Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
When you’re wearing every hat—from sales and marketing to operations and HR—you aren't just the founder; you're the bottleneck. If you are struggling to scale your business without losing your sanity, this podcast is for you.
Hosted by Catherine Brown, Chief of Everything is designed to help founders trade the "all-the-hats" hustle for high-impact growth.
In each episode, we interview subject matter experts who have been exactly where you are. We skip the fluff and distill years of expensive mistakes into essential principles you can use to make your business more efficient and your leadership more effective.
Ep04
===
Introduction to Jason Lee and Exponent Prosperity Advisors
---
[00:00:00]
Catherine Brown: I'm excited for you to listen to this episode with my friend Jason Lee. Jason's LinkedIn header says, quote, if it involves money or people we need to talk close quote. This phrase is because he is a certified exit planner and a financial advisor, and Jason [00:01:00] helps entrepreneurs plan for their business to provide freedom and financial security, which is what we all say we want as entrepreneurs.
Jason is a vice president with Exponent Prosperity Accelerator Advisors, also known as Exponent. In our interview, we discuss the things that founders do early in their journey that accidentally sabotage significant wealth creation. He also shares what he's learned about wealth choices and service through your business by working with high net worth clients that he has enjoyed and befriended.
I think you'll feel prompted to consider how you might change your thinking as you grow into a more mature chief of everything. Jason, welcome to the
Jason Lee: Love to be here. Love to be with you. So
Catherine Brown: Thank you so
Jason Lee: grateful. Yes, ma'am.
The Paradigm Shift for Founders
---
Catherine Brown: Okay, [00:02:00] so I, Jason and I are friends.
I've learned so much from him about things like how far ahead you need to plan so that as you're building your business, you have all of the right infrastructure with the compensation plans and the right paperwork and the right strategy. Because for many business owners, you've taught me that their business is one of their greatest financial assets, and they in some ways don't treat it. Right. Is that the paradigm shift we wanna start with? Like, when you think about what you wish founders knew, is it that or is it
Jason Lee: I think the, thing that I want founders that, that I wish that they knew, right, is I think you have to, you have to take their story, right? What made 'em a founder, and more often than not, what made them a founder is that they were tired of doing it for somebody else.
Catherine Brown: I.
Jason Lee: Or they're tired of clocking in and clocking out for somebody else.
They were looking at some, something made them frustrated and made them step out and say, I can do this myself. But they never really start with the answer, right? They say, I [00:03:00] can go, you know, start this on my own. And I don't think if you ask them, what did you want when you started this? Nobody would say, oh, I wanted a job.
Like, I wanted to go out. I was hoping that I could just work and then, know, maybe save up for retirement and then I'm like, then why did you leave? Like, why did you know? And a lot of people that, but so they're so focused on survival and all the things that are coming at with, you know, coming at them.
They're just trying to get to the end of the year or, to be able to hire that first assistant or to, you know, so they're not really thinking like. Where is this actually gonna get me? Like, why did I do this? Am I doing this so that I can actually have a liquidation event? Am I doing this so that I can actually have more wealth?
Am I doing this so I can
have more freedom? What is the real why behind my not wanting to A, do work for somebody? And then B, now that I've created my own company, how do I position myself? So that I have what it is that I ultimate, because if you ask them, they would say [00:04:00] things like freedom or independence or what, you know, these are the things that they're saying.
But then when I'm, when I say, okay, show me where you've got that mapped out, right? And they're like, oh, I'm just trying to figure out payroll. So I think it starts with the answer, right? And I. always say, you gotta start with the answer. What's the answer? I wanna have more money, more time, more freedom, more financial independence, the ability to impact things.
They wanna have a legacy. So I think that's one of the things that are, really like a principle that I think people have to start with to start with the answer. Why did you Do this? Did you leave a job to have a job? Or did you leave a job to create a legacy?
Understanding Wealth and Entrepreneurial Motivation
---
Catherine Brown: Do you think, Jason, it's that people don't like the average entrepreneur since they don't come from wealth, don't have a vision of what wealth could look like, so they still treat their business like a job. Why do you think, they make those mistakes or have that perspective?
Jason Lee: point. And I struggle with this personally. For the [00:05:00] longest time until I got around wealthy clients. Right. And what I witnessed. And so fortunately, lemme start by saying this. My clients are all, for the most part entrepreneurial spirited and started their own business.
A lot of 'em are blue collar. None of them, I don't have a single client who's like third generation wealth. We're not that type of firm. All of our clients, every wealthy client I have, right? When I say wealthy. You know, millions of dollars. They started from scratch. They started from zero.
They built it and now they have it. And so I think for a lot of them, even understanding that they're wealthy is a hard concept to grasp. Right. But what I've, what I've seen and witnessed is a lot of them have almost a guilt. It's not the money that motivates them. They're motivated by their people.
They're motivated by making a difference. They're motivated by making an impact. ~And then a lot of times they just kind of enjoy the ride, but they're really not thinking and understanding, what does having this money mean for my, impact and influence over the things that I care about.~
~You know, ~
EDIT: Section 2 Cut
---
Jason Lee: I had a client that treats his business like a ministry. You [00:06:00] know, and so he, he's not thinking about money, but they're wealthy. They're wealthy, wealthy, wealthy, and he was, got an offer for his business and he, and he called me like a Sunday night, and his biggest concern, is I need to make sure I can still make the impact that I've been able to make if I didn't run this business.
