Introduction

Life moves at warp speed for most entrepreneurs, and if you’re like many of my clients, you face challenges on a regular basis. Common everyday pains include the following:

• Your spouse doesn’t understand your business decisions. Perhaps she or he believes your choices are too risky, when in fact, you are trying to capitalize on opportunities, such as the chance to buy your building at far below its value from a motivated seller.
• You struggle with not knowing what your responsibility is to your employees and what is best for them. You’d like to help them save for retirement, but you’re uncertain how far you should go to be impactful.
• You feel overwhelmed by business growth and lost when it comes to the tension of bringing in sufficient profits and minimizing taxes. You may feel as if you receive a lack of comprehensive advice from your CPA. Meanwhile, your spouse might be pressuring you to sell the business because it takes all your time.

I understand these challenges because I’ve experienced them myself as an entrepreneur. I know what it feels like to leave behind a steady paycheck and work in a tiny office where you’re the one paying for the office supplies and the electricity. I know the pressure of having your family dependent on your venture succeeding. As an entrepreneur, I’ve found ways to scale and manage wealth using prudent investment strategies. I’ve minimized my tax burden to the highest extent possible. As of this writing, I’ve worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs and their families, successfully helping them manage their wealth and plan wisely for the future.

My Background

Every entrepreneur lives, breathes, and eats his or her business, and I understand that perfectly because I come from an entrepreneurial family. My dad owned a Cadillac/Oldsmobile dealership when I was growing up. He worked at least seventy hours a week, every day but Sunday, often not returning home until late at night. When I was younger, I’d go out to breakfast with my dad every Saturday at the Sunnyside Diner in Hanover, Pennsylvania. That was my big day with him because of his schedule. I began working for my dad when I was eight years old. I started off in his dealership washing cars—over the years I washed thousands of them. I swept the body shop and became a mechanic’s apprentice. I became a salesman at seventeen; later, I moved into the finance and insurance department, helping customers with contracts. Eventually, I became sales manager and then general manager.

I learned the value of hard work and integrity from my dad, and he learned it from my grandfather, who grew up on a farm in rural northeastern Pennsylvania and became a real estate developer in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. (My great-grandfather, Clarence, a farmer and eventually a county clerk, was known to have said after church on Sunday, “Visiting friends and family will not help the potatoes grow.”) From both my dad and my grandfather, I also learned that when you’re an entrepreneur, there’s almost never a division between work and family. It all merges together, and while work-life balance is always a goal, it rarely happens. You do the best you can.

Meanwhile, entrepreneurs tend to be stubborn, independent, and a little hardheaded—more than a little, in fact. But you have to be hardheaded to go your own way because so many people will tell you you’re crazy. In 2002, I struck out on my own to assist entrepreneurs in wealth management and planning, founding AMDG Financial and AMDG Business Advisory Services. The stock market had recently collapsed. The economy was in deep trouble. When I told people I was leaving my secure job as a senior manager at a large accounting firm to become an entrepreneur, they nodded their heads politely and said, “That’s great.” But I saw in their eyes what they were really thinking: “This guy is nuts!” According to experts and every economic barometer, it was not the time to go into the financial services industry. But it didn’t matter to me what the market was doing, because I was convinced that the opportunities were there.

I was inspired to become a CPA after seeing my dad receive poor business advice from his accountant. My education and professional experience reinforced the lesson I learned from my dad’s problems: entrepreneurs must possess the right information if they are to make wise business decisions, and they need excellent advisers to help them.

I worked for Ernst & Young, and then Coopers & Lybrand. My client base primarily consisted of small entrepreneurial clients for whom I performed financial audits and systems audits. When Coopers & Lybrand merged with Price Waterhouse, I continued to move up the ranks, working with Fortune 50 companies like Ford, Visteon, and Caterpillar. I got the itch to strike out on my own in 2002. It wasn’t because I lacked opportunities, but because I wanted what many entrepreneurs want: independence, flexibility, and, most important, the chance to make a significant impact on people’s lives and find the time to contribute to society. I decided to integrate tax, financial, and investment strategies for families and small businesses with two practices: a tax-and-accounting practice and a wealth management one.

I started my two companies in a six-by-eight-foot office that I had to enter sideways to have any hope of maneuvering around my desk. Today we’ve grown to a firm of eleven people managing $150 million in assets (as of the end of July 2018). Success has come from hard work and the determination to always do the right things for our clients. People told me it took guts to leave a solid corporate career for an entrepreneurial one, but what I did is consistent with what the entrepreneurs I serve do every day. They see a gap into which they can insert themselves and their skills, using it not just for their benefit, but also for the benefit of those around them.

Take a Look at the Future

I’d like to ask you now to picture yourself in the future, somewhere between two and five years from today. See yourself as experiencing a high level of well-being around your finances. Everything isn’t perfect—because nothing ever is—but you’re not in a state of constant worry. You don’t get stressed when you hear news reports about the stock market’s ups and downs or the volatility of the economy. In this future, you have the financial means to take vacations with your family, making wonderful memories, or to do anything else you value without fear or guilt. Even if this future scene doesn’t seem possible because of the current state of your finances, I’m here to tell you it is.

Rick, for example, weathered a major storm and came out the other side. A decade ago, he went bankrupt from an entrepreneurial venture and fell into a serious depression that took months to navigate. Eventually, he met a fellow through a social services organization who was looking for a succession candidate for his small retail business. Rick and his wife ended up buying it. Life was looking up, but Rick felt increasingly uncomfortable with his financial adviser. (The term adviser should be used loosely because the guy was more of a straight broker.) When Rick told him he wanted to reassess the current financial strategy for his new business, the broker’s response was “It’s my way or the highway.” That’s when Rick came to me, seeking additional financial information.

As Rick went through my process, I saw that his retirement plan for his employees wasn’t benefiting them or him to the highest extent possible. I revised his 401(k) profit-sharing plan and integrated it with a pension plan. Now he and his wife shelter $250,000 to $300,000 of income each year. They save federal, state, and payroll taxes on that amount and provide the best benefits possible to their employees, all without going broke in the process. One way I help them do that is by minimizing the impact of taxes through various strategies. That savings has freed Rick up to fulfill other passions, such as his desire to be more charitable. Rick, who has been deeply involved with Rotary International for most of his adult life, now supports critical projects that provide clean water and maternal healthcare in developing countries.

Rick’s future was achieved through what I call Fiduciary GPS℠; it is a plan my team and I believe can help any entrepreneur move toward a brighter future. I will discuss it in far more detail in Chapter 3, but in brief, Fiduciary GPS℠ is a process in which I gather (1) the coordinates of where you are now and (2) your desired financial destination. Then I create a master map that documents the known obstacles and sets a course we will navigate together. From checkpoint to checkpoint, we adjust our course based on how things look on the ground, the terrain ahead, and the direction you want to go. Ultimately, your course depends on the obstacles you face and the summits you want to achieve. Just like having GPS in your car, this process provides security and a sense of relief. You are assured you won’t get lost. You know you are heading in the right direction for your and your family’s future. For me, serving you means serving your family.

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