Success That Lasts

By Jared SiegelBusiness Investing

Success That Lasts episodes

April 15, 2021Proper Preparation for Business Transitioning with Dave Delap
David DeLap is a tax partner and CPA at Delap LLP and a long-time friend of Jared Siegel. With over 35 years of experience, Dave is a seasoned expert in accounting and wealth advisory, specializing in estate and succession planning for closely-held family businesses. He joins Jared Siegel to discuss exit planning and family enterprises.

Here are a few highlights from their conversation:
“Exit planning combines a plan, concept, effort and process into a clear, simple strategy to build a business that is transferable through strong human, structural, customer and social capital,’ Jared explains. The future for you, your family and your business are all addressed by exit planning through creating value.
The three main factors that influence transition timing are: personal timing, business cycle timing, and private capital markets timing. Jared briefly describes each factor and the roles they play.
As a company’s earnings increase, so does its value, Dave shares. Some internal organizational factors that contribute to its value are the strength of management, good internal controls and accounting systems, and sales contracts.
The only certainty in life is uncertainty. The best business owner is one who has contingencies in place for the most common business uncertainties, which are death, disability, divorce, disagreement, and distress. By having a plan for each, they pursue financial unbreakability.
By giving your non-voting shares to family members while keeping your voting shares, you can gift value without surrendering control, Dave briefly explains.

Resources
DelapCPA.com
David DeLap on LinkedIn

Know Your Gaps
The 5 D's: Have you planned for these contingencies?
27 min
April 08, 2021The Art of Wise Money Management
Jared Siegel shares how he invests, saves, spends, gives, and borrows money in this solo episode of Success That Lasts.

Here are a few highlights:
A study done in 2008 revealed that professional money managers and stock pickers usually have none of their own money invested in their own funds. Very few actually invest in their own funds because they know the odds, Jared says.
Vanguard and the Wall Street Journal have done research spanning a collective 15 years which shows that active stock pickers typically underperform their benchmark. According to Jared, the long-term track record of active managers is abysmal.
“Money won’t buy us happiness, but it sure would help us avoid misery,” Jared advises. “Our values and beliefs about money form our foundation, that’s our ‘why,’ which creates the destination, [and] once we define the destination, how we get there becomes more clear.”
The second step to wise money management is designing an investment thesis that is informed by financial science and decades of academic research.

Resources
Jared Siegel on LinkedIn | Twitter
DelapCPA.com

SPIVA Scorecard

Indexes Beat Stock Pickers Even Over 15 Years

Vanguard’s CEO on the Future of Investment Management
23 min
April 01, 2021On Real Estate and Generational Business with Vanessa Sturgeon
Vanessa Sturgeon is President and CEO at TMT Development, as well as the founder of Sturgeon Development Partners. She has over 20 years of experience in developing and managing mixed-use high-rise assets in Oregon and Washington and is passionate about giving back to the community. She joins Jared Siegel to discuss a plethora of topics, including civic responsibility, generational family businesses, time and priority management, and real estate.

Here are a few highlights from their conversation:
The average person is good at identifying problems, but very few people organize and take action to address those problems. Vanessa’s family taught her that “You can talk till you’re blue in the face, but action is where it really shows.”
“A huge part of what we do in raising our kids is exposing them to different people and opportunities.” Vanessa explains how she instills humility in her children and the importance of demonstrating kindness. “Values are caught, not taught.”
Vanessa shares what she likes most about real estate.
Jared has observed that many people have successful, lucrative businesses, but their real wealth ends up being in their real estate. He asks Vanessa about the principles and the do’s and don’ts of real estate as an asset class.
People tend to like investing in real estate long-term because it enables an easy transfer of generational wealth. Currently, interest rates are historically low, so now would be a good time to get into real estate, Vanessa advises.
Landlords are having a difficult time during the pandemic. Vanessa reviews how COVID-19 has impacted her professionally. “Multifamily has been hit hard by the pandemic because of the widespread governmental policies with regards to rent,” she says.
“I feel like Millennials and Gen Z’s have been hurt the most by [COVID-19 professionally] because of how their careers are supposed to evolve,” Vanessa claims. “They’ve been at home and have not had the opportunities to learn from their colleagues or further their relevance in their respective industries.”