~His impact was leading his team, making an impact in the community, influencing people, doing the things that he wanted to do. And so we kind of had to cast this vision for him that of what his life would look like as he plugged in and built a nonprofit as he started out on this new venture to go impact the community as he had more time, he was gonna feel it with great things.~
~And be able to associate that, but then also had to go and map out how much money from this potential liquidity event, he'd still be able to have. Like, he was like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're saying I can have 10 times the impact I'm having right now? I was like, yeah, you know, like, yeah, that's, and he was like, Oh, my God.~
~And so the light bulb kind of went off, right. Whereas, 'cause he went from working at corporate, right? And then I'm gonna go buy a business and he bought a business. Then over, you know, half a decade, built it into a massive company doing phenomenal things and impacting his team, impacting people, you know, helping the needy, helping his church.~
~I mean, he was the king in his business. And now all of a sudden it's like, well, he never really thought. How much bigger, more and more broad could this be for me? If I could think outside of what this business is capable of producing, if I actually built it to sell, which he was doing because~ along the journey he had brought in tax advisors, he had brought it like he started with us kind of.
Helping him understand how to like point him in the right direction and then bringing him the, the different advisors, the fractional CFOs, the people to kind of come beside 'em, to equip 'em to really become a business operator as opposed to just an owner who came from corporate America, right? He became a very well-rounded owner.
And then that value, that company went from here to here over a five year period of time. And now he's kind of seeing the whole vision now, but I think the truth is. How do you cast your vision that far out? I mean, Catherine, you've built, your organization. I've watched [00:07:00] you build your organization and I've watched it grow from, a couple of people to, hundreds in these conferences, and now you're doing these big giant, you know, awesome.
Like, you're, you're, I forgot what you call it, but the group of the small group it's the six month deal and it's the times.
Catherine Brown: we did the 10 X
Jason Lee: 10 time Mastermind. Yeah. 10 X Mastermind. So you probably never thought 10 X Mastermind, right? You probably thought like, it'd be cool if I could do a few groups then, you know, like
Catherine Brown: It. It's like I have one group.
Jason Lee: that's what I'm saying.
So for a lot of people, I don't think, I think the hard part for what we do is like you've gotta get to a belief system that you can do it, and that you can actually survive. You know? I mean, I do this stuff for a living and I'm eight years into my industry. Eight years into it, and it's just been the last two years that I've actually been able to, from a financial perspective, start to practice what I preach really.
Right. I was just focused on building a business more for myself. I couldn't even practice the things I was [00:08:00] telling my clients, right? I couldn't deploy certain advanced tax things. I couldn't use certain tools and, and things that we're doing now, now I'm actually getting, you know, I'm like, okay, I know where I wanna get to.
I wanna be able, and I was telling my wife, like, when we hit this threshold, we can do this. When we hit this threshold, we can do this. But imagine how many people don't even know what those thresholds are. ~Trying to ~
Catherine Brown: ~Don't even have the metrics or ideas. Yeah. So on some of the other podcast guests that we've had, Jason, we've talked about how the first couple years, when you're first starting out. I would say unless you buy a business that is already fairly mature, ~
Jason Lee: ~Yeah. ~
Catherine Brown: ~the example that you just gave, if you begin from scratch, it's just utter chaos because you think you know what you're selling and a few nice people buy from you to begin with, and then you realize that they didn't even buy for the reasons you thought they were. And then you have to find out what your new value proposition is, and then you have to change stuff. I mean, it's just kind of ~
Jason Lee: ~Yeah. ~
Catherine Brown: ~in the beginning. When you get past that, let's say that two to four years is fairly chaotic. Even if you're following a plan, even if you follow all the advice on this podcast, it's just messy in the beginning.~
~Okay. ~
Jason Lee: ~Probably that first five years I would say. ~
Catherine Brown: ~I mean, I hope it doesn't take me five, but yes, it, I mean, the first two ~
Jason Lee: ~Yeah, for sure. Yeah. ~
Catherine Brown: ~it, it's longer than we'd like. Right. So that's just true across products, service firms, all the things. I still wonder. Okay. I wanna give that caveat because I don't wanna act like. If you follow everyone's advice perfectly, it won't also be somewhat chaotic because it's kind of the nature of the beast, and that's why I don't think everyone is cut out for entrepreneurship because you have to be so resilient and you have to watch your meaning making so carefully, because if you take everything personally, you'll just ~
Jason Lee: ~Yeah.~
Catherine Brown: It's just very challenging.
The Importance of Delegation and Vision
---
Catherine Brown: But my, my question thinking about this concept of wealth and people's relationship with wealth is, I wonder where the energy starts seeping, right? Or where do we start? Where do we start missing the boat? Where let's assume there's like some base level chaos and you just have to get your value proposition and your niche and your market.
You gotta get that stuff figured out. You are not gonna get traction and start to scale until you know who you're gonna serve and exactly why they wanna buy. But let's say whatever year you get that, do we start accidentally doing dumb things that are undermining our ability to accumulate wealth?
Jason Lee: our ability to accumulate wealth? Well, let's, let's talk [00:09:00] about this. The first step to accumulating wealth is being able to create it, Right. And so if you can't make money, You're holding yourself back. And one of the things that I've witnessed is and this goes back to even. Even in corporate America, like there's so many people out in in the world who would tell you the first thing you have to go do is you need to, when you onboard somebody or bring somebody on board, you do all these behavioral assessments and the last thing you wanna do is hire somebody and put them in the wrong job. Right, Yet entrepreneurs will take over and when you start first start out, you have to do everything right, like, but the one thing that I've witnessed is when people are doing. Stuff that is just absolutely what they should not be doing. right, Like meaning, your, your God did not make you that way. Why are you doing that?
Why are you spending, you know, and their, and they're pension pennies tripping over pennies to, what is it, tripping over dollars to save pennies. right. So you know, the amount of times that I've had to now, now I've gotten [00:10:00] more comfortable with my clients because I've developed more confidence and the ability to sit with them and say.
