,

thanks Peter. It's been a pleasure. Have a great day.