Resources
Vanessa Sturgeon on LinkedIn | Twitter
TMTDevelopment.com
39 min
March 25, 2021Purpose, Passion, and Identity with Kellen Clemens
Kellen Clemens is a former NFL quarterback and Partner and Head of Elateus Sports at Elateus. Although his career was athletics for over a decade, he did not let it become his primary identity. Kellen joins Jared Siegel to talk about his experience of transitioning careers and rediscovering purpose, passion, and identity.

Here are a few highlights from their conversation:
Elateus is the exclusive provider of a comprehensive behavioral assessment for the US and North America called Prism Brain Mapping. They use Prism to help recruit, build and develop high-performing teams. Kellen briefly describes the work they have been doing.
Due to the sudden thrust into the virtual workplace, people are still trying to figure out how to work remotely and how to adapt their teams to the change. The pandemic has provided Kellen’s company with the opportunity to coach others in virtual team building. Kellen and Jared liken the experience to a new year on a college football team.
“This is what you do, not who you are.” Kellen shares the advice a former colleague gave him when he was struggling with his identity. “[People] like to put you in a box [based on what you do], but it’s important to understand [your value]. Identify what can get taken away in a heartbeat, and what can’t, and place your value in what can’t,” he remarks.
Jared asks Kellen to describe his career-transitioning experience. “I was nervous because of the fear of failure and the unknown,” he replies. According to Kellen, the fear of failure and the unknown was a boogeyman that motivated him to seek alternative opportunities where he could apply his unique skills.
In a lot of ways, we are products of our environment, Kellen comments. It’s all the more important to be mindful of the environment you choose to be in and the people you allow within it. He talks about the people who have been most influential in his life.
“One thing I didn’t value [enough] early in my career is how important it is to connect with who you’re leading,” Kellen admits. “One of the things I failed to do was to connect better on an individual level and show a greater amount of empathy.” He and Jared discuss the significance of displaying empathy as a leader.
“[Life] is like walking through the woods with a flashlight; what’s right in front of you is really clear, but once you get ten or twenty feet out in the distance it’s sort of shadowy,” Jared claims. “The only certainty we have is uncertainty, so creating optionality around your life and plans is a good way to live.”

Resources
Kellen Clemens on LinkedIn
Elateus
42 min
March 18, 2021The Ultimate Question for Your Business with Casey Corrigan
Casey Corrigan is the Vice President of Sales at AskNicely. Casey is passionate about helping businesses extract value from their data to improve their overall business results via customer experience. He joins Jared Siegel to discuss the significance of the Net Promoter Score, and how it can help you earn the passionate loyalty of your customers while inspiring the energy, enthusiasm and creativity of your employees.

Here are a few highlights from their conversation:
There are very tangible benefits to understanding what makes a great customer experience, delivering it more consistently, and listening and engaging your customers, Casey remarks. He talks about the origin of AskNicely and explains their mission.
According to Casey, organizations that use feedback to improve the individual 1-to-1 customer level, as well as their service standard and the way that they deliver it, experience significant revenue growth opportunities. Jared asks Casey to distinguish between the terms ‘customer experience’ and ‘customer engagement.’
Jared and Casey discuss insights from ‘The Ultimate Question.’ “The best way to measure retention, loyalty and future growth is by asking this simple question: “On a scale of one to ten, how likely are you to recommend [our business]?” This metric makes it easy to distinguish your customers from your ‘promoters,’ who are those most likely to stick with you and refer you to their network.
The London School of Economics determined that for every seven points of your Net Promoter Score (NPS), there is an average increase of 1% in revenue, Casey shares. “The influence of the customer has been democratized,” Jared adds. “Twenty years ago, you could bully a customer and get away with it because their ability to share that experience was limited… now that everyone's got the capacity to capture something in a digital experience and then share it… [that would] leave the types of impressions that you don't want.”
Jared asks Casey what feedback looks like in an organization that has mastered NPS.
“An outcome doesn't really knock people's socks off if it's exactly what they expected you to deliver in the first place,” Casey comments. “Customer loyalty is established through positive emotional connections, surprising and delighting people, and the way that your frontline staff treat your customers.”
A Harvard Business Review article claims that behavior is best changed when you emphasize the positive in a 6:1 ratio; identify 6 things you are doing well and 1 thing you need to work on.
Establishing a Maslow-esque hierarchy of needs of both your customers and employees can skyrocket customer experience, Jared shares.