I'll start challenging them when I'm out at lunch or dinner and I'm like, why are you doing that? Why? Oh, well, you know, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, that's a $60,000 a year person. Like,
Catherine Brown: You're
Jason Lee: yeah, yeah, you should go, it's 60 grand. Like, they're like, I I'm sorry, I'm talking about like, it might be a lot of money to certain people, but to a person who wants to make a million bucks a year.
I'm like, or $2 million a year, or $3 million a year. I'm like, you've gotta delegate that off to somebody to go do that stuff. So you can put your energy and think about the things that you need to be doing. ~You know, personal example, I'll just tell you, you know. ~
Catherine Brown: ~No, go ~
Jason Lee: ~No, I mean, I, I set my goals for this year and when, I set my goals for this year, I literally said I have to hire another assistant.~
~I hired another assistant. I was, you know, like, and I made a list of this was what this one does and this is what this one does. 'cause the one that I had didn't have enough time to gimme the things that I needed. I and my coach kept telling me to come back and just start stripping off the things that, it just doesn't make sense for me to do.~
~And I already know that by the time I add up what I pay that assistant, I will make that up tenfold. 'cause I've already seen it happen with my previous assistant. You know, and I'm like, why was I doing this stuff before, you know? Yes. ~My mom worked three jobs, a lot of, especially in this age group. Our parents, if our parents are in their fifties, sixties, and seventies, they came from a different generation. Right? So this kind of leveraging tech and this kinda concept that you're supposed to take time for yourself and recharge or actually get to the. gym I grew up in this like badge of honor thing where it [00:11:00] was like, how much could you work?
And so I think people still carry a lot of that. They have a lot of baggage.
Catherine Brown: Yes.
Jason Lee: kind of pride themselves on their ability. 'cause their dad worked harder, their mom worked harder. My, my mom worked three jobs, so I mean, that's, I grew up on couches at night, right? So I know what it's like to work that hard, so I just assumed you wanna get to the top Right. That's what you do. And then I, realized, wait a minute, like that's, there's so much, I have so much more energy to give to people that are high quality, high touch when I have energy. So I can't give the wrong energy to the wrong things. The same thing for my clients. Right. What I've seen?
Catherine Brown: I wanna make sure that our listeners are catching this, because this might be for some of them, their first opportunity to meet you.
Challenges and Strategies for Wealth Accumulation
---
Catherine Brown: But I'm thinking about how you recently became a certified exit
Jason Lee: Yes, ma'am.
Catherine Brown: tell me the right name
Jason Lee: It's A. CIPA C certified exit planner. Yeah.
Catherine Brown: Okay, so Jason just became cipa and you already, [00:12:00] everyone in the firm that sells business also is servicing those clients as a financial
Jason Lee: Yes, ma'am.
Catherine Brown: So there's certain certifications to go with that. Okay. So Jason's got a lot of certifications. He's got a number of years with this firm. He has worked with dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of different entrepreneurs. I wanna make sure our listeners are hearing, he's saying before you can build. A million dollar business or a multimillion dollar business and have a liquidity event, which means your employees take over the company with employee stock purchase or you sell it or you have a partial or you have an exit strategy to sell your to, to have your kids take it over. There's all different. Types of ways you can transition your business, but before you can do any of that, he's saying one of the first leakages, one of the first areas that we want our founders to get out of this interview is that as soon as you start making decisions to hold onto things you could have delegated, you just gave up [00:13:00] more possibility of
Jason Lee: Absolutely.
Catherine Brown: Because you're the seller. You are the seller and the brand and the face of the company for a long, long time. And even if you have a sales team, eventually you're still gonna have strategic things that make sense for you to do that don't make sense to hold onto. And that, so that is such an interesting admonition to me because those decisions start in year one, even when you're not making very much money.
Jason Lee: It's always interesting. We'll start out with a client and oftentimes they'll come to me for some type of issue and we'll do a valuation of their business. And when we do the valuation of their business, we do 21 points of risk. More often than not we're uncovering how much they're in the business.
Right? And then that's when, through that process and through trust, I'll start to introduce them to fractional CFOs, fractional HR partners. You know, and, and I and I and I start saying, Hey, talk to this person. Just talk to 'em. [00:14:00] You know? And then next thing you know, you'll find out. Then I'll introduce 'em to a Vistage or ACEC 12 and say, why don't you get some peers around you?
You are not doing any, you know, so there's all these things that we're, we're actually getting, like your members are getting ahead of the curve on, right? They're getting ahead of the curve. 'cause they're getting the opportunity to jump into a network that's already socially engineered so that they have resources to help them. Right, Our, our most owners are out there swimming. Trying to figure this out and it's like, no, dude, you've got all these people around you to simplify your life. right. I think, I think
Catherine Brown: You,
Jason Lee: the biggest challenge for a lot of them is, and I always say, you know, what, fix first has the most impact. What of these things, what can you start to get?
Off your table and get delegated out so that you can then go have the most impact. 'cause choosing is probably the hard thing. 'cause You, can't just go and, I mean if everybody had this unlimited money tree, they could go and hire everybody to solve all their problems, but you don't really, so it's kind of a matter of trying to figure that out.
And some of that is gonna also come through just learning. [00:15:00] I mean, at the end of the day, the truth is too, Catherine, they do have to go out and there's no, you don't get to skip to the front of the line. You can't, there's just, there's no part of the journey. I think God intended it that way, or else you wouldn't appreciate it.
You would value it, you know, but you have to be thinking, I'm willing to do this for now so that I can get to this place, and then this is gone. I'm moving, you know, I'm moving to this because once I pay this person to do this, I can create this much more money. Yeah. And then I can pay this person to do this, and I can create this much more money.
And then you just start simplifying what's coming off your list to free you up to you so that that owner creates high value. This is where I'm at my most, my, but how do you know what your most valuable time is until you've gone out and done it? So there is a curve that's required at every level,
Catherine Brown: Right. We're giving examples of how you start out literally being the chief of
Jason Lee: yeah.
Catherine Brown: In the beginning, there's no one else. And then you wanna be a smart chief of everything, meaning I'm delegating and I see what's happening, but it doesn't [00:16:00] all have to be me.
Jason Lee: Where you wanna get to, right?
Catherine Brown: yeah.
Mindset and Identity in Wealth Building
---
Catherine Brown: I wanna wrap up with going back to this idea of people's identity and being able to see themself as a wealth
Jason Lee: Mm-hmm.
Catherine Brown: What are a few examples of sabotaging things that people say or do that you see that show a gap between where they are today and who they need to become to be your client?
Jason Lee: Yeah.
Catherine Brown: Be, to be an exponent client, you have to be making enough money be ready to think about things like employee compensation plans, my exit strategy several years from now, and I wanna take this assessment that you just mentioned so that I can get myself out of the answers and all the answers.
Don't say Catherine is the answer to that, to those
Jason Lee: Yes.
Catherine Brown: Right. That's that. That's what we all aspire to. What are examples of things people say and [00:17:00] do that tell you that someone is not ready so that we can catch ourself on that
Jason Lee: That's a great question.
Well, I. guess the first thing is that you have to make a decision on how much money. You want to take home. Right. And I don't wanna sound rude because I had a personal challenge with money for a long time. Because I, used to obsess about having money, and then I became a believer in Christ and in that process.
I had to lose everything to do that. So then I, coming back from that, I kind of was like, okay, I don't want to be obsessed with money again, so I'm just gonna go out and try to help people. And then hopefully, and I still kind of believe that, right? Like meaning in my heart, I believe God's going to bring me whatever, but I had a really bad disassociation with money.
And then what I've observed from a lot of my clients is, especially in this kind of like a lot of them, [00:18:00] they don't think that they're wealthy. They just, can't get in their mind that they're wealthy. And what I mean by that is they have this challenge with it.
Like they have this challenging concept of it, so they almost feel guilty at first to spend money. You know, like it feels odd and they're kind of hoy like, I need it all for the business. I need it all for the business.
Catherine Brown: Hmm.
Jason Lee: You know? But honestly, I think a lot of people need to set in their mindset, right?
Like they need to have in their mind, right, this is how much wealth I want. Right? And then set a goal for it to be meaningful. Right. And what I mean by that is, is in the US right, the top 1% of earners, top 1%, you know what that number is? Take a guess to be top 1%.
Catherine Brown: I've heard it. It's shocking. Is it like two 50 for the household or,
Jason Lee: That's close.
Catherine Brown: okay. Okay.
Jason Lee: that's the top 5%.
Setting the 1% Mindset
---
Jason Lee: So if you wanna be top 1%, you gotta make a half a million dollars and above in your [00:19:00] household.
Catherine Brown: In your household.
Jason Lee: and your top 1%. So my question to everybody is, are you acting like your top 1%? Have you set the mindset that says, I'm gonna be just in the top 1%?
~And some people might even be like, that's not even a lot of money. Some people might be going, I don't know if I feel bad even wanting to make that much money. You know, only my parents. ~
Catherine Brown: ~Somewhere ~
Jason Lee: ~So, so we're someone's on the spectrum, but ~
Catherine Brown: ~Mm-hmm. ~
Jason Lee: ~if you're gonna act top 1% and you're gonna treat your time like it's top 1% and you're gonna, then you gotta start with what 1% looks like, Right. In my mind. Right. And that's what shifted for me and for what I've seen with like my clients when they, when they come in, when I'm talking. So if I meet clients and they're already there, it's so weird when clients get to a million, million and a half, 2 million and then we sit down and do their plan, they don't even realize how much money they spent.~
~It's wild. Right. And by spending, I don't mean lavishly just because they're out living high on the hog. I, I work I work with blue collar people, but I'm talking about great human beings that buy a car for their person ' cause they needed it. They do something for their kids. ~
~We can't even, some people have a hard time fathoming, right? I, this year alone, I had three clients buy their kids houses, million dollar houses. So, you know what I'm saying? So we get in their mind, we're like, well, if I could just hit two 50 or if I could get to 300, I'm like, well, if you keep thinking 300, you're not gonna act top 1%.~
~You've gotta set the benchmark at half a million and above. And I don't mean half a million revenue, I mean, or half a million. And then, you know, when you take home your a hundred thousand, I mean, you need to set the benchmark, but I'm taking home a half a mill because~
EDIT: Section 4 Cut
---
Jason Lee: when I start to take home a half a million, then I can A, I have a tax problem.
Advanced Tax Strategies
---
Jason Lee: You get, there's more advanced tax strategies for people who actually have to pay a lot of tax, Right,
Catherine Brown: right.
Jason Lee: I mean, I always tell people, I'm like, I can't, there's not a lot of help tax planning for when you don't pay a ton of tax. So tax strategy, you know, you can put some money in IRA, but you get more complex as you add more in entity structure
Catherine Brown: Right.
Jason Lee: around certain things, vehicles, deployment of those vehicles.
How do you leverage things?
Leveraging Net Worth
---
Jason Lee: You know when your net worth starts to build and you can lean into other people's money All those things come from that mindset. But I think the thing that you asked, which is, you know, where does it start? It starts with this, I'm gonna set this benchmark for top [00:20:00] 1%, so I wanna take home half a million bucks.
And at half a million bucks, you're ready to start making a difference. Now look, a lot of people can save for their future and do really well with less than that. But we're talking about mindset, right? We're talking about ownership. We're talking about what do I have to do differently? I can tell you this, every single person who's making half a million and a million above has typically started to really master the art of how do I free myself up to do optimal things?