Resources
Casey Corrigan on LinkedIn | Twitter
AskNicely.com

The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth by Fred Reichheld

Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow by Chip Conley

Admired Leadership
46 min
March 11, 2021Change Readiness with Dr. Chris Mason
Dr. Chris Mason is an experienced business leader and owner and director of several companies ranging in size from 12 to 800 employees. He has authored two books, Value To Others (2017) and Change Success (2019), and is a member of the American Psychological Association. His extensive research into Industrial and Organizational Psychology, in which he has a PhD, has allowed him to glean new insights into change management and a new change success theory. He joins Jared Siegel today to discuss his research and how it can be applied.

Here are a few highlights from their conversation:
Chris credits his success to his dedication to providing value for people and educating himself. “[A PhD] is not what makes you educated,” he remarks. “What makes you educated is the problems and opportunities you deal with on a daily basis… the problem I help people solve every day is what makes me a reasonable operator, combined with my experience.”
In the past 50 years, no new thinking in management has appeared, according to Chris. Pre-existent models were just shuffled around. Additionally, research shows there is a 70% probability of failure every time you try to do something new. Successful change is dependent on three variables, Chris says, which are readiness, capability, and belief system. The average firm is not successful with change initiatives because they lack one or more of these variables.
Jared likens resistance to change to the force of inertia in a car. “One of the first things you learn as a driver is to be careful where you look because that’s where you’ll end up,” Chris says. “If you keep staring at the fence you’ll drive into the fence.” He talks about the importance of focus and trusting your abilities.
Real learning comes from doing. Coaching gives you the confidence that brings you to the start line, but to move forward you have to take a step. Chris shares the five steps to change readiness and three factors that influence belief systems as a variable for successful change.
Chris shares advice from a method of therapy that can be applied to business. “Whatever is working, do more of it. Whatever’s not working, stop doing it and try something completely different.”

Resources
Chris Mason on LinkedIn
Mindshop.com
45 min
March 04, 2021Gritty Patience: Going Slow to Go Fast with Natalie Heacock and Sarah Padfield
Sarah Padfield, CPA is a Partner at Delap, LLP, specializing in financial statements, consulting, assurance, and employee benefit plans. Natalie Heacock, CPA, MBA is a Corporate Controller at Patrick Lumber Co. They join Jared Siegel to discuss how important patience is to success, and why taking it slow in the present helps you go faster in the future.

Here are a few highlights from their conversation:
“There are a lot of different textures to our identity”, Jared comments. “Who we are at the office is just another mask we wear.”
Overnight success isn’t a thing, Sarah remarks. Success involves a lot of hard work, dedication, and struggle. When you see others’ success, you may be tempted to assume their experience was linear, but what you see is often just a fraction of their story. She shares some background into her professional development and explains why giving yourself grace to make mistakes promotes growth.
It’s easy to get wrapped up in your anxiety and apprehension toward the future. While having a strategy is good, worrying about things outside of your control doesn’t solve anything, Natalie advises.
Natalie and Sarah talk about how relationships influence career development. According to Natalie, mentors are people you interact with every day and have friendships with. Additionally, they are those you look up to, whose work and ideas you study and implement into your daily life. Sarah shares how hearing other people’s stories have helped her.
Jared encourages listeners to take time to show their gratitude for the people who have impacted them along the way. “It’s easy to be impacted by somebody and forget to tell them,” he says. Gratitude requires intentionality.
Jared asks Sarah how she juggles the various responsibilities that come with her various roles as a leader, a mother, and a wife. Sarah says that learning when to say no and how to depend on others is what helps her manage her responsibilities. “Every yes is a no somewhere else,” Jared adds. Natalie shares her framework for identifying what to say no to and briefly talks about why it matters.
Things don’t get easier as time goes on. New challenges and struggles will always present themselves, but they offer with them the opportunity for constant growth.

Resources
Sarah Padfield on LinkedIn
DelapCPA.com
BreneBrown.com

Natalie Heacock on LinkedIn | Twitter
How I Built This

Think Again by Adam Grant
39 min
February 25, 2021The Value of Exit Planning
Jared Siegel talks about value acceleration and exit planning and uses scenarios to explain the importance of good business strategy in this solo episode of Success That Lasts.