Because they start to quantify their time and even if they're not paying attention to it, like a lot of my clients, when I'll meet them, they're not really observing it but then when you show them on paper, they're like, wow, okay. This is how much influence this money has been able to have for me.
The Importance of Financial Independence
---
Jason Lee: And so the, while they're not money driven, when you can picture what you're capable of because of it, the difference you're able to make, the nonprofit that you're able to support, the things that you were able to do, the fact that you can't remember the last time you were stressed out.
You're stressed out about work, but when's the last time you were really [00:21:00] stressed about money? You know, like that's a lot, like for a lot of them it's not even a stressor. right. Not because they're independently wealthy. A lot of times it's trapped all in their business. And that's why it's so important to get value out of that business.
But it's because they have an independence that money provides that's different. And that's hard to do.
Catherine Brown: Gives freedom, money
Jason Lee: And to be honest. Yeah. And, and it's hard to do like, trust me, I know this. Firsthand knowledge. When you're making 2 50, 300 as a household. And that puts you in the top 5%.
You're sitting here wondering to yourself, and I don't mean this to be rude or like, I know money's a touchy subject, so I really wanna be mindful with people that are listening to this, but I'm trying to help other people think about this. 'cause they're, you're, you're, these are founders. If you're thinking about two and 300,000, you wanna get to that benchmark.
But in today's economy, right, after you're done paying for Costco and saving for kids college and trying to do all this three, that doesn't go very far. It's just hard.
Catherine Brown: right.
Jason Lee: With Infl. It is hard. And now again, I step into places that are part of the [00:22:00] 90% of the population that's below a hundred a lot in my free time.
And those places, we're so disjointed and understanding their world, but to this audience, what I'm saying is don't settle for 5%.
Aspirational Goals and Planning
---
Jason Lee: Settle for one.
Catherine Brown: Yeah, well you and I are both fans of Dr.
Jason Lee: Yeah.
Catherine Brown: and he talks about your floor and your frame and so what's the third F floor frame and focus. And so we're talking about what your floor is. And so what wanna invite our listeners to do I'll make kind of a summary comment and ask you to tell me if I've missed anything on this, but I think the invitation for fairly early stage business owners who are listening to this is to jump on. The train of starting to train yourself to think like the top 1%. If you don't even know what that means, then the journey begins with what does that [00:23:00] mean? And start to read about it. Start to find about, it's kind of like, want to be a better leader this year. And so I've realized, you know, I have a lot of people I know that teach leader development and I'm not sure I even know what all those categories are.
I need to go research that so that I can learn about it and then practice the things that. People are, meaning when they say those words. Similarly, if this feels like a foreign concept to you and you think, I can't even conceive of what that would be like, then what Jason is saying is he's saying, if you don't stretch yourself to think that way. It's kind of like a 10 x goal. I mean, you're certainly never gonna reach anywhere close to it because we all set these floors for ourself and then we make delegation decisions and time decisions and investments back in our business and hiring decisions. Everything comes out of
Jason Lee: Right.
Catherine Brown: And so we want to go on a journey that's very aspirational, that's saying, I wanna become a client of [00:24:00] exponent and X years from now, I wanna sit down and take. The 21 point risk assessment, and I want the answers to be that everything doesn't come back to me because I've been an ineffective chief of
Jason Lee: Right. ~I was just doing some math real quick just to put it in perspective. And this is, we're just going to say if, if as a business owner, if you made 500,000 in a year and you worked 70 hours a week, 'cause you're busting your hump to get it started, but you set your goal at 500 grand, right? Divided by 36 40.~
~That's 140 bucks an hour. That's just to make 500 grand. Now, now you might create more revenue. I'm saying to take that home, right? So you have to look at your hourly wage. So, if you go get a massage in Europe, right, like, let's say, and I'm like, you can go to Massage Heights and pay 80 bucks, but let's say you don't, let's say you're a new guest and you walk in there, right?~
~I used to work at Massage Envy, so I know that what the price is, it'd be like 120 bucks. So that person right, that does massages. That organization, and I'm not negating the massage industry. I'm saying that person for an hour is making a hundred to 120 bucks an hour. ~
Catherine Brown: ~Mm-hmm. ~
Jason Lee: ~I can tell you this, there's no way if you're starting a business in your mind you're saying, I'm gonna make $20 an hour more than a massage person. ~
Catherine Brown: ~Yeah. ~
Jason Lee: ~So now take 500,000 and get yourself down to 40 hours a week, Right. 40 hours a week times. 52 weeks is 2000. So now $500,000 divided by 2000 hours is 250 bucks an hour. Okay? That's the price of a entry level lawyer, ~
Catherine Brown: ~Mm-hmm. ~
Jason Lee: ~A good lawyer is like five or 600 bucks an hour, but I mean, 250 like you earned it, that's a pretty good wage.~
~I'm comfortable, you know, saying, and again, I don't wanna, I don't like, I don't wanna be rude, I don't wanna sound like I'm not humble in this. I hate, I don't wanna come across that way. I just wanna, I want people to reframe their mind when they're listening to this. Like, okay, wait a minute, ~
EDIT: Section 7 Cut
---
Catherine Brown: ~Well, and to, and to take responsibility. Jason, lemme jump in and say ~we have to take responsibility for the fact that if we say we're in this because we want
Jason Lee: right.
Catherine Brown: then we have to understand that financial success is part of what brings that freedom. You're not going to feel free if you are constantly stressed about money and you actually don't have enough work. I mean. great sales solves most problems, right? Because you have enough. And so, It's not a bad thing to be, I think, provoking people to think about this because actually that person can't really bill 40 hours a week, so if they're real time of their work time that say it's not their
Jason Lee: Right.
Catherine Brown: when they're, when they're in their peer group or whatever they're doing, if they're really 20, 25 hours of work now you do the math and you're like, oh, now we're at a $400 an hour
Jason Lee: Yeah, a hundred percent.
Catherine Brown: [00:25:00] a
Jason Lee: I'm just talking about when you, when you factor in all the energy you put in. Right When you factor in all the energy you put in and equate to it, if you set your sights for something like, okay, I can't wait till I can hit this threshold. To your point, like, why not start with how you frame your mind up, which says, okay, I'm gonna get myself to this type of earnings potential.
That'll really help you if you start there, then you'll look next to, back to your point, you go back down to what you're actually billing per hour and what your, you know, actual time spent with the client's worth. And then you start to really look at that and you go, oh my God, I'm actually worth 500 bucks an hour.
So then you, now you go back to the original equation of what stuff am I doing that's draining me? Am I, is that a, would I pay somebody 500 bucks an hour to do that? 250 bucks an hour to do that? No way. There's no way I'm doing that. So if you haven't started with the answer, which is, what am I worth? Then go do that.
And then I do wanna leave one thing too, because I think it's really pertinent with what you said. This is just for every entrepreneur. 'cause maybe if they're the person that's [00:26:00] new. And this is more for less than the people that I've seen that are we talked about people that, I meet and they're not there yet.
Right?
The Entrepreneurial Journey
---
Jason Lee: And so we're talking about this kind of entrepreneurial journey. The thing, the first, the things that I'm looking for, right, is. Normally we're talking about that curve, and there's a curve where you can see, okay, this person, they understand their business, they know their knowledge, they understand the cash flow.
They've got kind of a grasp on how much money they're gonna need over the next six months to continue to build their business. The first thing you need to be able to do though, and this is where I think most entrepreneurs struggle, is they don't know how to go get business.
So go to Cwell, right? Like if you're go to grow and then go to Cwell. Because if you don't know how to go get business, even if God didn't wire you that way, you're gonna have to figure it out, right? Because that's the number one thing. You can't do any of this. Can't hire people can't do cool stuff.
If you can't figure out how you, and you have to get past your first warm network and actually [00:27:00] go to the hard part of actually going after people you don't know. Which is you're gonna get a lot of no, and a lot of rejection and a lot of learning and a lot of development. But you gotta figure out how to sell.
And then once you kind of figure out how to sell, you gotta figure out how much you need to sell. And that's where the numbers come from. And how much does it cost you to go get that person right, that you sell sold. And then what does that equate to your bottom line? And then actually build a plan. So a lot of times I'll meet people, and this is crazy to me.
People that pour concrete people that do this, and I'm asking 'em, I'm saying, Hey, because they'll call me up and they'll say, Hey, I've got some extra money. And I know you do investments. So, you know, what they don't realize is, I'm a comprehensive planner.
Building a Comprehensive Plan
---
Jason Lee: I'm never gonna invest your money without a plan.
~You know what I'm saying? So they'll call, call me. I got a hundred thousand bucks. I wanna give you, I just closed this big deal and we just did this big project. And I'll show up and I'll say, okay, great. Tell me this. Right. How much do you need for the next six months in the business? Right. How much you're gonna produce, what's your bottom line gonna look like? Walk me through what you're going to go do once you're printing these cash. Have you thought about how much you're gonna need to pay in taxes, year to date? So I'm just asking what do you need?~
~How much do you owe the government? How, you know, what's the next deal for you to get where you wanna be next year? How much you're gonna need in the business? You know? And, and the, the number of people that are like. Oh, you know, I'm like, okay, well, so let me do this before I ever invest a dollar for you.~
~You better have a good sound business plan. You better have a very thorough knowledge. How much money are you gonna make this year? How much money did you, you know what I'm saying? Like, let's, because what if I, ~where I'm gonna invest it is gonna be a hundred percent dependent you know,
EDIT: Section 8 Cut
---
Jason Lee: the strategy, like what do you need? How do you need it? Like, does it need to be a liquid? Does it need, you know, well I wanna save a lot in taxes. Well, don't let, like, well I can put, I could save you in taxes, but then you can't touch the money. So was it a wise [00:28:00] decision to invest and help you save $10,000 when you need 40,000 for this next project you're gonna need in three months and now you gotta pay a penalty to come get that money?
So I'm never, ever, That's why I always tell people, you pay for flat fee for planning for me first. To build a plan and then we'll implement strategy. And there's a lot of clients that I'm gonna plan for and we're not implementing strategy for like year plus two years before we can actually deploy any of the stuff that we've been talking about because we've laid the chassis out, but then they had to go get it.
Catherine Brown: That's so helpful though. That's so helpful, Jason, to know. Well, and just for you to give the timelines, like to know that's normal. That's okay. I don't.
have to have everything totally ready before I go have my first conversation with you. I, I would suspect that that'll be our invitation. That's what we'll say to our
Jason Lee: Sure.
Catherine Brown: It's like, if you're curious, if you wonder, am I ready for the chassis? Am I ready for that conversation? [00:29:00] Ask, right? We'll talk in just a second about how people can reach you, but it is a multi-stage process and these mindset shifts, learning to think like the 1%, learning to be a better chief of everything.
It's an evolution, it's a process. And so you've given us great examples of how you've interacted with people at different stages in that process. And we all wanna be higher on the curve, and that's gonna take.
Jason Lee: Absolutely.
Catherine Brown: So I appreciate your reminder about that because got two to five years, we're just kind of figuring everything out.
If we started the business from scratch and then by then we've learned to sell. We have a better sense of what we're doing. I'm gonna actually plan and say, I'm gonna make this much money this year. Here's how I know it's 'cause I figured out my channels and I actually can make some real forecasting that comes true because I know what I'm doing and it's tying into a plan.