Here are a few highlights:
According to studies conducted by the Exit Planning Institute, 99% of business owners agreed that having a transition strategy is important for both their future and that of their businesses. However, 79% had no written transition plan, 48% had done no planning at all, and 94% had no written personal plan.
Value acceleration helps measure the values of your intangible assets against other organizations within your industry.
“You can seldom improve quality by cutting costs, but you can often cut costs by improving quality,” Jared remarks. “The wrong cost-cutting can impact your long-term growth and reduce your overall long-term value.”
At its core, all authentic growth depends upon customers wanting more of what the company offers.

Resources
Jared Siegel on LinkedIn | Twitter
DelapCPA.com
17 min
February 18, 2021Creating Wealth vs. Preserving Wealth
Jared Siegel talks about wealth, pessimism vs. optimism, and the Dunning Kruger effect in this solo episode of Success That Lasts.

Here are a few highlights:
Value acceleration is a process that uncovers the answers to personal, financial, legal, and tax questions in the operations of a business. The aim is to maximize the value of the business at the time of exit, minimize taxes, and protect, harvest, and manage personal and professional wealth.
We all have biases that we may be unaware of. “Knowing what you don’t know is wisdom,” Jared remarks. Often, people are likely to find themselves falling into the ‘I’m not biased’ bias, which prevents them from discovering and managing their biases.
Jared believes that getting wealthy relies on different skills, mindsets, and approaches than staying wealthy. Staying wealthy typically involves a combination of frugality and paranoia, whereas getting wealthy centers around accumulation. “People who stay wealthy save like a pessimist and invest like an optimist,” he quotes.
Tomorrow’s success is not guaranteed, and nothing binds it to follow in the footsteps of today. Strategic financial planning ensures that money is accessible to you whenever and wherever you need it. A well-built plan supports adaptability, resilience, and optionality.
The Dunning Kruger effect is relentless in preventing people from achieving wealth. It is a cognitive bias that dictates that we are hardwired to overestimate our own competence when it comes to things we know little about.

Resources
The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan Housel

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling

ABCs of Behavioral Biases
20 min
February 11, 2021Goals are Dreams with Deadlines with Scott Williams and Craig Wanichek
Scott Williams is a partner at Delap LLP, specializing in taxation and insurance, with almost two decades of experience in audit and accounting services. Craig Wanichek is the President and CEO of Summit Bank, and he has accrued more than 25 years of banking experience. They join Jared Siegel to talk about how goal-setting influences success.

Here are a few highlights from their insightful conversation:
Fundamentally, our lives become the sum of our decisions; goals are a way to focus our attention and time, Jared says. “If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hope,” he quotes.
You create belief by writing down your goals, according to Craig. Putting them on paper allows your mind to wrap around them and creates the belief that you can achieve them.
Scott shares insights from books about leadership that impacted his professional journey. One such insight is that integrating positive affirmations and goals into your morning routine helps to build confidence and combat imposter syndrome. Additionally, breaking down big goals into smaller goals that you complete consistently over time establishes good habits.
When you have a strong locus of control, you are less likely to fall prey to inaction or victimhood. People with a strong locus of control are generally more happy and successful, Jared remarks.
One of the most difficult yet simplest things to do is keep swinging when you’re in a slump, Scott comments. The consistency of the little things you do is what helps you achieve your goals and even exceed them. “Goals are there to help us develop good habits, and then they take care of themselves,” he adds.
Jared asks Craig and Scott to comment on the importance of saying no. Sometimes your contributions to shared goals may not be helpful, Craig replies. You can assist by supporting others as they achieve their goals and not standing in their way, and focusing on what you’re good at. Spreading yourself too thin trying to achieve too many things at one time can do more harm than good, Scott adds.
Telling people about your goals activates your pride, which pushes you to achieve them, Scott shares. Craig advises listeners to remember that goals will be there the next day, so avoid trying to cram everything into one day.

Resources
Scott Williams on LinkedIn | Twitter
DelapCPA.com
Craig Wanichek on LinkedIn
SBKO.bank
Atomic Habits book
How Will You Measure Your Life audiobook
40 min

About Success That Lasts

From the publisher's feed

Success doesn’t always feel like success, and when it looks like you’ve ‘made it’ to the rest of the world, you can be left feeling like there’s still so much to do – but without a clear direction or plan. On the Success that Lasts podcast, hosted by Jared Siegel, we're going behind the scenes with business owners, real estate investors, and industry consultants to deconstruct the complicated topic of success. We'll be exploring questions, strategies and experiences that help create clarity and confidence surrounding your financial decisions.

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Success That Lasts

Success That Lasts episodes

About Success That Lasts