So it all kind of comes full circle about how all of these things that our [00:30:00] advisors are talking about with the different ways that it touches your business, it has to come back to a strategic plan and it, and it takes practice to
Jason Lee: Absolutely. Yes ma'am.
Catherine Brown: Mm.
Jason Lee: Okay.
Catherine Brown: if people wanna learn about exponent or they wanna know how to learn about your risk assessment or the kind of questions they should be asking, if they are beginning to think about, I guess I need to be designing a plan that has an exit of some kind in mind. How will they reach
Jason Lee: Great, great. The first thing I would do is just go through LinkedIn. That's always, I'm a very fluid LinkedIn user. I'm on there every day. So I would reach out to me on LinkedIn first and foremost, or you can email me at j Lee, JLEE. At Exponent X, so that's E-X-P-O-N-E-N-T x.net. And they can email me there, you could check on our website.
I would say this, for my typical client, right?
Investing in People
---
Jason Lee: And what I've observed is from the time that I've engaged with somebody [00:31:00] to the time that they're working with me is usually 18 months to two years. And I, lemme tell you? why. Okay. If someone's brought to me as a referral, because they're already in co they're hitting some of these milestones and those conversations are coming up.
So a tax advisor or business coach CFO says, Hey, you're already kind of starting to hit these thresholds. Let's introduce you. I'll typically engage with that person right away, but from that person who's reached out to me or I've met, or. Cold called, or, you know, I still make tons of cold calls. So, you know, somebody that I reached out to and didn't really know their financial situation, stepped into it and only uncovered that they were still kind of hitting that curve.
Then, man, I start engaging with them. I'm taking them to coffee every quarter, every month. Even sometimes lunch, I'm walking 'em through their business. I'm trying to ask 'em the Right, questions. I'm trying to help them equip themselves to get there so that we, we can work together so we can't, so they can be a client.
And then, because what I've [00:32:00] is it's like a hockey stick, right, there's all this investment of time, energy, and it just starts doing this thing right here, and then bam, it just takes off, you know? And then it's the funnest thing in the world because. If we're engaging and I'm supporting you and we're spending time on this stuff and we've set these goals and these dreams, as soon as that threshold hits there, then it's like, cool.
Then we're both, we're able to engage in this conversation. It's the funnest thing in the world for me. I brought in like. Three people last year I brought in 12 new people, brought in three of them. And they were those stories, they were those stories of, I've been with you, we've been waiting, we've been kinda hanging out, and now we're, I feel like I'm winning with them, right. Because now we're like, okay, cool. Well here, pay my design fee and let's start building a plan. 'cause also you don't wanna put the cart before the war. So if we don't wanna put a lot of energy into something I will say this. There's other places you could spend your energy.
Like I would rather them spend their energy on figuring out how to sell, figuring out where they're gonna be at. If it's too early in the journey you cast the vision, go, but let's not spend money and time [00:33:00] on this because we need to go spend your money and time on the things that are gonna go get you.
To that, you know, go get that first paycheck in or go get that first threshold or that first milestone. You know, like I said, you gotta start with a vision, but you'd also don't wanna start spinning. That'd be the equivalent of going in and doing, not really doing bookkeeping, but going and saying, I need to hire fractional CFO.
Hold on. First thing you gotta do is do your books. Like, like start, start there. So, you know. But I will meet them anywhere on, in the journey and do life with them. And if I'm not. Their advisor today. I'm gonna do everything I can so I can be their advisor in the future. Yeah,
Catherine Brown: it could be my 30 plus years of living with my in-house psychologist,
Jason Lee: That's fantastic.
Catherine Brown: Jason
Jason Lee: yeah, it sounds awesome and scary at the same time.
Catherine Brown: Yeah, it is. But I do think that so much of. What our listeners will take from what you're sharing, Jason, about the journey and doing things in a certain order [00:34:00] and setting a high aspirational vision about what's possible, and then sort of reaching and practicing into that 1% vision. So much of it is about the decisions we make, about who we're going to become I'm struck with, to me, one of the themes that's coming out of this conversation is that. The meaning making that, we make around our business. What am I gonna make money mean? What am I gonna make wealth mean?
What does it mean to be quote, wealthy? What does it mean to sell a business? have to do battle with yourself, with your own stories and your own models, like you said, with your mom, with her three jobs, right? You have to decide. Who you wanna become and frame that in the most positive way that will help you take the actions that get where you're trying to Go.
People say they want freedom, but they don't make choices that actually contribute to freedom. [00:35:00] Because sometimes it's more important to be right than it is to actually wrestle with your money story or delegate or learn to be a better leader.
Jason Lee: Hmm.
Catherine Brown: we're really calling people to a higher calling. We're saying your business can be the vehicle to bless the world all the people that work for you and all the customers you serve, you gotta develop a plan and you gotta work on you to get there. I think it's special that you are willing to invest in people as they evolve in that process so that when the time is right, they begin actually putting the right steps in place for the tax advantages, for the preparation for the exit that is right for them and their family.
Jason Lee: Well, you know, I enjoy people more than anything, right? And their journeys and their experiences, and I think that, investing in them is, like I said earlier, I feel like I win when they win. So getting to have that is so critical. ~My client, you know, when I was in the business before I came to work for this firm, I did traditional investment advisory work, and I worked with anybody who would be willing to gimme money, right?~
~And it was very cookie cutter, right? You give me this much money, we do this little calculator, da da da da da. You'll get this much of retirement and we put you over in this set of funds and you know, here's the percentage of life insurance you should have and da da. Let me sell you some policies. I was done, like I did it at your kitchen table.~
~Right. We were out the door and done and you know, and I called you every Christmas and you know, except for when the market was down and then we had to talk, you know, but other than that, it was, and honestly, that's what a, a lot of people associate with wealth, right? Like that's my, my, That's what I got my first time as a money guy.~
~I was a highly successful young entrepreneur. Executive for 24 Hour Fitness and the, I said, I've got a lot of money. And the old guy's like, oh, well you should go with the, this guy. He did my stuff. I came over to my kitchen, did the same thing to me. right. And that's what I knew about money. That's, That's as much as I knew about it.~
~Right. It wasn't until I started to get around it and see it and work with my clients that I was like, oh, there are people for this. There's tax. Oh my gosh. Oh, it makes sense to be able to leverage your money to use other people's money. Wow. Look how much more money you can make with other people's money.~
~Oh my God. Like my eyes just. Blew up with all this stuff and you, and it is like my whole concept of what wealth was was different, right. And so even when I'm during the journey, when they're not there yet, it's trying to open their eyes to where they could be.~ [00:36:00] And I'll be honest
Catherine Brown: Yeah.
Overcoming Money StrugglesEDIT: Section 9 Cut
---
Jason Lee: you, we tackled this, and I can't emphasize this enough.
Tackling your own inner struggle with money or the things that you're bound with is so critical. You have a member of yours, Katherine Pomerantz. I think it's her name. Is that correct? Did I say that right? Yeah.
Catherine Brown: right.
Jason Lee: So Katherine's phenomenal. But she really spoke at the, one of your wonderful conferences and I think it was the Grow Conference last year.
And I was really taken back by it. But I wanna really add emphasis to this because I think people feel guilty when they start thinking, I wanna make money. Or I wanna earn money and some people that's all they think about, right? But a lot of people in the good human growth network are good humans.
We're not really in it for the money. But at the same time we also kind of have this disassociation with, hey, it's also okay to make really good money. It's okay to think about getting a second home and it's okay to do 'cause you can also still be a great boss and still be great with your kids, and still be great in your community and be great at your church.
And you know, like you can do all these things [00:37:00] and have a ton of money. How do I know that? 'cause I got, I work for these clients. I get to spend time with 'em every day. ~Like, and they're freaking awesome and they have a ton of money and I enjoy spending time with them. And their mindset's just different, like in that Monzy in that way.~
~So, that's the big call out, right? Go out and, put people behind you. Go accept those really big sites. If you wanna enlist me to support you, I'm down to support those people. But what I mean by that is not those people, what I'm saying. I am encouraged to support you anywhere in the journey. So if you're not ready to move into that wealth build stage, then let's figure out what things you need, and I'm gonna ensure that I'm helping you paint the picture of what you gotta do to get there so that you know, as you hit those thresholds when it's time.~
~Right. And I'll try to keep you from making. The mistake, a lot of people make this mistake, they, they hear a buddy who does this cool widget or idea and so they go get this life insurance thing. 'cause someone tells 'em about this cool life insurance strategy, but they don't really have enough money to do it.~
~Right. So they maybe jump into it and they overburden themselves and now it's less of the tool that they thought it was gonna be. You know what I'm saying? So they bought a tactic or some guy says, oh, if you do this thing, it'll save you a ton in tax. But they don't really understand that that doesn't show up on their balance sheet as tier one capital.~
~And so it can't actually be used if they needed capital for growth. So now they have this pool of money over here that's really like, Yeah. it's earning eight 12%, but, and Yeah. you saved. 10%, but you're only making, you're only getting taxed at 20%. So you save like what, two grand on that bill and you, but it's illiquid.~
~But you did it 'cause you wanted to save 2000 bucks. But now you can't go get money with that. Like now. And somebody did that because their sole job is to, to manage assets or sell life insurance. And I don't wanna knock that. There's nothing wrong with those careers. What I'm saying is they picked up 'cause they met a guy who did a cool product and that person solved their problem.~
~That's suitable. They said, oh, this will be used for that. Yes. And there's nothing wrong with that. But then they end up with this Frankenstein plan. They, they, all of a sudden they wake up and they got half a million bucks and they walk into an actual planning firm. They start designing and building a plan, and then they got this little hodgepodge.~
~Frankenstein is stuff kind of stuck in it, and half the time we end up scrapping a lot of it to rebuild it. Because they got a little monster and they didn't even know they created it. Right? So I would rather walk with them and go, okay, well before you do that, think about this. Even if you don't do it with me, here's all the things you should know about that before you do it.~
~'Cause a lot of people will start along their journey 'cause they want to branch out and have some diversity, but then they make the mistake of bolting on a bunch of stuff that they don't really understand and 'cause it's not attached to a plan. Yeah. ~
Catherine Brown: ~Yeah. ~
Jason Lee: ~and took way too much time today.~
~I'm sorry. So. ~
EDIT: Section 5 Cut
---
Catherine Brown: ~No, it's, ~I
Conclusion and Contact Information
---
Catherine Brown: learn so much every time I talk with you, and I also feel encouraged because there's things that I need to do on my journey to continue to learn, to think like a one percenter to have that framework. Every time I spend time with you, I move along on that path because you give the categories and the frameworks and talk about mistakes to avoid.
And so I'm so grateful to have Jason in my life as a guide, which is why I wanted you to hear from him. So remember, think of Exponent for the exit advisory for, compensation plans for employees when you're thinking about benefits things like you might aspire someday to have an employee stock purchase plan, different things like that.
They have the knowledge and the resources, the consulting partners [00:38:00] and the relationships to put together a comprehensive plan so that the business you build really builds the freedom that you want. Jason, thank you for this time today and for teaching people how to be a better chief of everything.
Appreciate
Jason Lee: Appreciate you.